Right-Wing Games

No matter how low extremists go, they can always surprise you by going lower.

I like watching extremists, whether they are right-wing or left wing. Sometimes their antics produce horrified screams, and sometimes frenetic laughter, but quite often you’re not sure how to react.

These last cuppla weeks have been a wonderful time for Wing Watchers. First Cory Bernardi wrote an article in the Horrid Sin1 that implicitly supported Donald Trump. The fact that Trump regularly lies about statements he made did not seem to deter this good Christian from supporting him.

Our Cory basically said that even though Trump is a bit naughty, people will tell lies to get elected2 so it’s no big deal. Of course this is not a problem for Senator Cory, as somehow this Ultra Right-Winger has ended up on the top of the ballot for South Australia, so he will be elected automatically. Like the other Right-Wing senators, he would repel voters in an actual seat, so they have to get them elected somehow. It is however very illuminating on the views and behaviour of the Conservative faction of which Cory is the head.

He was also like “Oh, all the loony stuff will be blocked by the U.S. Senate anyway”, so Trump will not be an actual threat to the world, so people should vote for him. Cory’s website asks you to sign up to get your weekly dose of common sense, but doesn’t say by whom this will be provided, as Cory will have to approach a third party for such tidbits, being completely unable to provide them himself.

Jacqui Lambie, who can be good value sometimes, had earlier apologised in the Adelaide Terroriser to Sex Workers for comparing them to Cory, saying that “Prostitutes are far more honest, sincere, humane and better bang for a buck than Senator Bernardi will ever be able to deliver.3

Then of course there was marvellous comedy provided by our reliable jokester, Nationals Head Barnaby Joyce, who sorta suggested that the reason South Australians lost power was that the energy windmills, gruntingly pushed to maximum exertion by the huge storm, somehow blew over 20+ of South Australia’s transmission towers, or perhaps blocked their mysterious inner workings with blown-off hats.

This started a very entertaining kid’s pantomime: ‘Did! Didn’t! Did! Didn’t’ skit with on the ‘Did’ Side Federal Environment minister Josh Frydenberg (Josh – wonderful name for a comedian – I think New Scientist calls this Nominative Determination), Pauline Hanson who is always avidly searching for more laughs, and even our Doublemint head Malcolm Turncoat, referred to by Bowie fans as The Man Who Sold His Soul but usually regarded as a straight man for comedy mavens such as Peter Dutton, the rebadged Scott Morrison with his ‘young people don’t need the dole to survive’ skit, and of course Joyce.

On the ‘Didn’t’ side there was SA Premier Jay Weatherill with actual scientists such as Ian McAuley4 and power engineers like Dylan McConnell5. However our national leaders never listen to the odious plots and lies of scientists. The idea that this extreme weather event might have something to do with Climate Change coming from the huge coal mines with no customers approved by Joyce that are destroying the land of Joyce’s voters and supporters seems to have somehow gotten lost in the dialogue.

Tony Abbott, the slapstick media star who became internationally noted for his innovative comedy skits with onions, and who previously said that he was like totally completely absolutely not interested in being Pry Minstrel again, is chirping merrily that maybe he is after all6. He said this in London, where he was safe from immediate savage retribution from his former friends. After all if the Queen can rule Australia from London, why not Abbott? He has also been appointed a director of a Think Tank designed to defend Western Civilisation, presumably against the rising waters caused by Climate Change.

But the pick of the crop was definitively provided by a dude called Tom Elliot also in the comedy magazine the Horrid Sin.7 Elliot is apparently some kind of investment banker, so basically brainless by definition, but he has an excellent line of absurdist drollery. He comes from a family of professional clowns, as his daddy was National President of the Liberal Party, where he could look after the money that he had donated.

Basically Elliot seems to be experiencing Road Rage that his Ford Mustang sometimes gets stuck in traffic. He has heard that people who don’t have expensive private insurance to go to The Austin Hospital have 6 hr waits in Emergency at Footscray and that kids who don’t attend private Christian schools are sitting on each other’s laps in overcrowded classrooms. He believes that all of this is due to migrants feverishly jostling to claw their way into our country and city, wanting our coffee.

Wistfully dreaming that Victoria secede and maybe somehow physically withdraw from the rest of Australia, he graciously bestows us the useful information that Australia is an island, though it takes him longer. Elliot actually gives a figure: 50,000 overseas migrants per year for the past ten years. Given that the population of Victoria is roughly 6 million, that’s a half percent of the population. So if the traffic jam is 100 cars, that is the front half of one car. If the school has 200 pupils, that is one new pupil. If three trams leave Elizabeth St every half hour, that’s about as much as an arm and a hand. If the emergency ward has 40 beds, that’s almost as much as the bottom quarter of one bed.

I can totally see why John Elliot’s little boy is so disturbed that the silver spoon has dropped out of his mouth. Seeing a migrant pushing half a car along St. Kilda road must have deeply disturbed him, and no doubt a friend of a friend of a friend who knows a poor person has been like, totally traumatised by hearing tales of seeing a bloody pair of lower legs walk into Emergency at Footscray Hospital and just an arm and a hand hanging off a tram. Elliot should join Abbott’s Institute so he can defend Christian Civilisation against the more-washed-than-us hordes of Italians and Greeks who are avid to destroy it.

According to John’s little boy this doesn’t have much to do with the Federal and State governments blowing money on useless construction programs, F-35s that can’t fly, and 80 billion dollar8 Submarine programs that will undoubtedly go over schedule and end up costing much more. No, it is due to the huge numbers of yellow and brown people who want to live in lovely Victoria.

We thought we had elected government but we got more – something much better. We got a troupe of professional clowns who spend their days entertaining us with their buffoonery. I don’t know why the Australian public is rejecting this wonderfully entertaining show. Being a Wing Watcher is a wonderful hobby.

Refs …

1 http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/cory-bernardi-on-us-election-2016-failure-of-elite-boosts-trump/news-story/4ac98fa5c08995952c3942a5e533c3da

2 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/us-politics/cory-bernardi-says-americans-can-do-well-under-donald-trump-presidency/news-story/aff202e9e288ad302d38c7ff05424bb3

3 http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/jacqui-lambie-compares-sa-senator-cory-bernardi-to-an-angry-prostitute/news-story/93e8d2ebe19f4647f67ad1c791a371a9

4 https://newmatilda.com/2016/09/29/power-games-the-real-reason-south-australia-lost-electricity-supply/

* http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/us-politics/cory-bernardi-says-americans-can-do-well-under-donald-trump-presidency/news-story/aff202e9e288ad302d38c7ff05424bb3

5 https://www.crikey.com.au/2016/09/29/south-australias-blackout-explained/

6 http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/dare-to-dream-tony-abbott-tells-uk-tories-he-believes-he-can-be-pm-again-20161004-grutrv.html

7 http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/tom-elliott/tom-elliott-stop-immigration-to-end-melbournes-crush/news-story/9322c6f9c8c2d3c31b33e40374bcbfb5

8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collins-class_submarine_replacement_project#Cost

*THOMAS KENT is a composer, poet, photographer, artist, and appointed Buddhist and Meditation teacher. As an organiser and professional writer, he has assisted multicultural communities with humanitarian issues for over forty years, and at present is working with Muslim and Buddhist leaders in Western Melbourne. In 2009 community leaders nominated him for the Premier’s Award for Multicultural Journalism. Tom attempted to retire from political writing when he turned 60, but the anger at humanitarian abuses that the powerful inflict on the powerless could not be suppressed. Though disabled Tom has released over 100 musical pieces in many genres and is now studying composition at university.