| Australia's Journal of Political Character Assassination | Melbourne, Australia |
SCUM AT THE TOP | 13 August 1999 |
| Editor: Harold Hark | Volume 2 Number 1 |
FIRST ONLINE ISSUE
Just Your Average Judgement Day Perusing The Age over breakfast one morn, my eye fell on an advertisement: "Signs of Christ's Return," it said, inviting the fallen eye to a free Bible lecture on such and such a date. My lips curled in a snarl of instant disdain at the image of entry-level humans assembling to worship a fantasy whose accepted non-Semitic mug shot no more resembles the original Jesus than John Howard resembles Yitshak Rabin. I snorted in derision at the childish mentality such groups represent. But then, as I wolfed down a further gobfull of muesli and yogurt, a sight that disgusts my daughter no end, I had a petit epiphany. Peter Reith must regard the working class with the same disdain, his own lip curling over a breakfast of fried hatred in black heart sauce. Was I any different? Revulsion is revulsion, regardless of the object. Just as I dismiss fundamentalist Christians as alien scum barely able to walk upright, Peter Reith, and indeed most Liberals, dismiss all Labor supporters--the left--as alien scum barely able to walk upright. In my elitist, condemnatory views, I suddenly found myself aligned with the right wing I so detest. "Hold on!" I said aloud to the muesli, as daughter rolled her eyes while munching the first of five, maybe six, tiny pillows of Crispix. I thought: These right wingers who hate the left, which is the political wing of all that Jesus stood for, typically claim to represent Christian values! Heady stuff, I mused, wolfing down a morsel of arcane, heavily-seeded toast. "There are two lessons to be learned here," I said, without looking up. "You talking to me or that mess in your bowl?" my daughter asked. "Er ... " I finished off the breakfast glop. "Judging individuals, and especially groups of people based on their or your belief systems is a nasty, back-biting way to go through life," I told her, sounding like the father of the Brady Bunch, a voice that inevitably takes over when more than the odd grunt is required so early in the morning. "Nevertheless, while some Christians may be genuine, there is not a right-winger in the world I would want you to marry." "Guess what?" said she, chirpily coming up with one of those eight year old non-sequiturs that means being a kid sure beats the weird world of adults. "Learning to skip the double peekaboo is really hard." I cleared the table while she did her ablutions. Dumping the remnants of her breakfast, a dozen soggy morsels of yellow latticed corn in a bed of Rev, I mused, what if she grows up, as all children must do, to believe the opposite of her parents? What if she dresses in frumpy frocks, talks of the second coming and votes Liberal? Jesus Christ! I wailed sotto voce, coincidentally burning my hands under the asinine hot water tap that changes from cold to boiling without so much as a hint of transition. HH Tim Fischer, The Best Of A Bad Lot? The many tributes that poured in after he announced his retirement proved Tim Fischer to be the human face of the Coalition. Where his colleagues seem to be little more than pupae, with little on their minds but the zomboid accumulation of wealth and power, Tim has actually shown passion for his work. He often appeared larger than life (in opposition to his boss, who inevitably appears in cartoons as a big lower lip on a thumb-sized body). When he suffered his horrendous automobile accident, we wished him a speedy recovery. We shared his joy when he married at such a late age. We were saddened when one of his two fine sons was diagnosed with autism, but we felt good at seeing him playing daddy. His life has not been unlike the lives of many. Nevertheless, public figures are judged harshly for their errors and foibles and Tim Fischer is the man who made many Australians wince whenever he spoke or went abroad. Almost every minister in John Howard's government is an embarrassment, but Tim has consistently crossed the line first, usually a whisker in front of Alexander Downer. It must have been hard for the press to treat him seriously all these years. Or to wonder what Australia has done to deserve him. The jokes between reporters might easily fill a slim volume. Tim's naive rush to complete his tasks often gave the impression of superficial comprehension. Our favourite was his whirlwind week in Tibet, under constant supervision by the Chinese. They let him see what they wanted him to see and he dutifully reported that everything was just fine. Come on, Tim! But what did the world's trade ministers think of him, with his bloody Akubra hat and idiosyncratic speech? John Howard, himself is a laughing stock among foreign politicians, had no choice in appointing Fischer, the only member of the National Party sporting three dimensions. A disappointing final word on Tim: As a politician he would have to be an opportunist, but his recent admission that he barely liked silverchair, after making such a big deal of being a fan a few years ago, can now be seen as a ploy for votes. The bad lot he was the best of are indeed rotten to the core. Be that as it may, the hayseed had charm and we'll miss him. It's just too bad he couldn't have been the colourful opposition Trade Minister. HH WHERE'S ME TABLETS! "Kennett Has Improved Our State Schools, Principals Say" (Front page headline, The Age, 19/7/99). This is not the first instance of a misleading headline in our august Melbourne newspaper. The first paragraph states that only half the principals believe the headline. The second paragraph lists increased staff workloads, poor maintenance, inadequate computer training for teachers, staff teaching subjects for which they are not qualified, and lack of resources. Paragraph three says sixty percent of principals believe teachers have received insufficient training to use computers effectively. Paragraph four says 52 percent of secondary college principals believe staff are teaching in areas where they are not qualified. Paragraph five says one in three primary schools are being forced to use staff not fully qualified. Paragraph six says "But 43.8 per cent of principals believe the standard of education had improved and 7.3 per cent believe it had greatly improved since Kennett's sweeping changes to state education." That adds up to 51.1 per cent, hardly enough to warrant the headline. Worse, the article goes on to make an emphatic case against improvement. Who is writing these Orwellian headlines, Steve Harris? Whoever it is knows that many readers scan headlines without reading the articles and are thus being mislead. Gary Hughes and Carolyn Jones, who wrote the article, should be outraged. GS Victorian Supreme Court judge, Justice Frank Vincent, has spoken out against John Howard's fawning acceptance of US-style "zero tolerance" as "simplistic and primitive." Supporting heroin trials, he said, "there are long-term drug users to whom I would provide heroin if it were legal." He said it was time to ditch the rhetoric of user-pays and mutual obligation, which merely allows the community to avoid responsibility for dealing with disadvantage and justice. GS Proof of SCATT's view that the right wing is the scourge of human evolution, comes from--where else?--Queensland. A group calling themselves the Loyal Constitutional Army has asked the Australian Federal Police to investigate Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Turnbull for possible acts of treason. Their reason for this accusation? "Publicly advocating an Australian republic on almost a daily basis." The group's secretary, Norm Segal, claimed the men were advocating "anarchy by sabotage of the government" by supporting a republic. Like John Howard, Segal wishes to be remain a loyal subject of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The AFP is assessing the complaint. GS Yes, we may be irresponsible loonies after all, but the Political Prisoners of the Future cheered at the $743m loss suffered by GIO. And we took particular pleasure in the dividend cutoff to shareholders. Indeed, we regard all shareholders as the nadir of human potential, and consequently about as useful to that potential as an furuncle nestled among the perennially smeared hairs surrounding that part protected by the ugliest buttocks of the ugliest tory who ever lived. They have become an unworthy elite, holding the citizenry to ransom through their unconscionable venality. When globalisation is finally tamed and sanity is restored to the world, all shareholders, like the Nazi collaborators of WWII, should be paraded, shorn of their hair, on the streets where they live. Whew! But seriously, folks, if you were Saint Peter with a dicey cutoff line, which group of losers at the lower percentile end would you allow through the pearly gates? Shareholders or Pokie addicts? At least the latter have hope of rehabilitation. GS |
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