Now this probably sounds a little arrogant, but I’m an adult…
I know, I know, telling the world that one is an adult is little suspect after Abbott’s election where we were told the adults were back in charge. I mean, adults don’t go around telling you that they’re adults, do they? It’s like saying, “I’m very sophisticated.” The fact that you say it, sort of undercuts the whole idea…
Anyway, I happened to suggest to someone that Brexit reminded me of a teenager announcing their intention to move out of home. You know the sort of thing: “Mum, Dad, I’m sick of you telling me what to do and now I’ve got a job at Hungry Jack’s, you want me to pay for my own video games, so screw you, I’m moving out.” However, when the parents tell the child that they intend to change the locks, the adolescent announces that they want more time to negotiate such things as use of the washing machine, television, fridge and computer, whereupon the parents say that using such things will be fine, occasionally, so long as one gets permission and enters by knocking and…
Ok, the analogy now makes even more sense with the decision to install Boris as PM…
I could go on and talk about Brexit for ages but I’ll only offend the English. Let’s face it, the English are a population who’ve been invading other countries for centuries. The idea that they want to retreat and just be their own little island – (ok, they’re sort of happy to include Wales, Scotland and Ireland too) – is probably something most peoples of the world are more than happy with. It’s like the boring guy who often sits beside you uninvited, suddenly announcing that if you don’t pay more attention when he’s speaking, he’ll just sit somewhere else…
But I’m an adult, so I’d like to move onto general things instead of insulting the English people who may read this and think that they’re so offended that they’ll not only leave the EU, but move to expel Australia from the Commonwealth… Which may be the quickest way to a republic, when I think about it.
It seems to me that experts have bored people for years. Let’s be real. Think of all the times you’ve been at some barbie or dinner party and you’ve had a few glasses of this or that and you’ve started explaining the problems of the world and why your ideas will solve them, when someone who works in the area or has studied it at university embarrasses you by pointing out that your ideas are so completely wrong that it would take them more than an hour to dismiss the basic hypothesis before they got onto nitpicking all the minor ways in which you’ve quoted the wrong person and misunderstood the basic problem. I mean, those bastards who actually know things. Who invited them? We were having a good time until someone introduced facts into the discussion until they started using language like that. Hypothesis, for fuck’s suck…There may be children present. Thank god, for Pauline I say. Nobody could accuse her of letting evidence stand in the way of a good rant.
And so it seems to me that the recent political events are a response to years of having politicians citing experts. We’re damned sick of it, so when a Trump comes along and says that he knows better, he gets a cheer. When the experts start to point out that he’s wrong, we love him even more. Not because he isn’t a complete dunce, but because he is. I mean, don’t we feel great that we’ve got a leader who doesn’t make us feel inferior. At last someone with the self-confidence to stand up to all those experts and not be intimidated by the fact that he knows almost nothing about the topic at hand.
When I read the letters page in the Murdoch newspapers, any self-doubt immediately disappears. Not because I disagree with some of the letters, but because without any knowledge of the subject under discussion these people are expressing an opinion which is so little logical consistency with itself that I wonder how nobody has pointed out their stupidity… And then I realise that people have. Which is why someone like Trump or Boris appeals. They take the heat off the stupid. The experts are so busy talking about them that everyone else gets off scot free…
Mm, Scott free. Nice idea.
Anyway, I suspect that we’ll eventually get sick of it and, just like the person who gives up on the thing that isn’t working and goes back to the doctor, we’ll start to elect people who actually know things.
Or at the very least don’t pretend that they know things when they don’t.
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I wonder now if the rest of the EU will offer Britain ANYTHING to leave!
Please? Just leave?
A good read, rossleigh.
I did read someone’s perfect post
; ‘The septics have just lost the ‘world’s most stupid tag’???
But the funniest image is phillip adams learning the old english art of ‘boris’ dancing.
ps
the old boris took a few shots of vodka to look as stupid as the new boris.
pps
The pommie economy could get a shock with smuggling across the north/south border in ireland. They may have to copy trump and build a wall???
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton believes new UK leader Boris Johnson has the pizzazz to get Brexit sorted.
“He has got the charisma to do it. He has got a great sense of humour,” Mr Dutton told Nine’s Today Show on Friday.
Silly Theresa May…..all she needed was a bit more charisma, a few jokes to warm the crowd up. That should do the trick.
The part I struggle with is accepting that Dutton understands the term ‘sense of humour’. If that is what makes a good leader, we are screwed.
The news of a statue for the rabbott reminded me that the inscription could :read:
Antony Abbott, adolt prime minister sept 2013-sept 2015
beauty Kaye,
I loved the dutton’s descent into compassion for will if the kick was a mental health issue. The words were said with a straight face delivery
All it takes to become a leader these days is some personality quirk or flaw, but a stupid haircut also helps.It’s become an X-Factor style social media world, driven by celebrity status rather than wisdom or capability and would be funny if it wasn’t so potentially dangerous.
“I’ve made up my mind – don’t confuse the issue with facts” would once have been a warning but now it’s a charming attribute.
Please raise a statue to Abbott! It would be a constant reminder of what’s wrong with our system.
Perhaps it could be located at Manly, next to the Alan Jones Memorial Public Toilet Abbott campaigned for.
I have respectfully suggested the statue remind people of our Tones greatest achievement mainly raw onion eating. I have also suggested, in order not to take up much room, his other triumphs be listed on a small plaque. I am sure we don’t need reminding of his shirtfronting, his knighting, his studied views on climate change, and the date that good government started. I also suggested it have pride of place in the new Northern Beaches Tunnel which will be built at Tony’s behest, alongside the very fast train from his house to Chatswood. And people voted him out!
Excellent, horribly evidence based article. What an utter fiasco all round.
It isn’t just border smuggling that will flourish at a reinstated intra-Ireland border. Already there has been a killing at the border of a young, accomplished journalist, perhaps by an IRA activist.
Soft internal EU borders have fuelled paranoia in some East European member states. Apart from Hungary for example, the EU’s non-refoulement agreement meets resistance also in Italy and Malta , which seek to offload their uninvited arrivals or else return them to eg Libya, against international law.
Between the two Irelands though, the soft border has dampened nationalisms. But the danger of a new, hard border risks further reigniting the Troubles.
The EU’s Overseas territories belong to the EU in varying degrees. Aside from such singular EU-member state agreements, at one point some French politicians were fantasising about a common Francophone passport allowing free movement. It was not clear how far such (largely African) free movement would have applied to EU territory beyond France itself, but the possibility, given lack of intra-EU controls, would probably have been enough to scotch the idea.
Finally, it might be argued that the fuzziness of relations between EU member states and past or present micro-polities might set a precedent: the EU and the UK might cobble together a compromise over the back-stop. In practice though, the EU has quite enough problems of its own these days without in addition being seen to side with the UK against Eire. Why should the EU want to? The UK wants to leave, while euro-zone Eire does not.
The EU cannot and will not change its post Brexit Agreement.
Re Abbott:
And that dear reader was a very big mistake – in the whole scheme of things. Now Morrison faces very little internal opposition – now free to wander the political hills and dales with nary a barrier in sight. Just imagine if Abbott’s Catholicism was there to counterbalance Morrison’s Pentecostalism – potential, political schisms galore.
Speaking of Morrison’s religious bent, one wonders how long it will take before Creation Science advocates begin agitating for ‘equal time’ in the National Curriculum? Perhaps Intelligent Design as an elective in Biology? What about the Prosperity Gospel as a Unit in Economics? After all we have school Chaplains, so why not extend their remit.
But life will not be the same without Tony.
After I watched yet another realkly, really stupid car ad, I wondered how this connects to the absurd characters we now vote into power. Two car ads rece3ntly have reinforced my conviction that the world is going down the toilet. One is the Skoda ad – the family incredulous at their little girl singing “Black Velvet” (itself absurd), but then they pass the obligatory dumbstruck family on the street who are just in awe of how superior the other family must me to drive a Skoda. Then there’s the woman getting a haircut who can’t not look through the window to gaze at some wondrous new car. Of course, then there’s the stupid Holden ad – “When you arrive in an Acadia, everyone knows it” is the moronic line in the advertising blurb on the website.
It seems to me that advertising now is about not selling a product as such but highlighting how we can be the subject of envy – we want stuff that shows other peiople how superior we really are. Of course, if everyone bought a Skoda, who exactly would be superior, but that not the point. We want and then we want more and then more. We want everything and think we deserve everything. And we elect leaders who promise us everything (and, as a matter of harsh reality, deliver nothing. Bill Shorten was promising to take stuff away (even if it was from people who already have more than they need) – Morrison, Trump, Johnson all promise to make our dreams come true. We are still the same massively flawed and vacuous characters as we were before, but our leaders have promised so much and drawn us into their perverted tribes.
In days of yore, our leaders (religious) promised us eternal life and that gave hope for a life after death that was better than the daily misery and deprivation most faced all of their lives and all we had to do was maintain our faith in some god or another. In a secular society, we ache for more promises of, well, something, and marketers have filled that need with bigger and more powerful cars, bigger fridges, bigger houses, more expensive phones and more exotic holidays. And our latest god incarnate, Morrison promises reward for “aspiration”, which for most means, “I work hard and I deserve more than I get”.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/developers-need-incentives-to-build-affordable-housing-industry-says-20161024-gs9dqd.html
And here is the Eternal Adolescent, Scotty M. in 2016 telling the building industry in NSW that they need to get rid of all them rules ‘n regulations that are standing in the way of apartment tower construction.
The result of Scotty’s mega-wonderful idea is crumbling, cracking buildings flooded with sewage.
Speaking of (apparently) stupid advertisements. Try these two re words used.
Coke is it.
Just do it.
Ads are about the emotions apparently. You know like :-
It’s time!
IFTL, watch the Skoda ad again [if you can bear watching another ad] and you’ll see/hear that the little girl is singing horribly but only the family on the footpath can hear it. The mum and dad in the car are oblivious and think she sings like an angel. Still a fitting analogy for the Coalition who think their shit doesn’t stink but those of us on the “outside” can smell the stench. Cheers!
As an English woman, the only thing I’m insulted by in the article is the grouping of all English people together as wanting Brexit. A really small proportion of the electorate actually voted in the referendum (no compulsory voting there), and of those, the Leave vote only won by a tiny margin – influenced by lies and misinformation (not least those made up by Boris when he was a journalist himself). It’s an issue that’s really dividing the nation and families.
However, with the moron that we in Australia have just elected (also influenced by lies and misinformation to a great extent), I don’t feel we (I’m dual so I can speak both as a Brit AND an Australian, and am pretty ashamed to be either these days) are in any position to criticize another nation for being represented on the world stage by a bumbling out-of-touch idiot that shames and embarrasses us…..
The only thing that stops me looking at all my fellow voters with contempt and huge disappointment is the vague hope that maybe neither of the votes was free and fair and without outside influence… but I’m probably just clutching at straws there!
Um an Expert? What’s that ?. An X is an unknown quantity and a Spurt is a leak under pressure.
Yes we have all met those experts at BBQ’s and the more piss they consume, the more expert they become.
I can imagine OL Boris Johnson at a BBQ party waxing lyrically about his qualifications and deeds of gallantry.
After one or two beers he would in that toffee nosed accent, be enthralling and captivating the other people with his tales of starring in a play by Shakespeare, and boring them shitless with the sonnets he had put to memory. After a couple more beers he would be telling his captured audience about the time he delivered the Gettysburg address to some yanks at an Ambassadors piss up.
After a few more beers and a few shots of whiskey the real Boris unzips his over coat of respectability and off he goes. Stories about his days at Uni, when he would get his fag to give him a good thrashing on the bare buttocks with a stiff length of English Yew the same wood used for the English long bow, but of course what else?. How he would go into the local village and pick up nubile young wenches take them back to the dorms and give them a good seeing too in a way only the upper class English gentleman can provide. All this done to the old tune that gets an Englishmen’s hearts pounding ‘ Rule Britannia ‘ Yes old Boris he is going to Brexit for 5 quid and change. If it all wasn’t so serious it would be all a laugh.
Diane, of course, I understand that not all English are the same… I’m not a racist. Some of my best friends are English… Well, one was. It was a long time ago, but I distinctly remember his accent and he sounded nothing like Boris Johnson, nor any of the Brexiteers…
In blaming the English for what they’ve done, I am talking about the country rather than the individuals who have had the good sense to move away…
Re :-
So 72% plus is just a really small proportion of the electorate? Given the UK ‘turnout’ in general elections is usually below 70% – please explain? (No wonder Boris is now the PM.) Lol.
Re – lies, brainwashing, false consciousness etc – how come it doesn’t have any effect (or affect) on contributors here?
Even with our compulsory voting here, Queensland has dictated who will govern us. In the rest of the country, it was 62 seats to Labor, 54 to the Coalition. (57 Labor to 43 Coalition if you also leave out WA – the only other state to elect more Coalition MPs than Labor).
Matters Not.
Morrison is OUR PM, in a country with compulsory voting.
We need to revise our image of Australia. We are a mean-spirited, sycophantic and self-serving nation with scant consideration of what is good, either for ourselves or the world.
Scott Morrison IS AustralIa – we showed it by our votes.
Re :-
What’s with the we? Perhaps you might need to revise your image of Australia – but I certainly don’t. Australians are easily frightened – easily cowed – who operate under so many misapprehensions re government – and at so many levels. Not only is there the absence of the good, there is a complete disdain for the right – ethically speaking.
Further, perhaps we could do away with compulsory voting and then we might get a real Trump look-alike and not a pale imitation. Some 25% of the UK population failed to exercise their right to vote so there’s no use complaining now.
Matters Not
Compulsory voting got us the same kind of government that voluntary voting got the UK and the USA. So what we got is what we want. Your image of Australia accords with mine, actually. Despite the bias of the Murdoch empire (and it is feared and loathed just as much in the UK and USA as it is in the posts to the Guardian, AIM, IndependentAustralia and such) the truth of the corruption in our Federal Government is blatant, and nobody could say in all honesty that they didn’t know Dutton was a nasty piece of work or that the Coalition treats our economy like their own bank account. But Dutton got s positive swing and the Coalition got its ‘mandate’ to carry on regardless.
And what do we see when we consider the candidates for the senate vacancy created by the breathtakingly undeserving Fifield’s sinecure? The name ‘Mirabella’. Not the serially rejected Sophie but her – presumably -,equally repellent spouse.
Suck it up, Australia. You know you want to…
Jack Cade, sometimes the majority of electors vote positively. That is, there’s something on offer (by and large) that they really want. The promised upside far outweighs the downside.
Conversely, sometimes the electors vote negatively. That is, there’s something on offer (real or imagined) that they fear. In my view, that’s why Labor lost the last election. That’s why Dutton, Howarth, Christensen et al increased their majority. And why certain safe Labor electorates were nearly lost. etc
The punters had no particular love for the above (how could they) but they had a real fear of the alternative(s). Presumably, Labor will have learned a lesson (but possibly not).
Matters snot
Why should Labor learn? The electorate doesn’t.
Children overboard.
No GST
No cuts to the ABC
Utegate
Ditch the Witch.
Stopped the Boats.
Ffs.
There is s new party forming – Real Democracy.
I’m giving it a try.
They can’t be worse than a praying PM surrounded by evidence that prayer doesn’t work.
Democracy is not a bad idea that’s never been tried.
Matters Not
I just noticed the renegade ‘s’ in my response to your comments. I assure you it was not meant!! My apologies!