Punk and Politics

I’ve been listening to punk music with increasing regularity since the Morrison government was returned to power. This is disturbing, not because I dislike the songs, but because I first got into punk when John Howard came to power, and that prick was there for eleven years. More concerning is my new-found proclivity to intersperse the anarchy with country leaning rock from the sixties to eighties, the sort of stuff you can imagine Trump’s base listens to. And bagpipes. Can’t figure the bagpipes out. Might have something to do with Scotland going hell for leather to gain independence and get back into the EU when Boris Johnson screws up Brexit more royally than lying to the queen.

Not that I should give a shit about what happens in the US or UK, Australia has enough problems, but these twits (Trump and Johnson) happily held our incompetent child Prime Minister’s hand as he took his first bold steps onto the world stage. Aside from agreeing to throw former Foreign Minister Downer under a bus in exchange for a fancy dinner and the second speaking slot at one of Trump’s campaign rallies, Morrison thought it would be a good idea to piss off our largest trading partner while in the country China is in the middle of a trade war with. And then there’s the bullshit idea that a free trade deal with Britain will happen anytime soon after they manage to crash out of the EU. I don’t think anyone has told him that all of the crap we would want to export to the UK is from the industries those who voted to leave thought they were protecting.

There are many similarities between the three major leaders of the Anglosphere, (Trudeau is weakened by his youthful racism and Jacinda, while nice, is still just NZ PM), but there is one marked difference. We voted for Morrison. Sure, Trump won the election with Russia’s help, but he lost the popular vote. The American electoral system requires a majority of Electoral College votes which are split on state lines thereby giving states with small populations great power. Trump knew this and worked it. He ignored the populous liberal states and ran on the xenophobic, “it’s not your fault you’re poor and don’t have a job” ticket in states where most of the industries are on the way out globally anyway. And won.

Boris on the other hand was voted in by a majority of his own party who do not even hold a majority in the House of Commons. I’m curious as to how many DUP members wanted Boris in charge of the bunfight. None of them want a hard border, but none of them want to be some special zone of the UK that exists under EU regulations, yet they have come out in support of Boris’ proposal.

Meanwhile, the unelected PM is running roughshod over the only deal Brussels is willing to agree to. In my humble opinion as a simple colonial commoner, (not that I would ever presume myself to be of such rarefied standing as to advise the House of Windsor), Lizzie needs to sack Parliament and start afresh. She already broke the law by suspending sittings and is now a political actor. The Crown must act.

While she’s at it, a Royal decree to dissolve the forty-ninth Parliament of Australia wouldn’t go astray, alongside an order to hold a referendum on Recognition, Reconciliation and the bloody Republic. I can picture her penning the Post-Script, it’s at Sandringham in my mind, don’t know why, just feel she’d want to be comfortable when scripting such an important note.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­“Dear Mr Morrison,

                                                It is in the spirit of a mother that I write you.

Australia has grown up.

By The Grace of the oldest living culture on the planet, you are more than ready to cut the apron strings and head out on your own. You really must make reparations to those people and given the situation we find ourselves in Once Great Britain, We, are afraid that we will be unable to finance that endeavour. You will find above, my decree that Australia will become a Republic by public vote and this process is to continue until a majority vote in the affirmative is achieved.

It is with mixed emotions that I convey you this message through my Governor-General. Australia has always been England’s favourite son, albeit a mongrel bastard son with far too much Irish in it, but a son, nonetheless. My eternal gratitude will be with you personally Mr Morrison, for providing a safe place for my biological son Andrew to hide while the world’s media forgets the whole paedophile thing. But to the Commonwealth of Australia as a whole I must acknowledge all of those young people you sent to die in order to ensure my family retained power over half the world. First, because we were selfish and didn’t want the Germans to have a fair crack at enslaving primitives around the globe and the second time around because Daddy let Mr Chamberlain allow Mr Hitler to annexe half of Europe.

But this is not the time to bother you with history. I’m sure Mr Abbott, as an expert on fascism and Nazi’s can fill you in next time you visit The Australian War Memorial. It does bring to memory however, a great Prime Minister of Australia. I cannot recall meeting John Curtin, (I was young and did meet so very many men), but I do recall Mr Churchill raging drunk and cursing the man for recalling Australian troops to defend your country.

‘There is a man to be respected’, I thought to myself, ‘a man with a backbone’. If I were to offer you one piece of advice Mr Morrison, it would be to model yourself on a man of such integrity. Hold on one moment, Philip would like to write a few words.

HI TONY

THANKS FOR THE KNIGHTHOOD. WHEN DO I GET MY CASTLE? DO I GET SLAVES? Servants?

WHY CANT WE CALL THEM SLAVES ANYMORE? DOESNT MATTER, I’M A KNIGHT OF AUSTRALIA ANYWAY. WHO CARES? YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME.

I CAN WRITE IT MYSELF. LEAVE ME ALONE. IM WRITING TO TONY.

DONT YOU LIE TO ME. HE MADE ME A KNIGHT AND HES GOING TO BE PRIME MINISTER FOR EVER.

WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN WRITING ANYWAY?

REPUBLIC?

THIS MARRIAGE WASNT ARRAINGED SO YOU COULD FACILITATE THE DISSOLUTION OF THE EMPIRE. ITS BAD ENOUGH YOU LOST INDIA AND SOUTH AFRICA. LOSE AUSTRALIA AND ALL WERE LEFT WITH IS NEW ZEALAND AND CANADA.

DON’T TALK ABOUT THE REST. THEYRE FULL OF DARKIES.

WHAT?

YOU WONT LET ME CALL THEM SLAVES.

WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO CALL THEM?

SORRY TONY.

IVE GOT TO GO TO THE TIME OUT CAR.

LET ME KNOW WHEN THE CASTLE IS READY.

My sincere apologies Mr Morrison, Philip tends to write what he is speaking if he happens to be doing both things at the same time. Not to worry though, our physician will give him his shot and then it’s off for a quick drive around town before the police set up their traffic stops. Please ignore my husband’s confusion regarding your name and terrible punctuation. He was never the brightest jewel, but it seems to worsen as he ages. I understand your wife is also delusional so I am sure you can empathise.

Unfortunately, that is where I must leave you Mr Morrison, Philip is revving the engine and it sounds as if we will need a new horn on whichever Bentley he chose today. If you were a Godly man I would wish you Godspeed in facilitating the Republic, Recognition, Reconciliation Referendum, but as you are a sycophantic charlatan I can only wish you luck in achieving anything during your tenure before you are knifed in a similar fashion as you perpetrated against your predecessor.

With Love,

Betty

QE2

With that tangent out of the way.

We voted Morrison in.

Apparently seventy percent of Australians reckon climate change is a real threat. Probably the biggest the human race is facing. We voted a climate change denier into the highest office of the land. He holds a one seat majority courtesy of a Chinese operative and no one seems to give a shit.

A shaved ape holds the highest elected office in this stolen land and got there only courtesy of a fat, corrupt megalomaniac who is happier spending sixty odd million dollars to ensure another LNP tax break for big business than paying out legitimate workers claims from a company he ran into the ground.

Yeah, I’m talking about you Palmer. Sue me. I’m on Newstart big boy.

Honestly, you fat wanker, come at me.

I will represent myself thereby fulfilling my job requirements, and as I’m restricted to fifteen hours work per week, your fat arse will have to turn up at my specification.

“I wish that, I knew what I know now, when I was younger”. Sound words from the prophet Tim Armstrong (punk music, first paragraph, look him up). I sit here, once more, roughly a fortnight from my birthday procrastinating by writing this garbage instead of working on the book I have foolishly titled with a timeframe that is hastily running out. Should probably get back to it but I must finally say –

Trump is, and history will record him as such, the vilest person to have dishonoured the office of POTUS thus far. Yes, that includes Nixon and both Bush’s tenures as Crook-In-Chief. Not only does he look like the sort of person you would have to wash yourself after you accidently touched it, but his voice is something you can imagine masochists setting as their wake up alarm. It’s times like these I both grieve and rejoice that Hunter S. Thomson is no longer with us, the poor old bugger would hate where his country has gone but he would have told the world how shit it was better than anyone else. Maybe Bill Hicks, but he didn’t decide to shoot himself so shouldn’t factor in such hypothetical's.

Boris Johnson is an ignorant, privileged, pompous xenophobe who got his job because the only people allowed to elect him mirror the above description of him themselves. He is the fool that will preside over the collapse of the UK and seems to want it. After Scotland gets independence and goes back to Europe, Northern Ireland will probably realise The Republic elected a gay child of Indian Immigrants, so being Protestant won’t be seen as such a bad thing anymore. That gets a united Ireland, while Wales will quickly figure out they have the better rugby team and go for broke on their own. Which will leave London being really pissed off with the rest of England because they were onto a good thing and who gives a shit about fox hunts.

And Morrison. Bloody hell. I thought Abbot was an embarrassment but this sycophantic fake Christian excuse for a Prime Minister is just shameful. It is not oft that I wantonly besmirch my fellow inhabitants of this land of sweeping plains and all the rest, but I must quote an American, Edward Abbey, to fully articulate my feelings –

“I know my own nation best. That's why I despise it the most. And know and love my own people, too, the swine. I am a patriot. A dangerous man”.

Abbey was a man of great wisdom and insight unlike our current Prime Minister whose only purpose seems to be diminishing the high regard in which his position was once held. Most Australians are patriots and are therefore dangerous people. Not the kind of people who have hijacked the Southern Cross for their warped bigoted, racist view of what they believe Australian patriotism to be. But those who recognise this country was stolen from a people who have been custodians of the land for more than sixty thousand years and without post-colonial immigration we would be a mere shadow, economically, of what we are now.

As with all colonised nations, Australia has a chequered and dark history. Racism and xenophobia have been common threads through our nations narrative since Arthur Phillip unloaded the first boat of Irish on Eora Land right through to the present day. Enforced slavery and subjugation not only of the first inhabitants but the peoples of our neighbouring Islands. “Our Pacific Family” Morrison refers to them as. They used to be called “Kanankas” and it is with no pride that I recount the truth of my forebears participating in the exploitation of Pacific Islanders on the cane plantations they established on Yuwi land after getting off the boat from Denmark.

We all have our demons, but I struggle to reconcile Morrison’s public proselytising with his government’s policies regarding refugees, climate change (more refugees when our former slaves have to swim here because their country is submerged), the continued harassment and vilification of people receiving Centrelink payments, subjugating himself (in public, on a global stage) to the most repulsive person ever to have occupied The Oval Office, and to top it off he’s mates with not only one paedophile but also worships at a church run by a bloke who covers up his daddy’s child rape as well as a QAnon mouthpiece.

The man is filth. Nothing more than a hypocritical lackey of Big Mining, Big Agriculture, Big Church, Trump and The IPA.

There’s more. Don’t worry. But this has taken three days to struggle through. I have a book to write and procrastination is hard.

I will leave it here with some poignant words from Skinhead Rob (not a racist, in this song he espouses his proclivity to “Roll with Samoans”. Personally, I roll with Tongans, my Samoan cousins live on the wrong side of The Ditch and we mainly catch up if it’s time to cremate someone).

“Times Up,

Game Over,

I’m Dying Alone”.