Writer's Blockdown -- or -- When Any News is Too Much News

It’s the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m trying to write three (maybe more) different things and I’m sick of it. I won’t blame the Pangolin nor the Bat for my current malaise. I blame there being too much shit going on right now that I can’t focus on any specific subject.

Which is probably why Fat Bottomed Girls started playing on the other computer as I reread and rewrote the sentences above.

I plant my flag on this hill to declare that song as the best song ever recorded by Queen.

Ever.

Bring it.

Seriously, please do.

I’m bored.

And sad.

I could do with a fight.

And a light.

Time for a joint.

A month after my mate decided to kill himself rather than come sleep on my couch, I still haven’t finished writing the thing that I am writing about him. Nor have I worked on the fantasy novel I started a couple of days before he decided to kill himself. Or my main work in progress about how my Uncle killed a bunch of people. There are four unsaved Word documents on this computer right now. All are stalled attempts to write something relevant. Only the one about my mate amongst them. I haven’t bothered to open the major projects.

It would be easy to blame a friend’s suicide or the lockdown (which hasn’t significantly changed my day-to-day life) for my inability to get any words down which would be nothing more than bullshit excuses. Even if I went down that path, and it would probably be accepted by many people as normal to do so, I would know I was lying. Only three funerals I have attended in my life have been as a result of natural causes.

Suicide and I are not strangers.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been proper upset. Crying more than usual, thinking about doing it myself (I’m NOT going to. DON’T call the authorities. I’m NOT going to do it), bought a bottle of Rum (didn’t drink the whole thing in one sitting), played with The Cat to the point of pissing her off and yelled at the TV more than is healthy. You know, normal sort of shit.

Usually a friend’s suicide prompts a furious flurry of words. Chapters are finished, random rants run free and ideas for future projects are scrawled on the nearest available surface (my filing system is shithouse). But not this time. This time has led to little more than false starts and procrastination.

It isn’t as if the ideas aren’t there, I’m getting shitloads but I’m not putting anything down. These days I sit for hours staring at an empty page or sentences half written.

Writer’s Block is nothing new to me, but it usually hits when poverty is at its worst. No food, rolling dumpers for a smoke and borrowing money to cover an overdue power bill. With The Dole raised to a level on which it is actually possible to feed one’s self, the anxiety of being so broke that I’d feed The Cat instead of myself has been temporarily lifted and for the first time in years I’ve been able to cook one actual meal every single day.

Sometime back, I gave up alcohol for a few months (having drunk myself into hospital). Even then, without that expense I couldn’t afford to make myself a wholesome dinner each night. The longer I have been on The Dole, the more frequently my daily meals have been comprised of beans and toast.

Raising the Rate was beginning to gain traction before COVID-19 presented as a pandemic. Even The Business Council of Australia and former Crime Minister John “Those parents proper chucked their kids into the ocean and Saddam has nukes” Howard have said that forty bucks a day is not enough for any Australian to live on.

What I find intriguing is that it takes politicians to suffer the ignominy of being turfed from office to develop a backbone before calling out the former allies who tore them down. To be honest, it’s fucking laughable for someone who refuses to exercise any measure of authority when they have the Power of The Second Highest Post on The Continent then wait until they’ve been dropped from the team to voice their opinions from the sideline.

I’m speaking here, mainly of Krudd and Trumbull (Hewson gets a pass because he was never PM) and while I agree with a lot of what they have been saying of late but like many Australians I have yelled at the TV asking why they didn’t do anything about it when they were in charge.

Knowing enough about the machinations of party politics I understand that the Prime Minister is not bestowed absolute power when it comes to policy and legislation, but for fucks sake people can you use the position to call out dissenters in your ranks and work with the other side?

Bipartisan is a word that Australian politicians like to use whenever The Opposition is too weak to challenge The Government on policy or the issue at hand has overwhelming public support to be resolved.

What we really need is Multi-partisan policy and Prime Ministers with the courage to tell those in their own party to vote against the motion on the floor of Parliament if they disagree with it.

The term “conscience vote” is a joke. Every vote should be based on the conscience of the Parliamentarian and if that conscience differs from the majority of their constituents, the question to be asked is -- How did they get elected in the first place?

A Democratically elected Parliament is expected to represent the majority opinion of the populace. When politicians retreat behind party lines and vote against what both their own (as the elected member) and their constituent’s wishes are -- Democracy is diminished. That we were forced to a Plebiscite, of all things, so that our elected representatives could legalise Same Sex Marriage is fucking pathetic. But nowhere near as pathetic as those MP’s who abstained from voting when their constituents had overwhelmingly cast a ballot in favour of Human Rights.

Australia has now had to, twice, overwhelmingly -- by vote -- tell our politicians that we prefer it when humans are treated as humans. First, in nineteen sixty-seven when a Referendum We Shouldn’t Have had to Have demonstrated that ninety odd percent of ninety percent of the voting population recognised Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People as People.

Actual Human Beings.

In the lands they have occupied since time immemorial.

Lands where Sovereignty has never been ceded.

Now, fifty-three years later, we are still debating whether or not to acknowledge these facts in The Constitution. Unlike Same Sex Marriage, which was an easy amendment to an Act that could have been achieved without an unnecessary and expensive Plebiscite, Constitutional change will require a Referendum.

When forced into a corner, people who claim to support Recognition will point out Australia’s poor record when it comes to passing Referenda, but that is a piss weak excuse for not doing it. Even a cursory glance at the Australian Electoral Commission website shows that most were on issues such as whether Senators should have the same term length as MPs or blatant attempts by The Commonwealth to remove powers from The States. Many other Referenda not carried were bullshit ideas in the first place and most Australians recognised them as such before voting appropriately.

In the middle of a pandemic, the likes of which hasn’t been seen in a century, a cop in America decided to kill George Floyd on camera and shit got real. After the video went viral and the USA remembered while they may not be The Land of The Free, they can sometimes be The Home of The Brave, cities across their country were flooded with protestors demanding change.

Somehow, this reminded Australia that since the conclusion of The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (1987-1991), four hundred and thirty-seven Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have died in custody. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of state capitals, smaller marches were held in regional centres and the first Indigenous Minister for Indigenous Affairs Ken Wyatt decided it would be a good time to tell The Nation that a Recognition Referendum won’t be happening this year because of COVID-19.

As a tenant on Yuggera Country, I’ve already voted in one election mid-pandemic and will do so again in October for the state election. Voters on Ngarigo, Ngunawal, Gundungurra and Yuin land, on the day that the USA usually celebrate their independence from the English, voted to elect a new member for the seat of Eden-Monaro -- Kristy McBain. By blaming the virus for any delay to a Referendum, is nothing more than a Coalition cop-out.

In stark contrast to the numpties who flouted quarantine laws to remind us that Bill Gates uses 5G technology and vaccines to spread corona via contrails (assisted by Deep State actors) in open defiance of the orders of The Lizard People, Black Lives Matter protests have been conducted in relatively virus safe conditions. To suggests that we can’t get off our arses and vote for Constitutional Recognition before the end of calendar year twenty-twenty is insulting and I’m a White man. I can’t imagine what this feels like for Indigenous Australians.

Empathy, however, can only go so far.

It might sound strange for a writer to say that words are useless, but it’s true when they are used to make empty promises. ‘Committed to “Closing the Gap”’ is a phrase spouted by both of the major parties, but every time the report comes out, it shows that nothing has changed.

In nineteen ninety-two, then Prime Minister Paul Keating delivered his famous Redfern Speech (which, if you can’t remember or are too young, you need to read), before thanking the crowd, the final line uttered is - ‘I am confident that we will succeed in this decade’. It is an incredibly powerful speech and Keating did make some reforms before he was ousted by Howard in ninety-six (who worked hard to reverse as many as possible), but regarding deaths in custody, the actual responsibility is that of the States and Territories.

Policing and Prisons are the remit of the colonies, so it is at their doors that grievances should be made regarding Deaths in Custody, but when it comes to the underlying issues that create the circumstances for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, The Commonwealth has a lot to answer for. Not only Howard’s military “Intervention” in the Northern Territory (relying on evidence that stacked up about as well as asylum seekers throwing their children overboard and Iraq having a bunch of Weapons of Mass Destruction), but Kevin Rudd allowing it to continue while he was apologising to the Stolen Generations and their families. This time it was an official apology, delivered on the floor of Parliament that didn’t accomplish much in a practical sense but certainly made a whole bunch of people feel better about themselves.

It can be argued that Rudd was knifed by Gillard so couldn’t get anything done before he decided to knife her so she couldn’t get anything done either. By the time that was over, Australia decided to elect Tony “Budgies? What Budgies?” Abbot, who is more apeshit than a Chimpanzee detoxing off hard drugs and any chance of anything constructive happening was tossed out the window. After Abbott was knifed by Turnbull, The Uluru Statement From The Heart was released and Turnbull told Indigenous Australia to fuck right off. Now we have Smirking Scott Morrison in charge and he truly doesn’t give a shit.

Our Paedophile Protecting Pentecostal Peddling Prime Minister actually believes that the plight of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders is of their own making because the cult he belongs to tells him so. Scotty from Marketing is a slogan man and one of his favourites is something about having a go if you want to get a go, which implies that everyone is starting from the same place. The PM’s disdain for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders should not surprise anyone given he’s the son of a copper.

I can picture a young Scotty on the knee of his father being regaled with stories of Kooris locked up for breaking curfew. Or Indigenous kids removed from family “for their own good”, thereby enabling a bunch of paedophiles to rape countless numbers of children. You know, fun stories after church on a Sunday.

There are many valid reasons why Scott Morrison should not be Prime Minister and they have been widely reported. Not only are there questions about his eligibility for NZ citizenship (In the spirit of full disclosure I’m eligible. Don’t judge. I’m not the PM) and therefore should have been s44’d, he is also a Fundamentalist Evangelical Happy Clapper. If a Fundamentalist Muslim attained the highest elected office on this stolen continent they would have been assassinated within a week.

Australia is a secular nation, or at least that’s what our Constitution tells us, yet the lord’s prayer is still recited at the opening of Parliament. According to the last census, a third of us have ‘no religion.

Islam came first in the ‘non-Christian’ category, but the plethora of other religions the ABS notes are indicative of the importance of a Politicians religion being left at the door. To not do so corrupts Government.

Separation of Powers is one of the most important pillars of a healthy Democracy, but we have a card-carrying member of a cult failing to run the joint and half the country doesn’t even give a shit.

The apathy of Australians’ when it comes to everyday Politics plays out at each election as vacant eyed electors file into polling booths, take the “How to Vote” card from the party their parents always voted for and follow orders. It is those who don’t that change the outcome of elections.

Compulsory voting is both a blessing and a curse. By forcing every enrolled voter to the polls, the vast majority off the population have the right to criticise, complain about and protest the actions of Government, something that appears to be lost on some people who live in countries with voluntary voting systems. I’ll say it again – If You CHOOSE Not To Vote You Cannot Have A Cry About The Results Afterwards. If you were PREVENTED from voting, then get the fuck out there with your signs and slogans.

The flipside of compulsory voting is a significant percentage of the population are Politically disengaged and have little knowledge of how the electoral system works. In Australia, this dilemma is compounded by the preferential voting system we use. Again, a more egalitarian system of electing officials that is diminished by a lack of understanding regarding the machinations of where one’s vote will eventually end up after the final count. Political Literacy is generally poor across most of The Continent and we pay for it at every election. Regardless of which major party wins, it is too often because the electorate have been influenced to vote for something that, in the grand scheme of things, won’t benefit them in any significant way. SportsRorts being the most obvious recent example, but I will let others detail that farce as I’m nearing my self-imposed word count.

The number of words I could write regarding what could be (adequately) represented as an informed and detailed assessment of The State of The World right now will forever be a subject of conjecture, but I can say – in all honesty – The World is fucked.

While everyone has been occupied with COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter protests, Climate Change has quietly disappeared from public debate. Both The Virus and Racial Equality are important issues that need to be addressed which makes me wonder about all those folk (in desperate need of a haircut) who refuse to wear masks while shouting “All Lives Matter”. If all lives truly matter one is forced to question, why they are opposed to eliminating a virus that has killed half a million people, don’t count Black in their definition of All and ignore The Science that proves Humans are responsible for fucking up our planet?

Australia can’t do much to influence the rest of the world unless we stop selling them coal and every other thing we dig up or grow. Spending $270 BILLION on missiles and other useless shit does nothing to improve the safety of citizens. That money could have been well spent fast-tracking our energy transition to renewables and helping "our Pacific Family” prepare for the inevitable sea level rise.

It’s only July but The Year of An Unemployed Palestinian Carpenter, Twenty-Twenty has already proved itself to be a clever little fucker. After figuring out that we use its name to describe good vision, the shit bastard of a human construct decided to show us the level of shit fuckery we have gotten ourselves into.

Kudos where Kudos is due. 1984 didn’t live up to expectations and we haven’t had Aliens, Terminators or Zombies yet, but I’m pretty sure that we are living through what are known as “Interesting Times” which is why, having started this ramble referencing a song, I will offer my nomination for The Anthem of Twenty-Twenty – Worst Day Since Yesterday by Flogging Molly.

Enjoy.