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P for Politics and Politicians

Posted by Robyn Dunphy on December 1, 2012 in A to Z of Australia

“War – what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.”

Springsteen performing on the Tunnel of Love E...

Springsteen performing on the Tunnel of Love Express at the Radrennbahn Weißensee in East Berlin on July 19, 1988. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One might ask the same question of the use of politics.  Like every other country in the world, Australia has politics.  Unfortunately, where one finds politics, one also finds that rare breed of beings: politicians.

“Blind faith in your leaders, in anything, will get you killed.” – Bruce Springsteen (1986).

When I was young, politicians were intelligent and educated with a command of language.  At least, that is how I saw them!  Perhaps I was just innocent. 🙂

Today, the quality of politicians seems to have sunk lower that the Titantic.

We have adults screaming at each other “Liar, liar, pants on fire” and poking their tongues out when ordered from the House for misconduct.  WTF?  And we are PAYING these people for this behaviour?  You have to be kidding me!  Mr Abbott, I hear tell, has had time to write a book.  We are paying him to work at running the damn country  not write a damn book!  Time enough for him to do that when he retires or loses his seat.  In the meantime, earn the money we are paying you by doing SOMETHING more productive than sound bites in front of insulting signs.

We have slush funds coming out of our ears on both sides of the political fence, not to mention accusations of criminal behaviour on one side and assaults and bullying on the other.  At least none of them have been found dead in their hallway in stockings and suspenders with a rubbish bag over their heads – yet.  That may not entirely be a blessing.

The question of appropriate behaviour is rampant of late.  Words like “bimbo” and “getaway driver” being thrown around.  I saw a discussion about was the word bimbo appropriate to be used, or was it restricting our use of language and being too politically correct to complain.  These people are SUPPOSED to be PROFESSIONALS!!! If I called a colleague in MY workplace a “bimbo” I’d be fired!  Why do politicians think they are exempt from professional behaviour?  Parliament IS a workplace, not the Grade 4 playground!

We recently watched the Republicans lose an election in the USA essentially on the power of the vote of women.  Yet they seem so damn shocked that heavens, women (over 50% of the eligible voting population) might actually throw off their aprons and put down their irons and VOTE!  Heaven help the poor republicans.

You would think, would you not, that the right wing/conservative party in Australia might just take a look at this shocking state of affairs and say to themselves, “Oh, shit, Abbott losing wasn’t an antipodean anomaly!”  But no, we keep him and that Morrison fellow at the top of the pecking order.  I discount Julie Bishop – she is there as nothing more than a marketing exercise because we have a female Prime Minister, so we better have a female in the top two just for balance.

We  saw some very dumb politicians running for congress in the USA.   Such as the ones who don’t actually know how pregnancy happens.  We seem to have a few dumb Australian ones too.  I’ve watched the odd one or two on TV this year.  I hope some of them NEVER travel overseas, the thought of them representing Australia on the world stage is WAY too embarrassing.

Neither party, in Australia, actually managed to secure a win at the last election.  The way things are going, there won’t be a win at the next election either.

In Greece, we had a politician get up and physically attack a political opponent on live television.  We had an Italian leader with some very questionable extra-curricula activities.  Here we had the Slipper text messages and descriptions of certain shell fish.

I’m not a “political commentator”. We have quite enough of those, although I hear tell they are sometimes called journalists.  It is hard to tell these days, but keep your eyes and ears open as there are some good ones out there.  That depends which side of the fence you are on and which politician they put through the griller, or didn’t put through the griller as the case may be.  I’m just one of those little, unimportant people: you know, the VOTERS!  We might not write wonderfully biased political analysis, but we sure carry some weight on election day.

Politicians should listen more to us and less to the media, methinks.

There are countries around the globe in dire political strife, my husband’s homeland among them.  We had Trump trumpeting a call to march on Washington.  Civil War II?  Democracy is SUPPOSED to bring peace and prosperity, so what the hell is going wrong?

If you want some political analysis, check out these independent sources.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/

http://www.crikey.com.au/

http://www.thefinnigans.blogspot.com.au/

http://newmatilda.com/

http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/default.aspx and @lynlinking (Twitter)

Keep your eye out for articles by Waleed Aly, such as Welcome to the Game Show where no one’s a winner

Follow @SpaceKidette on Twitter – she has a knack for smelling a rat.

@MrDenmore (Twitter) of http://thefailedestate.blogspot.com.au/  is an ex-journalist with astute observation skills!

Derek Macpherson, found at http://thebabelfishblog.wordpress.com/ is spreading his commentating wings and well worth the visit.

Turn Left 2013 has some interesting perspectives as well!

One of my personal favourite people is David Horton, also known as @watermelon_man, found at http://davidhortonsblog.com/

Just browse through my Twitter list to find the political junkies!

I’m going to leave you with The Boss.  Let’s not go back to the dark days.  Let’s use people power and pull our politicians back into line.  Before there is more war.

Visit http://myatozchallenge.com to find more countries and articles on the A – Z Challenge.  Check out the A – Z of Australia Menu for other articles on this site.

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18 comments on “P for Politics and Politicians”

  4. Question of the Day for Tuesday: On Politics February 6, 2013 at 1:32 PM Reply

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  8. Asef Hussain December 13, 2012 at 1:58 AM Reply

    There is old saying that every nation deserves its leaders, and similarly we can say that politicians just represent their support bases. They are easy target, but aren’t they what we want them to be ?
    I for some reason have feeling that Mitt Romney is as atheist as anyone out there, I am sure his despise of big government and socialism was genuine, however to “connect” with republican religious conservative base he also had to accept many crazy ideas, like being pro-life. Which I don’t think is his true belief, but that’s what republican extreme right wanted to see in their candidate.
    Australia is not different, around last election I was looking for rental property and overheard conversation between real estate agent and his staff, about who they voted for. The agent said that as a devoted christian he would never vote for Julia Gillard because she is an atheist, and Abbot had his unconditional support. I wouldn’t expect to hear something like that in Australia. Funny thing, that very same agent turned to be one of the most dishonest and disrespectful individuals I ever had to deal with, so much to religious morality. Look at the base look at the representative.
    But don’t think left wing is any better. Sorry for personal analysis, by no means I intend to cause any offense, just want to use this blog as example. Even though its title and generic statements suggest that your criticism is against all sides of politics, when it comes to specific names, it’s all Liberal party members with Tony Abbott mentioned twice. I wonder which political party tactics it reminds me 🙂
    I mean, c’mon, Julia Gillard, head of the government, and her speech writer team , just produced “end of the world” prank video, you could have used it as much more compelling sample of wasted time and tax payers money, than book by opposition leader. Besides anyone can write a book in his spare time, you also write a book, would you expect your employer to come on you saying “I pay you to do work, not write a damn book” ?
    My point is, politicians are representatives of their respective groups, we put them up there, we want them to act like they do, if we not happy about them, we have to fix ourselves first.

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    • Team Oyeniyi December 13, 2012 at 7:10 AM Reply

      I am harder on the Liberals because I am a member, Asef, and I expect them to live up to the ideals of the party!

      The end of the world spoof had not been done when I wrote this and it was for the A – Z of Australia so I tried to keep it generic for a global audience.

      Also, quite frankly, as sad as this makes me, The Labor Party has been behaving a lot better than the Liberal Party.

      Re the book writing – I would expect the LOTO position would take MUCH more time than my day job!

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  9. Julie Dawn Fox December 2, 2012 at 4:52 AM Reply

    Very well-written and entertaining, even though the subject matter is no joke. I have no idea about Australian politicians but agree that in general, they need a bloody good lesson in socially acceptable behaviour.

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    • Team Oyeniyi December 2, 2012 at 9:20 AM Reply

      Thanks Julie! It is certainly a problem in many countries at the moment, this lack of real depth in our political talent pool. One almost get’s the impression some go into politics because they aren’t any good at anything else! Which is an awful indictment of the political and democratic process.

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  10. Stephen Tuck December 1, 2012 at 12:17 PM Reply

    A great summation Team Oyeniyi Thank you :-))
    You have listed some great sites that shame the Main Stream Media. The beauty of the new media and this interwebbie is that a polly speaks and anyone can check the facts of their statements instantly.
    Any polly or “Journalist” who fails to heed this fact will fail. I’m an old geriatric who only started using the internut on a puter 4 years ago and I love this, being able to fact check.
    Keep up the good work and thanks for your work.

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    • Team Oyeniyi December 1, 2012 at 3:26 PM Reply

      Thank you Stephen and I am glad you are finding the web a whole new world! Please stop by any time!

      what worries me is the people who blindly believe and DO NOT check! Love people like you that do, and that applies to BOTH sides of politics. I’m hard on ’em all!

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      • Stephen Tuck December 1, 2012 at 4:50 PM

        I agree with that I was just really lucky that I had great parents and teachers that taught me to think and question every thing 🙂

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      • Team Oyeniyi December 1, 2012 at 5:01 PM

        So did I. Teachers especially. These days I am not sure the teachers are as good.

        Recently I gave my two oldest a Miranda Devine article to read and asked if they believed her. They said yes. I gave them my rebuttal of her article to read and then asked if they still believed her!

        It was an eye-opener for them!

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  11. bluebeadpublications December 1, 2012 at 12:02 PM Reply

    I was so disappointed at the tantrum Biden threw at the VP debates. He acted so juvenile it was a stain on the position.

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  12. P for Politics and Politicians « My A to Z Blogging Challenge December 1, 2012 at 8:30 AM Reply

    […] Continue reading this post and lever your comments HERE […]

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