Viva la Revolution!

When I grow up, I want to be Julian Assange.

On and off, I experience a strong desire to go out, throw off the shackles of oppression and join the Glorious Revolution – which is a problem, given that (a) I’m a white, well-off, middle class Australian with very few shackles, comparatively speaking, and (b) there’s no revolution – at least, not in the sense my psyche tends to mean, and even if there were, the full reality of it would probably snap me like a carrot stick. But the concept of Wikileaks is just so wonderfully, powerfully, beautifully subversive – in the best possible sense – that it makes me want to sing.

There is a revolution, after all. And damned if I’m not glad to hear it.

The Slippery Slope

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable.

“There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”

So quoth the immortal Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (original radio series, you novel-toutin’ apologists) – but I’m rapidly becoming of the view that if a spry mad-libber were to replace the word ‘universe’ in the preceding paragraph with ‘NSW State Labor Party’, they wouldn’t be far wrong.   

Behold: John Watkins, NSW State Transport Minister, has stated his readiness to use WorkChoices to – wait for it – stop union action. He’s not unaware of the irony. And he doesn’t care.

It’s like the Damnation of Ruddock come to life, only instead of a besuited Nick Slick Minchin pulling the strings, it’s the ghostly hand of Howard, dripping with vile ectoplasm as it emerges from the cooling ashes of an unholy pyre. Morris Iemma has always resembled nothing so much as the failed punchline of a bad joke, but in light of Belinda Neal and John Della-Bosca – not to mention the repulsive Milton Orkopoulos – he’s started looking more and more like a real-world Cornelius Fudge.

I never thought I’d say this. Lordy, how I wish things could be otherwise, but right now, I’m really left with only one alternative. The NSW State Labor party will lose the next election, if there’s any justice in the world. The Liberals will get in.

And from the safety of Melbourne, I will smile.