For Democracy...

So what happened guys? C’mon, no one is reading this, we can be honest, what the hell happened? You’re in limbo, like in a coma, we’re standing around the hospital bed of Australian democracy hoping for signs of life. Like that great video for Metallica’s One.

“Imprisoning Me
All That I See
Absolute Horror
I Cannot Live
I Cannot Die
Trapped in Myself
Body My Holding Cell“

Well they fucked it. That was so obvious as soon as she stepped up to the cameras, seeing Gillard bow to the mining industry, bowing to capital and power. How could we so naively think that Australian mineral profits might actually serve the interests of the countrys citizens? What an outlandish belief! Crazy times. 

Just now I’ve gone where I haven’t been for a long long time. The Daily Telegraph/Herald Sun websites. Wow, talk about a reality check. For starters I can’t even find an article on the current situation. Its all Hogan tax problems, TV star drug problems, flashing ads, and, ofcourse, football, problems. I’ll have to dig into the archives, get my hands dirty with the last weeks worth of comment. Forget it, I’ll go straight to the real deal. Piers Ackerman and Andrew Bolt. When you’re thoasands of kilometres from Australia and you need to sense the pulse of the nation real quick you cant go past Fuckerman and Bolthead.

To my surprise Piers is telling it like it is. “The plotters, Gillard, Senator Mark Arbib, a former NSW ALP secretary, and his successor and current national ALP secretary Karl Bitar, along with Victorian MP and former AWU boss Bill Shorten and the current AWU boss Paul Howes, will be remembered for bringing on Rudd’s defeat(NO SHIT) and failing to have a successful plan to sell Gillard as his replacement” But wait, theres more, 752 readers comments.Thats the motherload, the golden voice of the Australian electorate.

‘Bones’ writes that “Bob Brown is more powerful than Julia Gillard now and that just is not right for the amount of votes he got”

And ‘Grumpy of Casino’ says “We can only hope that common sense prevails… and that the coalition wins”. C’mon Grumpy, how long is it since you cleaned your bowels out? Fibre, Grumpy, fibre!

‘Tim of Happy and Hammeredville’ (and you might as well be at the moment) sums up a few sad truths – “Do we dare dream of an Abbott Government?”, ouch, but the real kicker, and its the fucking truth – ‘Death to the Left’… the name of a regular commenter, and this time the bell of reality “despite the lack of a clear majority at this point, the fact remains that Labor was utterly smashed. And Tony Abbott is now the legitimate Prime Minister of Australia”.

Now onto Andrew Bolt. And its worth noting that his name comes up with less results than Andrew Johns on Google. Well theres a lot of scribble denying climate change unsurprisingly, what planet does this fucker live on? An arse-kissing piece on George Bush, “A Gentleman”… jeeesus.. reader Paul G responded for all of us, “hey buddy, go suck a lemon”

I can’t do it anymore. Its 10.30pm and I am sitting in the dark on this balcony in Milan feeling the anger and depression rise in me and horrid flashbacks of scrolling through Bolt articles and reader comments while at work in Sydney and feeling absolutely amazed that he is allowed to blog so much fucking trite crap and trying to work out what bizarre fascist government would love to have him writing press releases for them and what retarded citizenry admire his words…. Buts theres a few voices of heart filled sadness among the readers comments, if just those to let a human sleep at night, even knowing he’ll wake again into this world of continual ideological warfare, fuck them fuck them fuck them

‘Mike Davis’, poetry writes,
“She drank from the chalice of power
And ate from the platter of greed
She supped with the devil’s own henchmen
To dispatch Kevin Rudd with such speed

Her past is a meaningless shadow
Her present like nothing yet seen
Her future a visionless promise
And in the end we’ll all be stuffed”

"I'll be with you shortly"

“Hold me closer tiny cancer
Count the headlights on the highway
Lay me down in sheets of linen
you had a busy day today”

That tragedy so common its become normal like bad weather. That leech sucking hope. That personal injustice. That grinning grim reapers lottery.

Every one knows one, or is one. I’m slowly losing one parent, year by degeneratingly sad slow year, to it. And know others gone or going to it – some close, others I never gave even a minutes thought really until I heard they had it.

Just now I was searching the internet for what percentage of people die to cancer, and though I couldn’t find a reliable enough % to put in this little blog post, I did find looking at the WHO and other statistics sites on causes of death extremely interesting. I strongly recommend it for when you have some down time, or death time. Yes we will all be dead very shortly (in the big scheme of things), we all know that and deal with it in our own awkward ways, or avoid it. Yet its that passage to the dull lifeless otherside that puts the fear in us.

Carcinophobia, the fear of cancer, is apparently a legitimate phobia, but even a light weight variety of this must surely seep into all of ours thoughts from time to time. The hopeless reliance on doctors, the chemo, the slow demise, having to deal with others real or phoney condolences for your death while you’re slill alive. Then the cost of it. Fucking money the brunt of all pains even for the death condemned. Sickness poverty has to be the worst. The weakness and slow fading of lifes energy, what little of it you had, all the lost opportunities, facing the Big questions every day and getting no answers. There is no answer. The meaning is in that silence. Life without meaning and then your death, alone and anonymous and then nothing. But that slow, cliched, badly-acted death lived out on corny sets in doctors waiting rooms and hospital beds, drip-fed nutrition, bed pans and embarrassingly revealing gowns. The badly written scenes with young healthy doctors giving you the news, the x-rays and other scans, painful examinations and tests. Whats one to do with this fear? When will it get me? Which one will it be? Lung? Bowel? Stomach? Brain like my mother? Or some weird rare one that some go-getter intern will write their thesis on?

And so its 8.30pm. This bottle of sangiovese is almost at its end. I crack a few more pistacchios and finish the glass. From the balcony I’m looking across an array of apartment buildings on the outskirts of the city. Green waterfalls of plants cascade from some of the balconies. Theres the noise of children playing, the clatter of cutlery and plates after dinners, soccer balls smashing into nets and shouting from the nearby park, spanish music playing somewhere, birds chasing one another through the trees and buildings, as the light fades out on another day.

A train rips across the tracks close-by, heading north. First class, then all of second class, windows lit up and windows passing, racing along the iron. Up to Lake Como then onto Zurich? Or across to Turin then up to Paris? Well wherever they’re all going they will die, possibly of cancer. Enjoy the ride.

Anyway, this was meant to be just a news-in-brief piece to direct you to read Christopher Hitchens’ latest, Topic of Cancer, about his journey into that sad well-travelled land.

Having a vasectomy is a simple, quick, relatively painless and effective means of sterilization and a very personal choice. It used to be that when a woman decided enough was enough of having children she would have her tubes tied.

Nowadays the hard sell is on to sterilize men instead. Afterall ‘she endured the pain of childbirth so it’s your turn” and ”don’t be a wuss i won’t hurt”. I have kids and I have not had a vasectomy, but I am in their gun sights. I hold no fear of the needle or the knife. It’s not a pain issue either, I’m not scared of the dentist and have had plenty of sports injuries.

For me it comes down to this. My wife and I have 2 children. We have no plans to add to our brood and if we did imagine the hypocracy of that given my attitudes to over population! Essentially though the decision not to have more children was my wife’s not mine. I mean I had a say but it was her decision.

Thankfully we were both content with 2 or it may have been when we saw the second one we both decided not to risk a third. If she’d yearned for more then there is no doubt in my mind we would have them. Afterall it’s women who have to endure the pregnancy, the labour, the feeding etc.

Having kids is a much bigger physical commitment for a woman than merely a few minutes of horizontal folk dancing. So, although it’s a shared decision I really had little say in it. Now suppose she gives me the arse one day, takes the kids, the car, the cash and I’m out.

I know what you’re thinking (geez with your views it’s amazing anyone would marry you in the first place). Worse still suppose there is a tragic event. None of us want to think of it happening to us but Walter Mikac who lost his whole family a wife and 2 daughters at Port Arthur. What then?

Now these arguments may seem stupid to you but we do not know what the future holds. I struggle with the idea of not being able to father another child ever ever again. Just knowing it’s possible if my life circumstances change is a strong feeling. One day, if I’m blessed with a few more years that possibility will be taken away from just as nature intended and I will accept that my time has passed.

As my father’s cardiologist always says. “After 60 never walk past a toilet without going in and never waste an erection”. For now though could you all just lay off a bit with the pressure to have the snip.

If we want to we will and ladies if you’re so paranoid about getting pregnant you do something to yourself to prevent it. If you’re afraid of the swine flu you take the vaccine don’t say I must take it just so I can’t pass it onto you. And finally, anyone for sex?

The debate on refugees and boat arrivals has hotted up as PM Gillard clears the decks for an election announcement in all likelihood this week or next for a late August poll. The polarizing views of Australians on this issue have never been clearer. On the one side you have those who propose blowing up boats, sending them all back to whence they came while at the other extreme you have those who want to roll out the red carpet to all and sundry who want to live in Australia no questions asked.
Somewhere amid all the name calling there must be a practical solution. The question is can we ever find it and then all agree on it. The answer is probably not.

In the short term there is an election to be won so principles and genuine solutions are put aside in pursuit of votes. From my lofty perch of intellect or bogan/redneck/racist opinions some may say these are my views in relation to this issue. The world today has around 3 billion people who live in absolute poverty. If you ask them all if they’d like to live in Australia i’d guess at least 1 billion would want to. The sad sorry fact is Australia cannot be the saviour of this mass of humanity however much we might like to be. The pain, suffering and untimely death dished out to so many souls is a sad fact.

The good fortune to those who have been born into developed countries including Australia should never be taken for granted by anyone. We all dream of winning the lotto but to the inhabitants of the slums of Calcutta we already have by virtue of our birth. The immigration debate mostly rages between whether the boat people are ‘refugees’ or ‘illegal immigrants’ My view is a refugee is somebody seeking refuge out of fear of death in the face of war and seeking an immediate safe haven. We saw this with Iraqis fleeing into Jordan and Syria a few years ago. Once they reach the safety of a camp they have acheived there safety objective.

Now where to go next? Well as i said there are millions and millions of people seeking a better life. Others hold the view that refugees are entitled to go halfway around the world to a preferred safe haven of their choice and impose themselves. They usually target one with a good welfare system and lob on their doorstep. I call these people ‘illegal immigrants’ Of course if i was a refugee i’d want to make the same choice but do i have that right. What makes a Tamil an Afghan, a Kurd or Sudanese any more deserving to come to Australia than some child in the slums of India. Just because you flee a war doesn’t mean you are more worthy than the poor souls in the slums. They all have the same wish.

Apparently less than 5% of illegal arrivals to Australia come by boat with the vast majority via Mascot and Tullamarine. Most of those are simply people allowed entry as visitors and who fail to leave before their visa expires. Everyday flights leave for foreign shores returning overstayers. Some by a month and other a decade or more. Sooner or later these overstayers are found and sent home minus the media and legal hysteria. Whilst each of us positions ourselves somewhere on the scale between the big hearted humanitarian’s who think they can save the world and the hard hearted rationalists who know you can’t provide a standard of living to 6.9 Billion people that is currently enjoyed by about 800 million.

The resources of the world will not support that. If you think it can and it should you are probably one of those dreamers who also thinks we can reduce our carbon output by 90% over the next 2 decades and increase our population by 60% at the same time. The Greens policy is to do that by turning off all our coal fired power stations and we can rely on wind and candles. Amid these pie in the sky ideas one thing is for certain. The taxpayer pays and pays and pays.

Nowadays anyone trying to ride a train into the city during Melbourne peak times can partake in a similar experience on a daily basis. In the past 10 years the population of Melbourne has risen by more than 500,000.

As a result the roads are clogged, the trains are packed, housing prices have gone through the roof, food prices have shot up 40%, our dams are at about 30% capacity.

By any measure our overall quality of life has gone down and the government has completely failed to cater for this growth. There are many arguments made in favour of growing a human population. That it ‘grows our economy’ being the central theme.

Basically those in favour of a bigger population usually have a vested interest in having a bigger market for their products or services. Gerry Harvey, the Real Estate industry, Coles, Woolworths, etc etc all benefit in terms of profits and the bottom line driven by ever more consumers. After all that’s all we really are not people just consumers of stuff right?

Does this perpetual growth in anyway improve the actual quality of life for most people? 30 years ago a person on very modest income in Melbourne could afford a block of land down the beach at say Sorrento on the Mornington Peninsula to build a holiday shack and spend their summers. Now you’d need a million bucks for that 1/4 acre patch of sand. The old supply and demand rule at work.

Question: So who really benefits from the ‘growth’ the pollies keeps telling us is so good for us? A: Banks, governments and big businesses (but certainly not you). Businesses get rich while the expanding masses fight over a share of less and less. The government is happy too because they get more money to spend on new programs which interfere more and more in our lives. Of course the banks are happy for the obvious reasons.

These days most families survive on 2 incomes. Those families living on 1 are rapidly diminishing. This is no accident. Both governments and banks have actively worked over decades to create this scenario. Does the necessity of both parents having to work to survive improving anyone’s quality of life? Are the kids better off in childcare and after school care? Are mums and dad any happier? Does having a wife work 40 hours a week improve your sex life?

On all accounts I would suggest no. You can argue the work gives the worker some spiritual benefit but the vast majority of mums I know work in jobs that they would gladly give up if they didn’t need the money.

Deregulation of banking in the 1980’s meant people were no longer limited by their borrowing capacity being measured against 30% of a single income thus controlling peoples borrowing capacity and in turn home prices. All of a sudden people were allowed to borrow much more which simply drove up prices and debts to banks.

Banks have made spectacular profits since the 80’s. Whether it is a mortgage or a credit card debt most worker bee consumers are now caught in this cycle of perpetual debt which is exactly how the central bankers want it.

With 6.9 Billion souls already on the planet and a projected 9 billion by 2030 you’d think this would have been an issue at the climate change conference in Copenhagen but alas not a word was spoken by our so called experts about the ‘population’ elephant in the room. Why would they, I mean more consumers equals more money and power to the elite. To hell with the environment.

If you truly believe in a cleaner world with less pollution/green house gases. If you favour a planet with room for the bio diversity of flora and fauna to flourish and could care less about bank profits and government intervention then you should also support the idea of lower human populations. Otherwise you really are a hypocrite. Now get back to work and wear a condom!

In response to mining claims of jobs and future investment drying up our Prime Minister (PM) trotted out a couple of words last week only the dorkiest of dorks would ever use in 2010. Balderdash and Bunkum! He said. I can think of a couple of others to describe our very own Mr Sheen like dickhead and wanker but enough of the personal attacks.

As soon as you go down that path you’ve lost the argument. On the one hand the government believes, courtesy of Ken Henry that the royalties and existing taxes taken from mining during the past decade has not been enough. They reckon the miners are making too much profit.

On the other hand the miners say global competition for capital investment to develop mines is fierce and such a tax will only send these investment dollars offshore to Canada, Brazil and Africa. Who to believe?

I’m no economist and I really don’t know the answer but what I do know is this issue clearly defines the differences in attitudes of Labor and Liberal voters. On this topic I have recently been spending too much time (again) reading comments attached to the articles on The Age and Herald Sun websites. Apparently, Twiggy Forrest, Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart are criminals because they are wealthy.

If that is true then Therese Rein better look out. She wouldn’t want a super profits tax on the recruitment industry. The supporters of the new tax think it will somehow eat into the boss’s personal fortunes and divert wealth to them, it won’t. They think the government will spend the extra money on roads, hospitals and other infrastructure for the people. They won’t.

The only reason the government went for this tax option in the first place is because history has taught them budget deficits can be electoral poison. With all the surplus money spent to ‘save’ us all from the 2008 GFC the government are desperate to find a way back to black ink in 3 years rather than 6. That’s why they need the money. It’s key to the May budget actually standing up. Alas, it’s not to increase pensions or public housing for the poor.

Kevin Rudd has been accused of mastering one thing in his time as PM, namely the back down. His ‘greatest moral challenge of our time” ETS and the Home insulation debacle are hallmarks of his prime ministership. On this issue he will be determined not to back down even as the polls get worse. To do so would render him a political eunich. If they drop another 5 points this month then the rumblings on the backbench will really hot up. Only 1 government has been thrown out after a single term in our history and that was Scullin’s during the depths of the depression in 1932. Labor will not want to make this kind of history. We may well see Julie lining up at full forward for the Western Bulldogs by August. After all she said there was more chance of that than her leading Labor to the election. Really Julia?

From where I’m sitting I think I need to look at my supercoach team and trade Barry Hall for you just in case.