Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi #7

[cobl04]

She's a weird one. On some points, I would call her a radical leftist, but then she completely contradicts that by being a dick on other issues. Centrist.

I don't think Ten's going anywhere. Someone will buy them. It's all been downhill since they stopped airing The Simpsons at 6pm though.

 

[gareth brown]

It's all been downhill since they stopped airing The Simpsons at 6pm though.

80% of my facebook feed yesterday was Simpsons memes labouring that very point!

 

[Kieran McConville]

Just a housekeeping note on my relatively sparse posting this year (yeah, I know, it's on everyone's minds); there ain't a ton happening in Strayan politics, the music forum I lurk but find myself sitting on the sidelines for the most part... and I would rather be shot in the fucking face than participate in the centrist Democrat circle-jerk that FYM has turned into. Turned into, what am I saying. It's been that for years. But events have, as they say, heightened the contradictions.

Vlad, you're my proxy in FYM. I'mma let you finish.

 

[Axver]

What the hell do you mean there isn't much happening in Strayan politics, Pauline Hanson just said something outrageous!

...oh, yes, I see what you mean.

But good to see you around here.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Rinse and repeat. Nothing's happening, it's just stale bathwater. We don't have our circuit breaker yet.

Ok, I'm being unfair. Something is happening insofar as the non-government is showing signs of adopting vaguely Labor-ish policies on a few matters, at the margins. So, they're following rather than leading, and that's probably better than nothing for the time being.

 

[cobl04]

I've got quite a few friends who have joined the ALP in the aftermath of Corbyn's win, which makes me sick because we don't have a single ALP politician even remotely as left as Corbyn.

 

[Axver]

Rinse and repeat. Nothing's happening, it's just stale bathwater. We don't have our circuit breaker yet.

Ok, I'm being unfair. Something is happening insofar as the non-government is showing signs of adopting vaguely Labor-ish policies on a few matters, at the margins. So, they're following rather than leading, and that's probably better than nothing for the time being.

Maybe we'll get our circuit breaker if Hunt, Sukkar, and Tudge get done for contempt of court! It's breathtaking watching people completely fail to understand the matter in question as well - and demented from Derryn Hinch, who as somebody who has revelled in being found guilty of contempt should know what it is. They can't grasp the difference between public criticism of the judiciary, which is permitted in a free society, and members of the executive commenting on a reserved judgement, which is contempt.

I suspect they're fucked. I hope they are. The best bit is that they're all law grads who ought to have known better!

I'm especially shitted off by the Libs going on about the "lawlessness" of Victoria under Daniel Andrews. What the fuck are they even talking about? I don't recognise this chaotic Victoria, and I'm the guy who walked around all parts of Melbourne at all hours of the night. Never felt unsafe.

I've got quite a few friends who have joined the ALP in the aftermath of Corbyn's win, which makes me sick because we don't have a single ALP politician even remotely as left as Corbyn.

I love the logic of "gee British Labour have a cool leader, so let's join a local party because it shares (most of) a name". Next thing we'll have idiots joining our Liberal Democrats because a member of the British Liberal Democrats created some cool meme.

 

[Kieran McConville]

I wonder if David Can'tbearsedspellinghisname gets mail from the British Liberal Democrats, like if he just ended up on a mailing list cause of the party name he gave himself. They have only this in common; they are equally irrelevant.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Maybe we'll get our circuit breaker if Hunt, Sukkar, and Tudge get done for contempt of court! It's breathtaking watching people completely fail to understand the matter in question as well - and demented from Derryn Hinch, who as somebody who has revelled in being found guilty of contempt should know what it is. They can't grasp the difference between public criticism of the judiciary, which is permitted in a free society, and members of the executive commenting on a reserved judgement, which is contempt.

I suspect they're fucked. I hope they are. The best bit is that they're all law grads who ought to have known better!

Between them and Brandis, you have to wonder what it is with lawyers who rise in the Liberal Party. They really seem to think they are above the law, but as corrupt as our society is in many ways, they aren't. If this was America, maybe, but here, not so much.

 

[Axver]

Well, as the saying goes, only failed lawyers become politicians. Legal practice is far more lucrative than a career in politics.

Obviously some do it out of a greater conviction, but Brandis et al. do not evince one.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Yeah, Brandis in particular comes off as probably the worst lawyer ever. Only a career in the Liberal Party could give him a status to which he has mentally grown accustomed. I suppose Peter Costello achieved genuine legal fame before entering politics, and what a waste of seventeen years that was.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Just a housekeeping note on my relatively sparse posting this year (yeah, I know, it's on everyone's minds); there ain't a ton happening in Strayan politics, the music forum I lurk but find myself sitting on the sidelines for the most part... and I would rather be shot in the fucking face than participate in the centrist Democrat circle-jerk that FYM has turned into. Turned into, what am I saying. It's been that for years. But events have, as they say, heightened the contradictions.

Vlad, you're my proxy in FYM. I'mma let you finish.

I can barely stomach it myself, but then Peef is all by himself if I don't bother checking up on it. The discourse is only marginally better than the #TheResistance #NeverTrump Hillary/Obama fan accounts on Twitter, but in many cases it may as well be the same thing. The rehabilitation of Dubya among many liberals has been breathtakingly nauseating.

 

[Kieran McConville]

I can barely stomach it myself, but then Peef is all by himself if I don't bother checking up on it. The discourse is only marginally better than the #TheResistance #NeverTrump Hillary/Obama fan accounts on Twitter, but in many cases it may as well be the same thing. The rehabilitation of Dubya among many liberals has been breathtakingly nauseating.

No kidding. And you know, at root, what it basically boils down to is that he projected marginally more gravitas, and, you know, isn't (publicly) grotesque the way Trump is. The thin patina of 'presidentialness', yes that's a word I just made up.

I remember the Bush era, and it was that bad, and in many ways it was a good deal scarier than what's going on right now, if you ask me. Because for about four years, bracketed by 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, the regime had nearly unquestioned obedience and deference across the spectrum. It was big news when Howard Dean pointed out the emperor's lack of clothes.

 

[Kieran McConville]

And let's not even wade into the matter of the rehabilitation (is that even the word? He was never disgraced like he deserved) of Reagan, see for ex. last year's Democratic National Convention.

 

[Axver]

And let's not even wade into the matter of the rehabilitation (is that even the word? He was never disgraced like he deserved) of Reagan, see for ex. last year's Democratic National Convention.

Or see how U2 used Reagan yesterday in their World Refugee Day video intro for Beautiful Day. U2, the band who hung shit on Reagan across multiple tours in the eighties, and who prank-called his successor nightly from stage. Bono, keep shouting "from the left to the right, all are welcome here" like some sort of "acceptance" will do anything to moderate the lunacy coming from people who voted Trump. You appeaser. You moral coward.

Reagan, with his political life partner Thatcher, is the worst thing to have happened to Western liberal democracy in the last fifty years. And Bush was an unpresidential joke whose rehabilitation is farcical. Trump, well, yes he makes Bush look good by comparison, but that's like saying losing both legs is worse than losing one.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Or see how U2 used Reagan yesterday in their World Refugee Day video intro for Beautiful Day. U2, the band who hung shit on Reagan across multiple tours in the eighties, and who prank-called his successor nightly from stage. Bono, keep shouting "from the left to the right, all are welcome here" like some sort of "acceptance" will do anything to moderate the lunacy coming from people who voted Trump. You appeaser. You moral coward.

Reagan, with his political life partner Thatcher, is the worst thing to have happened to Western liberal democracy in the last fifty years. And Bush was an unpresidential joke whose rehabilitation is farcical. Trump, well, yes he makes Bush look good by comparison, but that's like saying losing both legs is worse than losing one.

He's delusional, old Bono. Or, he just thinks this is the sort of thing he needs to say, or something. How he still performs Bullet the Blue Sky without the cognitive dissonance exploding his head, is beyond me. Because Bullet the Blue Sky isn't a paean to America. It's a curse, it's a curse.

Strangely enough, the liberal and centre types felt freer to avoid the rose coloured glasses where Thatcher was concerned. There was little attempt to sugarcoat her death a few years back, and rightly so. But Ronnie really must have been made of teflon.

 

[intedomine]

I'm especially shitted off by the Libs going on about the "lawlessness" of Victoria under Daniel Andrews. What the fuck are they even talking about? I don't recognise this chaotic Victoria, and I'm the guy who walked around all parts of Melbourne at all hours of the night. Never felt unsafe.

They wheel this one out every couple of years. They did it towards the end of the Brumby era as well, and the scaremongering appears to work.

In my locale, Stonnington, O'Dwyer held a forum that was congregated by hundreds of outraged locals that were abhorred by a supposed crime wave that is happening. It's safe as houses and I stroll the streets at all hours and never run into anything that might be "anti-social".

The Andrews government are actually proving to be a hyper-productive government with broader appeal (even some Trump-apologist FB friends "like" some of Andrews' posts), but the fear of being a victim of crime is what could undo this government, even if it is exaggerated.

One of the more alarming concerns about the recent anxiety over crime are the racist undertones that underpin it all. The media-driven push for such lawlessness to be related to "apex", and therefore used as an argument against refugees, especially from Sudan.

I wish I had attended O'Dwyer's forum to see if there was an underlying racism in their motivation. I might have had I known it was on.

 

[prbiker15]

.

 

[coolian2]

.

Yeah, what he said!

 

[prbiker15]

Ah shit, wrong thread.

 

[cobl04]

Melbourne is so fucking safe, it's ridiculous. It's only Panahi and all the other shitrags that reckon there's a problem.

 

[Kieran McConville]

When I said nothing was going on in Australia? Well there is the Centrelink 'robodebt' fiasco, which apparently continues to simmer along without any apologies forthcoming, and indeed every indication that the government intends to double down on its course of action.

How and where does this end? Consider the sheer volume of... voters... who must be caught up in it, and if not yet, then eventually. How can this possibly end well, when a government essentially declares war on its own citizens? When even accepting the most hard-edged 'we're looking out for the taxpayer' rhetoric at face value, a huge proportion of the people under assault are themselves taxpayers? Indeed, if we count the GST, which we ought, ALL of them, every soul in this country with a pulse, is a taxpayer. Of course I don't accept the rhetoric at face value, but saying I did...

When they get around to the age pensioners, the fun really starts.

A government with a pitiful electoral majority, I might add. That, what the Turnbull government has had since last July, is not a mandate, it's a rounding error.

 

[Axver]

It's like they have no idea how to pander to the electorate. It's not that fucking hard! They just better hope none of their MPs dies or is caught on video at a Nazi orgy or otherwise vacates a seat. I wouldn't fancy their chances in a by-election and that'd be bye-bye majority.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Jezza Corbyn the best headliner of this year's Glastonbury.

 

[gareth brown]

Haha yeah, just watched his speech. The fucking size of that crowd! Unbelievable.



Also, after a fruitless 9 month search in Melbourne I've finally got a job in a British gift shop! So when I actually have some money, it'd be nice to have a drink with some of the Melbourne lot in July maybe if anyone's interested in a meet up?

 

[cobl04]

yeah for sure cunt

where's the shop?

 

[Kieran McConville]

you misspelt 'meatup', guys.

 

[Kieran McConville]

It's like they have no idea how to pander to the electorate. It's not that fucking hard! They just better hope none of their MPs dies or is caught on video at a Nazi orgy or otherwise vacates a seat. I wouldn't fancy their chances in a by-election and that'd be bye-bye majority.

Or, more likely, they're in revenge mode. They know they're gone (probably, fingers crossed for a terrorist 'incident') and they want to ram it in while they still can. Because surely, after this period, the Liberal Party/LNP/whatever-the-fuck is in opposition for a generation. Yeah, surely. Don't call me Shirley.

I actually think the Australian public, broadly speaking, would be receptive to the message of a Corbyn type. Or as receptive as their compatriots three quarters of a world away, at any rate. And the modern Liberal Party never enjoyed anything like as commanding a position as the British Tories did for a period there.

But it's relatively weak tea the ALP is offering. Yes, I would prefer to see them in government - aside from the limp public rhetoric, I maintain that the party is now to the left of where it was in the Keating/Beazley/Latham years (with the odious and festering exception of the offshore gulag) - but without that mythical aforementioned circuit breaker, we're looking at 50/50. 50-bloody-fifty. Governments just kind of flopping over the line, just by the skin of their teeth. Based on... who knows what. Base greed, sure. Fear, to a greater extent.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

I just don't know where a Corbyn could possibly come from, the best you could hope for in the ALP is basically an Ed Milliband. I don't think there's any likelihood of the Greens boosting their % significantly past 10 either.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Sadly, I agree with both of the things you said there. So I just don't know.

The Greens are going nowhere fast. Not going away, but not the future either.