| Australia's Journal of Political Character Assassination | Melbourne, Australia |
SCUM AT THE TOP | Next Issue: After John Howard calls the election |
| Editor: Harold Hark | Volume 5 Number 14 |
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It is with a sense of regret, and even loss, that I have to admit once again that burn out has won the day. Pounding the keyboard instead of my chest every morning for the last six months has left me crosseyed. The anger at Australia's five year descent into contemptuous selfishness is still there, but operating in a vacuum tends to enervate. As the boil is reduced to simmer, at least until the election is called, Tony Abbott is calling the union campaign to protect workers' entitlements treasonous. Hold on Fang, if any one is guilty of treason against the spirit of this once proud nation, it is you and John Howard's Coalition government. Kim Beazley has the opportunity to rally the latent integrity of millions of Australians by simply stating the obvious: do they want to be servants of a cynical market-worshipping ruling class, or participants in a democracy whose foundation is a fair go for all. Do they want to be victims of a government based on exclusion and deceit, or do they want to recover their pride and stand tall for all of us. On the international scene, George W. Bush has secured his place as the leader with the greatest chance to harm the planet since Stalin (who outlived Hitler, while Mao's atrocities largely affected only China), with Ariel Sharon a close second. Following the demise of Milosevic, Megawati Sukarnoputri looks to take her place as the world's snakiest, while John Howard continues to be the most embarrassing. Bagging Non-Core Magoo, Fang Abbott, Heil Ruddock, Frankenstein Alston, Amanda the Hun, Little Lord Downer, Duhbrain Kemp, Peter the Jerk, Gunsel Reith, Dr Evil and the others has been a slice, but the bastards outlasted me. Like millions of others, I'd hoped the election would be called in July. No such luck. Aston was a disappointment. It didn't help that Labor chose a little boy as their candidate. But then just one vote for the Coalition is cause for despair. How could so many Astonites have voted Liberal when John Howard's is the most incompetently corrupt government in Australian political history! (This dubious award eclipses Jeff Kennett's government simply because Kennett and his henchmen were extremely competent at their corruption.) OK, so human beings are capable of mass murder, child abuse and the like. Evil exists. But for so-called civilised folk to put their hands up for Liberal Party policies that in the long term will work against their own well being is something I just can't fathom. Nor can I understand a man or a woman who, like the Nazi's, will look after their own with love and devotion while cynically denying the right of quality existence to others. I suspect their devotion to loved ones is merely perfunctory. Indeed, the party -- and it's supporters -- that promotes family values is the very party that has ripped asunder the hopes of thousands of families in this country. But enough of my blethering. Below are a couple of jokey pieces and a couple of older items that never found a place to fit in. I've used some of the ideas in other articles but, like Prokofiev, I have no qualms about plagiarising myself. SCATT should return shortly after the mean little duffer calls the election. In the meantime, my heartfelt thanks to all those who have kept me going with their words of encouragement. Hoo roo, One day while doing lunch at the Barren Valley Shopping Centre Food Court, Harold Hark found that because it was pensioner's payday and the place was packed, he was unable to eat at his usual table far, far away from the Court's resident pianist, known to his admirers as "Bill". As karma would have it, the only free table was right next to the grand piano. Stuck then, with a styrene bowl of wonton soup, Hark suppressed the desire to shoot both the piano player and the folks incessantly applauding each tune of his endless medleys, and dug in. Refusing to come up for air until after he had unceremoniously inserted the entire chili-laden concoction betwixt his quivering lips, Hark noticed two rapt pensioners at the table next. On a whim, he sauntered over. Hark: "Hello, I'm a reporter with Scum at the Top. I wonder if could interview you good people." The Mrs: "Why, we'd be thrilled. Uh, what did you say the name of your paper was?" The Mr, enthusiastically cutting her off: "Move your table over here, old son. Ours is kind of small." Hark: "Can't. It's bolted down." The Mr: "Well pull up a chair then, we'll manage." Hark, referring to the white paint job on Bill's grand piano: "You reckon it was painted with a brush or with rollers?" The Mr: "Would've been sprayed, in my opinion. Dulux most likely." Hark: "Just so. And you enjoy listening to Bill, do you?" The Mrs: "He thrills us to the bottom of our shoes." Hark: "Dr. Scholls?" The Mrs: "How'd you guess?" The Mr: "We particularly like the brownish-grey pallor of his face. It matches ours." The Mrs: "Every time he plays "The White Cliffs of Dover," it thrills me so much, I just want to sing." The Mr: "But we don't dare." Hark: "I'm sure I heard several people singing one day." The Mrs: "Oh! We didn't think anyone noticed." Hark: "A few people lost their lunch." The Mr: "And weren't they lucky the food hadn't time to be digested! No smell, really." Hark: "Speaking of food, which of the Food Court's many establishments do you prefer?" The Mr: "Not many. Just look around. They're all run by Asians or Southern Europeans." The Mrs: "Now dear, they're perfectly fine people." The Mr: "No they're not." The Mrs: "We just have a few cakes and coffee from the Donut King." Hark: "But I see chips on the table." The Mr: "We splurged for fish and chips, being payday and all." Hark: "Are you happy with your retirement funds?" The Mr: "Would be if these Asians and swarthy types weren't always raising prices." The Mrs: "Now dear, it's not their fault." The Mr: "It is too." Hark: "So you're happy with Mr Ruddock's immigration policy?" The Mr: "Dig a pit and bury 'em!" In his wrath, the Mr's dentures flew from his mouth, gagging Harold hark and knocking a soggy chip off the table. He quickly retrieved them. The Mrs: "Oh, dear! How embarrassing!" The Mr: "Sorry about that. Need a refit. Mr Howard's $300 wasn't enough to get 'em fixed, though." Hark: "How did you spend it?" The Mr: "On the pokies upstairs, of course." The Mrs: "We lost it all within the hour, but it was grand fun." Hark: "And Mr Howard, what do you think of him?" The Mr: "He's a dinkum Aussie and not a commie lover like the other mob. I say, let him at those Asians, and the boongs too, while he's at it." The Mrs: "Dear, you're just incorrigible. Mr Howard is a nice man, though." Hark: "You're not having any problems with his GST, then?" The Mr: "Got to make sacrifices if you want a decent country!" The Mrs: "We don't mind in the least having to scrimp. And we're happy to have our son and daughter-in-law and their three children living with us in our retirement villa." The Mr: "Well, I don't know so much about that." Hark: "I didn't know it was legal to have live-ins." The Mrs: "We told the body corporate Ernie Sigley was our friend and he would come to visit if they agreed to let the kids stay for a few months until they get on their feet again." Hark: "Is he? The Mrs, chortling: "Never met the man." Hark: "I see. What happened to your son, if I may ask?" The Mr: "His business went belly up is what happened. He says it's the GST, but I know better. It's them slant-eyes opened up shop next door, degraded the strip." The Mrs: "Oh, listen, Bill is playing 'That Doggie in the Window' again." Hark: "Let's hope you don't have to eat it one day." The Mr: "Whatever it takes to keep Australia white and commie-free." Hark, turning to an imaginary camera: "Harold Hark, reporting from the heart of darkness." The Mr & Mrs: "the one with the waggly tail ..." I attended an extended-family do the other night, in honour of the latest addition, a bouncing baby boy (funny expression that, as if babies were multiple-appendaged Sherrin's), and the announcement of the next one, due in January. The usual topics held sway: with the men it was Aussie Rules and golf; with the women, babies. In short, a pleasant family evening much like any other being held anywhere in the country. Unfortunately, I am one of only four lefties in the group. The Liberals and Liberal sympathisers outnumber us three to one. Sometimes it's even more lopsided when the ring-in's show up. They are Liberal to a woman, their husbands long ago having fled to Valhalla. Of course, my wife, one of the Fab Four, had pleaded with me on the way over to keep quiet. "No worries," I assured her. It's usually after dinner, and the first port is served, when a line pops into my head that I can't refuse. But tonight, numbed by an in depth debate over why one of our female swimmers had disqualified her victorious team by jumping into the pool before the race was completed, I was forced to wait patiently for someone to say something I could shoot back with, no matter how long the bow had to be stretched. In days gone by almost anything said about Victoria would prompt a line about Jeff "the wheel clamper of politics" Kennett, but John Howard and his rottenführer's have more than filled Jeff's shoes. I believe the innocent prompt came from one of the women. She was showing the clucking throng a pair of tiny little shoes bought for her son at the nearby Knox shopping centre. "Oh," I said, "the shopping centre in the heart of the Aston electorate where some 39,000 entry-level humans just voted for the heartless of darkness?" At this, the Patriarch of Liberals Present threw up his hands, "Here we go again." I thought my comment might be a little too subtle for the others so I decided to be more explicit. "How did it feel to be hobnobbing with people who approve of concentration camps for Ruddock's new Jews, elite education at the expense of the poor, a GST no one can afford unless they are in the top 20 per cent income bracket, a health system that favours the rich, an environmental parched earth policy-- " Hoots and catcalls. One of the blokes at the table, a nephew and self-admitted young fogey, said he couldn't see much of a difference between the parties. "Yeah," said I, "that's what all Liberals say to make themselves feel better for having chosen myopic greed over a social conscience." Robust protestations. "Although," I had to admit, attempting as always to be fair, "it was Labor who served us this crock of economic rationalism. And John Howard's never gotten over it. Your hero has shafted a nation for revenge." "That's your opinion," stated a sister-in-law in lieu of braining me with a fry pan. "So," repeated the young fogey, "what's the difference between Labor and Liberal, then?" Should I put it delicately? "Well, for openers, Liberals -- present company excepted, of course -- appear to have been born without hearts or souls." Nope, guess not. "He's barkers," mumbled the niece I'm fond of calling Nurse Ratched. "Where did we get him?" asked another nephew. His query was followed by a round of good natured suggestions. Undaunted, I pushed on. "Trouble with Labor is Kim Beazley may be over-qualified to be Prime Minister. After all, what is required of leaders any more but a penchant for corruption and schoolyard bullying with a grab bag of policies to benefit the plutocrats?" "Paul Keating was the biggest bully of them all," boomed the sister-in-law. "You would be too if you were constantly facing row after row of larval scumbags. At least Keating had panache!" At this point the men's 4x100 metre medley was about to begin in Fukuoka and all eyes glued themselves to the Television. Just as well, because no one really cares about the outcome of the next election and my routine outbursts are usually welcomed as a momentary diversion from sport and the antics of the googoos. Above all, no one takes seriously my threat to leave the country if John Howard is returned, although several offers of help have been tabled. Go Thorpey. The Bible: Textbook for Whackos Is this real life or is it cruel satire? The scene is the Oval Office. The time is early April 2001. The United States and China are locked in a stand-off with 24 American aircrew held captive, their spy plane downed. Behind the desk is President George W Bush, grilling his aides on this complex diplomatic confrontation. Just as John F Kennedy interrogated his advisers during the Cuban missile crisis, so it falls to Bush to put the single question that might get to the heart of this superpower showdown. Don't know about you, but every time I see a copy of the Bible or hear someone quoting from it, I get the willies. I suppose this dates back to a childhood of enforced attendance at Sunday School. I detested the kids that showed up, in particular a boy with the unfortunate name of Tyler. His hair was cut like Richard Court (in the Hitler youth style) and he always wore a yellow sleeveless pullover with attendance buttons proudly pinned to it in rows. Come to think of it, he looked like a pipsqueak Oliver North. I grew up with a moderate fear of God. Nothing serious mind you, but during adolescence I tried desperately to remain pure on Sundays. God, Christ and the Holy Ghost came to lose most of my respect in later years, owing mostly to the sins of the church. For decades I layed the woes of humanity at the feet of the Vatican and it's assiduous placement of guilt on gullible followers. The protestants were even worse. Without confession to assuage a natural tendency to sin, they were forced to ram the broomstick of propriety ever further up their stern behinds. With a lack of creative imagination in everything but mammonism, they took over from the Catholic Industry as chief violators of innocence. More recently, fundamentalists have risen, like scum, to the top of this ignominious Christian history. The bible is grasped with white knuckles to pronounce against everything encouraging about the human race. The Americans are of the worst perpetrators, matching Iran's Muslim Shi'ites in every respect. It is now de rigeur for everyone from used car salesmen to politicians to spout obeisance to the gasbag on high. Hypocrisy oozes like illicitly spilled semen every time they seek to close a deal by invoking their love for God and country. We all know George W. Bush fits the bill for a whacko. With the advent of Dubbya we even have the effective closing of the democratic gap between church and state as he turns over the welfare sector to bible thumping fundamentalists. Soon kids will start their classroom days by having to pray to God shortly after pledging allegiance to the United States of Umeruhca. Rigidity of world view will become, once again, the norm. Especially in a country whose inhabitants seek above all else to be normal. Meanwhile their shadow selves will be taking revenge on such impossible dimension-diminishing by taking their God-given right to bear arms on to the streets for retribution. The recent murder of a security guard in a Melbourne abortion clinic by a nameless thumper is the first of its kind in Australia, but it certainly won't be the last. History is choked with people of limited intelligence taking up arms against those they consider to be evil by virtue of their greater knowledge. In the West, the Bible has almost invariably been the inspiration for slaughter. "Who can imagine a world without the unrepentant thievery and petty small-mindedness of the ruling class?" Shaun Joseph Years ago, in a book called Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand described a ruling elite of right wing industrialists who withdrew their services from the world. They went on "strike" because of increasing union control and government regulation. "Why should we prop up a state that discounts individualism and promotes reliance on socialism?" these captains of industry asked. And the government ground to a halt. The answer, in practical terms, was simple. They were making their fortunes. But Ayn Rand wanted to make an ideological statement. As a supporter of Joseph McCarthy, she took advantage of US anti-communist hysteria by using the Stalinist debacle to promote a capitalist version of the master/servant dichotomy over the failed socialist model. At the time few understood that Stalin had never intended to install socialist equality in the Soviet union. The results of his efforts were, in the end, no different than Rand's capitalist utopia. Both relied on a world governed by a ruling class. Ayn Rand's tome probably holds pride of place on every Illiberal MP's bookshelf, if unread since university. With the exception of strikes for specific grievances, people on the other end of the ideological divide don't have the cohesion necessary to withdraw their talents and efforts. A general strike of the many requires a collaborative unity almost beyond human capabilities. Hence the historical prevalence of the few. Simplistically speaking, the ideological divide consists of the Ayn Randers on the one hand, who hold as the highest ideal the mini-life of wheeling and dealing, as opposed to the bedrock of humanity who, without guile, keep trying to lift us out of our lethargy, out of our almost animal-like unawareness. There are perhaps no more than five per cent of people who actively attempt to enslave, whether through totalitarian or fiscal coercion. Another five per cent actively seek to liberate, either from totalitarian ideologies or by instilling a thirst for knowledge. That leaves 90 per cent who live their lives in apathetic somnambulism. The enslavers will always be with us, because profit and power are perhaps the greatest incentive to get out of bed in the morning. The liberators, operating from the challenge of potential, the desire to know, will be there too, albeit less consistently. They have the whole of life to deal with, while the enslavers are uni-directed. The enslavers tout morality, but in truth are amoral. Coopting with a gun, with draconian legislation, with conspiracies to defame, are seen as legitimate methods for those who seek to achieve ends regardless of means. Control of mass populations is the goal, and in our time, they have understood that control is more effective if the controlled are free enough to line their pockets with the minimum lucre allowed. Less will cause revolutions, more will bring the controlled dangerously near to their own level of power. The liberators, on the other hand, are plagued with moral decisions, almost hamstrung with them. The lofty ideas of philosophers, the uplifting words and deeds of heroic leaders have been the role models through which the civilised world has maintained its thread of sanity. But the enslaver's mantra of "dog-eat-dog" has ever snarled at civilisation's gates. Sometimes the dogs break through and civilisation falls, only to be reborn once again after the devastation. History is littered with these battles. The world is at another crossroads, one in which the governments of almost every nation are controlled by the enslavers. The triumph of "Reality TV" represents a major defeat for the liberators. It has aroused the wilfully enslaved, not to awaken and take a good look at themselves, but to invite each of them to be a benign Dr Mengele. Unlike Ayn Rand's magnates of power, the intelligentsia does not have the option of withdrawing its contributions to society. Personal freedom and its attendant responsibility for every living being is the ultimate goal for humans. Once awakened, it cannot be extinguished. The need to enslave in order to obtain power, on the other hand, operates at an almost sub-human level. It belongs nearer the dawn of mankind's slow crawl out of the darkness of ignorance. Beyond all this lies the realm of mysticism. A place you get to when you realise that everything that ever happened to you has the reality of last night's dream, and that all of grasping existence lies somewhere on an ever revolving wheel with no exits. But that is another story. Where's Me Tablets! • How corrupt is the Liberal Party? "Shadowy" is an apt description for the James Bond-like Illiberal Party "volunteer" (isn't that a hoot?) John Seyffer. We're lucky he even has a name. If indeed that is his name. He doesn't seem to appear on any electoral roles. He just sneaks around with his mobile phone and natty clothes and does the Lib's dirty business. Kind of like the big end of town's equivalent to Tom Domican. Who the Howard Government's Royal Commission into corruption in the building industry will want to investigate thoroughly. What the Coalition would have us overlook is that its employer supporters are rife with corruption too. In fact big business, like it's illegal Mafia equivalent, depends on corruption. May, therefore, employers get theirs too. So who are the two Melbourne businessmen who coughed up the $18,000 to pay for the documents on Paul Keating's piggery? We're not likely to know, because inquiries into their own is not what the Coalition does. After the initial sackings and resignations for rorts, John Howard drew the curtain on sacking any further ministers for fear of beholding naught but a howling wind on the front benches. But it's certain that if the names of these two Melbourne Libs were to be divulged no one would be surprised. Sooner or later, Greg Malouf will tell us everything he knows. Unless the Coalition can come up with a "volunteer" to off him first. • WA Prefs What's all the fuss? It's not as if John Howard ever really distanced himself from former Liberal Pauline Hanson. WA Libs there are merely welcoming her back to the flock. • Paddy the Baddy It is ironic that columnists like Paddy McGuinness, who like to deride the "chattering classes" wouldn't have a bar of the "knuckle-scrapers" either. He stands somewhere on a misanthropic periphery, pitting one against the other, revelling in the destruction. Genoa: Berlusconi's fascist state is born Here are a few reports on the Genovese protests against Globalisation. They paint a sickening picture, especially "Starhawk's" blow by blow descriptions. It appears anti-globalisation people ain't seen nuthin' yet. But before you get there, let's not forget the Princes of Power tucked away in their bower: From "Leaders kept safely away from the chaos" by Natasha Bita, The Oz 23/7/01 Just a few hundred metres away, inside the top-security red zone, the leaders of the world's most powerful nations strolled past lemon trees, the fruit tied in place with nylon, to start the G8 summit at the 13th century Ducal Palace. The Australian Editorial of the same day tells just what those "traditional Genovese dishes" were: 170 different cheeses All of this on "a luxury liner that offers two swimming pools, two hydro-massage pools, steam treatments, a gym, an 8m climbing wall and a golf simulator. The cost of this summit alone could have paid for the debts of Ghana, aid agencies say." The editorial, reasonably fair for this newspaper, also said, "The only positive to come from outside the G8 summit talks in Genoa was that the Italian carabinieri did not need all 200 body-bags they had stockpiled." NB: Most of the following articles can be found at ZNet |
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