Do blogs stir debate or merely absorb it?

Bloggs have led to a huge increase of political chatter and everyday I discuss the cut and thrust of Party politics with dozens of people whom I’ve never met.

This is a good thing in that it stirs up debate, particularly with younger people who don’t usually feel comfortable expressing their views or have an outlet to do so. But then I thought because I’m able to Blog about political issues I’m no longer really talking about them in the real world because A) I get it out of my system online and B) most people around me don’t give a flying fuck.

In the past cafes were the hotbed of political discussion and even revolution, much so that Charles II tried to suppress the London coffeehouses as “places where the disaffected met, and spread scandalous reports concerning the conduct of His Majesty and his Ministers” - the public flocked to them.

But now, instead plotting to overthrow a government over a long macchiato, the ‘disaffected are spreading their scandulous reports’ online, but are happy for the status quo to continue as long as they get a few agreeable responses and an lol :). And with all their political views aired and out of the system they can talk about the important things at parties like the AFL draft and which work colleagues they’d like to fuck.

So you’d wonder if some of the great examples of people power in the past would have got beyond the blogosphere. For example, would the Russian Revolution have got off the ground if the internet were around in 1917, or would the revolutionaries have been happy enough to slag the Czar off online and send rude comments to Andrew Boltovich’s pro-Romanov blog?

Imagine the comments to a post calling to overthrow the Czar by Lenin on his Club Vlad blog:

Stalin says:
October 3, 1917 at 6:42 pm
Spot on Vlad, why should Romaniv have everything while the people starve? We should share the wealth. 

Club Vlad Says: 
October 3, 1917 at 7:12 pm
Thanks Stalin. Of course people like us would need to run the establishment and make sure no one aspires to capitalital ideals, otherwise the whole thing will turn to shit. I’m sure you’d be really considerate and loved by all in such a role. Oh by the way, it’s Romanov, not Romaniv - oh you Georgians.

Trotsk Corp Says:
October 4, 1917 at 7:31 am 
Yous guys are full of shit. You’re all fucking talk, you talk about your poofy ideals, what’s needed is a bloody revolution. People aren’t going to change because you tell them to. You have to quell descent on both sides. Weak pricks.

Stalin Says:
October 4, 1917 at 9:13 am
Steady on Trotsky, you fuckin’ mad Ukranian prick ;) We’d need to work together comrade.
Vlad, LMAO, pick on my spelling again and I’ll kill you and 27 million of your fuckin friends.

MKronsdadt Says:
October 4, 1917 at 11:54 am 
No surprise that a rabble of anti-Romanov leftist filth can’t deal with the Czar being successful. Fortunately for those sniveling curs, there are still men like him around to protect their useless asses. And I see you cowardly scum have it in for me too eh, must be on the right track then.

Note: The above comments may not be historically or chronologically accurate.
 

Beware the Rudd haters - Part II

 

This whole “Sorry” thing has really brought out the ugly side of Australia. Despite the fact our government did say sorry and many, hopefully the majority, agreed, you can’t deny the multitudes of people who feel our country has been “destroyed” this week because we dared to formally acknowledge past injustices.

 Which begs the question. How much of this angry reaction to Sorry would have aired its ugly self if John Howard caved in and said it? I ask this because the same people who jammed the posts on news web sites and talk back radio are actually criticising Rudd for visiting East Timor, at the request of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao after the attempted assination of him and President Jose Ramos Horta.

I’m sure if Rudd did an emergency tracheomety on a four year old girl using a pen knife and biro saving her life these fuckwits will have sneering negative comment to make about it like :

What now Rudd, are you going to say sorry now you cut that girl’s throat. Are you going to pay her compo? 
Posted by Fuck Knuckle, Frankston South

So let’s see some of the missives of insightfulness posted on the Herald Sun website today in response to Rudd’s trip to East Timor to show Australia was ready to continue supporting our near neighbour.

Nelson attacks - separated at birth?

 

The Leader of the Australian Liberal Party Dr Brendan Nelson has the rather apt nickname “The Forehead”, but after seeing him on TV this morning I was reminded of someone else with a similar shaped bonce, also from a once mighty conquerer which gets blown apart by a rag-tag opposition - a martian invader from Mars Attacks.

Best not play any Slim Whitman around the good doctor.

How Rudd will say ‘Sorry’

 

Kevin Rudd has admitted saying sorry to the Aboriginal stolen generation is becoming really tough. No, he hasn’t had a change of heart and gone all John Howard or The Fonz on us, he’s just having trouble choosing the right words.

Lets go forward in time to preempt how Rudd will present the apology.

After a week-long think tank involving his best speech writers and political advisors along with a string of consultants including constitutional lawyers, corporate communciations specialists, Indigenous elders and journalists, the prime minister is handed the final of more than 1oo drafts of the apology.

Warning fatigue

We are all going to die. The question is how.

I’m not talking about our individual mortality, but as a species. If global warming (has that earned proper noun status yet?) doesn’t kill us, genetically modified food, terrorism, over-population, exotic influenza, US foreign policy and all manner of pending catastrophies will vye for the title of biggest fuck-off threat to mankind.

Which is why I am finding difficult to grasp the concerns about Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay channel deepening project. What started as a temporary threat to the bay’s ecology is now the total destruction of the bay and all life within it; according to some of the protestors who welcomed the dredging ship Queen of the Netherlands into port.

Beware the Rudd haters

All those people who accused anyone who dared criticise the Howard Government as “left-wing, latte-sipping Howard haters” have taken it upon themselves to spread their own hatred to the incumbent, for no other reason than that he is a popularly elected Labor prime minister.

The trouble with the whole Howard-hater tag is that it deflected the reasons why people disliked the former prime minister and his government.

Despite what the pig-headed conservatives who coined the term would have you believe, John Howard wasn’t hated simply because he was a Liberal prime minister. When he first came into power and toughened the country’s gun laws after the Port Arthur massacre, Labor voters (except those who hunt and vote) agreed with him, as they did his decision to send Australian troops into East Timor.

The so-called Left didn’t oppose Howard for the sake of opposing him. He had to actually show what a bastard he really was before people started sharing more than a passing dislike based on political or idealogical differences.

The Usual Suspects

Another Australian Open Tennis tournament, another display of foolish thuggery concerning Greek, Croatian and Serbian fans.

If Sudanese or other Muslim kids so much as fart in Melbourne there are calls for their deportation and claims they simply aren’t assimilating. Yet we allow these buffoons, many of whom have never been to the country they so love to champion through their thuggery, bring old hostilities to a sporting event under the guise of supporting players from their countries who, unlike them, have moved on from all the hatred they love to spew out - interestingly, while many happily like to “fight for their country’s honour” on Melbourne’s streets, they won’t be caught dead in their country for fear of having to do National Service. What patriots!