To Hell in a Hand Basket

I am fed up with politicians in this country.

Now I think that by now, even the most apathetic of voters must realise what an outright liar Howard is. His FUD campaign against Latham ran on the population's fear of rising interest rates. He led the people to believe his government could ensure that interest rates would stay low, and that it was assured that they would rise under a Latham Labor government. What do we find now, but that interest rates are rising under the Howard Liberal government. We are also seeing the Howard government repeatedly and blatantly flaunting the pretext of democracy, and creating its own legislation without showing a single bit of regard for the interests of the population they are supposedly governing for. If any interest is shown from the Howard government, it is towards kissing Bush's arse.

I won't go into details, but things are continuing to go from worse to worse under Howard. I will get strong disagreement from my friend, Mikey_Capital, but I do not think that the Beazley opposition is offering an attractive alternative.

All I see from Beazley et. al. is a thuggish contradiction of most of the Liberal policies. Anything that Labor does not disagree with, they propose stronger measures in a sick game of political one upmanship. He is just as unable to read the public mind as Howard is. "Oh, Howard has announced stricter security measures. I think people want this, I had better propose even stricter measures." No, Beazley we do not want stricter measures.

Unless Labor can come up with some constructive alternatives to the Liberal's policies, stop the thuggishness, and stop trying to out do the government, they will not be getting my support any time soon. Unfortunately, though, the minor parties are becoming so ineffectual, that voting for them will not do any good. Fortunately for me, though, I am in an electorate that is represented by an independent MP who seems to be able to achieve more for their electorate than they could as a member of the Labor or Liberal parties.

But, this means looking out for the local level, and giving up on the national and international politics of this country. What am I to do?

This leaves me in a position of despair. This whole country (and the rest of the world) is going steadily down the gurgler. My only consolation is my belief that things do need to get worse, before they can get any better. The rest of the world, particularly the non-rational thinkers are still driving things in a bad direction. There are plenty of people out there, with rational thought, who are crying out for things to be fixed. There is just not enough of them yet. By entering into a name calling, insult slinging argument with them, a-la Beazley vs Tuckey outside parliament, does not pay credit to either side. While this continues, the downward spiral will also continue. We will reach the inevitable stage where the irrational will be forced to say:" Ok, things are really fucked up. Lets set things right." Until things are bad enough that even they can't deny it, we will continue down this road.

I just hope that we get there sooner rather than later. Then we can start putting things right again.

DPS