| A Squiz at Australia's | Melbourne, Australia |
SCUM AT THE TOP | 7 May 1999 |
| Editor: Harold Hark | Volume 1 Number 12 |
Pamela Bone's columns in The Age have enriched the intellectual landscape for years, but we particularly loved 22/4/99, on Victoria's number one psychopathic bully, Jeff Kennett. Here, in part, is what she said: "Last month Kennett, addressing a conference of the Victorian Council of Social Service, outlined his Government's achievements and its long-term goals, which he said included a commitment to social issues. A member of the audience, Mary Crooks, the director of the Victoria Women's Trust, then stood up and asked if she might draw the Premier's attention to the results of a survey of community attitudes contained in a project with which she has been closely involved, known as the Purple Sage Project. People were most concerned about unemployment, job insecurity, a lack of commitment to public education, the curtailing of social services and a corrosion of the democratic culture. Did the Government's vision include addressing these issues, she asked, to loud applause? "What followed was, according to the Herald Sun 'a bitter fight'. The problem was the attitude of people like Mary Crooks, the Premier said. 'You are so negative. Your whole philosophy is based on negativity.' Whereupon another woman stood up, calling 'Enough'. She said: 'This woman (Crooks) is a community leader and you have just abused her in front of her peers. Stop it and answer the question.' "Whereupon Kennett walked out." The unnamed woman is no less than a hero for standing up to this sick tyrant. Unfortunately for Victoria, she is one of the few citizens to have ever done so. (Ed note: The woman is a Tafe teacher whose name is Christine Carolan. Responding to heartfelt appreciation in letters to newspapers, she published an article in the 3 May edition of The Age, "Why I stood up to Jeff Kennett." Bravo, Ms Carolan.) HH Alas, A Hero Is Gunned Down In Belgrade Slavko Curuvija, the editor of Belgrade's leading newspaper, Dnevni Telegraf, was shot to death on the streets of the city Slobodan Milosevic has turned into a war zone. Curuvija was murdered for his open letter, in clear defiance of the dictator, published in October last year. The Weekend Australian reprinted the letter in the April 24-25 edition. The following extracts have been chosen because they could easily have referred to Jeff Kennett: "Everything that Serbs created in this century has been thoughtlessly wasted. The merit and worth of Serbian institutions have been destroyed in a systematic manner. You have degraded the church, legislature, media, parliament and the government. You have impoverished the middle class while nurturing the emergence of a new economic and political elite. You have left a small circle of about 100 families, who benefit from your support and protection, in charge of the State finances. Officials of the State you lead demonstrate feudal extravagance and arrogance in the midst of huge misery and poverty. Large companies are run by your cronies. You have created a situation in which every official depends on your good grace and is thus forced to conspire forever against others. The result of these intrigues is that the least able and most unscrupulous individuals are promoted. Your citizens have exhausted their spirits and have no strength to make even verbal protests." Viewers of the 27 May Foreign Correspondent special, "Sloba and Mira," in which insiders claim it is Mira Markovic who runs the show, will have been treated to comments by a Curuvija still very much alive. His courage and unswerving devotion to justice will be cherished forever by all who believe a free press is a foundation of democracy. HH WHERE'S ME TABLETS! In perhaps the greatest historical example of what psychology calls projection--the defence mechanism which involves attributing to others the undesirable characteristics or impulses which belong to, but are not acceptable to, the individual --Joseph Stalin gave a speech to the 19th Party Congress in the late 1940's in which he denounced the nature of Western liberties, in particular, those of the United States. The following extract is taken from the final part of the recent SBS series, Russia's War--Blood Upon the Snow. "Those liberties have disappeared without a trace. So-called personal freedom is no more. Human rights are granted only to those with capital. All other citizens are seen as raw material existing only to be exploited. The principle of equality has been trampled under. In their place is the omnipotence of the exploiter minority and the total lack of rights for the exploited majority." It would appear that Stalin had no idea he was describing his own dictatorship. Since 1992 we have heard Jeff Kennett projecting onto his critics the same sort of unconscious self-evaluations. One of our favourites occurred a few years ago. In reply to Steve Bracks' accusation that the Kennett Government was manufacturing a climate of fear to boost the state's international rating, Jeff lashed out by saying that the previous Labor government was "the greatest pack of crooks in terms of public administration this state has seen since Federation." What a whopper! And of course journalists who questioned his policies were invariably libelled as "un-Victorian". Someone with resources needs to compile the long list of these revealing diatribes. And while they are at it, the Federal Coalition's contributions might make it a book. GS In the true spirit of the philistine "values" he represents, Jeff Kennett has aptly named the CityLink bridge over the Yarra River after Henry Bolte. The hanging premier, whose regard for Victorians was only marginally less contemptuous than the worshipful Kennett's, may be turning in his grave from this tribute. Then again, Bolte and the bridge could be said to look alike. Rachel Buchanan, in her masterful March article in The Age on the poetry and art of the world's bridges, described the new bridge pretty accurately as "a thick-set pretender with chubby concrete legs. It can hardly be bothered to lift its concrete belly off the ground. The bridge is so low at Footscray Road that part of it has been covered with rubber padding to protect the heads of tall cyclists who forget to duck." From the city, what we get to see "is a dark road slumped across the water. In its middle are two light grey stumps that are thin enough to be called pillars [Bolte Towers is the name currently going the rounds]; these pillars rise up on either side of the road like football posts. At night these puny obelisks are marked out by two flashing red lights … which evoke the blip-blip atmosphere of an international runway. CityLink's Yarra Bridge says nothing about intrigue, beauty, workmanship, industry or hope. No, our bridge is all about time" saved. "But is this 'saving' really worth the $52 billion that CityLink will cost?" GS Despite evidence of company failures to insure safety standards, including the claims of a former senior executive that Esso "fudged the figures at every opportunity," Esso has told the people and governments of Victoria and Australia to get stuffed by blaming a single worker, James Ward, for the disaster at Longford last year. The evil offspring of Exxon Corporation, which has spent millions over the years to exhaust claimants and avoid culpability over the Exxon-Valdez oil spill, Esso will do everything in its power to show that it cares nothing for the hundreds of thousands of recipients of its services. This is the attitude of each and every multinational corporation in the world. This is the globalisation that strikes fear in all of us, and is the opposite of the democratic globalisation represented by the Internet, which, of course, the Howard Government, mere satraps for corporations like Exxon, is frantically trying to stifle. Make no mistake, the MAI will be on the table again very soon, even though the Multinationals probably do not need it. We are their pawns, they can do with us as they please and no government will stand up to them. Except for Jeff Kennett, who might win his next election because of the words he will use to express outrage. Do not wait for his actions, though, because there will be none. What there will be, are more gas outages. You can bet on it. GS Women! For The World's Sake, Rise Up! Congratulations to Joan Kirner and Moira Rayner on their new book, The Women's Power Handbook. We've bought copies for our wives for Mother's Day, knowing they will be passed on to our daughters when the time comes. It is one of life's baffling aggravations that women, over fifty percent of the population, continue to vote for the very men that make their lives hell. GS |
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