Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
This forum is in permanent archive mode. Our new active community can be found here.
And so Australia continues to become ever more scary
Sigh... Requiring inbound travelers to declare their pornography? This is getting downright silly, Australia. It's getting to the point with this censorship circus that I would almost feel morally obligated never to travel there.
Comments
And no, this isn't really being mis-reported like the "Australia Bans Small Boobs!" thing, which was pretty much a crock from the start, that had blown one line of something that wasn't what it was told to us that it was, way out of proportion. This is bona fide, and this is some bullshit, right here.
Then again, frankly, What do you expect? The majority in my country elected a candidate almost purely upon the strength of his combination of very, very strong and tightly controlled PR, and a particularly nasty smear campaign against his opponents. And now, thanks to the stupidity of people in large groups, The Milky bar kid is now in power, and not doing a damn thing he promised, and focusing on just spin, spin, spin, and remaining in power. Childcare centers? Schools? Tax Cuts? Not a chance. Emissions trading and other Environmental promises? Lots of talk, and quietly shelving it. Government subsidised home insulation as an environmental initiative? 1.5 billion to execute it and screw it up utterly, and then another 1.5 billion to quietly fix it and shelve it. All the while giving massive tax breaks, donations, considerations, and a lot of unusual political moves centered around his evanglical christian faith, and in particular, the extremely controversial
nobody's-quite-sure-if-it's-a-cult Hillsong Church, which is essentially Scientology in an attractive Jesus Wrapper.
Alright. Let me Shave my head and show you my glasses - We've elected The fucking Smiler. Jesus Christ, three years ago, we got together, we shoved a lot of little bits of paper into little boxes with everyone else, and somehow we've elected The fucking Smiler.
Eight thousand repetitions of the word "Fuck" shall occur elsewhere, for the sake of propriety.
All the best,
Western Civilization
P.S. I would still take you over Russia any day. ^_^
Though, I do take comfort in that at this point, with the rate his approval is dropping, and how unpopular he's getting - turns out that when you've got the financial policy of monty brewster, but without the incoming inheritance, and still try to push religously motivated policy through, people end to dislike it, who'da thunk it - the only way Rudd the dud will get re-elected is by doing something massive, and the only thing remaining to him is Legalising Gay Marriage - but, his evangelist christian backers, and his own religious convictions(which are, roughly, Religion first, be a decent human being second) absolutely prevent him from doing so. By ye own petard we shall hoist ye, Kevin.
I mean, seriously, it's not like this hasn't been coming -his most likely impending removal from top office - for a long time. Hell, at one point, the only reason he remained popular was PR, and the fact he handed most of Australia about a grand of "free" money.
I shall post more about the milky bar kid later, after I ragesleep.
Also Russia is becoming really westernized now, they're trying pretty hard to be like the US to the point that some culture is being lost. Otherwise you still need the special skill 'Russian negotiator' to deal with them.
This is not Australia.
"Yes, officer. I'd just like to declare that I spent the flight having some wicked thoughts about that flight attendant, and I have not yet forgotten them."
You say all of this as loud as you can for a conversation. Muahahaha
The whole Christianity thing is annoying, Government has to be totally secular here but from the rhetoric it seems to be resembling US politics which seems to pretend to be secular.
When shit really pisses the population off, it gets enough coverage to scare politicians. It took quite a long time but R18+ game ratings will finally be coming out, which will include L4D2 for everyone in Australia who didn't buy a New Zealand, US or UK version of the game (i.e. relatively no one).
It's pretty bullshit with the pornography and I can't see how it works whatsoever, it has been on customs regulations for about 6 months now but the media has just got a whiff of it now.
That's the Thing about the rudd government, it's like revving a big-block V8 with no Muffler while it's not in gear. You get a lot of noise and fury, and you use up a lot of precious fuel and lubricants, but it's not moving anywhere, or getting anything done, other than have people say "Phwoar, that's a nice car."
Rudd has lived up to about Two Major election promises - A stimulus package, and saying Sorry about the stolen Generation.
The Stimulus package turned out to be little more than mass bribery, like a schoolchild saying to his classmates "I'll give you a dollar if you vote for me for Class President!"
The Whole Deal with Saying sorry? It was a home run for his popularity. Would have been nice if it wasn't just him throwing the ball in the air for himself and taking an easy swing. Set the old guy before him up as a racist, and then do the thing that he pushed the other guy wasn't doing.
The problem was that it was an empty political bullshit - Howard apologised endlessly for the stolen generation. He instituted a national day of remembrance of the victims of the stolen generation policy, and to celebrate it's end. He apologised for it for years, and worked tirelessly to try and right the wrongs of the people in power before him on the issue.
But what he refused to do - and quite rightly so - was to make a personal "I am sorry for doing this" style apology for something he had nothing to do with. He wasn't even in the business of politics during the time that children were being taken. To do so would be both empty and offensive, and he has no place nor right to do so. It would be as empty and offensive as an innocent man with nothing to do with the crime apologising personally to the family of a murdered daughter.
As for his other promises? It's easy to see where the Surplus we had before Rudd was elected went, despite claims it's just "The Global Recession" - National Broadband Network, a 43 billion dollar failure. Dismantling workchoices is still barely getting anywhere, thanks to Union/labor party Bickering. A computer for every student from grades 9 to 12 - a 2 billion dollar (and climbing) fail. Emissions trading scheme? Another multi-billion dollar fail. Reduce waiting lists in hospitals? Fail. Dental Care, Fail, Mining tax, fail. Cut Taxes, Well, To be fair, he did get that one in 2008. And then raised them in 2009 and 2010, higher than they were in 2008.
Building houses for the Aboriginal community, 672 million dollars, two and a half years down? Eleven houses built. Either they're the best fuckin' houses conceived of by mankind, or I'll call that a double fail - since, at Howard's instruction, The Australian army, in 2007, worked alongside civilian contractors and built 12 houses, an ablution facilities block(shower and toilets block, in other words), a subdivision with high quality sealed roads and provided dental care, and training programs to the Aboriginal people, all for $5 million.
Opening 260 child care centres inside schools and Higher learning institutions? Try just one.
2650 Trade training Centres? Just one. 2500 aged care beds opened? Try 52. 30% cut to federal employees? Done and done, but they re-hired more than a third of them back right away. Election Reform? Not a fucking chance. Not Looking like The Milky Bar Kid? Another fail, but at least it's a cheap one.
And That's just the start. He's utterly incompetent, and his government is nothing more than a bible-thumping PR machine. It makes me ashamed, at times, to be from where I am. Quite thankfully, he's most likely stuffed at the next election. His hopes for re-election are not high.
As for Rudd and Labor being tricky political manipulators, well, it's not like they're the first. All governments in recent history have used grubby propaganda units, Labor and Liberal.
I'm not sure where you get the idea that Rudd made people think Howard destroyed the economy. I'm a dyed in the wool leftie, and yet I can see the benefits of some of Howard's economic policies. Maybe you're conflating the perceptions of Bush with Howard?
OK, looking at the stimulus package objectively, it "helped support the economy through that period". Was too much money spent on it? Maybe. But calling it bribery? That's that "spin" stuff you seem to hate. I could play that game too and call the Baby Bonus and Howard tax cuts bribery. But I don't play that way.
The apology. Only a deeply cynical individual would hold that against Rudd (Churba? Cynical? No!). He promised it, most of parliament wanted it (on both sides), it was only John Howard and his 50's era thinking that prevented it from happening. Isn't doing something deeply symbolic, publicly popular and doesn't cost a cent pretty much the best thing a politician can do? Also, Howard only apologised as a private citizen (which is fine by me), not as the leader of government. When Rudd apologised as the PM, it was an admission that the state had wronged those people. Having the state wrong you is an incredibly harmful thing, as you have little to no recourse to address the problem. But by having the state offer an apology, it allows you to rebuild your trust in it. Highly important, particularly among Aboriginal people who have been fucked by the government for some time now. It may not mean much to us white guys, but if you can look at the faces of the 'stolen generations' present in parliament when the apology was given and still tell me it was meaningless, I'll your hat.
The broadband network: let's just wait for the Tasmanian rollout to complete before calling the whole thing a failure. It could fail completely, but at least if they fuck it up in Tas, who would notice, amirite?
As for the rest of that stuff, you may well be right (I don't have the time to check it all), but what it comes down to is - you seem to be a bit of a partisan (big L, as in conservative) Liberal. That's fine, but what I want to ask is - does this make you the HMTKSteve/The Tick of Australian political discussions on this forum? And can I be the Hungryjoe?
I'm even more pissed off at the Liberals who turned their backs on this, and didn't show up to parliament that day - And I'm even more pissed off at the assholes who turned their backs on Brendon Nelson, booed, and yelled shame, when he made his speech in support of the apology, both for his personal support, and if I remember right, on behalf of his party. They both deserve a metaphorical thrashing more than Rudd does over this, but he deserves his lumps in turn, and he was the topic I was speaking on. Bullshit. It's gone from a 4.7 billion dollar election promise, to a 43 billion dollar clusterfuck. If it's not a failure, then why is conroy refusing to release a report on the NBN that cost $25 million dollars of taxpayer money, despite a direct order from the Senate?
And the Tasmania Rollout is hardly national - It's only Tasmania. It's not extending anywhere else. It's not a test or trail, It's JUST Tasmania, because the Tasmanian government put in an individual state bid to install the NBN there, and it's the only bid that was accepted. And, if I remember correctly - The Filter is part of the deal. As far as Conroy is concerned, No Filter means that we get no NBN. I disagree. Look at all the people who were ecstatic and praising Rudd for giving them what they saw as free money around that time. I don't dispute that it affected the economy. Also, look at the 75 Million of it that went overseas, some of that to non-citizens or ex-citizens. Hell, I even got a check for $1400 bucks - as did my ex-fiance, who is not and has never been an Australian citizen. And I might add - I banked mine into my Australian bank account, and haven't spent it - It's not like they're going to take it back, if I gave it back, so the least I could do would be spend it in the right country. But Just because, hypothetically, a senator spends his bribe money by donating it to charity doesn't change that it's bribery, and thus, with the way it was played, it's extremely hard to take it as anything but. Absolutely not - you frankly couldn't be further from the truth. I've got my own problems with Howard, sure enough, but because I don't bring them up while I'm talking about Rudd and his Failures, you lump me in with that sorry lot that call themselves big-L-Liberals? Pull your head in.
I criticise Rudd for throwing government money by the fistful at school chaplaincy programs(Which, funnily enough, he was the main driving force behind setting up in Queensland, 20 years ago), but I say the same of Howard. If the Liberal Party behaved as the Labor party does and has lately, I'd be just as angry, and just as mouthy about it, just at a different target.
You want an example? Bible lessons can be given in regular classes by regular teachers at the discretion of the principal, Childeren are given mandatory Religious education classes(and when parents opt their childeren out, the childeren are merely moved to the side of the room and banned from doing anything during the time of the religion lesson), Christian prayers are often chanted at school assemblies, and Christian ceremonies for Easter and Christmas are most commonly compulsory, Creationism and Intelligent Design have been taught in senior classes, Christian evangelists are used to "motivate†students and girls are taught to be gentle and obedient - and it is all happening in Queensland public schools.
In my own experience, I was disciplined for not attending Religious education class, after I was not allowed to opt out of it, I was punished multiple times for simply objecting quietly and respectfully to religious content in lessons in anything but the historical sense(other than the bible being treated as a factual historic record), was almost punished purely for stating I was an Atheist in public(though, curiously enough, I was defended on this point by the school chaplain - we lucked out and got a reasonable one, and he even appointed me "Student assistant chaplain", and referred to me jokingly as the "Atheist chaplain"), I was told multiple times and punished multiple times because "Atheism is not an excuse for not attending Easter services" and that "Atheism is not a good enough reason to opt out of Mandatory Religious Services" - And, as a bonus, I was personally lambasted by Rudd himself when I raised this issue with him, in person, back when he was my local member, the member for Giffith.
My political position is thus - The Government should do what is provably best for the greatest number of the population, as long as it doesn't cause undue harm. For social issues, such as Gay Marriage, it should follow the will of the majority. Religion should not be involved in any way. I don't give a fuck what you call yourself, what you do in your spare time, or any of the PR bullshit. I care about three things. One, That you do what's right by the nation and her people(all of them, not just the ones who agree with you, support you, or don't offend you), two, That you do what's best for the economy(within reason), and three, don't make your decisions based on anything but the best interests of the first two, not your religion, not your religious pals and lobbies, not the greens, not the sex party, not the media, not your PR director. Just do what's right by the nation. To quote - "Tell him he's Dreamin'!"
This lurch to the right is a calculated move, designed to manipulate the preferential voting system - they know bleeding hearts like me would never dream of voting outside of the left wing group of parties, so they try to attract as many centre-right swing voters as possible by out-bastarding the bastards. So what if a million more people vote for the Greens? Their preferences flow to Labor anyway. My prediction: Labor will break the record for the lowest primary vote achieved by a party winning government outright.
She might be our first Female prime minister, but that doesn't matter - we didn't put her there, her life-long commitment to the unions and the Labor party (Though some would say I repeat myself) put her there. She's an atheist, but that doesn't matter - She's never going to do anything more than tow her majority-Christian-hyper-conservative party's line.
But you are right - there is no way the majority of votes is going for the mad monk, the young vote especially, with the young vote most likely going to the greens. The greens won't get enough votes to take majority, much of which will overflow to Labor, and once again, we're back with J-gilly and her amazing christian/union chorusline.
Edit - Oh, and I almost forgot - she backs The great Firewall of Canberra just as much as the Milky Bar Kid and his Crazy Catholic Comrade Conroy. Well, fuck.
Double edit - For the amusement of the Americans, we have two Pollies on opposite sides of the house, named Abbot and Costello.