Even George Bush meets the Dalai Lama when he visits Washington. But Kevin Rudd, an officious head prefect with his nose to the political wind, and John Howard, a pragmatic dry whose last vestige of conscience was devoured years ago, are not the statesmen of vision that Australia needs. They are simply poll-driven reactionaries. -- Jonathan Alley, letter to The Age.
Before even touching down in Australia, the Dalai Lama has exposed in neon lights the shallowness inherent in politics since the beginning of time. Crikey, but it's depressing.
We have a cynical and corrupt government that the majority of Australians want to be rid of. Yet, the Opposition refuses to stand tall, which is all they're asking. Why on earth did Kevin Rudd, who has met the Dalai Lama before, deem it necessary to try and wriggle out of a meeting now? Because, like John Howard, he wants to continue Australia's subservience to foreign powers: Bush's Umeruhca, Indonesia, and now China?
Whatever the pragmatic reason is, it reeks of dishonourable politics. Kevin Rudd is swiftly becoming just another "lesser of two evils". What a shame.
Last month Olney Garkle tried to distance Bilegrip from this tiresome bullshit called politics. But we all have to hang in here until the election. Until then, barring sudden death, suicide or a lottery win, there is no exit.
Rudd or no Rudd, the world desperately needs a hero, because mankind is about to lose control. (Another Howard victory will turn Australia into a nation of catatonics and the enraged.) Jesus Christ was apparently a hero. We know what happened to him for his trouble.
At present, the only known contender for this role is the Dalai Lama, himself. Forget Buddhism if the religious connotation bothers you, but his ethics and regard for all human beings are exemplary. The only reason he wasn't assassinated long ago is because his position is symbolic. He is ultimately no threat to China's hegemony over Tibet. As a result, their threats to government officials meeting him is also symbolic. Pity Kevin doesn't understand this.
Thus, the Dalai Lama is a unique case, someone who is the living embodiment of the compassionate ideal that would be commonplace in a sane world.
Is there anyone else on this planet of woe who can rise above the crushing gravity represented by the pragmatics of greed, corporate and individual? Even if there was, he or she would have even less chance than Jesus or the Dalai Lama of easing the self-inflicted pain of human misery.
Just as any given population will allow its government to commit all the atrocities it wants to as long as their hip pocket is not affected, so the worldwide sickness of each individual's inattention to the well being of all individuals will continue until the whole shebang goes belly up.
You've seen it happen over and over again. Katrina, the Tsunami, massive earthquakes all over the planet. Only then do local populations drop their petty hatreds, their defiant solipsisms, and rejoin the human race. But it doesn't last. Once the calamity recedes, the same old individual isolations re-emerge.
The terrifying conclusion is that the human race has no chance of evolving from its present potentiality to a state of realisation without being forced to by some worldwide catastrophe. And then, the odds are we'll revert to savagery. The Holocaust did not take place in a vacuum.
Who said this wasn't a planet of spiritual criminals?
-- Gort Slypesunder
I disagree. We don't need a hero. All we need is a little bit of fucking honesty. But that doesn't fit the dominant paradigm. We can't have our 'leaders' admitting that the world is a complex place, that they can't 'fix' it overnight or that they have any uncertainty.
The phrase "we're fucked" springs to mind.
Posted by phil on May 19, 2007
Gort Slypesunder writes most eloquently, "Last month Olney Garkle tried to distance Bilegrip from this tiresome bullshit called politics. But we all have to hang in here until the election. Until then, barring sudden death, suicide or a lottery win, there is no exit."
He then continues, "Rudd or no Rudd, the world desperately needs a hero, because mankind is about to lose control. (Another Howard victory will turn Australia into a nation of catatonics and the enraged.)"
Bravo! For the moronic nongrongs who believe parliamentary politics is the real and meaningful politics, then this holds true without any doubt at all.
On the other hand there are many who know, from actual personal experience, that parliament, this house of lying, of moronic self seeking, of those worshipers of things foreign, of the haters of working people, of sacrificers of our young people to illegal foreign terrorist actions (wars) like Irak, like Viet Nam, is not the real democratic processes at all. Like Gort Slypesunder says, all this does is produce a nation of catatonics and the enraged.
Parliament, ie. "Bullshit Castle"; and parliamentary process is the illusion of a democracy, totally without the substance of democracy, it is the 'circuses' component of the "bread and circuses" that Hitler gave as rations to the people of Germany. Unfortunately, in Howard's case, the bread ration part of it is mouldier than that Hitler gave, and much less in volume (in real terms) because he is spending so much on serving the interests of his foreign masters. It is for these reasons and more that so many people all across Australia refer to parliament as "Bullshit Castle", a place of lies, promises made but never fulfilled, cheating, corruption, in short a place no decent human being, no person of normal social morality would frequent.
Real politics is that of the streets. It is the march, the demonstration, the picket line, the sit-in, in short it is people fighting by various methods of civil disobedience etc for the fair go (at work or in other places) that is denied them by this utter farce called parliamentarism.
The above situation arises solely and totally because the politics of the parliamentary process is such a farcical, corrupt and dishonest process. Yes indeed, Phil, you certainly hit the nail on the head when you wrote, "We don't need a hero. All we need is a little bit of fucking honesty." Unless we learn to bypass Bullshit Castle and all therein, most certainly, as you so delicately put it Phil, "we're fucked!!"
Posted by Ugly on May 28, 2007