Some days, you wake up incredibly angry at your country. You sit in your bed and you read the news on the your phone and you’re just, like, fuck, really? This is who we’ve chosen to become as a fucking nation?
I don’t like that anger. Not because I feel any particular sense of patriotism, but because I believe that we are facing complex problems in the world and I recognise the need for complex solutions. I want to look at all sides of the argument and figure out, really, where seemingly stupid political decisions are coming from, so at least I can be sure they’re a bad idea. I like to believe, on the whole, in government. In the ability of the assembled political leaders of the day to come together, find a compromise, and lead the goddamn country.
I do not get that luxury, these days.
In the last week alone, I’ve sat through incredible ongoing abuses of asylum seekers perpetuated in my name by the Australian government; I’ve sat through broadside attacks on the industry I love, by the productivity commissions, which proposes shit so absurd that I’m not worried about it being implemented, but I am worried about they’re hoping to grab as they back down from the blatant overreach; I’ve sat through the details of the new Australian budget, which basically continues the trend of the last three years when it says hey, young people, FUCK YOU.
I mean, unemployment as an internship scheme? FUCK THAT SHIT. The solution to the problems with Mutual Obligation was not making that shit FUCKING WORSE.
Seriously, god-fucking-damn it, FUCK THAT SHIT TO HELL.
I’m not even a young person, these days. I do not have kids. It’s not going to affect me. But it makes me incredibly angry. Because you give up things that matter by increments, ceding ground inch by inch, and it feels like the things I always appreciated about my country are working their way towards the end of the plank.
I want to understand where the decisions are coming from, even if I don’t agree with them, but politics in Australia has become extraordinarily bad at that on both ends of the political spectrum.
It may be time to start digging out my Herd CDs and start taking their lyrics much more seriously.
