Posted by stanislav, young polish plumber to Old Holborn at 10 February 2009 03:09
Oz PM acts like whingeing Pommy bastard.
Clintonesque in this gruesome, fiery tragedy, Australia’s caring and touchy-feely prime minister, Kev, is clearly incapable of providing the mature leadership expected, demanded of statespersons in times of disaster and crisis; instead, blubbering and emoting facetiously, in the style of Spunky Bill or of our own deeply unmissed, pretty, straightguy, Blair – Ah feel your pain, or is it the hand of History? – Kev behaves like a character from Neighbours winning a BAFTA – tearful, incredulous, camera-hungry, moved by all the little people, not one inch the prime minister. It is as though Winston Churchill had said I am totally and absolutely gutted, devastated, by these horrible Nazis and I will run away from them in the fields and in the landing grounds; give us the job and we will break the tools. Prime ministers, even Aussies, are not supposed to blubber, they are supposed to stiffen the backbone, gird the national loins for recovery, not whimper, like puppies.
In swiftly crying mass murder, though, Kev compounds his effete maladroitness with an echo of the moustachioed little Dago who, after the Madrid Massacree, immediately yelled It’s ETA wot done it, take my word for it, por favour and was promptly thrown out on his warmongering, midget, coalition of the willing arse.
Australia, ever prone to this shit, has been in the grip of an exceptional drought for some years now, irrigation has vanished, farming incomes in some states reduced by ninety per cent, the land tinder-dry; any responsible government would have foreseen this and made better – or some – contingency plans, some evacuation arrangements; speechless, stupid and tongue-tied, the hapless Kev casts around, like Gordon the Ruiner, for someone else to blame – kids, arsonists, some bastard. Kev and the Asian-Pacific press are in Arsonist Overdrive, “Experts” say that these things are always, or half of the time, or sometimes started by people, that there is “no way nature can just do this shit.” Right. In the Serengeti, too and all the other places which quite naturally burst into flames, it must have been arsonists all along, best find some and jail their arses and never mind that the authorities told people to either leave or stay and fight the fire, whatever; just you do your own thing, Bruce.
Even, of course, if it was arsonists, the same “experts” say that it’s always arsonists, so, given the extraordinary nature of the threat posed by an extended drought and by the eternal presence of the arsonists, the authorities are still culpable. Oz must anticipate a Michael Howard style Dangerous Arsonists Act or a post-Dunblane style Banning of Matches in Private Hands as politicos thrash around covering their backs.
Given Australia’s prime ministerial deficiency in the stiff upper lip department and the criminal stupidity of national and state officials, the people of Victoria deserve our compassion and such aid as we can provide. Having saved the world for Authoritarian Capitalism, Slash Gordon should be able to piss as far as Australia not just down his trouserleg and extinguish this conflagration, it’s the right thing to do. It is interesting to note, however, the contrast between our mainstream media’s gushing response to this – at least partially natural – disaster and to the entirely avoidable carnage in Gaza recently – a slo-mo, heavy metal ballet destructif, choreographed and performed for the electoral advantage of a clutch of cynical and deeply objectionable career politicos in Tel Aviv.
In the week that Baghdad, Falluja and Gaza came calling Down Under and punched Kev in his stupid, bleating face, wall-to-wall coverage of the calamitous forest fires is quite rightly focused on individual loss and sorrow and courageously, the BBC is even showing a telephone number, via which people can donate, objectively. No-one questions the numbers killed, none doubt the testimony of eye witnesses, everything is a fact, nothing a claim, there is no guilt here, by association; no variable tariff in Death’s petty cash book –one Israeli worth a hundred thousand Gazans. Those killed, maimed and made refugee in Australia, somehow, one must conclude, are less controversial, more deserving than the wogs in Gaza, whose burned and dead children are, must be, more culpable; the instruments of their own immolation. These Moslems, what are they like, eh?
The duplicity and the self-protectionism of politicians is hard-wired. Kev should have said I am sorry this has happened on my watch, obviously everybody knew of this possibility and obviously we fell short in anticipating and planning for it, this is the worst disaster in our history and I am the prime minister, obviously I shall step down; fortunately, as ever, there is an enemy within, arsonists, psychos, Abos, terrorists, take your pick, anybody but Kev – or George or Tone or Gordon or Barack; Islamic arsonists, that would be perfect.
Australia should of course kick-out this tear-stained, useless bastard, Kev, for failing to protect her against a clear and present danger; if, mourning her smouldering dead, caring for her melted kin and lamenting her vanished homes she felt a moment’s affinity with the wretched of the Middle East, that, among all this shit, would be something rare and beautiful.