Tetherd Cow Ahead

Yesterday, when discussing greenhouse gas emissions targets with the State Premiers, [tippy title=”¹”]It is a curious situation here in Australia, that while the Federal Government is Right Wing Conservative, all the States are under Left Wing Progressive governance. Apparently people think it is a good idea to have their immediate situations managed by thoughtful people, but are happy to have the country as a whole run by idiots. Go figure. [/tippy] The Weasel made the following comment to the press:

“Jobs and economic prosperity is more important than ideology and emissions targets”

Leaving the atrocious grammar aside, this statement goes a long way towards illustrating what a short-sighted dullard this man is.

He really thinks that Global Warming is just a question of ideology! Like whether or not you think Australia should be a Republic; a matter of opinion. Translating the above: John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, does not believe the conclusions of the entire scientific community that the world is facing a serious, real climate event of catastrophic proportions.[tippy title=”²”]It is blindingly obvious, therefore, that all his recent new-found ‘concern’ for Green issues is not because he thinks they have merit, but because he is, once again, lying in order to get votes. Why are people so stupid that they can’t see this[/tippy]

My God. His stupidity is breathtaking.

Let me tell you something Prime Minister: all the economic prosperity in the world is going to mean diddly squat when there’s no water left and you’re suffocating in a haze of carbon dioxide.

It doesn’t matter how much I hate him, there seems to be room for even more hate. I strongly condemn him and all he stands for.

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¹It is a curious situation here in Australia, that while the Federal Government is Right Wing Conservative, all the States are under Left Wing Progressive governance. Apparently people think it is a good idea to have their immediate situations managed by thoughtful[tippy title=”³”]Well, relatively speaking. You have no choice but to drop your standards when discussing politicians’ merits.[/tippy] people, but are happy to have the country as a whole run by idiots. Go figure.

²It is blindingly obvious, therefore, that all his recent new-found ‘concern’ for Green issues is not because he thinks they have merit, but because he is, once again, lying in order to get votes. Why are people so stupid that they can’t see this?

³Well, relatively speaking. You have no choice but to drop your standards when discussing politicians’ merits.

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Here in New South Wales, Australia we are in the throes of a State election along with all the accompanying heehaw of such an event.

So last night I had a phone call from a marketing company that wanted to get my ‘opinion’ on the field. This was the conversation as it happened:

Polite Young Woman: Do you mind if I ask you some questions about the current political situation in the state?

Reverend: Not at all. As long as you ask sensible questions.

PYW: Oh… er… OK. Um, which is your preferred candidate out of Mr Transparent and Mr Translucent.

Reverend: I don’t have a preference between those two.

PYW: Oh. So shall I mark ‘Not Sure’?

Reverend: Those are my options? Mr Transparent, Mr Translucent or ‘Not Sure’.

PYW: Er. Yes…

Reverend: But I am sure. I’m sure that I don’t prefer either of those. I’m voting for The Principles Party[tippy title=”¹”]We have more of an option than just the two ‘main’ candidates, although neither of them live, apparently, in a universe which allows this possibility.[/tippy]

PYW: Well, you can only have one of those two or ‘Not Sure’. It’s which of those you prefer. You don’t have to vote for them.

Reverend: Are you asking “If I only had one life preserver and the ship was sinking, which one would I throw it to?”

PYW: I guess so. Sort of.

Reverend: [Thinks: Who made up this survey? Do they want results or do they just want to hear answers upon which they’ve already formatted policy?] In that case, I’m not sure.

PYW: [Thinks: I knew I was getting desperate when I took on this job] O-k-a-y (makes computer key clicking noise). Now, how would you describe your satisfaction with the policies of the Transparent Party currently in power: ‘Satisfied’ or ‘Not Satisfied’?

Reverend: That’s it? ‘Satisfied’ or ‘Not Satisfied’?

PYW: [Sighs] Or ‘Not Sure’.

Reverend: Why don’t you just fill in all my answers as ‘Not Sure’. It will be quicker.

I propose a different kind of tack with such surveys. It would go like this:

•If Candidate A and Candidate B were in a burning building, and you could rescue only one person would you:

A: Rescue Candidate A?
B: Rescue Candidate B?
C: Watch the building burn while playing the violin?

•Given the ineffectual policies of both the main political parties, do you:

A: Prefer the ineffectual policies currently in place?
B: Prefer the ineffectual policies offered by the opposition?
C: Think that the money spent on this survey should be used to buy everyone violins?

I’m prepared to wager that the outcome would be the same, but with my version at least we’d all have music and a bonfire.

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¹We have more of an option than just the two ‘main’ candidates, although neither of them live, apparently, in a universe which allows this possibility

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Q: What’s the difference between John Howard, the Prime Minister of Australia and a weasel?

A: One is a secretive, sharp-toothed, dimwitted opportunistic scavenger and the other is a small furry mammal.

I hate this man.

There are not many people for whom I reserve that strong a negative feeling. But I hate John Howard.

Why? Because he is (amongst other things) a small minded, short-sighted, stupid, materialistic, sycophantic little bureaucrat who through animal cunning and cynical manipulation has found himself with altogether too much power.

I hate him usually, but this morning I hate him with even more vehemence because yesterday, in a nationally televised interview, he voiced this opinion regarding Barack Obama’s announcement of nomination for the US Presidency:

‘If I was running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats.’

It took me a night’s worth of thinking to work out exactly why this distasteful pronouncement galls me more than most things he says. It came to me at about 3am:

I think John Howard really would prefer that fundamentalist radicals caused chaos in the world if a progressive black man takes control of the American Nation. So he could gloat. You can’t read it any other way. That kind of thinking is the thinking of a child, or a sociopath. Perhaps even a psychopath. No balanced, normal individual who really cares about the state of the world would make such a judgmental and odious declaration. That’s a statement that says ‘If I can’t play I hope youse all have a really bad time and lots of rotten things happen and pus comes out your nose and you die and go to hell. Nyah nyah nyah.’

It is the distasteful spluttering of a small person. It is the ungracious and disagreeable whining of a tiny intellect infected with inferior morals.

John Howard, you are a pathetic excuse for a man, let alone the leader of a nation.

Where are all the people of real principle, the visionaries, the courageous thinkers, the Statesmen? Oh how we need you right now.

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UPDATE: To my immense disappointment, Barack Obama responded to John Howard this morning in an equally feeble way:

‘I would also note that we have close to 140,000 troops in Iraq, and my understanding is Mr Howard has deployed 1,400, so if he is … to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest that he calls up another 20,000 Australians and sends them to Iraq.’

I’ve seen children behave in a more dignified manner. Mr Obama, you should have just ignored the little turd. He’s successfully wrangled you down to his gutter-level world.

That’s what he’s good at.

The news in Australia over the last few days has been headlined with the scandal of the findings handed down by the Cole Inquiry into the behaviour of the Australian Government and the Australian Wheat Board and their ethically despicable trading deals with the Iraqi Government just before the 2003 invasion.

At that time there were (in theory) severe sanctions placed by the world community upon trade with Iraq, an accord to which Australia was a signatory. However, for reasons that are still unclear, the AWB considered that these sanctions didn’t apply to them and they carried on business as usual, a situation that encompassed significant bribes to officials in the Iraqi Government in order to lubricate the machinery of commerce. This was, we are to understand from the AWB, normal business practice.

The Howard government in its typically weaselly manner has managed to slip like a greased pig from the grasp of the Cole Inquisitors, avoiding the allegations of Corruption directed toward it for its part in the debacle, and settling for the questionably safer judgement of Incompetence (with which it evidently feels quite comfortable). This is not a surprise for thinking Australians. We’ve become used to this over the last decade or so. This Government is not ‘responsible’ for anything except winning the cricket.

But the full force of the law has landed on the AWB, which has been found in Australian law to be about as rotten as any capitalist venture can be. The punitive effects of this are yet to be decided, but they are likely to be severe.

The extraordinary comment of the day, however, came from the former Managing Director of the AWB Andrew Lindberg, who made a philosophically booby-trapped statement to the effect that he did not believe that AWB acted with evil intent.

Aha. No, Mr Lindberg. Of course you didn’t. Very few people, except for psychopaths and Satanists actually set about acting with evil intent. That’s the really tricky thing about Evil, isn’t it? It kinda sneaks up on you when you thought that all you were doing was just fudging the truth. Just telling a little white lie. Just looking after the interests of your shareholders. Just giving a few mill to Saddam because, y’know, if we don’t, someone else will.

Evil isn’t a big cackling sulphur-smelling demon, Mr Lindberg. Evil is an obsequious little bespectacled man with a ledger, who keeps pointing at the bottom line and telling you your market index has dropped by half a percent. Evil is a little voice that whispers “Go on, just one little signature won’t hurt – they’re a backwards country run by towel-heads: no-one will care…” Evil is a lot of little moral compromises that really don’t matter all that much…

A deficit of evil intent does not mean a deficit of evil.

And you always know when you’re doing the wrong thing.

(It’s not like you were trying to cover your tracks or anything. Right?)

It doesn’t matter how much weird shit you stumble across on the net, there’s always something that can freak you out more than the last thing.

One of the reasons that I know Nurse Myra likes to hang out with me is that she gets to hear me expound my revolutionary schemes for World Political Reform, particularly my vision for Pete Worldâ„¢.

So, we’re off on a jaunt to the seaside, and whilst speculating on the directions for the US in the upcoming election for a new POTUS* my laser-beam gaze turns upon the possible candidates and the way in which a change of regime might be called on to provide effective modern leadership.

We agree that the field is pretty weak.

“Condoleeza Rice?” she suggests.

“They’ll never go for it,” I say. “She’s black, and a woman. She’d always lose to a man. They wouldn’t take the risk unless she was up against another woman”.

“What about if it was a contest between her and Hilary Clinton?”

“I suppose,” I say. “But there’d have to be a good media angle to it. I guess they could promote it as the World’s Most Significant Bitch Fight”.

And then I have one of those lightning flashes of genius that will come to be known as the defining signature of Pete Worldâ„¢.

“Either that, or they could replace the Presidential Debate with Nude Jelly Wrestling”†.

“That could be ugly,” she says.

“Not as ugly as what George Bush and his lackeys are doing to the world. And anyway, it would be at least entertaining and no-one would get hurt. In fact, thinking about it, in Pete Worldâ„¢ only women would be allowed to run countries, and the outcomes of all important world conflicts would be decided in the Televised Jelly Wrestling Arena. It just couldn’t be a worse state of affairs than we have at the moment”.

You all really want to come and live in Pete Worldâ„¢, don’t you? There’s one thing I can promise for certain: it would never be boring.

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*President of the United States. I learnt that from ‘The West Wing’. Up until then I’d been dropping the diminutives as custom allows, and (obviously foolishly) acronymizing it PUS.

†I don’t mean to suggest that Condy and Hils couldn’t have a meaningful intellectual tête-à-tête, but c’mon, truthfully, what are you more likely to watch on television…?