| A Squiz at Australia's | Melbourne, Australia |
SCUM AT THE TOP | 19 February 1999 |
| Editor: Harold Hark | Volume 1 Number 1 |
Terry Lane recently wrote in the Sunday Age about his experience on a Melbourne tram. He spoke of the anxiety he felt at the near certainty of encountering, not hoons, but uniformed (or disguised!) ticket inspectors. It is inconceivable that anyone should have to feel this anxiety simply because they are using public transport. That we all do, is yet another indictment of the Kennettocracy The absurdity of replacing the security of conductors with unworkable machines and taxpayer funded thugs to insure that everyone has a ticket, whether the machines are working or not, is the stuff of totalitarian governments. Moreover, it makes no business sense. The government has lost money on this foolish venture. Is it ideological? Is it a form of incompetent madness? Is it the seething, vindictive revenge on an electorate which used to laugh at the Bullgoose Boofhead before he was elected, like the drover's dog, over an exhausted Labor government? Most likely it is just their clubfooted way of getting rid of Public Transport altogether. The last time I took a train to the city, we were boarded by two uniformed inspectors who looked like the killers in Fargo. The Malaysian woman sitting across from me was caught with a Zone Two ticket in Zone One land. The inspector attending to her resembled Steve Buscemi at his psychopathic best. The woman spoke little English. The inspector saw that he was going to spend awhile with her and asked me to move to the empty window seat so he could sit down. I said, "Stand and deliver, arsehole." He barely noticed my response, fixated as he was on demanding a piece of identification from his prey. The language barrier at last overcome, she produced a Medicare card. His bully's snicker at this useless ID, seemed to come, amplified, from his nose, as entombed air rushed and rustled through the cilia of his nostrils. He told her to give him a telephone number where someone could be reached who knew her. I said to her, "Don't do it, he doesn't have the right." I suspected he did--Kennett wouldn't have overlooked this little act of oppression--but a few delaying tactics seemed a good idea. Intimidated, like millions before her, she gave him a number. He promptly pulled out his mobile phone. Now, this woman must have been at least thirty-five years old. I blew my top, launching into a tirade about rights and retribution: "Mussolini was hung by his heels, and believe me it can happen again. Tell that to your boss!" It made him weirdly nervous, in that Steve Buscemi way. First he dropped the phone, then misdialled twice. Exasperated, he called over the other inspector, who was angered at having to leave his prey. This bloke was one of those suited, Peter Stormare, types who control the barriers at Melbourne Central, putting the fear of Kennett into everyone whether they have a valid ticket or not. He hunched and menaced and told me to shut up or he would throw me off the train. I told him to have at it and continued the tirade. Meanwhile, Steve, left to his task, finally made the call and confirmed that the woman had an address, was not a drug taking single-mother cum refugee bent on defrauding the silent majority of their small change, and was indeed qualified to be a legitimate victim of Kennett's Wrath. He gave her a one hundred dollar fine. I suppose that, within the narrow scope of zero tolerance of a free society, she deserved the ticket. But the presence of these goons, in place of a workable ticketing system--the old system!-- infuriated me, and should have infuriated other passengers. No one spoke up. Near the close of Lane's article, he said the following about the government which has implemented this system: "... I hate them. Not just seriously dislike. I am not merely antipathetic to them. I hate them. I want something nasty to happen to them. They have, in the space of a couple of parliaments, destroyed my community. They have turned me from a free citizen into a furtive, embarrassed, cringing alien in my own town." If there was room in the mast of this newsletter, I would print those words in each issue. For Lane's words summarise the reason for the very existence of SCATT. And the Howard government is doing it nationally. HH *SCATT, n, the droppings of those who would be masters as a source of nourishment for those who would be their servants. WHERE'S ME TABLETS! John Howard, aka The Squidgereen has put off just about everyone with the latest Tory recreational pursuit of kicking 'em while they're down, to wit: illiterates and innumerates will no longer receive the dole unless they enrol in programs that are no longer there because his government cut the funding for them in its first term. Everyone, that is, except for the straiteners and punishers, who comprise an intellectually barren demographic ranging from low-paid Herald Sun-reading-commercial-TV addicts to real estate agents, bankers and shareholders trading their souls. GS (squidgereen n. a short, insignificant person.) While Jeff Sleeps On, His Inner Arsehole Brainstorms On. Like all dictators whose sleep is undisturbed by the consequences of their abominations upon a helpless populace, Jeff Kennett awakes each morning refreshed and ready to act upon the counselling received from his inner voice. Of course that counselling is protected by commercial confidentiality, but we can still speculate on what the arsehole tells him. What if the Kennett Kadetts were to model themselves on Indonesia's civilian militias! Sweeping through the western suburbs at night, they could terrorise un-Victorians into swift submission, thus making it safe for the suits-in-his-pocket to drive their Toorak Tractors down John Denver's "Country Roads" on the way to Swell's Casino to watch desiccated icons of the inch-deep past like Tony Bennett. Can Wayne Newton be far off? GS Machiavelli Would've Slapped the Oblivious Ninny With His Gloves. A greenhorn in the subtle art of dissembling, Peter Reith surprised no one by announcing that he alone in the Living Dead Party is keen for a directly-elected president of the by now soiled-beyond-repair move to become a republic. Like Jeff Kennett promising to look into decriminalising marijuana to buy the youth vote, or John Howard promising not to touch HECS to buy the same vote, he is merely playing for the support of what he must think are a bunch of unreflective gits. Does anyone seriously believe that Reith cares about anything beyond destroying the unions and rolling Howard and Costello to become the country's Master Straitener & Punisher? GS on the other hand, would have pleased The Prince, in spite of its instigator's repugnance. Like almost everything the Prime Minister does, this is an unconscious fudging of an issue calculated to confuse and stupefy the population. You see, John's left brain doesn't know what the right brain is doing because the synaptic junction wherein resides his authenticity is windswept and deserted. The only thing operating is a pea-sized, blackened heart pumping a tremulous xenophobia into a state of catatonia. GS Business: It's Bad Name Gets Worse. The current Olympics fiasco should find its place in dictionaries as a prime descriptor of "fin de siecle" decadence. The IOC, and its local affiliates, is a winking, nodding body of pustular corruption whose members jet the world in search of greasy hand shakes. They are a pimpery of elites whose innocent young athletes bring in the sporting johns in droves. (For the latter, sport is like Marie Antoinette's cake, the latest icing being John Howard's Mark Taylor as Australian of the Year!) They pontificate on the glory of international competition, while acting as a monopolistic cartel for whom competition consists of the highest bribes and the most favours from competitors. Worst of all, are the scuffling, "winning" cities who shell out the most to get the games, a monstrosity of a project for which taxpayers must pay for up to decades in every way possible. And for what? The glorification of youth with mere sporting talent. Instead of being one of many means to a fulfilling life, sport becomes the end itself. What cultural emptiness! Sport has indeed replaced religion as the opiate of the masses, with bodies like the IOC the sleazy pushers. GS Transurban/City Link Can Take A Flying F...! We've got our own route to the airport, and a bonzer route it is. Included are the following attractions: Victoria Park and Tony Shaw's former workplace; Dight's Falls; a church whose gilded figure on high looks ready to topple onto your car as you pass by; a couple of nifty eateries in case you need nourishment during the 45-60 minute voyage; another church, this one orthodox, its golden domes set in a ruins; (BONUS FOR EVENING DRIVERS: a genuinely horrifying haunted house next door!); what has to be the biggest hill in all of Melbourne; an idyllic riverside setting; rolling hills; a cow pasture; and a first/last stop motel for your libidinous needs. What! you can't take that much time? Then pay the trolls their tolls! GS |
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