Politics, you old bastard, I’m sick of being disappointed by you. Sick of it, hear me? Sick of it!
Sure, during non-election years I grow complacent about you; I overlook your many flaws, I think, “Maybe we can make something of this relationship after all…”
But then election year arrives, and you’re back to your old tricks again.
Politics - you’d rather call people names than have a healthy relationship. Politics - you’d rather rake through the muck of someone else’s mistakes than admit that you aren’t perfect either. Politics - you’d rather trade on misdirection and the carefully crafted illusions of spin doctors, than have an adult dialogue based on trust and respect.
Politics, you old bastard. When will you be anything other than painfully and shamelessly predictable?
***
Australia has only just begun its leadup to the next federal election, and already I’m exhausted at the amount of mudslinging and character assassination that’s taken place. From both sides.
Please, Dark Yet Benevolent Lord Of The Voodoo Logic, can’t these people behave like adults?
Behave like adults? No. Certainly Not. Absurd.
I’m with you Darren - it’s only March, the federal election is not likely to turn up until around November - can I go into a media blackout between now and then please …
I don’t watch the daytime soaps but, from what I hear, they sound very much like politicians at work: unlikely alliances, strange bedfellows, wildly unhealthy personal interactions, inappropriate responses, sociopathic immorality, psychopathic paranoia, unfounded yet vehement accusations, hysterics, malicious muck-raking-and-subsequent-gleeful-slinging, beat-ups, dirty tricks, drama, drama, drama……
And have you ever listened to, or watched, parliament? If it happened in the classroom, the teacher would give them all detention. If it happened in my workplace, you’d be given some ‘counselling’, a warning, a three step improvement programme, and if it persisted you’d be dismissed!
And these are the people we’re supposed to elect to lead us…??!!
You want to try living in this part of the world. the election here is in November as well, but that’s November 2008 and we have already had more politics than you could shake a stick at, and it just keeps on coming.
I suspect it has something to do though with the utter criminality of the Republican administration. It seems that nothing is beyond them and plenty of people in this country still believe they’ve not done anything wrong. Tell that to the families of half a million dead Iraqi’s.
Don’t you think it’s just a little ironic that the US is trying to bring democracy to Iraq. A country where barely 30% of the population exercise their democratic right to vote is trying to tell another country how to be a democracy.
@The Creature: actually, I did try living in that part of the world. At least, for the best part of 9 months, I did. I know that an awful lot of attention is devoted to the topic of politics in the US, and yet for all the debate and talk and op-ed pieces and rallies and so forth, I still feel that US politics is so much more about ’show’ than it is about the basic process of governance. Maybe I’ve watched too many movies that featured small-town American mayors caring about what happens to Lassie - and I don’t say that at all flippantly - to be able to properly appreciate the process. I do know that to this poor Antipodean boy, the US electoral process - particularly at the federal level - seems frighteningly complex.
All the best,
Murray @ Midnight
I’ve just spent several years working with Ministers and Politicians. One of the games we used to play in the office was to guess how each member of parliment would vote on a particular motion. I hate to confirm your worst fears - but the drivers of most political decisions were who sat with who at the lunch table, who was related to who (it was a small place!)and who could have the biggest public strops which wold make the local newspaper. New members of staff who naively made their guesses based on the political ‘party’ or what was best for the country normaly lost all bets in our game! I guess what I am trying to say is that we all seam to forget that the characters we all loved and loathed in the playground ARE the same that we all love and (more often) loath in politics. xx