And it starts again...

[miriam_e]

I was digitising a video for some very nice people who manufacture horse treadmills (Classic Treadmills -- I'm showing them how to put together a homepage for their business). While I was setting up the video I heard through the TV tuner something that made my heart sink. It was the beginning of the next propaganda round against the poor here in Australia.

The right-wing politicians do this every time they ruin the economy. They eye off the social security money greedily, and launch a propaganda campaign against the poor bastards who've already lost their jobs or are having difficulty landing work, or are sick or retired: those on the dole and pensions.

What they do is get the radio chat shows, TV "current affairs" programs, gossip mags, and newspapers to find a few people who rort the system and they splash it all over the airwaves and front pages. "Look how these people steal your taxes!" is the usual cry. What they never mention is that 99% of people on the dole or pension are there because they genuinely need it, and the few who do scam the system are a tiny constant; they don't suddenly increase in numbers when the right-wingers run the ship of state aground.

Don't be taken in by the bastards! Don't let people around you echo this shallow crap, because after they attack those most vulnerable, you are next target.

Of course people shouldn't be running social security scams, but the agenda is not to catch a few crooks, but to further screw all those who have already been worst hit by the damaged economy. It has nothing to do with justice. It is a simple trick like the distraction that magicians use.

Not only does this kind of thing further damage the most vulnerable in society, but it tears deep rifts in our society by pitting one group against another. It damages us all. Howard and his band of liars need to reverse some of the damage they've done, not blame the victims and steal what little the poorest have.

Comments

[gillen.livejournal.com]

Yes, but Australian politics is typically characterized by right wing reactionaries battling others so right wing they've shifted out of the visible light spectrum entirely. I understand that these days the only way you know Howard's been in the room with you is if you find one side of your face mysteriously burned.

And don't think we've forgiven you lot for not strangling Rupert Murdoch at birth...

;)

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Amen to that. :)
Maybe one day we will have a middle-ground party... maybe... if the population become a little less easy to manipulate.
Oh! Who am I kidding?! We won't have any such thing while the current morally corrupt and insane system continues. [sigh]

[dances-withcats.livejournal.com]

Wow, they must be taking lessons from American right-wing politicians. They've been pulling that scam at least since the Reagan presidency (1980-88). These yahoos are always pissing and moaning about "welfare queens" (single mothers on welfare) and how Social Security "needs" to be privatized, and how social-service programs are killing our budget.

Of course, what's happening at the same time is that US-based megacorporations are getting billions of dollars' worth of "welfare" of their own (in the form of subsidies and "tax incentives" and blah de blah), and the gov't is spending $87 billion dollars a year on the war in Iraq.

*sigh*

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've often thought that our politicians have been learning from the ones in USA. Our election campaigns become more superficial and based upon insults and put-downs each year. I guess they've learned that people have begun to remember all the broken promises and have turned to trading insults like spoiled children instead. Perhaps it never ever occurred to them that being honest and informative might work... although I think one or two have tried that and got promptly crushed by weight of political and media attack.

Our current worthless creep of a prime minister has put Australia even further in debt (per head of population) than Bush has for USA. That is quite an achievement considering what an amazing job Bush has done in giving USA the biggest debt it has ever had -- the largest debt on the planet.

Weird how the right-wing loopies always go on and on and on monotonously about fiscal responsibility, yet they always manage to run the economy into the ground. The only times the USA has got out of debt is when a socially responsible government runs the show. I suspect the same is true of Australia, but I don't have figures for here.

We have exactly the same tricks of cutting back on essential services, giving hefty tax "breaks" to the richest incomes, and spending up big on the phoney war.

Bush got in again by massive election fraud (I'm surprised the US population isn't up in arms about it). I suspect Howard got in by fiddling the election results too, it is just harder to get real info on it here.

Earlier than that, 'tree

[revbob2.livejournal.com]

Johnny Cash was performing at the White House, and Nixon asked him to play "Welfare Cadillac". Cash refused.

Remember when...

[revbob2.livejournal.com]

...people *admired* the US? Remember when we stood for something? I mean something good, not the apotheoisis of everybody's worst corporate nightmare.

I got news, guys. Pretty much everybody have stopped looking to us and started learning the lyrics to "Advance, Australia Fair". Better start getting your shit together. You're the people everybody's going to want to be like.

Hell, you're already doing auto racing right, something we haven't been able to grasp.

Re: Remember when...

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

There is still an awful lot to admire about many of the people in USA. It is just that the nightmares that run the show are getting so damn scary. I hope you guys can change that sometime soon because I really worry about my many friends over there. And I worry about us too, as our idiot prime minister is trying to surgically attach us to you guys. It is getting so that only people in USA, England, and New Zealand like Australia. A lot of our neighbors are angry at us and a little scared of us. Our world is narrowing dangerously.

Nope, only our politicians seem to be into car racing. Every city the Grand Prix is held in here makes a big loss out of it. But somehow the politicians think the "prestige" makes it worth it. Only the Bathurst 500 has a big following, but that has become almost a tradition which has grown from the bottom up, not something imposed from the top down. But I'm the wrong person to talk about games as I don't indulge in games of any kind... not even computer games... not that I hate games, just that I never really saw the point. I can understand other people playing games (kinda), but one thing that has me positively baffled is people watching other people play games.

We are told that Australia is a sporting nation -- that we love sport. And you'd really think so seeing as every newspaper, every radio and TV station carries hefty portions of sport. But the fact is that in Australia every week more people go to art galleries and museums than go to sporting events.