THE SUBS 'N' DUDS | Number 3 |
REPORT | 13 May 1996 |
| Editor: Harold Hark | Melbourne, Australia |
In the days after the massacre at Port Arthur, many of us were to recall the much-loved children's film, "Bambi". But our recollections were not of Thumper and Flower and the joys of innocence. They dwelt with the film's ultimate meaning: the defenceless terror experienced by all living creatures at the hands of men with guns. We thought of Bambi and his mother at play in the meadow. We recalled the shots ringing out as menacing hunters approached, of Bambi's mother calling to her child, "Run, Bambi, Run! Don't Look Back!" And then our thoughts returned to that sunny Autumn Sunday in Port Arthur. And we were forced to confront once again the utterly unthinkable, of Nannette Mikac holding three-year old Madeline, dumbfounded, terror-stricken, as the gunman took aim. Of six year old Allanah watching as he pulled the trigger, witness to the unnameable, the cold blooded murder of her mother and sister, and then running, running to the end of her life, as the hunter of people followed, tracking her to that tree... Every mother and father in the world saw their own child huddled there; and all were all helpless. I feel a deep sense of shame for my gender and an even deeper sense of hopelessness, for there is no reason to believe men will ever change. It is men who cause 99 per cent of the suffering in this world. We are the ones who contrive wars for vengeful and economic reasons. We are the mass murderers, the serial killers, the committers of genocide. Women, from whose bodies we come, are incapable of viewing human life, as so many men do, as little more than a threatening abstraction at the target end of a gun. There is more certainty that the sun will never rise again than there is in a woman shooting Nannette Mikac and her children. Those of us, men and women, who were spared direct involvement in this act of quintessential evil owe those who were not. We owe them our unflagging efforts to insure that what they endured never happens again. We must let our governments know that persistence in the questionable practice of deinstitutionalisation must be followed by adequate back-up services in the community. They have thus far failed. And we must take decisive steps to stop the sale and use of guns. There is no longer any place for "shooters" and shooting in our society. Every concerned citizen must join in a relentless campaign to strip these paranoid, sociopathic males of their arsenals of death. Petitions, letters, phone calls, marches and demonstrations must be the order of the day--extending into years if need be, until every gun is removed from private ownership. It may take a generation to effect such a prohibition, but in the end Australia will be a far saner place to live. A haven, perhaps, for people the world over whose lives have been ruined by violence. WHERE'S ME TABLETS! Casino Enquiry: Jeff's Doing a Rumpelstiltskin Forget the gold, Coalition Supporters, it's just flax after all. You've known that all along, but The Rump is a mean persuader. Yes, you might have traded your first born to Kennett's Kadetts, if only that PR about you getting fat on the backs of the proles had been acceptable. You may like to party at Leonda, but you really do have a soul. And come Inquiry time, you'll learn that Rumpelstiltskin's real name is Jeff Kennett. Indeed, Jeffrey's about to blow a gasket. The man appearing nightly in every civilised person's worst nightmare seems about to break into guttural German denouncing this latest effrontery. How dare Ron Walker and Lloyd Williams, those noble servants of Victoria's business elite, be subjected to the jealous probes of the rabble and their representatives! Everyone knows some of that money will eventually trickle down to the preterite. Why, the enterprises of Ron and Lloyd have seen to a reduction of unemployment by over .001 per cent ! And look what they've done for the pawnbroking and sex industries. Oh, if only Jeff had an army. If only John Howard had blown the federal election, so that he, Jeff, could have emerged as Emperor of Larvae. If only democracy--whatever that is--would just go away! The truth is, inquiry or no inquiry, we will never really know. The weblike depth of corruption is unfathomable, precisely because the major players are businessmen, who, by definition, find codes of ethics and morality to be contradictions in terms. They have no idea where or to what degree they have overstepped the boundaries of ethical practice. And why should they? The phrase, 'Business is business,' means only one thing: 'Anything goes'. Anyone not adhering to that maxim is considered by his or her business peers to be a FOOL. Pay Your Own Libel Suits, Jeff! The Premier's indecent attack on Sid Spindler should be his last. The State Coalition should have rolled him immediately, for it is clear the Jeffrey Kennett is not fit to govern. His reprehensible claim that Senator Spindler--almost alone among Australian politicians in his resolute commitment to democracy and a fair go--is a Nazi or still influenced by his forced membership in the Hitler Youth, calls for the Premier to be sacked and prosecuted for calumny. (The PPF, on the other h-h-hand, would argue that our vicious attacks on the Premier are not libellous because they are true--in spirit if not always in fact .) Once again, Jeff Kennett is guilty of projection, the tendency to attribute to another person what is actually within oneself. Jeff is a classic case. Every time he goes feral, you can bet the substance of his attack pertains in spades to himself. In the Spindler diatribe, the concept of 'Hitler Youth' had been working through Jeff's dense mind since his introduction of the cadet program. The first thing that popped into everyone's mind then was, "uh-oh, the Kennett version of Hitler Youth." Jeff knew it too, albeit as usual, unconsciously. That it finally escaped his chasmic mouth as a slur on someone who is the antithesis to Nazism is disgraceful. The State Government has been joined by the Feds to administer the coup de grace to University newspapers. Where Keating stepped in to counteract Kennett's funding cuts, the Howard Gang is saying, "Go get 'em, Jeff, silence the bastards. Most students don't care anyway. We've got 'em in our pocket with PR. They know an MBA is all that matters. And with our funding cuts to higher education, the only courses to go will be at the troublesome higher end. Power: makes you wiggle your toes !" Goodbye Lot's Wife, Rabelais, Catalyst, Farrago. Hello Baader-Meinhoff II. Mad Dog Kennett is no longer fouling the airwaves on Peter Couchman's show and that is one big relief. Jeff had a much better time with Ranald 'Roll over' MacDonald, who used to let him push Larval PR ad nauseam. It's a wonder Couchman was able to take it week after week. The real shame is that Peter didn't beat Jeff to the punch by ordering him out of the studio. Almost every listener was praying he would. |
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