what is it about the smell of frying onions?
So good.
Election results in by the way, change of government. Should feel more happy about it than I do, I guess. Can't help but feel a little sad for the person leaving, though not my cup of tea policy wise, figure it must be such a strange feeling to be voted out of your job and have the voting telecast to the whole country. I wouldn't like that much. And have to stay magnanimous about it and not should 'you've all made a terrible mistake, we were the better party, you'll be sorry!!' which I imagine is what anyone leaving power is actually thinking. But, that aside, it is nice to have a whiff of change, a gust of slightly more left leaning policies. Will be interesting to see how the recently switeched voters feel about the new government and whether their aspirations for economic conservatism coupled with pro-workers rights pans out. Yah to climate change being more on the agenda, and education, and hospitals. Yah to having a woman in the deputy role (so sad that that should seem noteworthy). Still something about politics in this country that feels to me less than visionary, feels stale, feels driven by oneupmanship, feels dominated by tidy lego haired smiling older men, that makes me think 'hhm, we'll see'. This tepid response despite my head going 'no really, this will be better'. Blasphemously feeling like politics doesn't have much to contribute to the personal journey at the moment, and that the personal journey is a really important one. I realise that makes me sound like a self-serving self-absorbed ingrate, when I live in a reasonably well functioning democracy where I am given the privilllege of influencing the outcomes. Maybe it's post purchasing dissonance?
Anyone else not feeling as excited about it as much as they thought they would?
5 Comments:
Yes, I thought I'd be more excited. I was wondering if I'd become conditioned into taking every political statment with a large does of cynicism, so that I can't believe any more.
Maybe he needs a new speechwriter
And you're right about the lego hair :)
I'd say interested more than excited.
Interested to see whether the change filters through to the way people see things in their personal lives, for example. I was talking to Mr B last night, and I reckon 10 years of conservatives at the top has made it legitimate to talk about indigenous people in Australia by saying things like "Well we should have fair go for everyone, no special concessions for anyone based on their skin colour or anything" - which actually means "we don't think that we should make any amends for serious disadvantage and damage to people and families".
Just an example. Also -its cool to outside the Australian media fishbowl looking in. I haven't seen a single election tv ad or anything. But I watched CNN and BBC world all day yesterday and they kept calling it an "election on climate change", and "people voting against a "deeply unpopular war" and that "Bush has lost a staunch ally". One report made a quick mumble at the end that was about domestic policy and industrial relations that may have had something to do with it. Interesting indeed.
Oh but yes, "less than visionary" is an apt way to sum up Aussie politics for sure.
It is kind of weird now, when I hear on the radio "the prime minister today announced that...." and I have to remind myself not to reflexively (is that a word?) belch out a stream of bile and invective.
Same. There's this almost automatic 'oh yeah well he WOULD' response that I have to stop in its tracks.
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