(Above: or is the punchline gold diggers for BKK?)Sometimes there's an air of unnerving predictability that hangs over the pond like a pea soup fog.
What can be done to freshen up the stale musty thoughts of Peter Costello? He is so unnervingly predictable, and banal with it, that he must look into the bathroom mirror each morning, and think, hmm, a column for the Fairfax Media is required, and as sure as that's Peter Costello staring back at me with a smug, smirking air of self-satisfaction, so once again I should scribble about the Greens ...
Oh the utter tedium, oh the complete predictability of The green label is just a clever marketing tool.
How can we freshen it up? Make it palatable, fit for human consumption? Add lots of chilli and garlic? Throw in a hearty dose of Szechuan pepper?
I confess, I got bored and distracted and wandered down to the comments section.
More smarm, from the smirk, scribbled Ljc, and suddenly the mood lightened.
Okay, so Costello's got nothing new to say, and so there's nothing new to say about Costello, but simple old fashioned abuse is always a cheerful, cheering way forward ...
These days Costello gives every sign of a bear who doesn't want his slumber distracted by actual thinking.
His first flourish in his latest effort is to wave euthanasia in the air. Eek, a boogeyman. The Greens want euthanasia, it must be bad.
But actually when the Northern Territory government passed its bill back in 1996, it was controlled by the Country Liberal party, and Shane Stone was the Chief Minister of the Territory (and you can catch a whiff of those times in The Abuse of History: The Use of the Nazi Analogy in Contemporary Euthanasia Debate. Take plenty of coins for the Godwin's Law swear jar).
Simple minded knee jerk responses to a complex issue?
Phone Peter Costello any day of the week ...
Which reminds me that Peter Costello has a funny attitude to people. He cares about them of course, but he worries that there won't be enough of them, and so we must encourage people through handsome payments, and socialistic practices, to ensure that Australia plays its part in getting the world up to a handsome nine billion or so population by 2050.
When we get there, let the poor buggers around at the time worry about a sustainable relationship between humans and the environment.
Who can forget his valiant efforts at keeping Australia growing?
Moral encouragement? What on earth does that mean?
Meanwhile, since sustainable is such a filthy word - spit it out now, it might have germs on it - it's hey ho, hey nonny no, on we go with unsustainable habits, sustained by government subsidy, as we do the right and patriotic thing, and breed ...for the country, or the Catholic church, or the military, or Hillsong, or whatever cause you fancy is a reasonable thing to breed for ...
Unsustainable. That has such a lovely ring to it. How does it go? I love the smell of unsustainable in the morning. You know, that gasoline smell you get when you think about peak oil. Smells like victory ...
Then it's on to abortion:
Lordy, how shocking. How horrible. Personally I'd much prefer a party where members have a conscience right to campaign for a return to the good old days in the nineteen fifties, so that backyard abortions performed with a coat hanger or other devices can once again become all the rage, and a way forward. A new paradigm ...
No doubt Costello is vastly shocked by the way the Labor party has announced it will vote as a bloc in the matter of gay marriage, rather than allowing a conscience vote ...
Why I can already hear his piteous cries pleading with them to leave it to the conscience of each MP to decide how to vote on gay marriage ...
Then it's on to taxes - the Greens should be called the Tax Party - ho, ho, ho - as opposed to say a party you might call the Tax and Give it to the Babies and the Families party.
And then of course, long forgotten is Henry Ergas's paen of praise to the inner city elites, in Bush subsidies a romantic folly.
No, it's back to the utter predictability of the politics of envy and sneering with a smarmy smirk by a member of the city elite chattering about other elites:
As you move out through the suburbs to the quarter-acre blocks, the Green vote declines. When you get to semi-rural and country areas, it falls even further. In Gippsland, it is 7 per cent and in Parkes (New South Wales), it is 6 per cent.
Imagine that. By the time you get to Toorak, the vote for the Greens must be pretty healthy. I mean all you have to do is move from Richmond and its inner city terraces and converted warehouses and its splendid Asian shopping street, cross the Yarra, and there you are amongst another bunch of inner city elitists ... smirking and smarming ... as the Mercedes bash at each other in a tribal ritual designed to test superiority and survival and life skills in the supermarket car park (but by golly they do good Japanese take away at Yuki Tei).
And then of course comes the cheeriest hypocrisy, delivered by a man who last strayed in to the outer west of Sydney to go clap happy with Hillsong:
As you take that journey, you will notice that families live in the suburbs where it is cheaper to buy a house with a garden for the children. They do not see their children as a threat to ecological sustainability but as their greatest contribution to society.
Notice anything peculiar about that logic? You know, the inherent presumption that a person with green tendencies might see their actual children as threats to ecological sustainability, and so top them, do them in, despatch them, and send them off to become fertiliser? And if it's too late for abortion, thank the lord that euthanasia is available for mercy killing the tiny tots ...
Does Costello ever begin to wonder about the smug supercilious implications of his thought bubbles?
Well who knows. Maybe in time Solyent Green might be seen as more prescient than Costello when it comes to sustainable farming practices ...
Meanwhile, Costello's still out there - in a metaphysical way - being clap happy with the Hillsong crowd:
If you travelled on Sunday, you would notice, as you move out from the inner-city to the outer suburbs, that the church services attract bigger crowds. Conventional religious belief is stronger. This explains why these electorates do not warm to the Green agenda of euthanasia, abortion, gay marriage and adoption.
The fascinating thing about Green supporters is that their natural habitat is not open spaces or pristine forests but the crowded cafes and asphalt alleys of inner-city living.
They are also taking a lot of support from people who think that Green is a description of environmental policies. It is much more than that. It is a clever marketing label. Beyond the label is a fully formed agenda of radical positions on tax, economics and foreign affairs.
It pays to look carefully before buying the product.
If you travelled on Sunday, you would notice, as you move out from the inner-city to the outer suburbs, that the church services attract bigger crowds. Conventional religious belief is stronger. This explains why these electorates do not warm to the Green agenda of euthanasia, abortion, gay marriage and adoption.
Uh huh. So all this sordid Green stuff comes from gays and atheists, and matters like euthanasia, abortion, gay marriage and adoption, are strictly the business of the Greens. While people of conventional mindsets are somehow in the conventional world of Costello following convention with a mindless compulsion ...
The fascinating thing about Green supporters is that their natural habitat is not open spaces or pristine forests but the crowded cafes and asphalt alleys of inner-city living.
Actually the fascinating thing about Costello supporters is that their natural habitat is not the outer suburbs, nor even the semi-rural country areas, and certainly not the actual countryside, but rather like most Australians, clustered in cities, and usually not quite the inner city, but as close as you can get while avoiding the places where the Victorians stashed their workers and riff raff.
You know, the leafy handsomely lofty positions - the toffs and the Catholic church love hilltop plots - with good views, in suburbs like Toorak and Woollahra, and in associated clubs, usually somewhere in the city ...
You know, like the Melbourne club (Collins street) or perhaps the Savage Club (Bank street) if you're inclined to walk on the wild side ...
I'm not quite sure what that proves, just as I'm not sure what point Costello is making about inner city elites who happen to live and work in the city.
Why lordy I see that BKK Partners Australia has its Sydney offices at Level 42, 1 Macquarie Street, in Sydney, and when in Melbourne, you can do a corporate consultation in Level 20, 101 Collins Street, Melbourne. And what do you know? They have trendy Green wind farms as part of their corporate image.
Make sure on your way to see these greenies that you drop into a nearby crowded cafe as you trudge the asphalt alleys searching for the office. .
There's a couple of nice ones in Little Collins ... like as not, you'll find rampant trendies at Cafe Vue ... Unless you prefer the handy near by clubs ...
It must be sheer torture for Costello to make his way through the crowd of lefties surging around him on his way to the office ...
Of course, the inner-city areas were the traditional fiefdom of the political left. And they still are. But the political left has found marketing itself under the label "Green" has a much better appeal.
Of course, the inner-city areas were the traditional fiefdom of the political left. And they still are. But the political left has found marketing itself under the label "Green" has a much better appeal.
True. What a pity that the political right hasn't yet found labelling itself as silly Git or pompous Ponce, or prattling Poseur will result in much better marketing appeal ...
They are also taking a lot of support from people who think that Green is a description of environmental policies. It is much more than that. It is a clever marketing label. Beyond the label is a fully formed agenda of radical positions on tax, economics and foreign affairs.
It pays to look carefully before buying the product.
Yes, but sadly it doesn't pay to read Costello's musings carefully, because they're sloppily scribbled in a fear mongering way, designed to pander to those who can't be actually bothered to think about the issues to hand, and seeking refuge in such stereotypes as inner city elites ... as scribbled by yet another member of inner city leets apparently full of masochistic self loathing and the deluded idea that they have much in common with the citizens of Kellyville and Craigieburn.
The only good news? Costello's time as a politician is long past, and now he's just another hack, scribbling out his prejudices for the Fairfax media ...
Which is to remind us all once again that it pays to look carefully before buying the product.
If you can't get the Herald free in physical form - how are those a circulation figures holding up? - you can always get it for free online, until of course they bring in a paywall, and then you might be confronted with a crucial consideration. Paying for the thoughts of Peter Costello ...
Suggested further reading: Mumbrella's Leaked email raises questions over Fairfax circulation numbers ...
Just remember, if you're a member of the inner city elite, and you're not getting the Sydney Morning Herald for free, you're either (a) not very observant, (b) not an actual member of the inner city elite, or (c) mistakenly think Fairfax is a charity deserving support ...
(Below: or is the punchline because I have a parliamentary pension?)
When a man retires and time is no longer a matter of urgent importance he is generally presented with a watch. WILL SOMEONE GIVE COSTELLO HIS WATCH!!! PLEASE!
ReplyDeleteSo, scribbling for a newspaper is the best gig $weetie could get post-politics? What a hoot! I thought the corporate world was going to be tripping over itself to bash down his door and offer him a high-paid job as a merchant banker (or something that rhymes with it, anyway).
ReplyDelete