|
||
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
||
|
|
Issue No. 293 | 20 December 2005 |
|
||
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Waves of Destruction
Interview: Back to the Future Unions: A Real Page Turner Industrial: The Pin-Striped Union International: Around The World In 365 Days Legends: Terrific, Tommy Your Rights At Work: Worth Fighting For Politics: The Year That Was Economics: Master and Servant Revisited Culture: 2005: The Year of Living Repetitively Bad Boss: The Bottom Ten Religion: Hymns from a Different Song Sheet
Predictions The Soapbox Parliament The Locker Room Postcard
 Pension PinchingFree to RatTax Cuts and CockroachesProportion, Not DistortionCorp That!
|
|
|
Tool Shed The Dog Whistler
***** In the sixties John Howard opposed Vietnam War protesters and the protesters were right and Howard was wrong. In the seventies John Howard opposed the African National Congress and the ANC was right and Howard was wrong. In the eighties John Howard opposed Asian immigration and immigration was right and Howard was wrong In the nineties John Howard opposed Eddie Mabo, but Mabo was right and Howard was wrong. In the early years of the twenty-first century John Howard opposed the UN over Iraq and the UN was right and Howard was wrong. Now John Howard is opposed to your rights at work; is there a pattern developing here? If John Howard thinks he has scored a victory this year gaining control of the Senate he should look up the word Pyrrhic in a dictionary. That it will fly obliviously over the head of this third rate suburban solicitor that his Thatcherite dream for us all may not be in the best interests of society should come as no surprise. He is cunning, that is a given, but so is a shithouse rat. Our Tool Of The Year knows that a quick bribe and a nod towards some popular bigotry will see him over the line every time. It helps if you can whip the populace into a panic like some snake oil salesman, then sell them the quack cure. This will win you elections, but it ain't clever. The problem is, no matter how many times you fudge, spin, distort, obfuscate, dodge, attack as a form of defence, cheat, steal or bastardise, there is always reality down the track. Menzies hung onto power for years, invoking the red menace and pinching Labor Party policy, but it's hardly seen as a high point in Australian political life. In the end time caught up with Menzies, as it will with Howard, and all the bullshit that mendacious old fool from Toorak banged on about was writ large. In the end Menzies created more problems for the future than he ever solved. And thus it is with his acolyte Howard. This government is the most spineless, intellectually dishonest, corrupt, incompetent and callous administration this Federation has ever known. The people do not love Howard. Even those that vote for him do so grudgingly, motivated by fear. He has had more luck than a dancing drunk, with none of the charm. This week the Salvos revealed that there has been a 17% increase in people seeking help this Christmas. This, at a time, when the economy is allegedly booming. But booming for whom? Booming for those who back John Howard, that's who. And WorkChoices is supposed to make life easier for that extra 17% of people trying to put food on the tables for their families this Christmas? Yeah, right. Howard's response? To complain there's not enough nativity scenes at shopping centres. A neat piece of dog whistling; with Howard hinting that we're all being overrun by Mohammedans and godless atheists hell bent on destroying “our” way of life. It's the sort of mindless pap that lets people indulge their hatred. A special brand of "our" hatred, which, according to Dear Leader Howard, isn’t racist. Oh no. Not one bit. It’s just based on the way people look. John Howard has made us smaller and darker as a nation. He is hell bent on turning this country into a grasping, money-obsessed leviathan; reduced to a battle of all against all. In Howard’s Hobbesian nightmare life will be truly be nasty, brutish and short. He may invoke mateship, but he is its antithesis. A man who would stab his fellow countrymen in the back if it meant his own personal advancement. Machiavelli is alive and well and resides in Kirribilli. The reality is more and more Australians are being driven to their wits end by this government's malfeasance. Things are crook in Tallarook. Yet our self proclaimed deputy sheriff continues apace, oblivious to the society unravelling beneath him. He never talks about weapons of mass destruction anymore. Remember how the GST would wipe out the black economy? The map of Australia with all the bits the darkies were going to get painted red? Counting John Howard's lies is like counting the stars. This alone does not a tool make. Remember his defence of Pauline Hanson? The "fact" that “we decide who comes here”? His waring of the "danger"� of Asian immigration? His support for Apartheid? Haranguing people at a "reconciliation"� conference? Saying that John Howard is racist is like saying the sun rises in the east. This alone does not a tool make. Remember his debt truck back when debt was a fraction of what it is now? His opposition to ten consecutive pay rises for Australia's lowest paid workers? How the GST would end tax avoidance and make the young feel old and the old feel young? The fact that John Howard is the most irresponsible financial manager we've had since, well, when John Howard was treasurer under Fraser speaks volumes, but that alone does not a tool make. Remember how he bailed out his brother's company? How he defended Geoff Prosser? How he appointed the incompetent head of immigration as the Indonesian Ambassador? How he tried to buy the 1983 election? The news that Howard is corrupt is not new, but this alone does not a tool make. Remember how he stared down shooters, with a bulletproof vest? How he said East Timor was Indonesia's business? His tantrum after the rugby world cup? Sure, he's a coward, like all bullies, but that alone does not a tool make. Remember that cricket ball in Pakistan? That, along with all of the above, and more, is what makes John Winston Howard well deserving of the epithet, Tool Of The Year.
Nominate a Tool!
|
| Search All Issues | Latest Issue | Previous Issues | Print Latest Issue |
|
© 1999-2002 Workers Online 
|
|
