Somehow I ended up watching Q and A last night. Something which I usually avoid because screaming at the TV is apparently only acceptable during the final moments of vaguely consequential football matches. Every time Tony Jones said that it was time to move on and another subject was raised, I audibly groaned and writhed in my chair, like a depressed toddler with irritable bowel syndrome. There was not one topic that I could bear to listen to without flying into a rage. I commented to a friend that I couldn’t decide what crushingly depressing issue to write about today. I still can't, so I think I'll just be crushingly depressed.
I have expressed my dislike of Q and A in past pieces; the smug questioners, the applause for the obviously flawed populist statement from someone who only half knows what they're talking about, the questions that turn in statements, the increasing frequent party plants reading their questions scrawled on their inner forearms. It is consistently infuriating.
But recently I've found everything infuriating. The constantly polled electorate, consistently inconsistent with everything: We hate Julia and like Tony, we hate them both, kinda middling on Julia but starting to dislike Tony, like Rudd again, hate Julia middling on Tony, love Turnbull, we want Turnbull and Rudd at the same time because 2009 was kick-arse, the carbon tax is good but it sucks and will destroy us. Do people really change their minds like this constantly? Has everyone just become pure id?
Mark Latham has done away with the pretence of being a conniving, manipulative bastard and has just become pure bastard. Julia Gillard has obviously received some polling that she's seen as too close to the Greens so has therefore decided to call them names; because, well because…they're smelly and dobb on her all the time, I don't know…maybe 5 year olds will buy it and vote for her in 13 years.
I don't think I like anyone in politics anymore. The week before last I watched the full coverage of the NSW Election, just to feel something. I ended up sitting on my couch in the dark giggling softly at some Labor guy saying "It's a big loss, I'm not going to lie." He should have lied; it would have made for better TV. Only the ridiculous claims that the entire result was due to the carbon tax could get me going and yelling 'Bullshit' to no one in particular, but it was fleeting.
The media is too obsessed with the political soap opera for there to be any real debate about policy. No wonder no one knows anything. The public just seem to have vague notions of things, like they fell asleep in front of the TV and it made them dream about something Ross Garnaut said. I know 'the media never talks about policy' complaint is an old chestnut spouted by wankers like myself when no one agrees with me, BUT IT'S TRUE.
I know this blog usually attempts to be funny, and maybe Steve Fielding will say something ridiculous on the weekend and we'll get past this. But until then please take a moment to consider just how well and truly fucked we all are.
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