Thoraiya DyerLesser of two evils?
November 29th 2007 03:42
I love election day. It’s our day. Citizen’s day. We get to employ our rights to participate in democracy. To employ a group of people to make the important decisions we collectively cannot make for ourselves. To choose appropriate ways to spend the money we provide for the smooth running of our grand national society. To competently represent ‘Australia’ on the international stage.
Yeah, right. I do actually love election day, that’s no lie. I delude myself into thinking my vote counts, like I’m playing a role in the democratic process. But really, when it comes to voting generally we are voting against something, not for something. Voting is often posited in completely negative terms.
Look at the campaigns, where parties spend their time telling you not to vote for the other party. Kevin’s telling us not to vote for Howard because ‘there needs to be a change’. You think! I understand that Howard is so resolutely against climate change because he started his term in the ice age, but his reactionary attitude was embarrassing. The guy would have denied the holocaust for a vote.
But Rudd is such a nerd. Though, he has been to the strippers. On the one hand, the sexist, old man power plays of smoking cigars, sinking the finest single malt whilst slipping a hundred into the g-banger of some poor woman makes my feminist blood boil. On the other, I am never going to deny anyone having a good time. And if our PM wants to get his rocks off by staring at some two-bit, coked up whore, then let him have his day in the sun.
At least it goes someway to stemming the Labor’s shift towards becoming scarily conservative. They played it so safe! Considering the whole Australian society appears to be responding better to conservative politics, it was a smart political move. Ahh the pitfalls of an ageing nation. Screw the gays, the youth and the accidentally pregnant…
I know what I want from politics. Bring back the trade unions! Bring back the biffo, the fun, the laughs, the drunken swagger of the louts we chose to represent us! Bring back Bob Hawke and his beer drinking philandering! Now he was an Australian leader. Support the workers, particularly when they don’t want to work! Screw the economy, let ‘em take the day off for the America’s cup - it’s an integral part Australian culture! (Oh the irony!) Now, that’s working in favour of the Australian “national interest”.
Whatever the hell that might be. What is it with pollies and these generic labels? The ‘national interest’? ‘Working families’? ‘Australian values?’ I would really love to know what constitutes Australian values. Pauline Hanson has a fair idea of what Howard’s talking about when he utters ‘Australian values’! The phrase is a euphemism for the promotion of assimilation. Never mind diversity; that’s one of those crazy, post-modern vogue terms.
Honestly, this is all a moot point in the end. We have KRudd in power, and frankly it is better than the alternative. The Liberals paid for their arrogance, which was personified by the sniveling, childish, petulant snobbery of our outgoing foreign affairs minister, Alexander Downer. There is no sweeter victory than his demise!
But in terms of long term voting strategy, now that Labor’s in, I feel obliged to vote against them in the next election. In the educated, analytical, political savvy world within which I like to think I reside, voting for the government is so passé.
Yeah, right. I do actually love election day, that’s no lie. I delude myself into thinking my vote counts, like I’m playing a role in the democratic process. But really, when it comes to voting generally we are voting against something, not for something. Voting is often posited in completely negative terms.
Look at the campaigns, where parties spend their time telling you not to vote for the other party. Kevin’s telling us not to vote for Howard because ‘there needs to be a change’. You think! I understand that Howard is so resolutely against climate change because he started his term in the ice age, but his reactionary attitude was embarrassing. The guy would have denied the holocaust for a vote.
But Rudd is such a nerd. Though, he has been to the strippers. On the one hand, the sexist, old man power plays of smoking cigars, sinking the finest single malt whilst slipping a hundred into the g-banger of some poor woman makes my feminist blood boil. On the other, I am never going to deny anyone having a good time. And if our PM wants to get his rocks off by staring at some two-bit, coked up whore, then let him have his day in the sun.
At least it goes someway to stemming the Labor’s shift towards becoming scarily conservative. They played it so safe! Considering the whole Australian society appears to be responding better to conservative politics, it was a smart political move. Ahh the pitfalls of an ageing nation. Screw the gays, the youth and the accidentally pregnant…
I know what I want from politics. Bring back the trade unions! Bring back the biffo, the fun, the laughs, the drunken swagger of the louts we chose to represent us! Bring back Bob Hawke and his beer drinking philandering! Now he was an Australian leader. Support the workers, particularly when they don’t want to work! Screw the economy, let ‘em take the day off for the America’s cup - it’s an integral part Australian culture! (Oh the irony!) Now, that’s working in favour of the Australian “national interest”.
Whatever the hell that might be. What is it with pollies and these generic labels? The ‘national interest’? ‘Working families’? ‘Australian values?’ I would really love to know what constitutes Australian values. Pauline Hanson has a fair idea of what Howard’s talking about when he utters ‘Australian values’! The phrase is a euphemism for the promotion of assimilation. Never mind diversity; that’s one of those crazy, post-modern vogue terms.
Honestly, this is all a moot point in the end. We have KRudd in power, and frankly it is better than the alternative. The Liberals paid for their arrogance, which was personified by the sniveling, childish, petulant snobbery of our outgoing foreign affairs minister, Alexander Downer. There is no sweeter victory than his demise!
But in terms of long term voting strategy, now that Labor’s in, I feel obliged to vote against them in the next election. In the educated, analytical, political savvy world within which I like to think I reside, voting for the government is so passé.
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