The other day an interesting thought struck me. And when I say an interesting thought, I mean one that might be interesting to other people. Thoughts that are interesting to one individual are often quite dull to others but talkback radio still exists for some reason…
Anyway, the Coalition was comparing the energy price thing to a Soviet type solution and suggesting that it would be ineffective in the long-term because we all know that only by allowing the market to charge whatever will they look for more gas and once there’s more gas then they’ll sell it more cheaply because that’s how the law of supply and demand works and if you get In the way of that we’ll have gas prices as high as they are now.
In the midst of this, I read an article about how the youth of today were less likely to vote for the major parties and of the major parties there were even less likely to vote for the Liberals than when we were all communists who refused to go and protect the Australian border in Vietnam.
Having the sort of memory that enables me to remember more than one thing at a time, I put the two things together… Yes, I do realise that this is not actually unusual for a normal human being, but it is rather remarkable for anyone commenting on politics.
So here’s my interesting thought:
NOBODY UNDER 30 WAS ALIVE WHEN THE SOVIET UNION COLLAPSED!
Ok, there may be some who were politically aware nine year olds around in the early nineties, but I suspecting that nobody under 40 actually remembers Soviet Russia. And while they may have picked up the odd thing about it from popular culture, it’s not yet ancient enough to form part of history lessons at school.
Saying to the average person under thirty that price controls are like Soviet Russia is like saying we need to talk about the elephant in the room and ask Hannibal to remove it. No, not Hannibal Lecter… The one with the elephants… What do you mean you’ve never heard of Hannibal?
Yes, I’m thinking that the old “reds under the bed” strategy may just be a little 1950s to succeed with today’s youth… Or even today’s “I’m 40 and I wonder where my youth went” crowd.
In the USA we’ve gone from a time when just the hint of a connection to Russia would have had people calling for your head to a situation where, not only was President Trump able to say that he met with Russians but they didn’t help with the election, but you also have people asking why there’s a problem with Russia invading Ukraine…
Whatever your views on the various things, you’d have to say that America has certainly changed when it comes to concerns about Russian infiltration.
Peter Dutton and his mates may well be right about the price control not solving the problem of rising energy costs but I don’t see their rhetoric as being quite as effective as the “great big tax on everything” that they employed against the carbon pricing that wasn’t a tax. In the latter case they were trying to make us scared that everything would be unaffordable with stories of Whyalla being wiped off the map because of all the $100 lamb roasts. Making people scared of something that might happen is a lot easier than telling them that what IS happening needs to be fixed but what the other party is proposing won’t work and instead they should not do it. It sort of begs the question that if this won’t work, what’s your plan?
And, of course, as Angus Taylor explained, they’d have one if they were in government and it would be a better one but it’s up to Labor to have a plan and they don’t, apart from the one which we said won’t work and instead we should be in government because then we’d know what to do because we’d have a plan. Or as Sussan Ley said, “We’re in opposition we don’t have policies, but if we did then we’d add an extra ‘c’ in the word ‘policy’ because numerically speaking that would mean that our policcies had more substance than Labor’s!”
(That last quote is from memory so I may not have it 100% verbatim but I think I got the gist.)
Speaking of Sussan, I hear that she’s been counting the numbers and many of her colleagues are very impressed because Peter Dutton had to take his shoes and socks off to do that and even then he got it wrong and we ended up with Scotty “I’m ambitious for this guy standing next to Malcolm” Morrison.
I was going to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, but apparently you can’t do that any more. At work, I wrote on to someone’s going away card: “Merry Christmas and good riddance, you lazy, fat turd!” and he said that he had a good mind to report me. Honestly, political correctness has gone mad.
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Complements of the season to you Rossleigh and others at AIMN.
Just as an aside, I understand that the advertisements I may be seeing on this (and other) sites may have been selected for me by an ‘algorithm’ that has sifted through my browsing history and now shows me things that are likely to interest or appeal to me.
As a case in point, the ad that is sitting above this post is for incontinence underpants which Chemist Warehouse assure me will ‘keep me secure’ and if I’m quick I can get sixteen pairs of leak-proof undies for $24.99, postage free.
This offer is tempting but I have a question for readers : am I the only one seeing this ad or is it universal ?
I don’t suffer from incontinence (but my dog does so perhaps the algorithm has us confused – as was the case with the RoboDebt algorithm). Why has this algorithm picked on me ?
I investigated further with Ad Choices who brought this ad to me and their explanatory site tells me :
So, is there a rash of incontinence in Australia or is it confined to the AIMN readship ?
I didn’t know that I had turned off ad personalization (actually I prefer an ‘s’ ) – so what they seem to be saying is, ‘as we don’t know whether you are incontinent or not and as your browsing history doesn’t reveal that information, we’ll just take a stab in the dark and on the off chance that you are experiencing bladder-leak and would like to avail yourself of a special offer on sixteen pairs of incontinence underpants as a Boxing Day special’.
So, I repeat my question, is everybody else seeing this ad or is it just me (and the dog) ?
Meanwhile, I’m off to the toilet, not because I have to go you understand, but because I choose to go !
“I was going to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, but apparently you can’t do that any more … Honestly, political correctness has gone mad.”
I really like the stuff you write, but I have to YELL at you about the above quite. As long as people keep saying you can’t say Merry Christmas anymore there will be people who believe it. FFS just wish people Merry Christmas and tell the fanatics to GF themselves.
Merry Christmas – everyone!
Looking at the poster for “The Red Menace” all I could think was the scared look on the face of the man. What we don’t get to see is THE RED MENACE of the mad monk in his budgie smugglers coming toward the hapless victim.
The film itself is bloody awful.
Terence, they’ve confused you with your dog.
Just like they’ve confused me with my son. I’m getting inundated with invitations to run any thing from 5 km to 100 km.
Although they must know something… I’m not being invited to run the 100 ‘miles’ (which should surely only ever be described as 164 km) that my baby boy (aged 41!) ran the other day 🤣
I hope everyone had a Happy Christmas 😊 and best wishes to all for 2023.
Thanking Michael and Carol for 2022 and wishing more strength to their combined elbows in 2023.
I’ve been trolling my inner shallowness for a resolution.
In the new year, would it be wrong to cancel networked short-term sanctimonious exceptionalism?
Ah, what the hell? Come time for resolution or revolution, with a mouth full of stale cake, I can’t be bothered,
Besides, everyone knows there ain’t no sanity claus
Clakka,
It’s also not irrelevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddhrz0XKySQ
Ah shucks Rossleigh, just continue your irreverent view of Australian politics in 2023 because it makes better reading than the Main Stream Merde-ocrity. There is much to do and few to do it, especially leading Australian voters to seriously consider the ineptitude of many government decisions that fail to benefit those same voters.
People remember laughing long after they grimace at the administration failures. At least having a n Albanese LABOR government there is likely to be fewer stuff-ups and more concern for the welfare of the working classes that the last nine (9) years COALition misgovernment punished for being poor while lining their own pecuniary interests for a post politics career with a foreign owned multinational corporation.
but what about our utes?
McScreechie told us in raucous notes that we would all lose the weekend, our utes and our ability to tow our boats and all seven Morrisons agreed, and dear Suss mumbled something about it I am sure.
Maybe Little to be proud of and the unbelievable Angus concur but I can never work out exactly what they are saying…
and Herr Kipfler has gone absent whilst pondering his position on anything relevant.
Thankfully I have the AIMN to keep me informed
Thanks Rossleigh and all who read these posts and make it all possible
first you fuck them over, then you want their vote?
the libs are strengthening their boomer grandchildren generation and hope for a spin off against ‘socialism’. The ‘scary’ operating words are ‘left’ and ‘red chinese’.
When australians are scared any rational thinking becomes rationalising.
The lnp xstians are proven experts at true lying??? As a counter Albo needs wong and wang.
Is it just me ?
There’s an ad above in the comments section that says :
casual dinning in the heart of Port Douglas
what is dinning ?
What has the Libs got to offer younger voters apart from right wing religious nutters, The Spud, corrupt practices, Annabelle the possessed doll impersonator, cheek spreading for big business, hammering the little people into the ground, blame shifting, Angus, infighting…I think I’ll stop there even if the list of negatives goes on and on and…
the libs are reaping what they sowed. Eating away at young people every step of the way, death by a thousand cuts seems so apt.
Ask a young person what they want and the libs will eat away at it slowly. Steady job? gone. A good job? where? Higher education? pay through the nose. Buy a house? get a better job. You want somebody to vote for you? Just make sure you know how to destroy any dreams they have first. young people are smarter than when I was a lad and they dont take shit.