"I like fighting Tories, that's what I do." Anthony Albanese 2012.
In response to the electorate's recent vote to continue drinking from the toilet the Tories have smugly rolled out the clichés - we should respect the umpire's decision, they have a mandate and the people have spoken. Bollocks to that!
I will invoke the words of a great man, spoken after he was overthrown by a born-to-rule conspiracy - "maintain your rage." After more than two decades of Tory torpor Gough Whitlam was enthusiastically elected to implement a progressive agenda, the execution of which may have been flawed in some respects but which nevertheless transformed Australia into a far more equitable society - one that was anathema to the Randesque ideologues in the Liberal (sic) Party and their fellow travellers. They thought of Whitlam's government as a short-term anomaly to be righted (pun intended) at the first opportunity.
44 years later and after six years of calamitous Tory incompetence and nastiness and following their campaign of lies and misinformation there is no way I will accept this current claque as legitimate and I will not be nice to those who do.
“She already told me that she doesn't have to be nice, so why do I? Because my mother raised me right? That's why wolves always win. Because the rest of us mind our manners and get devoured for our efforts.” ― Sheryl J. Anderson, Killer Cocktail
To reflect Ms Anderson's sentiments - fuck you FauxMo; and the donkey you rode in on!
Many folk complain about the lack of civility in political discourse from the pollies, the pundits and we keyboard peripheral participants. Such folk should recall Tony Abbott during his stint as Leader of the Opposition. Celebrated by the Tories as the most successful ever LotO he slimed into government through his junkyard dog tactics of deceit, negativity, invective, hypocrisy and lies and set the new standard.
Shoutyman Morrison enthusiastically embraced that low road. With nothing else to sell our marketing man took Kill Bill on a solo tour. Civility, mannners, respect? Phffft!
In contrast Bill Shorten tried the polite and measured approach during the election campaign, resisting the temptation to remind Australians of how that pineapple suppository got where it is. And look how well that magnanimity served him - straight back to Opposition.
Politics has always been a dirty game but the Liberal Party under Abbott drafted new rules of engagement - the gutter is their chosen battleground where decorum and decency are entirely superfluous.
Negotiating with despots
It's not possible to negotiate with nutters or appease bullies, any concession is seen by the autocrats as a weakness to be exploited. Their zero-sum mindset has one winner - and it aint you or me.
Appeasement is surrender. It didn't work for Neville Chamberlain and it sure didn't work for Malcolm Turnbull whose obsequience to the chief despot Il Douche Dutton got him a shiv in the ribs. For bullies and tyrants to rule they must exploit fear; ethics and scrutiny are to be eliminated, and if there is one stand-out personification of the creeping evil of neo-fascism it is the potato-headed autocrat Peter Spud-Dutton. An empathy-free zone with all of the charisma of genital warts Spud is the best illustration of why playing nice has no part in our political discourse circa 2019.
Herr Kipfler and the potato wedge
Spud is the best worst example for why progressives must not be conciliatory nor impersonal. His tools of trade are hate and fear, his tactics are the dog-whistle and the wedge. He has neither the wit nor the subtlety to carry it off unnoticed yet the Opposition decided that timidity was its best option for avoiding his blatant attempts at wedging. They waved through the draconian legislation that now clearly undermines our democracy and freedoms.
Dutton, as a result, got an increase in his electoral margin and has returned to his role as poster boy for the elated right-wing nut jobs now shaping the L/NP agenda. (Once that thin veneer of post-election gloss wears off Scotty you best be careful.)
A compliant media gets bitten on the arse
For six years the L/NP dodged scrutiny with its "look, it's Labor" dissembling and obfuscation - taking their behaviour as an Opposition into Government. A complacent and compliant media went along for the ride giving a free pass to a declining economy, corporate crime, a degraded environment, social disharmony and creeping totalitarianism.
The ABC was cowed into submission by constant attacks, becoming a timorous shadow of the once honourable organisation that held governments to account.
And in a truly ironic case of misplaced schadenfreude a journalist from the L/NP propaganda machine Newscorpse was raided by the Australian Federal Police Farce - the Gestapo of Spud's private legion of spooks and door-breakers. The indignation of News' L/NP groupies provided a level of grim farce.
The goon squad trading as the AFP has all of the credibility of the Keystone Cops. A bought and paid for apparatus of the Lib surveillance state they somehow managed to lose the paperwork when "investigating" Michaelia Carcrash on the AWU raids tip-off. In raiding the ABC and a News journalist they are complying with standard practice - hounding sources of information that embarrass the conservative Government, intimidating potential whistle-blowers and keeping the L/NP free from oversight.
Dutton, ex-copper from Queensland, is resurrecting the Bjelke-Petersen-era police state cheered on by the Nasty Party nutters who've slipped through the crazy filter. Bullies are cowards and this platoon of poltroons is scared of accountability. Their incompetence and failures and their lack of courage is supplemented by their conviction that they have a right to rule and no obligation to serve.
A compliant and complicit mainstream media has gotten a loud wake-up call. Will they respond or will they hit the snooze button? Will a complacent public shrug this off? I'm betting they will and I will not be polite in calling out those of that kind of my acquaintance, and in less than courteous terms. This is a government for gormless dullards, the tremulous, the authoritarians, the weak of mind and dull of eye, the indifferent and the stupid.
It's not my government. Fuck that!
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This rant is also published in the Australian Independent Media Network.
Feline Metathesiophobia - We've had six years of a grim regime of cranks, liars, humbugs, religious nutters, bellicose bullies, autocrats and self-interested, dodgy carpet-baggers.
The new jihadis - This Coalition is a caliphate comprised of crooks. It's a coagulation of corporate cronies, conmen, charlatans, carpetbaggers, crackpots cutpurses and climate criminals.