ben moretti on Wed, 27 Oct 2004 18:16:42 +0200 (CEST) |
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Re: <nettime> Will Rational Exuberance Prevail? |
hi randall i was thinking the same thing in the weeks before the liberal/national coalition with john howard as prime minister was re-elected here in australia a fortnight or so ago. it is a similar situation: this government has in many proven cases lied to the electorate, led us into another us backed war, locked refugee children in detention centres, stripped funding from public health and education, aligned itself with right-wing christian fundamentalists, etc etc etc. why, i thought, would anyone vote for these people, given the so evident reasons not to? surely the labour party and greens offer the best way for the public good? but, the electorate did vote for them, and not only that, they gave them an increased majority. so now both houses of parliament will be controlled by the coalition, and they are going to be able to put through any bit of legislation they want, and they probably will. there was a lot of soul searching from the left (and centre for that matter) on why the right won such a victory. basically it all comes down to greed and apathy. with interest rates low, the consumer class have bought huge amounts of consumer goods with borrowed money. any increases in interest rates will make their lives difficult due to repayments, and the incumbent government ran a scare campaign that the labour party would put them up. everything else, iraq, refugees, environment, people couldn't give a fig about. as long as they can buy a four wheel drive and watch a plasma screen tv, it's all ok. so buy yourself a crate of expensive red wine, and on election night ask some friends over, put on some music and drink it. ben ===== ben moretti e: benmoretti@yahoo.com.au w: http://www.geocities.com/benmoretti t: +61 0438 822 196 # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net