that time I got really angry at Tony Abbott; or, a barely coherent rant

I'll forego my usual tendency to give context. I think my anger transcends the need. 

This article says it all really: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/qa-tony-abbott-says-heads-should-roll-over-zaky-mallah-episode-orders-inquiry-20150625-ghxeti.html

I’m going to say what the ABC seems to think it cannot:

Get fucked Abbott, you pathetic little man. Take your terror-mongering inept intellect that gives life to all your foul, simplistic epithets, turn it counter-clockwise, give it a spit-shine, and shove it up your nostril, flared perfectly by your righteous sense of carefully cultivated indignity. After you’ve wedged it up there, near your floppy deflated sack of a brain, blow your nose and watch that shit come out covered in your sickly, blue-tinged phlegm.  Perhaps then you might understand what people have to listen to every time your mouth flaps outraged spittle thinly disguised behind the veneer of a third word slogan. We are a significantly worse nation with you and your careerist fellows at the helm. You and your henchmen seem to do fuck all but cater to the worst base instincts of man—stroke the illogicality of their fears and doubts—while holding out your hands to enormously rich interest groups and individuals, all to ensure that your so-called position of ‘power’ is maintained; a ‘power’ that serves no real purpose beyond the ascription and maintenance of the title itself. For this is all I think you care for: to be called Prime Minister. The duties of this role—to do what is best for the nation despite what hardships and hard truths necessarily come of this action—are clearly secondary to the continuation of your piss-weak government and the self-satisfaction you must take nightly rubbing one out while loudly screaming: “I AM THE CAPTAIN!!” Just because the ABC has mysteriously cowered before your trollish, dim lit glare, like being looked at sideways by a particularly ugly reptile, does not mean that people cannot see through your bullying bravado. The chest puff with which you stroll around is something to behold solely for the fact that you don’t float away from holding onto that much hot air in your lungs; for, in actuality, it intimidates no one and gives you the permanent look of an aggravated goose who has lost his pond, but doesn’t want anyone to know. In the end Abbott, you will go down in history as one of our worst—if not the worst—PM we’ve ever had the misfortune of having, whose wretchedly short list of achievements will all eventually be seen for the gross abuses of public interest they are, catering not for the benefit of Australians, but for the comfort of your increasingly irrelevant corporate backers. You are, as far as I am concerned, a coward, permanently affixed with myopic lens only able to see as far as the next election, unable to be truly courageous enough to address the nation for the best of the nation, rather than the best of yourself and your assorted cronies and their dated interests. You bespectacled fuck. You will be remembered only for the uncomfortable twang of your execrable voice, reverberating nonsense and panic in the echo chamber of your utterly uninspiring existence.

nope, nope, nope; or, how we can treat a country

For the past month I’ve been in a pretty ordinary state of whole body pain and stiffness. At times, I walk around like Quasimodo after he’s drunk a bottle of Kraken by himself. Other times, I’m like a Thunderbird puppet navigating a steep cliff of boulders and pebbles. And sometimes I limp like I gotta mean ghetto shuffle going on.

            Earlier this week the ‘why’ of all this pain—and, indeed, a lot of the random aches and problems I’ve had over the years—was finally explained to me. I was told that I have an auto-immune disease that has been systematically savaging various parts of my body, probably since I was 13. Although, fortunately, it has avoided tarring my beautiful porcelain skin, it has taken turns attacking my joints, spine and eyes, and left behind everyone’s favourite pleasantly cynical angry bastard you all know as Dave.

            Moreover, this prick will be with me till the end of my days.

            However, before you all despair and contact the Make A Wish foundation (a chance to stare ((uncomfortably)) at Scarlett Johansson from up close, is all I ask), know that this thing is treatable with fortnightly self-administered injections. If they work, this treatment will do absolute wonders for stopping my intermediate flare-ups of random pain and bouts of loud sooking.

            Of course, I’ll have to jab myself every two weeks for the rest of my life, but I think I can live with that—some diabetics have to do it four times a day, and heroin addicts at least once … I think I win. Plus the opportunity to add ‘I suffer from an awesome genetic auto-immune disease, get in line ladies,’ to my Tinder profile is, surely, a plus in anyone’s book. I’m certain there are women out there turned on by the phrase: ‘Wanna administer an injection?’

            The downside, and what initially scared the shit out of me, was discovering the cost of this medication. I won’t post that figure here, but let’s just say it’s more money than I have and, with the aimless academic path I am on, probably more money than I’ll ever have at any one time in my life.

            Again before anyone gets out there and tries to crowd fund for my health (I know at least one of you cares … I hope), it turns out, much to my great fortune, that the treatment is subsidized by the Australian government and, visits to the doctor to get the script renewed aside, will cost me nothing out of pocket.

            As I left the doctor’s office on Monday, processing the information I had just received that I’ll have to treat this lingering trumpet cunt of a disease for the rest of my life, I did give serious thanks to the fact that I live in this country; a nation, that on the whole, actually seems to care for the health of its citizens, recognizing and carrying the prohibitive cost that such healthcare can burden one with.

            Then, of course, I remembered Tony Abbott’s ‘nope, nope, nope’ in response to Australia resettling the 8,000 Rohingya refugees stranded at sea. They cannot enter through the backdoor (presumably, Tasmania), nor jump the cue, he said.

I imagine his vision of immigration is some kind of immense Beast of Order—bespectacled and adorned with both a clipboard and pocket watch—given to enforcing strict lines as if carefully controlling a supermarket lineup on a Saturday morning (ignoring, of course, the crafty and aspirational cockroaches intent on cutting). In this simplistic vision, Abbott ignores what essentially amounts to the chaotic diasporic spectacle of displaced individuals seeking a better life, whatever the cost—even those who enter the country by the so-called front door (presumably, Darwin).

We talk of the elimination of boundaries and borders in a globalising world. Yet, it’s astounding how fast these lines happen to reappear when they pose some kind of political advantage.

Ultimately, I believe that the issue of refugees and so-called ‘boat people’ is more complex than the, at-times, simplistic opposing polemic we are inundated with every day.

Yes, a country should have some measure of control over who crosses its borders; there are checks and medicals that need to be properly performed. But it absolutely should not submit people who have attempted to secretly enter the country via boat to a form of involuntary containment and borderline torture to send a message of no tolerance. It is needlessly cruel and drags our standing as nation down into the dankest corner of the proverbial cellar where all the cheap Wolf Blass wine has turned to vinegar.

At times, to speak truly, I think the whole debate has been blown out of proportion: a purposeful attempt at distraction from the challenging issues Australia needs to (perhaps more immediately) face, like the dispersal of wealth, tax law, damage to the environment, and regulating, and de-weaning ourselves from, mining companies and profits. On and on. In comparison to a few hundred people trying to sneak onto our shores every year, these problems seem of much greater significance and cast a much longer, more damaging shadow, festering, in part, out of sight and mind.

Thus, I want to go past the ‘border protection’ propaganda of the government and our spineless opposition; past, even, the simplistic cries of ‘just let em in.’ This is about more than just ‘stopping the boats’ and more than just determining who is allowed into the apparently exclusive club, Australia. It is about more than pandering to some fanciful notion a terrorist may be embedded on one of these vessels. It is about more than these people uncomfortably challenging our way of life and, therefore, our identity as Australian.

Essentially, to really deal with this, Australia needs to come to grips with its deep-seeded xenophobic nature and work towards education, rather than three-word negation or terror. Instead of catering for the votes of the fearful, politicians should take it upon themselves to illustrate the futility of these peoples’ distrust. Turning human misery into politics is the worst side of democracy.

What an idealistic notion, I know.

But if I can live in a nation that will pay as much as it will to just allow me a life without the discomfort of a degenerative disease, then surely it is capable of the kind of compassion that goes beyond ‘nope, nope, nope,’ and finds within itself the power to mutter, ‘well, maybe we’re better than this.’

And I’m not just talking politicians here.