The Grim Slide to the Centre, and What all You Bastards Deserve

No one except die-hard Labor supporters and a few rotten gamblers were affected by the rise of Kevin Rudd's Australia on January 24. Don't be deceived by the swinging parties, the horrible machete injuries, the screaming and the carrying on - for all the morning-after glow, Kevin Rudd's Australia was John Howard's Australia with a fresh paint-coat, a different hat and slightly less obnoxious right-wing press.

The entire country had been smashed to its knees for about a year before Howard announced that we'd be going to the polls. The cagey bastard was waiting for Rudd to make a slip up, but the man was a machine - no more capable of a mistake than a calculator, it simply tallied the numbers and gradually co-opted the policies of the Liberal Party. Both sides were running those same numbers, of course. There were a few rotten bastards in a few marginal seats who had badly overextended themselves on unsecured finance. Most of the populace was bound to vote one way or another. If the Coalition had run on a platform of feeding farmers into woodchippers, they still would have picked up all of the rural vote. Although Labor was basically running on that platform for the unions, they still got every union vote in the country.

For this, every major institution in the country outside of the Reserve Bank and the RSL was effectively crippled for a year. Parliament went into election mode the day Kevin Rudd took over the Labor pary and became a row of very uninteresting soapboxes for the duration. Because the government wasn't doing any governing, the media obsessed over the phoney election campaign. If Howard sneezed, Fairfax would run a poll and it would cover the first three pages of every piece of printed press in the country for the next week as journalists and editors interpreted, dissected, devoured and regurgitated every possible giblet for the edification of the public. This was at best. In general the media just served to bombard the voters with advertisements from both parties.

All this to grab the votes of a few people - by definition, the lowest common denominator - who were beginning to default on the loans they never should have been offered. The election was a rotten sham. The entire population was effectively disenfranchised, but in the process was bombarded into numbness by a hysterical media picking over the few slight differences between the main parties. In the end we changed brands, and as a rusted on voter for a party that is congenitally unable to win a federal election it was a Good Thing, but I know that we really changed nothing of any huge importance.

The same feeling of political numbness seems to pervade Britain. Kevin Rudd seemingly learned a lot from what Tony Blair did in order to get into office - adopt almost all of the policies of the government of the day, convince the populace that the economy would be in safe hands under him, and then point out that he's not the guy who you hate. And the same thing seems to be happening in America, where the choice is between a rich white woman, a rich white man or a rich black man. All are vague on their plans for Iraq, for instance. None of them stand for anything. All of them are running on a platform of, "I'm not them", with a rich, nougatty centre of maintaining the status quo.

If you're not in the position to receive your tri-annual barrel of pork, it's easy to understand how a year of this stuff dominating your favourite programs and bombarding you with sleazy campaign propaganda can generate a certain amount of frustration. By the end of the 2007 election campaign, polls were showing that a majority of Australians were bored and furious with the election process. It makes absolutely no functional difference what party you voted for - your taxes will still be spent on the same bribes for the same narrow constituency. The politics of the economic rationalist centre will always prevail.

Just why that is lies outside the scope of this rant, but loosely it's because the prevailing political flavour is economic rationalism and diplomatic realism. In other words there are only one possible set of circumstances that will allow for maximal economic performance and safe international relations, and you can eat it if these arrangements don't benefit you. Utilitarianism is fun that way.

Within this framework there is little wriggle room - this is why election campaigns are so unspeakably dull if you've got half a mind (unless you like baiting people and laying bets, both of which I enjoy immensely). Almost everyone is excluded.

So, what does a literate population -many of who are interested in politics but frustrated by their effective exclusion - do on a Saturday night? Why, they protest! Although their own system is sufficiently closed to them to prevent them doing much to it with their feet - refer to the political changes wrought by the massive Iraq war protests if you don't believe me - there are certain avenues for political rage-related venting allowed open to them.

One of the cute things I like to blame on American dominance of the world is the mangling of the English language. For instance, in the last eight years, certain words have changed their meaning. For example, the word "regime" was something I used to read on the back of shampoo bottles in reference to the habits a user had in regards to washing their hair. It is now used exclusively as a pejorative term against unpopular governments.

So if a bunch of protesters come out swinging against an unpopular regime, say, China, who's going to stop them? Certainly not their unpopular governments at home. Regimes (other than their own), give the politically motivated something to take out their boredom on between ballots, and provide a nice contrast against the blandness of domestic politics. But the problem with this is that as the politically motivated find they enjoy their political anger, they may become more assertive at home. One day they're swinging at Chinese security guards and assaulting athletes, the next it's British police officers and firebombs at Number 10. When does it stop?

It stops, of course, when the government says it does. The current situation exists because people are keen to abrogate responsibility for their actions whenever possible. Wherever they can they have given up their right to choose an alternative in the name of domestic security and fiscal responsibility. Owning a house has always been more important than owning self respect. So when they cross the line in taking out their repressed political anger - when the batons come down and the boots sink in, they'll crimp and crawl and apologise and do what it takes to avoid a criminal record.

The people get the government they deserve. What they have richly deserved so far is a government that doesn't represent them, doesn't care about them, and may very well start beating them at a moment's notice.

I deserve a large bet on McCain and a serious drink.