Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Political Bukkake

Being a member of a party whose 'thinkers' and string-pulling union officials seem to despise you is a thankless walk on a muddy, overgrown and ultimately lonely road.

You get your renewal. Because you earn a middling sum, and aren't a member of an affiliated union, your fee is enough for a return airfair to Sydney. The temptation to get the airfare, track down and slap some faceless pissant who's holding your party in stasis, can be overwhelming.

I will sign up again, try to deepen my involvement, find a nook where I belong.

On lefty's site I used political bukkake as a pun, but it seems apt for the process of earnest, wide-eyed pursuit of value from a political system starved of decency. You open your wallet, you spend hours-on-end campaigning to put people into power, you stand to attention as they step up to the policy podium, then they spray their worthless self-perpetuating seed all over you.

The membership of Labor is, apparently, out of touch with the voters. "Code" for saying the membership of Labor are actually mostly left-wing, while those at the top of the party with the faint taste of power in their mouths are repeating the policy of incremental divergence that has served the party so well for the past decade, and allowing a handful of people in marginal suburban seats to drive the once-great policy machine of the nation's opposition.

I'll sip my Aussie grown Sav Blanc, reflecting on how this makes me an irrelevant elitist. Study my worthless Masters degree. And wonder why and how we evolved into the democracy of incremental nothings.

Then I'll send off my renewal, and wait for the next wad of self-hating apologia to land from above.

16 comments:

Armagnac Esq said...

SB and Don please just veer back from too much flaming (or, er, spraying); there's plenty of political content in your disagreement to fuel a decent stoush...

GS said...

Am interested to know what you make of current labour policies and line up. Do you think anything would really change if the party got in at the next election? Do you think you can make a difference?

Just curious.

BwcaBrownie said...

'Do you think you can make a difference?'

You will start out standing, proud to steal her anything she sees ...
but you will wind up peeping through her keyhole down upon your knees.
Dylan 1966

Anonymous said...

There are plenty of other places to make a difference.

Unless you are interested in getting pre-selected, I wouldn't bother with party politics.

Saps the soul.

phil said...

"This is so typically leftist. People are not interested in your version of a better place." As a non-party-card carrying 'lefty' (on some issues), I have to take issue with this. People are interested in a (generic) better place and the major concern I think many 'lefties' currently have is that the current administration is taking us away from anyone's idea of a better place. It's reductionist, narrow and backward-looking, with coincidental low interest rates, reflecting international economic conditions. Armaniac's present despair is finding a way to negate the untruths that are widely bandied about by the gov't and its myriad of paid mouthpieces to cover up this 'idea'.

Armagnac Esq said...

So your argument in a nutshell is that labor should be right wing just like the libs then they'll get voted in.

There are a few issues with that argument, to put it mildly, but I'm too tired to parse them out, my 'gnac and mrs 'gnac both await in the next room.

Don Quixote said...

I'll start out by apologizing for the spelling comment - it was nasty and unnecessary and I retract it completely.

Now, on to what you've said so far -

"There are many things I dislike about the present government, but that is not the point.

My point is that the leftist version of common good is now so far out of the mainstream that it is an incumberance on the ALP's electoral chances."

Out of whose mainstream has the left version of good fallen? I would have thought that at least half the population support homosexual equality, racial diversity and gender balance.

"Political parties compete for votes. They try to sell their policies, and also in designing their policies they have some regard to what the electorate might want."

Indeed, but they also have a responsibility to follow their own moral dictates - a failure to provide a valid alternative would seem to ensure a Nazi style one party system. If you'd like some balance, substitute the world Stalinist for Nazi.

"The problem for leftists is that socialism is now so discredited that it is no longer saleable. People do not want leftists ordering them around, imposing regulations, speech codes and other PC nonsense on them, and otherwise screwing up the economy."

Socialism and leftism are not pills that have to be swallowed at the same time. And your point about being bossed around is rather absurd, in light of the repression being exercised by right wing democracies at present. If you don't like people being bossed around, embrace same sex marriage and equal rights for women. But be wary! You may find yourself leaning a little towards the left...

I'd also add that it's interesting people still complain about pc. What is it that you want to say that you find you can't?

"Most people know that government behaviour affects interest rates. External factors are also relevant, but those of us who lived through the St Gough fiasco know how badly the government can screw things up."

If you are interested in things being screwed up, wait until the new IR changes take their hold.

"Armaniac's problem is that the people see right through him and his leftist shibboleths."

I think it's quite refreshing that Armaniac is prone to introspection and self exploration. It displays a willingness to avoid blindly following the talking points set out by either side of the political spectrum.

"If Labor wants to govern it has to rid itself of its leftist baggage and give the people something approximating what they want."

You're basically proposing a merger of the two parties here. Either that or you're suggesting a competition in which the right wing government that proves least corrupt wins.

phil said...

Pretty much what Don said, and more, but's a dialogue of the deaf, innit? But just this: St Gough coincided with the abandonment of the Bretton Woods Accords, gold standard etc. Plus we had the OPEC oil price hikes etc. I don't for a second condone the shonky Khemlani episode, but can anyone claim with a straight face that a McMahon government would have handled these external shocks any better? What happened elsewhere around the world? Spare me!!

Armagnac Esq said...

I agree, I don't get to host many long threads like some of the alpha sites out there, but this one was characterised by intelligent reasoning and an absence of arguing for the sake of it or flaming.

R.H. said...

Armaniac. Cut out the controversy.

Who do you think you are?

Larvatus Prodeo?

You are not.


And if you are, where's the dolls?

Armagnac Esq said...

r h you've caught me out.

I am, indeed, not Larvae Prod.

Your comment about the dolls has got me thinking though... dolls? A reference to blogbabes? Or to small fluffy things you sit on the e-mantlepiece?

phil said...

I certainly enjoyed putting in my two cents' worth and I'd like to thank splatterbottom for a thoughtful response. More long freds at armagnac'd, I say.

R.H. said...

Where's your evidence for that?

R.H. said...

Yes. I know. It was a silly question.


But I wanted a laugh.

Armagnac Esq said...

See my comment on a recent post by Jason at Stoush...

Adam, I got about half way through, then I became rather cynical because for all his protesting Latham exhibited the same lack of "left wing" qualities I thought he was critiquing.

Actually he kept contradicting himself.

And I did start to think he was driven more by the old class warfare of it than actual policy positions.

Armagnac Esq said...

Nothing like it! Just sometimes politics gets up my nostrils and makes me gag...