“The federal government says it will consider backing Kevin Rudd for a top United Nations job if the former prime minister puts his hat in the ring.”
That’s not just a top job, but the top job, the full Kofi Annan. And you can feverishly check the date all you like, but that news item is from the Year of Our Lord 2016. It is Julie Bishop offering that support; Labor are on board already. Kevin Rudd has bipartisan backing to become head of the United Nations. The United Nations of Earth.
If you haven’t seen Kevin Rudd, let’s recap. The two-time former prime minster isn’t just an arsehole, he’s the Dalai Lama of arseholes: the kind of arsehole that comes just once in a generation, mystically identified from childhood, then goes on to fulfil the ancient predictions of a sooth-sayer by how showing much of an arsehole he is. One of the difficulties Julia Gillard suffered as prime minister is that she was never allowed to disclose just what a titanic, unworkable arsehole her predecessor was.
The last time I voted – 2010 – it was not until I was in the booth, ballot paper before me and pencil in hand that I decided who I was voting for …
Labor in the House of Reps, and The Greens in the Senate.
… Julia Gillard became Prime Minister with the support of independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott and The Greens, Kevin Rudd crawled off to punch some kittens and plot his revenge, and Tony Abbott spent the next couple years stomping about the country wearing helmets and kissing fish and wailing like a child …
Nuts.
Now, Rudd’s back in the ring again, the Big Top is closing, and he’s looking and sounding more and more like a harried carnival barker, his hands and arms wildly slashing and stabbing at air, all frenzied enticement to come see the One-Man-Band, come see the show, a fringe-flick here, a fringe-flick there, while Tony Abbott looks and sounds just like Tony Abbott, walking and talking from his testicles as usual, saying one thing one week, the opposite the next and getting away with it all because the press are too busy fame-fucking his two daughters on the front pages, courtesy of Rupert The Bony-Arsed Coot, and his knee-dwelling acolytes of tits ‘n’ arse/smear ‘n’ scandal hackery at News Ltd.
They’re pulling old-time vaudeville acts where most of the rest of us have fucked off to the IMAX for some 3D surround-sound adventure.
And I’m expected to vote for one of these dickheads? ….
And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there’s doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
Barry Jones , former ALP National President …
“Despite Australia’s high formal levels of literacy, politicians are increasingly dedicated to delivering three word slogans (“stop the boats!”) – now degenerating even more to the use of one word, repeated three times (“Cut! Cut! Cut!” or “Lie! Lie! Lie!”).
There is an exaggerated emphasis on “gotcha!” moments – Tony Abbott and his suppository, Kevin Rudd and the make-up lady, moronic candidates in swinging seats. In the last months of Julia Gillard’s period as prime minister, in two separate incidents, sandwiches (vegemite and salami as it happens) were thrown at her at schools, for reasons which have never been clarified. The incidents became big news stories, so much so that they crowded out major announcements about the Gonski reforms that she was planning to make.
Often politicians acquiesce in the trivialising, for example Kevin Rudd and his availability for selfies, Tony Abbott gyrating at a boot-camp, and his “dad moments”. We should have a minute’s silence to reflect on the contribution of Julie Bishop, Warren Truss and Clive Palmer to the campaign.”
I’d rather not.
I grew up listening to men like Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke and Paul Keating talk intelligently about very important things, big things, and I would’ve liked to have heard Julia Gillard do the same if anyone had given her the fucking chance instead of banging on and on about her fucking marital status and fucking fruitbowls and fucking jackets and the sex life of her partner.
“ … says coverage of the federal election in the UK has reinforced the British view that most Australians are “hopeless hicks”.
He argues Brits are bemused to see so much infighting in Australian politics given the economy is doing so well.
“(Also) the British press like to reinforce the view that Australians are hopeless hicks who don’t know what we’re doing, so any gaffe, any funny moment in Australian politics is going to be reported on the news over here immediately,” he told reporters outside Australia House.
Hills values his vote more than ever “because I’m concerned about the way Australia is seen overseas”.
“I’m genuinely distressed at the state of Australian politics at the moment,” he said.
“We as Australians deserve better. That’s why I’ve come out to vote. What I said today to both parties was ‘Come on, grow up’.”
JOHN LAWS: A lot of people say – why isn’t she Therese Rudd?
THERESE REIN: Really?
JOHN LAWS: Yeah.
THERESE REIN: Well, why isn’t Kevin, Kevin Rein?
JOHN LAWS: (Laughs). No, I can’t accept that. We’re talking about tradition. Why do you choose not to be Therese Rudd.
THERESE REIN: Kevin and I got married at the end, on the week that I finished doing my thesis; I’d just completed my honours degree. My qualifications were in my name and I’m an independent person.
JOHN LAWS: But it’s kind of a traditional thing – I don’t want to make a meal of it – but it sort of is a traditional thing, isn’t it, in English-speaking countries that you take your husband’s name.
And in Australia, this is what we call a “newspaper” …
… I call it a comic book, and I’d be embarrassed to be seen even reading it, let alone buying the fucking thing, but, apparently, this is how Rupert Murdoch thinks Australians like their news, and, as it still sells well enough (though not quite as well as it once did) maybe he’s right …
… We are a nation of bumpkin hicks. We are a “lucky” country of simple minds obsessed with simple pleasures – a meat pie, flags to wave, faces to paint, balls to kick and beers to drink, getting’ shitfaced on a Saturday night, gettin’ money from the gummint for havin’ a poke and makin’ a baby, a night out at the pokies, you can win a meat tray, punch-up after optional.
“What’s in it for me, and how much am I getting, and why are you giving them more than me and why are you giving that mob anything at all? I’m scared, all these dark people on boats. People on 150K per annum are not well off – We have pool maintenance to think of, how dare you slug me with a levy of $2.50 a week here and a couple bucks there, and THE CARBON TAX! THE CARBON TAX! THE CARBON TAX! The country’s stuffed, the economy is in ruins, we’re screwed.”
Well Australia, have we got the candidates for you …
A sulking brat who thinks he’s a movie star, and a disingenuous thug whose answer to every question asked of him begins with a string of “Um, um, um, er, er, er’s”, as he attempts to conjure his latest simple-minded slogan for the benefit of a tabloid hit.
“It is a mystery that our two major political parties have seen fit to focus so heavily on their leaders, given how unappealing and lacking in credibility both men are. Each has energetically spent the past parliamentary term trying to destroy anything good that might have come of it, not for the national good but out of overweening personal ambition; for their sake, not ours.
Now, with their fake smiles and condescension, their endless repetition of pre-digested talking points and three-word lies, their transparent attempts at reinventing themselves, the thought bubbles that crystallise into bad policy, their oh so clever evasions and non-answers, do they think they have gotten away with fooling the electorate?
My guess is most people would rather see them exiled than elected. Voters of Griffith and Warringah, please do your country a favour and vote for someone other than the sitting member. We, the Australian people, deserve someone better to lead this nation.” – Judy Maynard, Rose Bay
I’ve never cast a vote for a political candidate or party because of what some pack of dodgy cunts have written in a political fanzine masquerading as a newspaper. Same with political advertisements and so-called “expert commentary”.
Yet, there are those who do and have, and will continue to do so.
They’re the ones who think people like Alan Jones or Ray Hadley,Andrew Bolt or Piers Akerman, and Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest and Rupert Murdoch have only the best interests of the country and its people at heart, the dear hearts and gentle folk that comprise the working-class commonweal, the ordinary, average little guy, the constant “battler”; they’re the ones who express gratitude and thanks, backslaps and handshakes, huzzahs all ‘round to these brave and benighted souls who, whenever they have the temerity to express their sincere and selfless concerns about, and ideas for the country, are slapped down by the snotty cognoscenti of the inner city elites, the latte sippers and chardonnay socialists who would, if they had their way, let anyone across our borders; who would conspire to tear down the glorious Judeo-Christian foundations of civilised Australian society to replace it with Earth worship and paganism, you can marry a goat or your sister, and buy drugs at Woolies, have sex with a hamster in a gallery and call it “art”.
They talk of “tough times”, and calamity and disaster and waste, and they say things like “I don’t know what this country is turning into”, or “I don’t even recognise Australia anymore”, or “It’s not like what it was when I was a kid”.
It’s all bullshit, but it sells by the 100kg hessian bagful.
Some of us may deplore the embarrassing state of politics now, and over the last several years; we may deplore the shallow superficiality of its contestants, and their willingness to whore and parade their families at us every opportunity to prove “they’re just like everybody else”; we may deplore policy as populist brainfart and cringe every time we see one of these fuckwits waddle through a factory with a hardhat and vest to look meaningfully at a box of nails, or stare with awe and wonder at a bag of beef; and we can scream and cry and howl and complain forever and forever and forever about the state of political reporting in mainstream commercial print and radio and television, its mindless partisanship and obsession with sleaze and scandal and rumour and “gotcha” moments, but it plays with the folk at home, and it rattles their minds and gets ‘em all worked up and a’feared.
It works.
And if it works, how can anyone possibly claim the Murdoch media and its ilk are an “insult to all Australians”.
It’s a C!E!L!E!B!R!A!T!I!O!N!.
Tomorrow, this pissed off 54 year old will be voting The Greens, both houses, straight up, and I’ll be picking my own damn preferences, thank you very much.
The Kev ‘n’ Tony show can go fuck itself with forty sticks. You too, Rupert.
“Rob Oakeshott, the independent MP who kept Labor in power for three years, believes the [Kevin] Rudd ascendancy has exposed a large number of Australians as policy-free zones. ”That there is a 16 per cent change for no other reason than a personality change should be a mirror on all Australians,” he said.
”In just four days, the polls showed a personality change can be a game changer, not policy. What does it say about the place of policy in Australia? There’s now apparently little place for policy. Something fundamental may have occurred in the way Australia does its politics.”
… [H]e can sell the message that Kevin is here to fix all the problems. Of course, he can’t fix most of them but he can paper them over and the 24/7 media likes papering, particularly if it’s colourful, such as a warning of war with Indonesia.
Finally, and probably most worrying for the Liberals, is that he can provide a palatable alternative. For all his failings and failures, Rudd is only a divisive figure to those who are close to him. “He’s like an iceberg,” suggested a colleague who has worked closely with him, “All white, bright and clean in public but totally different under the surface when cameras and journalists aren’t around.”
“In the voyeurism of Reality TV, the viewer’s passivity is kept intact, pampered and massaged and force-fed Chicken McNuggets of carefully edited snippets that permit him or her to sit in easy judgment and feel superior at watching familiar strangers make fools of themselves. Reality TV looks in only one direction: down.”
Flick the switch to vaudeville, the monkeys are dancing, and the clowns play on.
The Drug of a Nation.
The Audience voted. They tweeted, text’d, phoned and they SMS’d, “We want our boy back in the house, or we ain’t playin’ no more!”
So Second-Chance Charlie is back, with a nod and a wink from the judges, the final elimination round, and a shot at redemption – last time he leapt for risotto, and we wound up with porridge, so he won’t be making that mistake again, he tells us; nowadays, he’s changed, more a team player type of guy, ready to take advice, ready to roll with the rules …
… Back in the house, all the other contestants think he’s just a self-involved, wanking creep, nothin’ but front; they hear him at 2 a.m. through the walls, speaking at himself, rehearsing his funky little aphorisms and homilies for the mums and the dads and the little ones at home; gotta zip, folks, and start cooking with gas …
“I don’t like that woman. She talks funny and she walks like a duck. I hope she loses.” – Appalled of Tumbleweed Fats, Qld.
Clap hands, folks, here comes Charlie …
Kevin Rudd may have emerged (briefly, it seems) as the biggest potential stumbling block to Tony Abbott’s presumed easy waltz to the Lodge, but I’m not much inclined to join in the parade and start cheering quite just yet, as there lingers a foul taste in my mouth, and a fetid stench in my nostrils about the political shenanigans of the last year or two and a general sense of discomfit all ‘round at the way this game was played out, mostly from under the barrel, megaphones a-blaring …
“[Kerry-Anne Walsh’s new book, The Stalking of Julia Gillard] lists scores of examples in which reporters assisted Rudd’s destabilisation campaign against Gillard. They published inaccurate information from off-the-record briefings, giving greater priority to the creation of headlines than the truthfulness of their work. Then, having attended Rudd’s press conferences, at which he declared his loyalty to Gillard, they turned a blind eye to the deceitfulness of his position; a case of journalists allowing lies to stand on the public record.”
… Rudd skulking about in the shadows, a brooding brat denied what he feels his rightful billing as the star of the show, so he sets about sabotaging all the props he can by way of revenge, just pulling up short of setting the curtains afire …
No, thanks.
I’ve never involved myself in politics or political activity beyond voting every few years, and the last couple times I only did that to avoid the fine, but all this bullshit, this base, fangs-bared, face-scratching, bitch-slapping catfight of epic banality that has so consumed and inflamed the oxygen around every so-called debate, discussion, proposal and personality; so poisoned the public discourse with imagery and allusions best left in torture p0rn, where Julia Gillard’s every step, action or announcement became cause for violently unhinged condemnation leaves me more than a little embarrassed identifying as an Australian, for it would seem the definition of “Australian” now is “hysterically squealing, violently ignorant fuck-nugget”.
No, thanks.
Kerry-Anne Walsh’s book about the stalking of Gillard is no sober, measured assessment of these times, more a shoot-from-the-hip as-it-happened diary of the events, shot through with anger, contempt and disbelief: anger at the political engineers of all the rumours and the bullshit (TeamRudd); contempt for the so-called journalists and commentators who thought they were players in the game and gave the bullshit credence; and disbelief that all this bullshit seemed to go down a treat for some reason in the land of the long white sock, where the pokies trill all of the day and all of the night, and Murdoch’s “The Daily Telegraph” is the pamphlet of choice …
… On page one, a headline will try scaring the living shit out of you, page three will make some shit up about someone that will run on page one tomorrow, and page five will run a few hundred words on all this made-up shit under the banner of “opinion” by some lumpen-arsed dickferret that will probably amount to little more than a laundry list of perceived character flaws and personality faults of whoever the shit’s been made up about, political reporting bought to by TMZ-style, your local newspaper may have lots or none …
No, thanks.
… Kevin Rudd does not come off well in Walsh’s book – a Milky Bar bitterball of tightly wound neuroses and petty resentments, empty of ideas, head puffed full of venom; he’s Walter Mitty if Walter Mitty were reimagined by David Lynch, a pencil-sharpening bureaucrat with pockets full of pens down there in the basement stabbing holes in cardboard boxes in the dark, waiting for his day to come where he’ll show ‘em all and then they’ll be sor-ry …
Pretty much what I’d always thought of the guy, from day one.
Call it a hunch.
If Tony Abbott’s the five year old bully who likes to smash everyone’s Lego and throw sticks at girls, Rudd’s the seeming picture of innocence who secretly cheats at exams and sucks up to all the teachers, not a one of whom can stand a bar of the little cunt.
I didn’t vote for Kevin Rudd when he was elected PM over John Howard – I voted against John Howard.
I didn’t vote for Julia Gillard when she stood against Abbott in 2010 – I voted against Tony Abbott.
But this time …
I wouldn’t vote for Tony Abbott with a gun to my head, but thinking of all this shit over the last couple years, and the events of the past few weeks, I can’t bring myself to vote for Rudd just to oppose Abbott.
So that’ll be a tick for The Greens, then.
“Lots of comments regarding ”popularism not policy” in Thursday’s letters. We had a prime minister who was all about policy, but the gender didn’t sit right with Australian men, and women criticised her clothing, hair, hobby and marital status. A record number of policies were passed during Julia Gillard’s tenure. I doubt whether those commenting would know 25 per cent of the policies passed under her leadership.
We now have an Opposition Leader who never fronts the media unless a senior member of caucus is looking over his shoulder waiting to step in when he falters and a Prime Minister who is tweaking policies that were introduced by Gillard. Australians deserve what they get at the next election.” – Lyne Dobson, Waterview Heights
Whenever I hear one political party or politician accuse another of “pulling stunts” or “playing politics” I am, in an instant, removed to a faraway time filled with humid memories of a series of dark, dusty and morbid rooms; little boxes, all characterless, and coloured pelican-shit grey that lay within the red brick walls of the late 20th century Brutalist stalag that was my high school during the 1970’s.
It was a place where boys gleefully gambolled and strutted and chattered their way toward eventual manhood, their minds for now still hovering between the simple life of a child and the complexities of adult existence, hovering within the clammy and indecisive recesses of adolescence, where hitherto unthought-of dark and dirty desires were ever-present, and sudden, dangerous impulses lingered whose potential consequences were never considered of import.
Within these rooms were we taught, on little wooden chairs at little wooden desks, how to correctly answer questions that would one day be asked of us, and how to answer those questions to the satisfaction of those asking, so that we may one day be judged whole and receive grateful permission to proceed to the next level of our game.
Within these walls did we not-quite-children whisper naughty things to one another; we giggled at fart noises and threw erasers across the room when the teacher was out and called each other names. We were teased and tormented and we teased and tormented in return, in accordance to our pecking order in the tribe – Ralph or Jack, Piggy or Simon or Sam – young, apprentice savages studying hard the harsh lessons of survival; by day we pushed at each other, by night we mostly pulled at ourselves, our bodies having been gripped by lustful fevres that had no thought of place, time or propriety, slaves to the spurting cream seizures of fuck.
Within these walls did we also imagine Grand Worlds for ourselves – Where We Could Be Heroes, If Just For One Day – the lofty heights we would attain, and the treasures we would accumulate – whether they be by talent or Machiavellian appropriation – Grand Utopian Worlds of societal perfection and order, where neat and tidy people lived neat and tidy lives in accordance with the Righteous Will of an Anointed One, a Grand Master of Beneficence and Mercy, and that person would be us, imagined only as every piece of Teenage Wildlife can, fuelled by hormonal narcissism and an unshakeable certainty in their own infallible judgement and immortality, as they are.
I do not often think of these days, those lazy, hazy, crazy days of high school, as my memories of them are not fond, and hold nothing of value to me.
I was glad to leave it all behind, happy to leave all those childish things best left to childish people, and move into the wider world of adult life, and it is in this world I still reside, with no desire to whisper naughty things to another or call a workmate names or throw erasers at them, no desire whatsoever.
And yet, whenever I hear a political party or politician accuse another of doing something they have themselves done, or would do; whenever I hear one call another a name, or conjure some slogan or soundbite they believe bless’d with biting wit or daring comedic invention – which they never are – or whenever I hear one refuse to answer a direct question with a direct answer in the manner of a child refusing to eat its vegetables with a quivering-lipped “Because!” as its only reason, I am toss’d back through time to these musty days of high school and its horrid memories of horrid children behaving horridly whilst thinking they’re funny and clever, which they weren’t, and I do wish not to be reminded of such things …
It Giveth Me the Willies and It Maketh Me Want to Scream.
KERRY O’BRIEN: David Marr, you’ve observed that after two and a half years in office, three and a half from when he became Opposition Leader, after millions of words written since he emerged from the Labor pack, as you put it, Kevin Rudd remains hidden in full view. What do you mean by that? …
DAVID MARR: Well I think the answer is because he very carefully disguises that real person and the real person is a very angry person. Now, anger doesn’t disqualify himself from high public office, but I think he’s driven by very old angers, and when they’re released – and I seem to remember you saw a little of this recently …
… When you see the – when you know of the fact that behind closed doors there is a lot of rage in his office, that there’s a lot of – there’s a lot of cold rage and hot rage in his office. When you look at this pattern of his life, when you look at the kind of angry determination from the time he was a kid, from the time he was 15 or 16, to rescue himself from this predicament that, you know, the bad hand that had been dealt him and his mother and siblings back then, you see this kind of implacable determination. And what makes sense of it is anger. What makes sense of the way in which it’s personal, implacable and pursued relentlessly? Anger makes sense of it.
The unpopularity of Julia Gillard and the almost visceral fear and loathing she seemed to inspire in people during her term as Prime Minister also has me flummoxed …
“Sadly Julia Gillard got herself an ill adviser a Scotman,he doesn’t understand Australians Mentality.Now she pay the price but her Legacy are NDIS and Gonski” – Wendyv, July 01, 2013, 7:24AM
… the bit about the “Scotman”?
Flummoxed.
“The damage was done when she knifed Rudd and the majority of the public never forgave her. Any achievements by JG amounted to nought, they may as well been drafted in blood. Rudd and his backers read and understood the publics mood. Every bit of white anting by Rudd and his backers were backed by the public. And this is evidenced in Labors bounce in the polls. Gillards mysogynist speech was not welcomed by the majority of the public, If anything, it highlighted her ruthlessness. The perception is she unsheathed another knife to extract blood. Nothing was going to save Gillard, her Women for Gillard and her knitting fiasco was the final nail in her career. Gillard would undoubtedly would have been treated differently by the public if she didn’t knife Rudd in the first instance. The aussie notion of Fair Go, Mate is witnessed in this Australian tragedy.” – Bob, sunny coast, July 01, 2013, 7:38AM
… Blood. Sheaths. Knives. Nails? How very dramatic.
Flummoxed.
Perhaps I should simple myself down, and frenzy myself up as I appear to be way out of step with the general “mood” of the nation.
This mood appears to be not so much a “glass half-empty” attitude as opposed to “half-full”, but more of a “SOME GAMMY CUNT’S PINCHED THE FUCKING GLASS ALTOGETHER AND SMASHED IT TO FUCKING PIECES AND NOW WE’RE ALL GONNA FUCKING DIE!”
In 1996, I was flummoxed when John Howard was chosen Prime Minister over Paul Keating.
I recall Keating saying just prior to his defeat that he had “great ambition for the nation”, which pleased me, and Howard saying he just wanted everyone to be “relaxed and comfortable” about the future, after which he preceded scaring the shit out of as many people he could with all manner of boogeymen, from Weapons of Mass Destruction, to the Native Title “threat”, to dark people on boats coming here to force feed us falafel and dates and drape our women’s heads with tea-towels.
And it worked! For 13 years!
Flummoxed.
I can offer no explanation or analysis to any of this.
It’s got me buggered.
I am, however, assured of one thing very, very much …
Will Julia Gillard now be consigned to the doggie-poo dustbin of HiStory, forever trying to scrape and scrub his psycho stalker-stench off, having slipped and slid her way the last couple years from banana-skin farce to cake-in-the-face slapstick and straight into an episode of “JackAss”? …
It certainly wasn’t about integrity. Julia Gillard’s magnificent concession speech revealed the person the public so rarely saw, but that her loyal colleagues clearly knew. This is very much unlike Rudd’s axing in 2010, which we now know was mainly about Rudd’s impossibly dysfunctional style of governance, which led much of the caucus to detest him. Gillard’s colleagues like and respect her, but in the final act simply couldn’t abide her diabolically bad polling. No doubt the data reflected her constant political missteps, but they also reflected Rudd’s constant undermining of her. Now the man who contributed so much to making her prime ministership impossible, who has done so much to put Labor in this catastrophic position, has been rewarded with the leadership. He held the party to ransom, and ultimately got paid.”
… Illusions of honour, propriety, sombre murmurings on the necessity for civility, on questions of ethics, and steadfast fealty to one’s comrades, just that, mere illusions wrapped in Roman robes hanging heavy with the weight of cloaked daggers …
Our Prime Minister had a Howard Beale moment a couple days ago.
Three women in the office here, no admirers of Julia Gillard, were enthusing over the moment yesterday, quite giddy with collective joy at seeing Opposition Leader Tony Abbott reduced from Thunder Budgie to Incy Wincy Hummingbird in the space of twelve excoriating minutes.
Reaction on social media, or at least that media I take part in, was generally one of gobsmacked awe, epic smackdown and fuckyeahs all ‘round, and much of that from women.
So when Paul “trying hard to be a conservative Alan Ramsey #fail” Sheehan threw something up online at the SMH halfway through the day that seemed to come from not just another planet, but from a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man, a land of both shadow and substance, not only of sight and sound but of mind, accusing Gillard of being “the driver of the politics of hate in Australia”, I had a wibbly-wobbly moment and felt a little fuzzy around the edges of my personal reality.
Of 539 comments (to date), the first one could sum up that moment …
“you have GOT to be kidding me” – Roaster, Sydney, October 10, 2012, 2:32PM
And this too, is nice …
“Mr Akerman, Is that you?” – Joel, Sydney, October 10, 20112, 2:38PM
Sheehan asks (and what any of these have to do with what Gillard actually said I’ve no idea ) …
“But then why did she mislead the Australian people before the last election on the carbon tax? Why did she leave her law firm under a cloud? Why did she shaft her own leader? Why did she depose a prime minister who had a mandate from the people? Why has she methodically deployed the politics of personal abuse?”
To the first, this tedious meme about Gillard lying is like listening to a flailing crèche of 3 year olds whine because someone’s taken all their teddy bears away and told them Santa Claus isn’t real. If you want a leader who doesn’t lie, you could always vote for Jesus Christ, but he’s dead, so the chances of pre-selection there are pretty slim. To the second, frankly I don’t give a fuck, and I don’t know anyone who does beyond the jerking circle of pedestal-lounging, aging pseudo-puritans of op-ed performance art who act all surprised when politics reveals itself to be the grubby business it mostly is, and not a pre-school fairy-bread fete of blessed sunbeams spreading inspiration and joy all ‘round (with free loaves and fishes). The third, because he was a fraud and a windbag, and fulla nothin’ but talk. Fourth, see three. Five, there’s that wibbly-wobbly moment comin’ back with a vengeance.
“What is particularly telling in the case of the way the PM’s speech was reported is that – also thanks to the internet and social media – people were able to see the very different reception her speech received overseas. As blogger Mr Denmore noted:
In this case, a passionate and thrilling speech by a prime minister about sexism and the low-level tactics of a political opposition leader beyond cynicism attracted world attention. But our gallery are too clever to see that.
They instead took the bait fed to them by the spin doctors on the other side of politics that there was some moral equivalence between the private text messages sent by the Speaker (when he was still a member of the Opposition, by the way) and the overwhelming climate of personal denigration and misogyny created by the Opposition Leader and the tabloid flying monkeys that cheer him on.
The public can see this, obviously the global media can see it. But a press gallery that spends more time getting “briefed” by spinners and reading each other’s copy completely misses the story. Again.”
This is a comment from ABC702’s Facebook page yesterday …
Lisa Woodward – “She was inspirational. I know a lot of people have been commenting that she did not address the issue of Peter Slipper however, other members of the Labor Party did. Her role was to remind Abbott that he was in no position to lecture her about sexism – which, if you listen to his motion against the speaker is exactly what he did; oh, and of course he was ill-advised to use the phrase “government should die of shame!” What was he thinking??? If you listened to question time you would have heard others speaking to the issue including, surprise surprise, Bob Katter, who was actually articulate in explaining why he would abstain from voting as he was against turning parliament into a “kangaroo court. It was inappropriate to move a motion to dismiss the speaker over a case that is still in court. Simple as that.
Not once did she defend Peter Slipper – she and the rest of the party spoke against the motion without defending the man or his actions.”
This is what the Prime Minister said …
“On the conduct of Mr Slipper, and on the text messages that are in the public domain, I have seen the press reports of those text messages. I am offended by their content. I am offended by their content because I am always offended by sexism. I am offended by their content because I am always offended by statements that are anti-women.
I am offended by those things in the same way that I have been offended by things that the Leader of the Opposition has said, and no doubt will continue to say in the future. Because if this today was an exhibition of his new feminine side, well I don’t think we’ve got much to look forward to in terms of changed conduct.
I am offended by those text messages. But I also believe, in terms of this Parliament making a decision about the speakership, that this Parliament should recognise that there is a court case in progress. That the judge has reserved his decision, that having waited for a number of months for the legal matters surrounding Mr Slipper to come to a conclusion, that this Parliament should see that conclusion.
I believe that is the appropriate path forward, and that people will then have an opportunity to make up their minds with the fullest information available to them.”
It’s been an interesting few weeks down here in Australia, the most stricken and trouble-prone nation on earth.
Or so I am led to believe.
Why, only just recently, a stationery clerk challenged a headmaster to a counting of hands, and the headmaster won, validating her decision of a scant number of months before to tell the stationery clerk to go fuck himself for grievously mishandling the supplies of staples and plastic rulers.
A bloody and horrifying coup if ever there were one, and news of the subsequent ferociously played out events travelled so far as a remote tribe of Amazonian nomads, bronzed and buffed primitives of nature who live on Kotcheki bugs and tubers and a subscription to Andrew Bolt’s blog of immaculate tension in their Google reader.
The “mining giants” have been at it again as usual. Whining, that is.
The Federal Treasurer, Wayne Swan, who reminds me of a Year 10 cricket captain whose school always loses because he can pep-talk people into a coma at the drop of a chin, had the fevered temerity to suggest that these waddling warts might be getting a bit too fucking full of themselves.
The gall.
You’ll never see footage or photographs of the likes of Gina Rinehart or Clive Palmer in reports of the so-called “obesity crisis” that is threatening to throw the earth off its orbit and into the fiery embrace of an angry sun any minute soon, no you will not.
That type of thing is typically restricted to surreptitious footage of some poor fucker from Mt. Druitt or Kellyville who’s been laid off work three times in four years now because the work keeps getting sent offshore, she’s 28 years old, she’s got three kids, her father was a cunt who pissed off when she was five after putting her mother in a hospital, and she’s beginning to realise her husband’s a nobody and it’ll never get any better than this, so what else is there to do but eat, shit, give up and wait to die.
No, we have “mining giants”, these bleating, bloated banshees who go off like one-pot screamers any and every time some mere mortal suggest they shouldn’t expect to get their own way any time and anywhere they want to in pursuit of a buck and not give anything back but their seriously over-inflated sense of their own self-importance to us all.
You would think that, with their type of money, they could at least exercise or indulge the luxury of investing in a squadron of highly-disciplined personal trainers to whip their arses into shape as an example of restraint in one thing, if no other, at the very least.
Maybe an S&M madam who could slap them across the cheeks with a studded leather tea-towel every time they go at a cake or a bacon sandwich.
There’s an idea with merit, if I do say so myself.
And, just a week or so ago, somebody tried to market my conscience.
My new assistant at work was recently congratulated on her appointment in an email that read, “Congratulations on your new position with the most cynical man in the company”.
I’d like that on a t-shirt.
You can inform me, you can make me aware, but if you try to market my conscience, that won’t work.
And if all this wasn’t enough, a couple days ago, Tony Abbott told of a “reign of terror” raging in the otherwise sleepy, dusty suburbs of deepest western Sydney, where thousands upon thousands of innocent citizens are currently besieged by tribal warlords in an endless cycle of medieval blood feuds and revenge, planting explosive IUD’s in the frock racks at Sportsgirl, and shooting letterboxes, mad, murderous and seriously out of control.
Queensland’s Colonel Tom Parker of bush politics channels Andy Griffith through a one-track, wild-eyed imitation of a giggle-stricken Forrest Gump.
Lordy, lordy, fuck him and the hat that hides his empty head.
An interesting few weeks of the highest drama, intrigue, scandal and outrage, war, famine, pestilence and there’s worse to come, I can assure you, much worse than any of that.
We’re a desecrated shadow of a nation rapidly dying, rotting on the vine, drooping at the tip, dribbling from the corner of our mouths, staining our underpants, dropping ash on the couch and spilling the milk all over the cat.
This morning, a woman was photographed riding a bicycle with a baby strapped to her back and the baby wasn’t wearing a helmet.
That’s how bad it’s getting down here, down here in Australia, the most stricken and trouble-prone nation on earth.
I think I might move to Haiti.
Nice beaches, open air living. Relaxed lifestyle. What more could a person ask for?
Now, I gotta go take a wizz. If I’m not out in ten minutes, do not resuscitate.*
I swear to God, if there’s a drearier little knobhead currently farting about in Australian politics today, I’m damned if I know who that may be.
And yes, I voted for you.
My first inkling that trouble may lay ahead came on the night of your election.
As I sat watching the results come in, expecting (at least) some sense that this had been a victory for the “true believers” and, from you, perhaps an enthused exhortation to those involved that after 12 years of the Horrid Rodents reign, some unrestrained celebration may well be in order, instead you babbled on and on in a confounding fashion for God only knows how long and told everyone to go have a cup of tea and a biscuit and get to work.
My God, man, you make Malcolm Fraser look positively bohemian by comparison and John Howard like one of the Chaser boys.
There you are, from day to day, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, forever creeping in this same dreary pace, strutting and fretting, strutting and fretting, until a beckoning dusty death appeals as blessed relief from all this cheerless claptrap that dribbles from out your foodhole.
Well, just piss off, poor player and be heard no more, I say.
No matter what it may be, whether some media concocted populist moral panic, or the latest so-called “scandals” about the private lives of public figures, or how we entertain ourselves, or how people legitimately choose to go about raising their children, up pops your Poppin’ Fresh head from the Canberran murk on a regular basis to have a fucking rattle on at everyone about it all.
And if that’s not bad enough, there’s you and a whole bunch of your colleagues on both sides of the political spectrum feverishly tripping over yourselves to proclaim your holier-than-thou piety with all manner of self-righteous, self-serving statements about what Jesus means to you and why and blah, blah, blah, blah.
Kevvie me boy, I really couldn’t give a flying fuck what Jesus means to you or anyone else for that matter, because it don’t mean a damn hill ‘o’ beans to when it comes to RUNNING A FUCKING COUNTRY, OKAY?!
So, take your Brissie and your Sidders and your Tassie and your brekkers and your sangers and your barbies and your cuppas and your fucking Iced Vo-Vo’s and all the other infantile, orchestrated, man-of-the-common people bullshit you’re so fond of and cram it up the length of your arse with a broomstick handle.
I’m voting Green straight up in the next Federal election.
Although, if there’s someone standing for the Australian Sex Party in the Senate, I might plump for them.
God only knows, it would certainly be a refreshing change to have someone in Government who appreciates the benefits of a good root just for the fucking hell of it.
I had my first alcoholic drink in 1976 when I was seventeen years old which is illegal I know and I’m really really sorry but we’d all left school and I was only a couple months shy of turning eighteen and about to start work so I figured what could it hurt all things considered and all.
I was wrong.
Damn.
I’ve drunk a whole bunch more over the years and I’ve been drunk too. I couldn’t figure on the number of times exactly but given over thirty years have passed since then I reckon that there number would be a right whopper and it’s a wonder my body ain’t a throbbing mass of ulcerating tumors and such. Hell, maybe it already is … I thought that itch was just chafing from my undergarments not bein’ rinsed out proper in the wash.
Damn.
I fornicated with a bunch of girls too and didn’t marry none of ‘em. They weren’t “girls” exactly, they was women of age an’ all, but damn if I didn’t wear myself out somethin’ fierce makin’ like a bunny rabbit poking away at this pink bit here and that pink bit there back in the days when a man like myself found lots of encouragement to do so.
I ain’t poked no one of a female persuasion for some whiles now, so I reckon my behaviour’s improvin’ some, you think?
Man’s gotta learn hisself a few lessons in his life, get through it, after all.
I smoked myself some cigarettes, too. How many, I don’t rightly know, but they’d be a whole bunch of those, considering they’s twenty-five in a pack-et and I started buyin’ ‘em back when I was a young feller.
Prob’ly what caused my hair to stop growin’, that did. Oh well, serves me right, I s’pose, I weren’t a master of my own desires, an’ if you ain’t a master, you’s a slave, can I get a hallelujah on that, people?
A-MEN!
So please don’t you whup on mah be-hind, Kevin, I be good from now on, yessir I will, I’s be doin’ what I’s told to be doin’, yessir, masser, yowie!
An’ Kevin?
Sir?
I won’t be takin’ up too much of yer time, Masser …
But …
They’s been some illegal drugs too, Kevin, not a whole bunch, no sir, just some like over the years. This thing once, this other thing once, this whole different thing a few times, I know! I know you people been hollerin’ about that type of stuff for damn near forever, but I weren’t meanin’ to put no hurt on nobody, I swear, I ain’t gonna do it again!
I was a young an’ foolish boy back then.
I’s a man now.
You know what else?
I had a tatey scallop yes’day? When we was havin’ our grub break?
…
…
I put salt on it.
…
…
You ain’t gonna be puttin’ me in the hole, are ya?
DON’T BE PUTTIN’ ME IN THE HOLE, MASSER, I BEG OF YOU!
I done quit mah drinkin’, smokin’, druggin’, fornicatin’ and salted tatey scallop ways once an’ fer all, I be swearin’ at yer I have, that’s all through with me an’ I’s through with it.
An’ I figger I owes you people a whole heap ‘o’ taxes from all these here sins what I bin doin’ all this time, an’ I’m a ready, willin’ an’ able to start makin’ amends, yessir, right this very minute.
…
…
You want what sucked?
…
…
You want I should leave mah dentures in or takes ‘em out ‘fore I start?
SMELLY TONGUES 