The Shit For Which You Voted, Part 2
If you've been a long time reader of this blog, you know I'm staunchly in favour of liberal democracy over fascism or communism or abject anarchy. So what I'm about to write next needs that stated before proceeding because I don't want this to be interpreted as a fascist screed railing against populism.
One of the vexing things about democracy is that the majority gets their way even if it's a bad idea. That's kind of it. It's a natural derivative of the decision making chain, but the way it works out for big policy items is terrible. Global Warming has been on the agenda since the late 1980s. Since then I've watched as successive Australian governments mostly tried to put off doing anything about Global Warming. The early list of recalcitrants include Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, and John Howard. John Howard was particularly bad in that he kept pushing off the discussion, striking the pose of a reasonable sceptic. Maybe the scientists were wrong, he argued. Like, all of them? Really?
Kevin Rudd was the only Prime Minister who went to election claiming Global Warming was indeed a priority issue, and thanks to a drought at the time he was able to drive that point home and win. He went to Copenhagen to negotiate something tangible and as Copenhagen talks failed, he expended his political capital. Then, of course Rudd was undone by Julia Gillard who promptly went to election promising not to do anything about Global Warming (and was forced to the table to negotiate with the Greens who made her do something-not-nothing). Tony Abbott used that back-up to get into government with the promise to undo what the Gillard/ALP-Green government had done. He had no intention of doing anything about Global Warming. Malcolm Turnbull who replaced him ostensibly did want to do something about it, but his denialist party hamstring him enough that he could not do anything - but that is of course like a dog eating his homework. He was then unseated by our current imbecile Prime Minister Scomo who is aspirational about zero emissions by 2050. Will he do anything about it? Not if his new deputy PM and erstwhile denialist nut job Barnaby Joyce has anything to say - and of course Joyce has a lot of dumb things to say about climate.
The personally alarming thing about that sequence of bad-for-the-environment Australian Governments is that it covers 30 years and only the 3 years with Kevin Rudd marked a moment of leadership on Global Warming. 90% of the time, our governments put other things as their priority. Now, I'm not crazy, I understand things like Mabo, tighter gun laws, Post-9/11-war-on-terror, disability insurance, and budget deficits are kind of important. Be that as it may, we all live on this planet and if we fuck it all up, there's no point having surpluses on budgets or Aboriginal Native Titles on a scorched Earth. I'm sorry but that's just the pragmatic reality. I was about to include the GFC on that list but amazingly Kevin Rudd's government was dealing with that while still putting Global Warming front and centre. He had his faults but his priorities were not one of them. In fact, with hindsight his time in government looks much better than the press of the time described.
The really disappointing thing is that through that 30 years - and more before even then - I have been voting for people who put Global Warming as something that needs to be addressed; and what that has amounted to is a lot of lost elections for my votes. Understand this: my conscience on the issue of Global Warming is clear. I might have had the dubious moment where I voted for Mark Latham's ALP when he was in charge, but to be fair, he had a better policy platform on Global Warming than John Howard who poo-poo-ed the notion at that election. For all my time voting on the issue, I've got bupkis for it. Nada. The debate has remained fixed along idiotic lines with nary a policy worth shit.
It's enough to make you wonder if Democracy has failed itself. Consider the extent to which China with its authoritarian Communism with paranoid characteristics, has managed to swing towards renewables. It's a little like how Fascist governments were able to massively industrialise at the drop of the hat back in the early 1930s. It's enough to draw in some kind of approval from the rest of the world. Here we are in Australia with one of he most robust democracies in the world, and somehow we can't get our shit together to deal with Global Warming. Meanwhile there's paranoid authoritarian China doing its part to stave off the calamity. It makes you wonder about democracy itself, no? Just why is it that we somehow can't deal with the Big Picture ticket item when we put things to a vote?
The answer is of course the strident Murdoch media outlets with their hectoring, bulling, irrational hostility towards anybody who wants to do anything about it, but the big bill will be coming their way just as it will come to you and I. Murdoch with his money and influence, kept winning while I kept losing out. The way I see it, they have more houses that can't be insured ready to be burnt down by firestorms or washed away by mega-storms or just generally more crap to lose in Global Warming. So we'll see who's laughing when their part of the world goes up in smoke is or is washed away in storm waters. Me? I don't have kids who will inherit this sorry Earth ruined by rapacious capitalism and industrialisation. I don't have a house, I don't have any serious assets vulnerable to Global Warming. I might lose my car in flash floods, that's about it.
I think there should be a clause in democracy that says if you keep getting out-voted and your interests just aren't met over a prolonged period, you should be able to withhold paying taxes. I mean let's face it, I didn't vote for this shit. They did. Why the hell should I be lumped with the costs of their bad decisions?
This is exactly the shit they voted for.
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