| Australia's Journal of Political Character Assassination | Melbourne, Australia |
SCUM AT THE TOP | Next Issue: 4 Mar 2000 |
| Editor: Harold Hark | Volume 4 Number 4 |
If you still support John Howard,
Les Miserables (and I don't mean Andrew Lloyd Webber's Version) Northern Territories Attorney General, Denis Burke, sees nothing wrong with the mandatory Sentencing Amendment. Au contraire, the good fascist wants even tougher sentences. Perhaps ten years for the first offence, twenty for the second, and life for the third? Or just hang the bastards and be done with it! NT Chief Minister, Shane Stone, ranted in Parliament, "I'm sick of the mealy-mouthed excuses made constantly for the people who perpetrate these offences on otherwise decent territory folk." Let's face it, if you're a good ol' white boy who hates boongs, wogs and anything else that moves on two legs, the above words would be fair dinkum. Further, you would have to concede that the life of a 15-year-old Abo is not worth a stream of piss issuing from the pizzle of either of these Northern Territory icons. On the other hand, if you were a member of the human race who realised that we are all in it together, victims and perpetrators of crime alike, you would try to get to the bottom of the strife that has resulted in the third world treatment of Aborigines (70 per cent of the NT population) all over this country. What kind of a place is Australia, that World Vision and Médecins Sans Frontières have already or want now to set up care centres for Aboriginals? The US and Canada have at least made an attempt to look after their native populations. But not Australia. Decades of governmental neglect have reached their nadir with the Howard Regime. Denis Burke, Shane Stone, Pauline Hanson and that aging Hitler Youth, Richard Court all speak for John Howard and his band of nasty little men. The hopelessness of a people separated from their land (or anyone separated from a reason to be) is the root cause of all these troubles. Nothing will improve without a massive will on the part of governments, state and federal, to reinvigorate Aboriginal culture. It will take decades to even notice a change, but the health of a people and this country are at stake. It could begin with a simple phrase, "I'm sorry," but, God help us, but we're not holding our collective breath. A chilling footnote: The 15-year-old Aboriginal boy who committed suicide, Johnno Warramarrba, lived in a place called Groote Eylandt. Is the NT the new state of Afrikaner-style Apartheid? If so, Australia is the loser. Instead of a Nelson Mandela, we have John Howard. Unless, of course, Murrandoo Yanner steps forward. Perhaps he should go now to sit at the feet of Mandela and Bishop Tutu before they are both gone. Departing Sydney airport in a minibus instead of a limousine (front-page photo, The Oz 15 Feb 00), the Olympics God looked as if he was being transported to a concentration camp. Simply how could Michael Knight have treated him so shabbily? To make "we the chumps" think he is one of us? Pull the other one, Miguelito. The former Ayudante de Generalissimo Franco is the heir to a philosophy of life inspired by the athletic deeds of the military and private school system. He ain't one of us! It must be fatiguing to act like you care about the lesser 95 per cent of the human race. Who ever advised him to suffer this indignity should be sacked because it didn't work. Give him back his limo. Why In-Your-Face Christians need a lifetime supply of Get-It Pills The other day, HH took himself to the local suburban mall for a viewing of the celebrated film, "American Beauty." A dozen or more elderly ladies joined him, their husbands evidently dead or simply unable to cope with plots thicker than the fielding intricacies of Cricket. At any rate, they all had a good time, frequently out-guffawing HH during the hilarious naughty bits. This was no small feat, as HH has one of the loudest guffaws in town. Had the ladies read Rowan Forster's damning critique of the film in The Age (4 Feb 00), they might have wondered if he was new to the planet. But then, maybe their Christianity has a wisdom sadly lacking in his version. Forster, whose Christian-focused columns often appear in The Age, simply didn't get it. HH hates to bag the earnest remnants of a once powerful religion, but it seems that most of them don't get it. And by it, he means anything. Everything. Active Christians today are the spokespersons for a Christianity that has become little more than a drop-in centre for the unformed, the ignorant, the bigoted, the intolerant; people like Conrad Vig in "Three Kings." God knows (no pun intended), it may have always been thus. But back to Forster and "American Beauty." Did he actually see it? He says, "the most highly acclaimed film of the year so far is one that sends the unambiguous message that obsessive lust is liberating and redemptive." Perhaps he reads his reviews in Christian newsletters like "Pit Bulls on the Bite for Christ." If so, they would have been based on hearsay from someone who knew someone who was going to see the movie but stayed home instead to put up jam and watch Oprah with the lights off and the phone off the hook. Earth to Rowan Forster: "American Beauty" depicts rather than promotes the vacuous lives that millions (if not by now billions) of people endure. Centuries of a fundamentally dishonest Christianity (and more recently the sentimental slop of Frank Capra and the misogynist dead-mother epics of Walt Disney) have brought these people to a dead end. Forster lists Ten Messages the film purportedly promotes. The number "ten" (as in Commandments, or in this case, anti-commandments) seems to have Christians mesmerised. No conversation with them lasts ten minutes without a list of righteousness that is never less nor more than ten. In the case of this film, Satan rather than Frank Capra, who Forster must think is the best interpreter of God since Jesus, would have issued them. Indeed, he would have us believe that Capra made films during "The Golden Era" of Hollywood. HH believes that was no golden era at all, but merely superior sentimental filmmaking, as opposed to later attempts. Indeed, the golden era of the cinema may be dawning now, if the recent spate of quality films is any barometer. Convention has long decreed that when a man past 35 years of age gets the hots for younger women, he is suffering a mid-life crisis. One day this contrived concept will be proved to be hokum. The main cause for "mid-life crises" is the unsuitable and restraining institution of marriage, one of Christianity's greatest curses. It is meant to keep our noses to the grindstone, that is, down to the narrow view of consumerism, not up, where everything else is. Marriage keeps us paying tithes and taxes. (It may also prevent anarchy, but were we ever given the choice?) The gorgeous vitality of young women is one of "God's" greatest gifts, and to arbitrarily require mature men to look the other way is obscenely unnatural. If Forster did see the film, he must have been too busy with his preconceived notions to notice that Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), at the longed for moment of union with 17 year old sex kitten Angela (Mena Suviro), loses all desire for her when she tells him she is a virgin. No longer the siren she has pretended to be all along, Angela suddenly reverts to being a fragile 17 year old girl, and above all, his daughter's best friend. She had been the willing partner in their sexual flirtation, a girl whose worldliness had everyone fooled, including herself. A few minutes later, at the breakfast table, when Angela tells him that his daughter is probably in love with the boy next door, we see a man who has come full circle with his lust. His smile is one of the great moments in the film. It is the smile of a man who has just understood that life (so much of which is spent in a holding pattern of mechanical, remote consciousness) is locked into a continual passage between degrees of sorrow and happiness that are almost beyond our control. Life's beauty is bittersweet. Forster's other anti-commandments show a breathtakingly superficial understanding of the film and of real life. Adultery is just as natural as monogamy. Monogamy is good for business (consumerism) and companionship. Sexually it cannot help but become boring, a boredom which creates adultery. The strange boy next door has been made that way by a psychotic military father, a man who is probably a good Christian. The fact that the boy videos everyone, including the dead, has less to do with voyeurism than with an awe of and respect for The Other. And with a father like his, he is to be commended for taking his life into his own hands, selling--not just drugs--but good quality marijuana, a drug that would today be justifiably legal the world over if not for the cowardice of politicians and the narrow minds of the pseudo-religious. Forster has been living in Lalaland if he doesn't know that with the sexualisation of advertising, every teenage girl is hyper conscious of her body. Good grief, Rowan! And what family on this planet is not to some degree dysfunctional. Frank Capra made make-believe films. They were not real in any way, in case it has never ever dawned on you. As to the stability of homosexual couples, well, they couldn't be any worse off than their heterosexual counterparts. Come to think of it, HH knows a lesbian couple who have been together for nearly two decades. Paragons of domestic bliss, they are. Of course, they're not married. Forster concludes emotionally on the dicey subject of "afterlife." The film, he says, promotes the idea that "regardless of what kind of life you lead, a pleasant, peaceful and undemanding afterlife awaits you. And best of all, there's no reckoning or accountability hereafter for what we've done with our lives on Earth." As a Christian, he cannot conceive of "the other side,' unless it is retributive or includes the sanitised Hollywood version, with harps, pillows and etched out genitals. Yet he forcefully condemns the film's idea that once your life is over, your "spirit" can look back on it compassionately and, above all, dispassionately. There are other religions with ideas on the subject, Rowan. Buddhism, for example. To Buddhists, you get your "karmuppance" in the next life. (Rowan may not know that reincarnation was perfectly acceptable to Christians for centuries.) You blow this life; the next will be harder in one way or another, and vice versa. Between lives you deal with a Tribunal ot discuss the circumstances you will need in the next life to learn those lessons you so miserably failed in the last one. Sounds wacky, does it, Rowan? So you know what's going to happen? What a bankruptcy of imagination to forcefully promote the idea that we all drop into oblivion having lived but this one life. Forster the Christian seems to have completely overlooked the very definite spiritual quality pervading the whole movie: Thomas Newman's music never lets you forget it; the boy's monologue as he and Burnham's daughter watch the video of the humble cellophane bag dancing in the wind; and finally, Burnham's release at the end. The mainstream to which Forster belongs, and whose values he idolises (the same values shared by the Burnham family), have never contributed one positive move toward the evolution of the human race. The makers of "American Beauty" are not part of that mainstream, but they have depicted it with stunning veracity. See also "A nightmare Hollywood calls the American Dream," by Stephen Feneley (The Age, 8 Feb 00), and Guido Mezzabotta's review in Cine Philes At the Vipertown Strutters Ball Guess who came to Jeff Kennett's farewell dinner at the Grand Hyatt hotel? And what a good deal it was too; only $200 a head. Jeez, the caviar must have been canned. Read the list and feel relieved that they no longer have a private line to Spring Street (or do they?): John Howard, Lloyd Williams, Richard Pratt, Ron Walker, Bruce Ruxton, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, Nick Greiner, Lindsay Fox, Bruno Grollo, Eddie McGuire, Graeme John, Hugh Morgan, Dennis Napthine, and of course Geelong Football Club's Number One Female ticket holder (or is she?), our friend Flicka. Never at a loss for a comment from that Ivory Tower she still inhabits, Flicka said, "I thought I'd come and look glamorous tonight." Remember what she said the day after her husband was given the flick (no pun intended) in the last State election? "The Labor Party has won? But I don't know anyone who votes Labor!" The relentless stalking of Auntie Every time Brian Johns appears in the media, his head looks bigger. Is the poor man about to explode? Well, wouldn't you, if you had brought advertising to the sacred SBS, and were about to exit several years at the ABC doing much the same thing? The Howard Government has viewed the national broadcaster with a paranoia Stalin would have been proud of. The truth is, the ABC does not represent Howard's rendered worldview. The ABC is urbane, cosmopolitan, intelligent, intellectual and cultural. Howard represents none of these things. And his Communications Minister, "Frankenstein" Alston has been the perfect philistine to implement the gradual financial siege, leading eventually to total emasculation. Indeed, the Government's relentless funding cuts have placed Auntie in the position where Brian Johns can step in and offer this deal with Telstra. Never mind that the ABC deals with other ISP's. Telstra wants a big chunk of Fairfax and if it gets its way, the government will be forced to sell the remaining 51 per cent to avoid conflict of interest (a concept of use only when it benefits them). Which is why Johns has the blessing of the Government. The government would sell your grandmother's rectum in order to put Telstra in the hands of privateers. Without the massive cuts, such a plan would never have crossed John's mind. If the deal goes through, you can kiss the national broadcaster's independence goodbye, if indeed it isn't already gone. Johns has four weeks left as managing director; the Howard Government has 18 months. Between them, the ABC, one of the world's only independent national broadcasters, may be unrecognisable by the end of their reigns. Now Johns is barking at the Labor Party for "intruding on the ABC's independence and rights." Stephen Smith, ALP communications spokesman has said that it would be unconscionable for the ABC board to approve the deal before a parliamentary inquiry took place. Johns rejoindered, "I find it ironic that the federal Opposition and others, in the name of protecting the independence and integrity of the ABC, are intruding on that very independence by seeking a parliamentary inquiry, an inquiry which would follow last week's intensive examination of the proposed agreement by Senate Estimates." The only irony here is Johns's inability to see the irony of his position as collaborator with the enemy. The ABC needs all the scrutiny it can get. optushome: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Besides disconnecting HH from the Internet several times a day (at 20 cents a pop and over a month that becomes a nice little earner), Cable & Wireless Optus have been doing the dirty on the ABC as well. They've not only been selectively editing ABC content on their web site, but editing it to favour the Prime Minister's New Right Agenda. The oversight has been amended and the offender demoted to Tech Support. As for HH's little problem, a complaint has been sent to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman. HH is tired of hanging on the phone all day for "an Optus customer representative" to get around to taking his name, giving his query a report number, and urging him to call back in a few days because the case is too far back in the queue. If only they hadn't made HH an offer he couldn't refuse in the first place! Darren Gray reports in The Age (15 Feb 00) that there is a new term to describe those among us who earn in the mid-range of six figure salaries: the "Over Class." These are people who own properties all over the place and rent them to those of us who are unfortunate to have never won Tattslotto or have never had a mum or dad to spring for the down payment on a house. According to Michael Raper, president of the Australian Council of Social Service, the term "Over Class" applies to 'people whose incomes and lifestyle mean they do not share common experiences with the rest of us. 'They no longer ride public transport; they don't have any trouble paying bills; they holiday elsewhere, or in resorts; they live in areas that have high employment. 'The essential ingredient is that they are largely decision-makers as well. They are in positions in the public and private sector where their income and experience is just very different to those for whom they are making decisions.' Raper went on to say that they included senior managers in large corporations, chief executives--some of whom were given multi-million-dollar payouts when they departed--and professionals in the investment and information-technology sector. In addition, the "Over Class" did not attend public schools. In short, the Over Class and its upcoming tag-along wannabes are supporters of the Liberal Party. Jane Fraser, in her article, "Getting ahead in business class," (The Weekend Australian, 1-2 Jan 00), says: "It is rare indeed to see the incredibly rich at the cinema; a bit like seeing Bill Gates on a suburban bus [or Juanito Samaranch in a minibus]. The rich don't mingle much; there's something about the idea of a throng that seems to alarm them deeply." She goes on to describe the private stalls at various cinemas, designed to uplift and coddle the Over Class, and to separate them from "the kind of people who think nothing of parking their cars in a cul-de-sac, who queue for tickets and herd themselves mindlessly into the stalls, rummaging and crackling and obscuring the view with big hair and endlessly muttering sotto voce." Her article covers the trend to a two-tier society: in the cinema, in the air, at the Olympics, wherever money can buy service for discerning persons and thankfully separate them from the "cattle-class." "Sick?" she asks. "Well, you wouldn't want to be poor. He who pays through the nose gets the treatment. In some states of the US, only certain medical procedures are free. Anything over and above the designated operations--well, you can have what you want but only if you can cough up the cash. Over 80, poor and in need of intensive care? Forget it. Die, worthless wretch." And who can forget the Howard Government's Minister of Private Health Insurance, Dr Evil, telling us that his grandmother lived well in to her Eighties because she could afford that wildly expensive Private. The implications were lost on him. And why? He is a spokesman for the Over Class. Let's begin a compilation of the kind of things that turn on the Over Class Liberals. Send in your ideas and we'll make a separate page. Here are a few to get the ball rolling:
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