Little Johnny can’t win a trick these days.
Johnny’s smears on Kevin Rudd and Teresa Rein not only aren’t working- they’re backfiring.
After being screwed with WorkChoices, very few working voters lose any sleep when HoWARd tries to raise the spectre of ‘union thugs’ despite the fact that there actually are some pretty thuggish unionists out there.
The same-ol’ HoWARd wedge politics are now looking plainly obvious and desperate, so the racism dog-whistle has been modified to target the more nebulous ‘migrants’ with illnesses like HIV… and astonishingly, leprosy.
Johnny has equally misjudged the mood of the electorate on global warming and nuclear power. Johnny couldn’t possibly have come to the global warming party any later- and apparently doesn’t think we know that nuclear waste remains radioactive for as much as 240,000 years.
A group of Aboriginal traditional landowners has apparently agreed to allow a nuclear waste dump on their lands for a quick $12 million. Considering the decay rate of plutonium, that’s $50 a year until the waste has decayed back to a level equal to standard background radiation.
With all due respect to traditional landowners- what right have they, or anyone else, least of all Johnny HoWARd- to render parts of the planet off limits to living beings for ten or twenty times the number of years in the history of western civilisation, or at very least six times the 40,000 years Aboriginals have inhabited Australia?
Labor’s policy of increasing uranium mining without an adequate means of accepting the radioactive waste for disposal is equally irresponsible considering the state of nuclear proliferation in unstable nations.
It’s cheap and relatively invisible to dump CO2 into the atmosphere from coal-fired power stations. If carbon emitters had to pay for their waste disposal, renewable baseline load generation technologies would be developed in a fraction of the time that they’re currently taking to become practical. A carbon trading scheme would funnel cash and resources into renewables faster than any other means.
Johnny’s refusal to sign on to Kyoto on the basis that Australia is a tiny country of 20 million and that whatever we do as individuals is insignificant to global warming is a very interesting theory. I’d like to know how that logic would work if applied to speed limits, water restrictions and income tax. By HoWARd’s logic, it won’t hurt the system too much if some number of us don’t pay tax, dump our swimming pools daily and drive 200km/h in school zones, will it? But- who gets the free passes?
I don’t think the electorate are fooled anymore. While it was an attempt to look all underdoggy, I actually believe Johnny when he forecasts Liberal ‘annihilation’ at the upcoming polls.
-weez
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Peace, ol’ weezler.
At this rate we’re gonna end up doing 27 years in Ruddland and I’m beginning to wonder what we’re wishing for.
So, now that’s taken care of, where were we – I have a new rat whacking stick?
Comment by theHippy 06.06.07 @ 4:52 amI’m inclined to agree with theHippy on his/her wondering exactly what we’d be in for with Rudd… still it’d have to be an improvement on little Johnny.
I’m still wary too of the difference between people’s poll responses now, and how they actually vote. Regardless of his narrow minded vision of Australia, regardless of his various insults to common decency, it must be said John Howard has managed to keep things materialy, if not psychologically comfortable for middle Australia. I’m still worried that he’ll still find some sort of oogah boogah this time round to keep those same folks who’ve kept him in power so long from actually voting the way they answer the polls.
Comment by Marcus 06.06.07 @ 9:47 pmHippie opined;
So, now that’s taken care of, where were we – I have a new rat whacking stick?
I guess all you need is a new rat. 😉
That’s a bit cynical… but Rudd doesn’t always fire on all 8 for me, either.
Comment by weez 06.06.07 @ 9:50 pmstill it’d have to be an improvement on little Johnny.
Without a doubt.
I think Johnny’s fresh out of rabbits AND oooga-booga.
Comment by weez 06.06.07 @ 10:06 pmHave you read the recent book “Scorcher: the Dirty Politics of Climate Change” by Clive Hamilton. Never mind people worrying about Labor being run by the Unions (laughable these days) – Howard and Co. ARE run by the mining companies! Unfortunately, no matter how good the polls for Labor, I reckon Howard will get back in, because people really are that stupid, small-minded and greedy – but we’re all going to pay for it as the world heats up beyond a point we can deal with. BTW, it appears the same guys are behind the nuclear push as have been determining government policy against global warming action for the last decade.
Comment by Grant 06.08.07 @ 3:39 pmLeave a comment
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