Friday, November 16, 2007

Through a glass darkly, or do I mean smoke and mirrors?

As we crawl groaning through the eighth day left before we can finally trudge down to the ballot box and get it over with, does anyone else have the feeling that this runup has, on both sides, been so comprehensively air-brushed that there's really nothing much to look at, apart from the meta-campaigns?

Almost nobody believes Howard now, not even his own side, when he desperately promises to throw money around on things we all know he doesn't believe in. As for Kevin07, so successful has he been in his refusal to be wedged (and I'm not blaming him for that; it was the only intelligent response) that we don't really know what he actually thinks about anything much -- although as a secular feminist, a South Australian, and a profound mistruster of people who seriously want to make a lot of money, I'm not fooling myself that Kev is exactly my man either.

The liveliest conversations have been about the campaign itself: the Overington/Ecuyer/Newhouse circus; the Garrett and Abbot jokes and quotation marks; the Coalition's ill-hidden determination to get rid of the only electable potential leader they have; the bloody endless graphs and polls and number-crunching, the obsession with which which strikes me as partly a symptom of the popular but narrow- and literal-minded belief that 'science' trumps everything else and can provide all the answers; and, finally, the question of whether or not Julia Gillard owns a skirt.

(I can't decide whether this is more outrageous or less outrageous than the fruit bowl incident or the ongoing fuss about her hair; really it's all part of the same nauseating sexist mindset. Guy Rundle had a very funny Byron parody on the subject of Julia's trousers and the preoccupation therewith in Crikey's early election edition this morning, though I can't believe he missed the more obvious and, in its own quiet way, profoundly erotic Herrick poem.*)

I don't care about any of these things. I want something done about Iraq, water, hospitals, education and grass-roots social reform with a view to a healthier society with fewer crims in it. I don't give a rat's about any of this other stuff.


*Whenas in silks my Julia goes
Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free;
Oh, how that glittering taketh me!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've managed to almost completely disengage from the electioneering, which is a bit depressing if I'm honest.
Ultimately Howard won in 96 because he wasn't Keating. How sadly ironic that Rudd looks like winning because he's not Howard.
How far we have fallen.

Chris said...

I want something done about Iraq, water, hospitals, education and grass-roots social reform with a view to a healthier society with fewer crims in it. I don't give a rat's about any of this other stuff.

Here here. How did we end up with 0.25% of interest rates being more important than those issues?

Anonymous said...

I was pumped up with a balloon with love for Julia. Went along to a IWD rally in town and hung on her every word.

Then I read about how she's been part of the CFMEU / Michael Connolly / Gunns and woodchippers anti-green faction for at least a decade or so.

I don't care about Julia's fruit bowl, but I didn't know she was on the side of the people who would turn our country into a dust bowl.

You could hear the hiss as the balloon of enthusiasm deflated. Truly there's no one in the Labor camp I can really love.

Anonymous said...

Michael O'Connor, sorry.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Nice slip though.

I don't know enough about Gillard to have strong feelings either way, but I always rejoice when she keeps her cool and stays rational and gracious, especially when it makes some right-wing bloke look ridiculous by comparison.

I've always detested Labor's longstanding Boys' Town policy, at both state and federel levels, of 'Face the Future with a Woman on a Stick' (aka Give Her the Poisoned Chalice) -- Ryan, Kirner, Lawrence, Kernot and many lesser lights. The way Labor uses its token women has always reminded me of the way the Poms never hesitated to serve up the Australians as cannon fodder in the two world wars. But I'm guessing Gillard might be the first to survive and transcend that, and I'm enjoying watching it.

Anonymous said...

Aaaaahhhhhhhh thank you for ruining that little bit 'o Herrick FOREVER. I mean, I like Julia Gillard, but ... eek.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Heh.

Sorry.

ashleigh said...

I'm utterly utterly fed up and bored with it all.

Ann ODyne said...

re: "The liveliest conversations have been about the campaign itself: the Overington/Ecuyer/Newhouse circus ..."

Ecuyer's 684 votes won't get her deposit back.
Newhouses 22,000 looks respectable but not when it sits next to Malcolm Turnbulls robust win with 37,191
(must go over to Farcebook and see if Overington is on Malcolm's Friends list)