THE SUBS 'N' DUDS

REPORT

• Hark's Barks
  • Closing Down Oz: Howard's "Cultural" Revolution
• Where's Me Tablets! by Gort Slypesunder
  • The Budget: The Liars Fight Back

HARK'S BARKS by Harold Hark

Closing Down Oz: Howard's "Cultural" Revolution

Move over Mao, the Coalition Purges of 1996 are off and running as the Mean Little Tory and his Yes-men from Yesteryear invoke the formula of philistine idiotology: Massive unemployment begets Employer power equals prosperity for the Business Elite. While John Howard remains in hiding (an enterprising journalist tracked him to Queensland the other day to get a comment about the ATSIC cuts), his henchmen are pushing through his zealot's deforms of Australia's cultural, educational and social institutions to the point of their being nearly useless. As in Mao's China, Reagan's Umeruhca, and Thatcher's England, we are to become a bottom-heavy nation where the helpless and powerless Preterite are ruled by a soulless and visionless Elite.

Two Quotes

SIR ROBERT MENZIES on September 7, 1966 at the opening of the Library in the University of NSW. (Supplied by Geoffrey Sauer, Executive Secretary, Australian University Alumni Council, Adelaide. The Age and The Australian 16/8/96.):

"I do not look forward to the day when every university is dependent upon the financial judgement and willingness of some political party or government because inevitably there will be a great tendency under those circumstances for governments to want to call the tune."

THOMAS JEFFERSON in 1809, on governmental priorities. (Supplied by Ted Drinkwater, Nar Nar Goon. The Age 16/8/96.):

"The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government."

Seven Swine

JOHN HOWARD. He's waited thirteen years to revenge himself upon the people who have passed him by.

PETER COSTELLO. Like Newt Gingrich, he started out on the left, but opportunism was his real master. He enters government as the nastiest piece of works this side of Jeff "Little Caesar" Kennett.

AMANDA VANSTONE. She enjoyed free education but our kids won't. A typical henchman, she would have carried out similar and worse duties for any dictator in living memory.

RICHARD ALSTON. With manufactured eyes constructed by an EconoRat Dr Frankenstein, he has suavely and consistently lied to Australians about the real intent to neuter the backtalking ABC.

PETER REITH. The Hunchback of Canberra sneered his way through umpteen IR meetings without listening to anyone . His compassion quotient equals sub-Kelvin temperatures wherein lies his ancestor, The Thing.

JOHN HERRON. The Gentleman Racist is out of his depth in the real world where real people suffer from his lightweight intelligence.

JOCELYN NEWMAN. Wouldn't you hate her to be your mother? "Give me that bikkie, you little brat, one a day is all you get, don't you know you're not worth two?"

Three Lice

TIM FISHER. The Simpleton Clown who, given different circumstances, might have been well liked as the owner of an outback General Store.

MICHAEL WOOLDRIDGE. Is Mr Laconic Nice Guy really a hooded cobra whose swift strike might not even be noticed until his venom chokes the system? He sure chills the blood when he looks your way.

ALEXANDER DOWNER. The man at the heart of The Case of the Mislaid Mind. We've written about Little Lord Fauntleroy elsewhere.

One Arsehole

MAL COLSTON. Queensland seems to be a hotbed for them. If he turncoats and votes with the Coalition in the Senate, you can bet Brian Harridine will follow. Mal Colston may well become known as the man who sold out his country for the insignificant job of a DEPUTY... Repugnant!

Two Collaborators?

BRIAN JOHNS was given a vote of no confidence by ABC television staff in Sydney. Staff no longer felt he would "lead the corporation in the fight to preserve its rightful level of funding".

HILARY MCPHEE. A sign of the times shows Hilary is pleased at only $7 million in cuts to the Australia Council. In other words, "We're OK, but they're not. Lock the doors in case they try to get in!"

We take back the above. Hilary, like many civilised persons in charge of the remnants of our culture is just trying to hold on to what little urine may trickle down from the Pissoffs on High. We wish her well.

Three Heroes

TERRY O'SHANE and the people at ATSIC. O'Shane was right to say that the cuts amount to cultural genocide and that Reconciliation is over.

PHILIP ADAMS. His whirlwind tour of cities inviting debate on ABC cuts was a fearless and triumphant success. Almost alone, he has mounted a passionate defence of life in an evolving society.

KEN DAVIDSON. Where would we be without his timely (though convoluted and sometimes downright mystifying) commentaries? It seems that no other finance writer bothers to factors in social costs.

One Who Was Right

PAUL KEATING--no great benefactor of the marginalised --said it before the election: "When the government changes, the country changes. Voters have no idea what they're going to get with the coalition. The only time they'd ever know what John Howard offered them would be after he was in Government and then it's too late." (Based on an article by Karen Middleton, The Age, 2 March 1996.)

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WHERE'S ME TABLETS!
by Gort Slypesunder

The Budget: The Liars Fight Back

OLD PEOPLE ! COMMIT SUICIDE NOW, IT'S TOO COSTLY TO STAY ALIVE. Yes, dear ones, your time is up. Neither you nor the poor counts in John Howard's neo-feudalist, EconoRat world. And certainly not that segment of Australia's youth whose aims are more serious than attaining an MBA and a career out of bilking each other and everyone else.

Depressing isn't the word, as one by one, the financial writers, and other commentators line up to proclaim the worth of this corporate budget. Blind sloths! What ever happened to government? My dear old friends, we don't have one any more. You may have elected one or two in your day, but even they were traitors to human suffering. Indeed, the last truly democratic government, a matriarchy, may have existed on Atlantis. And that is pure speculation.

So we've been Americanised at last. After decades of absorbing their cardboard cutout heroes on television, we can now claim to be a subset of the American Nightmare. Our leaders in recent years have been doing their best to produce more and more poor and homeless, just like America. Now those who have hitherto been one or two steps above can soon join the throng. No longer will we have to believe what the political parties tell us before an election. We'll just choose the liars that best suit our now-expected reversion to selfishness. Having turned over and shown our bellies to the bullies, we will vote for the party that best assures us of protection from the weak but soon-to-be threatening: suburban enclaves, here we come. And the Labor Party can jettison its pallid platform of so-called social equity. In order to beat the Coalition, it will now have to devise policies of surpassing cruelty.

Lots of money talks, folks. And the lack of it is a one way ticket to the jungle beyond the enclave.

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