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Thursday 5 September 2013

Electioneering

In Australia, on Saturday 7th of September, some big events are happening. We are entering into the finals series of the football, my youngest son has a birthday, and we have a federal election.

It's only been a short election campaign period, but it has been extremely painful. The lies and rhetoric on both sides of the debate has been deplorable. The mainstream media have also been beating things up, whipping up hysteria through misinformation, perpetuating falsehoods and just outright slandering entire political parties and various minority people groups. It's politics at its lowest and most base.

This blog is not a political forum, nor was it ever designed to be. I support neither political party, because as it currently stands I have no faith in anybody who aligns themselves with a political party, one way or the other. I just feel powerless knowing that neither party, whoever gets in to form government, will actually do anything positive for this country. All they care about is power, and preserving their jobs. The people who vote for them are pawns in the tawdry little self-centred games.

In light of this, here are three songs that express (some of) my feelings towards this facile and demeaning campaign (demeaning to anyone with an IQ over 60, that is).

Billy Bragg sums up the Westminster style of government beautifully in "Ideology":

"...while we expect democracy, they're laughing in our face".




Ironically, the leader of Midnight Oil is seeing out his last days in federal parliament as I write this. He also wrote this great piece of music detailing the government lies, "Knife's Edge":

"...on a knife's edge razor day, if you listen long enough they've got nothing to say..."




And the worst part of this stage of the election, which is hanging on a knife's edge as far as I can tell, is told here by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers:

"...the waiting is the hardest part."



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