Article

2012-02-25 Down Under

Bonfire Of The Emnities: Australian Government Goes MAD

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Posted by Grunter 2012-02-25 00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views ] Top

#1 The Australian Labor Party, currently in government, has succumbed to a major case of cognitive dissonance. The remedy apparently involves forming a circular firing squad.

Those of us who have long despised these lickspittles hope that none of them will be left to treat Australia as their own private social experiment. While this political bloodsport is playing out, I feel it necessary to ask for urgent foreign aid.

Have you yanks got any popcorn left?

Posted by Bunyip 2012-02-25 00:49|| 2012-02-25 00:49|| Front Page Top

#2 Popcorn's plentiful. There's always an opportunity for a popcorn fest. Interesting times and that.

I sill don't get what compelled you Ozzies to vote in the leftists. What was wrong with Howard?

Posted by Twobyfour 2012-02-25 03:18|| 2012-02-25 03:18|| Front Page Top

#3 I still don't get what compelled you Americans to vote in Obama. What was wrong with George W?

Bottom line is that the leftist propaganda machine was believed by enough of those folks who sit in the political middle ground, to give labor another chance. Of course, once they were in power, there was a fast paced flurry of expensive reform policies, that were not wanted by the voters, and were appallingly mismanaged.

Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister who replaced John Howard, was a monomaniac, and a right leaning lefty, who found himself despised by his colleagues. Some knives in the dark resulted in him being replaced with Julia Gillard, a left leaning lefty, with Kevin Rudd becoming the Foreign Minister (sort of like SECSTATE).

Gillard faced an election in 2010, and she won (only just), for two reasons;
a) She promised not to go full retard,
b) She was a girl. (Sorry for bringing this up, but she is Australia's first female PM)

Now the vote she received was substantially less than 50%. However, she made a deal with the Greens party (very leftist) and some independent members of parliament (join us, and we will give you a billion for a new hospital), which gave her just one more vote in parliament than the other guys.

Of course, once she was in power, she went full retard. Her alliances dragged her policies even further to the left. The Australian people want her out (by a 70% majority)

There has been speculation for months that she would be challenged by Kevin Rudd. Last week, some of her ministers badmouthed Rudd as disloyal and a destabilising influence. Rudd spat the dummy, resigned a Foreign Minister, and hurled his political gloves at Julias feet. Rudd wants the PM job back. Both seem happy to destroy the labor party along the way. The labor party will vote on it at 10:00 AM on Monday. Any consideration for governing the country has been thrown aside. (not that they were ever much good for that).

Where does that leave us? Well, as a put it in another forum yesterday,

"Two petty warlords battle for supremacy over the post-apocalytic wasteland that this government has become. It will not matter who the henchpeople in caucus choose. The cleansing fire of an election is the only way forward"

Posted by Bunyip 2012-02-25 05:10|| 2012-02-25 05:10|| Front Page Top

#4 Twobyfour, the bogans got bored with prosperity and domestic tranquility in the 2007 election. Thought they would give the other mob a go. To quote Malcolm Reynolds in a Firefly episode "that worked out well". He was sitting naked in the desert.

Posted by Aussie Mike 2012-02-25 05:14|| 2012-02-25 05:14|| Front Page Top

#5 The Australian ALP leadership stouch in a nutshell.

The ALP is run by the Unions

They elected Rudd as the head of the ALP 4 years ago cos the Unions are unpopular and wanted a non-union frontman.

Rudd decided he wanted to do a Tony Blair and wrest control of the ALP from the unions.

In response the unions dumped Rudd and elected a safe but hopeless Gillard as their mouthpiece.

Rudd decides to throw down the gauntlet and make the unions decide between himself who can potentially win the next election and Gillard who will lose.

Looks like the unions will decide to keep control of the ALP by retaining Gillard rather than losing control to Rudd and as a result will lose the next election.

Personally, I am rooting for a Gillard win. And lookng forward to an ALP wipeout at the next election.

Posted by Phil_B 2012-02-25 06:28|| 2012-02-25 06:28|| Front Page Top

#6 I like the Mad Max analogy, and think it presents a great opportunity for humor at their expense.

Have a podium set up like a typical press conference, with a Gillard look alike dressed as (Tina Turner's) "Aunty Entity". Then, a dwarf dressed as "Master" to portray Rudd.

Alternative, the Rudd character could be dressed as "Wez", the 'red mohawk' villain in The Road Warrior.

The humor would be in both of them speaking about utterly mundane political topics, just punctuated with little bits of post-apocalyptic psychosis.

Posted by Anonymoose 2012-02-25 09:11|| 2012-02-25 09:11|| Front Page Top

#7 At least the French had a Place de Concorde to deal with their ruling caste.

Posted by Procopius2k 2012-02-25 09:49|| 2012-02-25 09:49|| Front Page Top

#8 Bunyip - plenty of extra popcorn; just got an extra boxcar-load into my rail siding. Extra butter with that? ;-p

"I still don't get what compelled you Americans to vote in Obama. What was wrong with George W?"

Bush's second term was up and he couldn't run again, according to our Constitution. We were actually using it back then - with the bunch of Chicago Criminals in charge now, not so much. :-(

Posted by Barbara 2012-02-25 10:49|| 2012-02-25 10:49|| Front Page Top

#9 Bunyip, that is the kind of political commentary I wish folks in America could read daily. Thanks for the informative and witty exposition!

Posted by Steve White 2012-02-25 11:44|| 2012-02-25 11:44|| Front Page Top

#10 Bunyip, re Dubya, being a Canuck, I've got one word for ya: Harper.

Posted by Twobyfour 2012-02-25 14:27|| 2012-02-25 14:27|| Front Page Top

#11 Looks like Rudd is nutz.

Posted by tipper 2012-02-25 14:59|| 2012-02-25 14:59|| Front Page Top

23:29 Barbara
22:36 George Ebbeamp4828
22:35 JosephMendiola
22:22 JosephMendiola
22:08 JosephMendiola
22:00 JosephMendiola
21:43 JosephMendiola
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21:27 JosephMendiola
21:17 JosephMendiola
20:58 Barbara
20:49 Fred
20:33 RandomJD
19:48 Slineger Ulolutch4253
19:34 JohnQC
19:30 JohnQC
19:28 JohnQC
19:15 JohnQC
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19:03 Procopius2k
18:58 Procopius2k
18:54 JohnQC
18:48 Omoluque Hapsburg8162