Trust the X-spurts?

According to the Oxford dictionary, "a spurt is a short period of unsustained effort" and as we move towards Australia's 2010 Federal election on August the twenty first, there will be a short period of unsustained effort by a stream of X-spurts trying their darnedest to influence the voting public. It is their big chance to galvanize the nation and leave us with the notion our democratic system is working for us.

We will be bombarded with targeted concepts like "moving forward" and "we're ready" designed to get our vote for Julia or Tony even though they won't be on the ballot paper most people mark. Most people vote for someone they don't know, or have a limited knowledge of, whose head only appears in the area once every three or four years. Our compulsory participation in this process is reduced to handing over power to someone who doesn't think we are capable of making any decisions other than picking one or two, pre-selected people, to make our decisions for us. 

If you don't believe me, find an X-spurt, pull it aside and ask it for an off the record comment on whether the masses should be allowed to make policy decisions for themselves, even if only on the simplest of issues. Caution, you could be shocked by the reply!    

The honeymoon is over

from Waynes Word on Web, 09.07.10

It’s really quite bazaar the way Australia’s general public is manipulated by the media when it comes to giving the ever changing array of Prime ministers (or opposition leaders) their support or not.

One minute we are all quite chuffed with Mr 70% popularity and laughing at the images of the Emperor of the Republican Party, sorry Liberal Party, being knifed in the back. Then we are looking lovingly at Tony the Iron Man and considering him for the number one job, even though his only qualification seems to be disagreeing with anything anybody says.

We are then encouraged to be appalled at Julia (see-saw) usurping Kevin's reign, even though it was a liberal dose of media that did the hatchet job on him. But because she is a woman, she is soon forgiven and then after a short honeymoon the knives are being sharpened again on the old grind stone of evil boat people.

What a pathetic bunch we must look like to any sane observer! It’s not bad enough the ridiculous behavior of our elected parliamentarians is broadcast live to the world on the ABC, but now we appear to be seriously considering changing another perfectly adequate leader for a budgie smuggling mad monk, all because the story hungry, meddling media, can’t help themselves.

The grass IS greener

from Waynes Word on Web, 06.07.10

When looking at the world as a whole, the continent of Australia stands out like a shag on a rock. There it sits right in the middle of the southern oceans, smack dab in between Africa and Sth America with Asia above us and Antarctica below. It’s one hell of a piece of real estate, probably the most desirable slab of land in our Galaxy.

There are 6,829,693,500 people on 148,429,000 square kilometers of turf on our planet in our little corner of the universe. Australia has 22,376,302 people on 7,687,000 square kilometers, that's approximately one / three hundredth of the people on a twentieth of the available land or simply 0.33% on 5%.

Considering these facts (and that the basics of human rights is the right and a place to exist) we lucky few, here in Aus, are potentially the head fascists of the worlds monopoly board and as our Prime Minister opened up the debate this week on what our policy should be towards policing our borders, we should tread carefully before stating our opinion on discriminating against 99.66% of the people we share this planet with.

In my opinion, we should at least put a plan on the table for addressing this heinous imbalance before pulling up the draw bridges. With a modicum of responsible behaviour we could take in vast amounts of refuges from all places and go somewhat towards placating the bulk of humanity who might not have previously noticed the imbalance, but inevitably will.