"What a pathetic whiny spineless whinger. First sign of rough weather and he/she throws up over the side and demands to be put ashore."
I'm not sure what service Dr Carr, or the Greensborough Growler, or any other sources of vicious vitriol I pick up have given to the ALP. Perhaps it's substantially more than my 15 years. I am still stunned at the speed people I might have been standing at the hustings with can turn, or at the remarkable assumption, plugged here by someone who posits himself as an intellectual political analyst, that after such time, and dozens of compromises sucked up while standing on the hustings copping abuse from aboriginal-hating rednecks in the NT, or from Greens and Liberals alike in Northcote, relentlessly doing my bit for the party, I can't make a decision to leave.
I will resist the impulse to flame back; it's inconsistent with my flame-delete policy here, and in any event if any of those people visit I'd rather give them the opportunity to look again at my last few posts under politics and reconsider. You can disagree with someone without instantly resorting to mindless hatred.
15 years, and every territory or state election, and every federal election, as well as the republic referendum, becomes, in this thoughtful analysis, the first sign of rough weather.
If you feel like responding here, don't be vicious, cowardly, or senselessly vitriolic, or you'll be deleted. On the other hand if you want to explain why someone who's put in 15 years then leaves because the party fails to line up with most of his key policy positions is a mere spineless whinger, and can do so in reasonable tones, fire away.
In my hiatus post, where I tried to pull together my strongest reflections after several years of blogging, I wrote:
Being flamed by the other side is unpleasant, slightly. Being flamed by your own is sickening, it turns your world on its head, makes you wonder why you have found common political ground with someone like that.
Indeed. I suppose the difference now is that it makes me feel better about my decision. It's still unpleasant.
5 comments:
You're not going to stop voting and you didn't leave for the Liberal party and the last time I looked we were still a reasonably free country.
I'm not in the party but I am thinking of voting for a drover's dog should one stand that looks honest.
And let us not forget the other low point in labour history in recent years. The trust-us-with-your-preferences vote that got us a Family First Senator (Member for Flat Earth, Sen Fielding). What a selfish nasty trick Labour pulled there, getting Victorian labour voters to preference that twit over any other candidate with good policies and half a brain.
I'll never forgive labour for that.
Well, congratulations on making a difficult, principled decision. Hope more anti-trolls (billy goats gruff, perhaps?) comment.
Haven't been a member, but feeling the same astonished, guts-in-the-abyss kind of pain you articulated.
"What a pathetic whiny spineless whinger. First sign of rough weather and he/she throws up over the side and demands to be put ashore."
Oh REALLY Mr Carr. I don't think "years and years of sliding into neoliberalism practically as bad as the Liberals, being in the pockets of the CFMEU Forestry wing, stupid desalination plants and moronic pipeline projects, and treating voters in the Western subjects like idiots while cosying up to developers" counts as the FIRST sign of rough weather. More like the tenth bloody year of rough weather.
Thanks Helen, sounds like you pretty much nailed it for me there!
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