| Australia's Journal of Political Character Assassination | Melbourne, Australia |
SCUM AT THE TOP | Next Issue: 22 Jul 2000 |
| Editor: Harold Hark | Volume 4 Number 13 |
We're taking a month off. See you, post-GST, on 22 July. Cheers!
Come the early hours of Saturday morning, One July 2000, John Howard, the anal retentive whose chronic impactions wrecked a nation, will becelebrating with his first genuine bowel movement in decades. The grandevent will be made even more exhilarating for this fecal tightwad becausethe bottom of the toilet, made gleamingly clean for the occasion by wifeJanette, will symbolise the mob that has opposed him all these years, thehuman race that inhabits this formerly fair land. Meanwhile, Australian Liberal Party sympathisers, those factory seconds who came off the Good Lloyd's assembly line without souls, will be rejoicingupon their own commodes. They love nothing better than to shit upon the weak sisters who give a damn about the well being of others. 'What an envious lot,' they'll grunt jubilantly as the remains of taxpayer-rorted hautecuisine makes its way to the sewers where all those 'ratbag Labor voterslive'. A great day for entry-level humans, a black day for the rest of us. Howard's Self-Induced Apotheosis is Our Nightmare Disgraced Prime Minister, John Howard, the man who reneged on more promises than any politician in world history, is going to sink without a trace at the next election. The horrifying prospect is not that we will just be rid of him forever, but that he is going to take us all down with him. As we draw nearer to Nightmare Saturday, (one day among many thus far contributing to HH's favourite name for this decade: the Fraught Aughts), the face of things to come is looking ugly. Caught in the grip of Howard's legislative incompetence, helpless Australians are feeling the squeeze: A deli owner in Sydney says if there is much more confusion over the GST he is going to close up shop and go on unemployment. Corner stores are going to close by the hundreds, if not thousands, citing the hair-tearing confusion of GST guidelines. Our local pizza shop, renowned in the neighbourhood for accepting credit cards, has now put a $15 minimum on them, citing added GST costs. As pizza orders rarely top $11, credit card users will be giving up their weekly pizzas. (Let's face it, pizza is a poor substitute for real food at the best of times, but when the cash is low and time is short, this little establishment has been a great help.) Landlords are raising rents everywhere, even though rental properties were originally supposed to be GST-free. They aren't. Renters are being forced to absorb not only the GST-related costs to their landlords, but those being levied against landlords by Real Estate agents. Landlords, the time-honoured scum representing the lowest echelon of the master class, see no reason to lose money when their servant/renters can make it up for them. There will be no sharing of these unjust new taxes. Just another example of the less well off being fornicated (abstractly, to be sure) by John Howard. On the other hand we'll be able to buy luxury motor cars and computers at great savings. In competent hands, this tax might have had smooth sailing. But competency has never been a word in the Howard Government lexicon. Thus, Australians will be at each other's throats as disputes over pricing changes increase. Budgeting will take on new, dispiriting dimensions as we experience severe cutbacks in lifestyle. With the addition of interest rate rises, many will be forgoing simple conveniences and occasional treats. Entertainment will be confined to mind-numbing viewing of the chump channels, owned and operated by Howard's puppeteers. The exceptions of course will be John Howard's battlers, that is, the top 10 per cent of income earners. The GST won't bother them at all. But the clothes we have to wear and the utilities we have to pay, nappies for the babies, emergency repairs by plumbers and electricians, visits to the vet, are going up significantly. And those necessities already overpriced will cost even more: rents, haircuts, white goods, and leaded petrol (used exclusively by the poor). What's that you say? There will be income tax compensations? There was never going to be enough to compensate the extra costs of the things we buy on a daily basis. And for those whose incomes are low or non-existent, the GST will now remove even the fluff from their empty pockets. It is an act of faith bordering on the ludicrous that prices will drop on the thousands of items scheduled for reduction. You'd have a better chance of finding yourself on the tail of Hail Bopp after suicide. And if prices do come down in the short-term (savvy supermarkets may do this to prevent revolt), they will sooner or later rise again and go even higher. You can bet shoplifting will increase exponentially. And crime. Many among the marginalised will snap. Howard's battlers had better start investing in security systems, which may or not be GST free. (According to one well-known Melbourne firm, labour will incur the GST, but two seminars held by the Government produced conflicting reports on the situation with components.) Confusion reigns. Small business owners are in an uproar. They have been conned into becoming unwilling tax collectors and we have been conned into turning over 10 per cent of our pay for NO GOOD REASON. Even if the Labor Party could step in as saviours to the nation--and let's face it, they started this economic rationalist fad--they will not be able to roll back the GST. It will permeate the nation's bloodstream like a virus. Those with weak financial immune systems will perish or strike at those with stronger safeguards. The latter will retreat into incestuous celebrations of prosperity, the limits of their enclaves closed to the outside world. Mercs, Saabs and Beemers will start to be equipped with bulletproof windows. It is a world anticipated and hungered for by likes of Peter Reith and the Old World Order. Mum-and-Dad Corner Stores to Go? The Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia seems to think so. But is John Howard worried? Not at all. It's the Mum-and-Dad shareholders he's interested in. They all vote Liberal. The Corner store operators, unless they are innately right wing or subscribe to fiscal masochism, understand that econorats and big business have hijacked the Liberal Party ever since John Howard gained control. The Council is worried because businesses with a high cash component, such as newsagents, corner stores and retail shops, are caving in under John Howard's nightmare GST. The number of such enterprises on the market has risen by 50 per cent, as people are bringing forward their retirement plans. Rather than suffer the unnecessary hardship being placed upon them by a man who is penalising a nation because he hasn't had a good shit in the life of his parliamentary career, they are simply giving up. The Council voiced concern at this trend because, it says, small business is the driver of employment. But full employment is not a primary concern for big business and employers with large payrolls. (15 employees is Peter Reith's cutoff: less and employees can sue for wrongful dismissal; more and they're stuffed.) On the desk of every cigar-chomping master is a slogan: "It's unemployment, stupid!" The more applicants the more control the stogie has over them. Thus it is fitting that Howard's Coalition should introduce a tax reform inimical to those who most contribute to employment. Neutralise them and Peter Reith's feudal industrial relations policy makes a lot more sense. (Based on an article by Sherrill Nixon, The Age 14/6/00.) Peter Reith:Ugly Face of an Ugly Party As we begin the new century (or whatever the interim year 2000 represents), Australian politics has produced a truly reprehensible character in Peter Reith. The only difference between Reith and the infamous Joseph McCarthy is that where the latter saw commies undermining the fabric of America, Reith sees socialists undermining the fabric of Australia. In other words, no difference at all. Hot on the heels of his High Court victory to keep the removal of worker's rights in place (tipped his way no doubt by Howard's hanging judge), Reith came out swinging the other day in defence of trickle-down greed. Let the masters get on with their wealth creation and somehow the fluff that falls out of their change pockets can be cashed in for dry biscuits and ersatz tea by the servants way down below. Make life easier for the top end and the bottom end can't help but feel proud. "We should not be apologists for wealth creation. National prosperity must precede wealth distribution," he said. To paraphrase JFK, he might have been saying to the hoi polloi, "Ask not what the Fatherland can do for you, etc." According to Dennis Shanahan (The Australian 17-18 June 2000), business leaders were complaining after bad cops Peter Costello and John Howard criticised high executive salaries. Peter Reith then stepped in as the good cop to assuage the ruffled execs. "Without wealth creation [directly benefiting your pockets] there can not be a fairer distribution of wealth and social services [to the scum who toil to make it possible]." And to dissent from this Mammon-priority goal is to be guilty of "political correctness,' a phrase taken to Orwellian heights by the Howard Government. " Our public debate, especially on industrial matters, is too often centred on what unions and left-of-centre academics want by way of distribution of wealth, and not the creation of wealth." In other words, criticism of greed is politically correct, but hatred of unions and the well being of millions of workers is telling it like it is. This is totalitarian-speak and Reith is its champion. That he is an unbalanced individual is clear every time he opens his mouth. Political sanity would have room for a more equitable creation of wealth to be shared across the spectrum. But that is not in the interests of a man and a government working entirely for the benefit of the few and the enslavement of the many. Rogue State Snubs UN Conference It must be hard for reporters to keep a sock in it these days. Apart from Alan Woods, Paddy McGuinness and other feral misanthropists, the rest just keep on writing about the traitorous activities of the Howard Government without so much as an "off with their heads" or the odd phrase of disgust. You know, unbiased reporting and all. But, gee, it must be hard. Turn an honest man into an alcoholic. An example of award-winning fortitude is Paul Daley's article in The Age, 20/6/00 on Canberra's snub of the UN World Summit on Social Development, to be held in Geneva in late June. Daley is to be commended for keeping his journalistic head over this latest international embarrassment--nay it's more than that, it's outright treachery--from the Coalition. Some 140 countries are sending ministers and heads of state to the conference, which will focus on the impact of globalisation on social development and the social consequences of financial crises, particularly in Africa. Australia is sending a faceless diplomat. But then, you wouldn't expect the Howard Government to give a rat's arse about "social development" would you? From the moment it took office, this government has done its best to unravel the social fabric in its own country, so why on earth would it care about backward nations incapable of wealth creation? "Fuck 'em," says Honest John. Oz joins the following countries in turning its back on full participation: Bahrain, Uzbekistan, Honduras, Bosnia, Cameroon, Uganda, Bolivia, Turkmenistan, and Qatar. Our increasingly potato-faced Foreign Minister, Little Lord Downer, has this to say: "Given other ministerial commitments, we believe Australia is represented at the appropriate level at this summit." The UN disagrees. Given that the Foreign Office is doing nothing about anything, you have to wonder what these "commitments" are. But the real reason must surely emanate from the government's review of participation in the UN Treaty committee system after the debacle over mandatory sentencing earlier this year. Smarting from criticism from a UN committee, Downer announced in March that he was "appalled at the blatantly political and partisan approach taken by the UN's Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination when it examined Australia's periodic reports in Geneva." Isn't it a hoot the way government ministers always spell out in detail the evil they have committed? Double Dissolution Rides Again? Peter Reith, the puppet of Big Business (see Bill Leak's cartoon in The Australian, 3-4/6/00) is reintroducing his bill to exempt small business (under 15 employees) from unfair dismissal laws. The bill would also double the fees for dismissal claims and increase the probation period for new employees from three to six months before they can make a claim. The Democrats shot it down 18 months ago and promise to shoot it down again. It must be assumed that the reason for the bill's reintroduction is to trigger a double dissolution. A subsequent election, the government must think, would then be fought on industrial relations. We certainly won't be telling Peter Reith that the figures some poor fool in his office has presented him showing that there are more employers than employees is incorrect, and that even if there were more employees, they would surely vote for him because they just love the idea that less rights is good for them. And then there are the other, inconsequential, issues some ninny will no doubt bring up in the election. The GST, Reconciliation, the Republic and its Preamble, cruelty to refugees, creeping racism, paralysed foreign affairs, censorship, the demise of the ABC, the demise of Radio Australia in favour of fundamentalist Christianity, apartheid-inspired mandatory sentencing . . . Whew! And these are only the items HH can think of this early in the morning. Go to it, P2! Herr Ruddock 1: Texas-Style Warden "I'm very saddened by the way in which the Commonwealth Government has, it would appear, deliberately set out to demonise boatpeople," Sir Ronald Wilson, former High Court judge, said. Indeed, the Coalition is doing its best to turn Australians into a heartless mob of xenophobes. Philip Ruddock, Minister of Non-White Immigrant Expulsions, has responded to recent breakouts in detention centres by setting up an investigation--not into why they happened--but into why security was so lax. The centres are run by the Wackenbush Private Prison Consortium of the USA, a group under investigation there for improper procedures and cost cutting to the detriment of inmates. The very idea of prisons being run by private interests sends a shiver down the spine of civilised people, but the government wouldn't know about that. They only care about efficiency (that totalitarian ideal) and it's coefficient, cruelty. "These people have no alternative. It's not easy to access the legal channels overseas for seeking admission into Australia as a refugee. Often these places are not reachable by desperate persons seeking to flee persecution," Sir Ronald said. It seems the Coalition has frozen offshore intake while lumping the onshore arrivees in the same group. "Freezing the queues [overseas] is driving them in desperation to the boats." In 1998, Australia took in 61,800 refugees, while the Netherlands, a country the size of Victoria, took in 131,000. Australia can afford to take in that many and more. But we are being led by a cruel, stingy and heartless mob that wants us to turn our back on our fellowman. Like many of us, the government is incapable of putting itself in others shoes. But it is making a virtue of this limitation. Decent leadership should be a role model in compassion. It should be asking us to put ourselves in the shoes of an Afghani or an Iraqi, to try to understand the conditions in which they have lived, and then to ask us what we would do in their situations. Furthermore, we should be asked to imagine ourselves on those boats and the hardships these people have undergone. But no, we are instead being asked to look upon them as non-white, interfering commodities ever ready to cost us that which we are supposed to hold dearest: money. Were they white Zimbabweans we would be told to open our hearts and our wallets. In short, we are being asked to close our hearts and become racists! Bring on the double dissolution! Herr Ruddock 2: The Leni Riefenstahl of Oz? "Did you ever, ever, ever This inappropriately mindless little ditty popped uninvited from HH's gibbering gob--no doubt to prevent death by apoplexy--upon reading of Philip Ruddock's absurd anti-illegal immigration videos. Depicting horrifying shots of circling sharks, hissing snakes and snapping crocodiles, the video uses voice-overs of alleged immigrants saying, "Many people drown. I do not know if my family made it." Are these the same actors that have appeared in so many sterling Coalition productions touting the benefits of the GST, private health insurance, and other dumbcluck policies? These videos are to be sent to Middle East countries where many of the recent boat people have come from. But, as NSW Ethnic Communities Council chairman Paul Nicolaou says, "If I'm at risk of being killed by a tank or a machine gun or being taken prisoner and being held in jail and not fed, I'd prefer to come to a country that has sharks and crocodiles." Furthermore, as Marion Le, President of the Independent Council for Refugee Advocacy says, "Usually the people who take these risks are the very people who have no access to information." Does Philip Ruddock care? Nope. For him, this video is a personal expression of his latent cruelty. Ruddock, who is developing an uncommon likeness to Joseph Goebbels (except that he's quieter, has no personality, and is twice as loathsome), would have flourished under Hitler. Like Goebbels, Ruddock was once a decent bloke. Both fell under the influence of men who had lost contact with their species, Goebbels with Hitler, Ruddock with John Howard. Like Goebbels, Ruddock has found that generating hatred for non-white Zimbabweans feels really good. For Ruddock, illegal immigrants are the New Jews. Who knows, with this successful example of coded racism, John Howard may promote him to Minister for Propaganda and Public Enlightenment, just like Joseph G. decades earlier. Trouble is, Philip is such a quiet little mouse of loathsomeness. He'd be better off giving quietly measured expressions of contained hatred to journalists, when not producing clever little videos that will never be shown in the countries they were destined, but were really meant for distribution in Australia. Well, not on Kerry and Rupert's networks, but wherever vermicular people congregate, say at sausage sizzles put on by the National Party, One Nation, the Shooters Party, and, of course at Federal Cabinet meetings and Lyons Forum circle jerks (but only after prayer). Philip Ruddock may just be John Howard's Leni Riefenstahl. Bystander Syndrome Paralyses Howard Like people who stand by, paralysed, while someone is being raped or murdered, the Howard Government is unable to make a move on the situations in Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and PNG to come. Asked seven months ago by Solomon's Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulufa'alu to help as a neutral force to prevent the tragic events now unfolding, the Howard Government turned a blind eye. Now the unfortunate PM has been forced to resign at the point of a gun. Evidently East Timor was all our own Prime Miniature could handle. And he went into that kicking and screaming. But Indonesia is a power to be reckoned with and, with Uncle Sam standing over him as protector, Howard had to act. It must have been hard on the little ostrich. He didn't want to become Prime Minister of a nation with foreign policy, he just wanted to deal quietly with the affairs of his well off battlers. The South Pacific is nowhere near as powerful as Indonesia. Uncle Sam hasn't much time for it so why should the Coalition? Stability in the region? What stability in what region? (See Nicholson's Ulysses, The Australian 3-4/6/00.) This is an insular government. John Howard has more in common with Kim Jong-Il than with any other leader in the world. HH had the pleasure of spending a few months in the Syrian oasis city of Hama some decades ago. He was studying Islam at the time and was taken in by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, then headquartered there. They were a peaceful lot, dedicated, within the borders of their medieval country, to the propagation of the Sunni precepts of the Koran. For them it worked well, and indeed in that lovely desert atmosphere, the very roots of Islam, no other worldview made any sense. HH gradually came to realise that beyond the peacefulness of life in and around the central mosque, the Brotherhood had a militant wing, a band of assassins who were trying to bring down the government of Hafez al-Assad. Aside from their desire to institute fundamentalist Muslim rule, HH had to agree with them about Assad. The Brotherhood hated his constant shifting of the legislative goal posts, so that no one knew what was permitted or not permitted; for the passive majority it was better to look straight ahead and do nothing. Political discourse was consequently confined to hushed whispers in quiet places among old friends or trusted family members. Above all they hated his hypocritical attitude to religion. Assad permitted a neutered Zikr, the tradition of inducing mystical union with Allah, but only in mosques (and never privately) under the supervision of state approved imams so that it could never completely achieve its aim. Above all they hated his contemptuous manner of attending prayer. He would remove his shoes, but his bodyguards stood around him with boots on and heavy arms at the ready. Assad was an affront to Mohammad, Peace Be upon Him, and they hated him for it. A decade later, the Brotherhood launched an uprising against his rule. Assad sent in his security force, the dreaded Saraya al Difa, blockaded Hama and for a full month shelled the Muslim quarter to extinction. To this day no one knows how many were killed. Estimates have ranged wildly from between 3,000 and 25,000. One thing is certain: among them all of HH's friends. Hafez al-Assad, Roast in Hell. WHERE'S ME TABLETS! George Pell, the archbishop with a Mission to bring the Catholic Church in line with the middle ages, had himself a fine Inquisitorial weekend. In a trice, he reinstated a Priest, convicted some 27 years ago of suffering roving hand trouble with a young female parishioner, and refused communion to gay and lesbians. That's it, Georgie boy, keep those pews empty. How foolish of the Fijian military to attempt the assassination of George Speight. Don't they know that evil is immune to such simple remedies? Look at Margaret Thatcher. Half the hotel in Brighton was blown away, yet she walked into the settling dust without harm. Of course her red, glowing eyes were etched out of all subsequent photos and film footage. Many thanks to Terry Laidler for his passionate commitment and intellectual prowess on Melbourne ABC's 3LO. He will be sorely missed, but the remaining pre-Shiers gods have scored a coup with his replacement, Virginia Trioli. No one else could have stepped in without causing a riot. SURE BARRY, SURE: "Liberal backbencher Barry Haase--who represents Kalgoorlie, with 12,000 caravan renters--says other issues, such as good governance, rate more highly among his constituents than the GST. (Based on an article by Dennis Shanahan, The Australian 20/6/00.) Terry Lane once said he gave up headlining his pieces because staff always changed them. But the following headline had to have been written by Alan Woods himself: "Envy perverts search for equity." The Australian's answer to Paddy McGuinness then quotes a certain Douglas Myers, Chairman of Lion Nathan, to begin his diatribe on the demographic he and Peter Reith so hate. "Envy used to be regarded as one of the seven deadly sins, but too often it masquerades as social justice today." Enter the Black Adder with his dismissive response to preening stupidity, "Oh, Gyod." (Based on his article in The Oz 20/6/00.) Speaking of envy, that deadly sin thrives nowhere better than in the Australian Liberal Party. There is always someone a notch up for a Liberal to be envious of. After all, their political philosophy is based on it. But that's limited, one-issue (wealth creation) folk, for you. Robert Doyle, the Liberal who used to envy Jeff Kennett's suits for their proximity to the Great Helmsman, is about to charge Dennis Napthine, Jeff's bootlicking numero uno, for opposition leader. Well, apart from the fact that Doyle is in his 40's and talks with the voice of an oily but earnest adolescent, he can't help but be more interesting than Nappy. Speaking of talking, that's one of Doyle's problems. He never shuts up. |
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