Jacob's Soap Box

8 November, 2008

Once upon a time there was a hollow man with a large ego who, since he was ten years old, dreamed that one day he would become the leader of his people.

Not much is known the man’s childhood because the man had been quite vague about these days and in some cases downright deceitful.

From the little we know, the man’s father died, some said from effect of alcohol, when he was a young boy, leaving the men’s mother to car for him. Notwithstanding the hollow man did well at school and proceed to one of the best universities from which he graduated with high distinctions.

University life also served as a stepping stone for politics for the hollow man. Like some many student his age, he joined the student branch of the party that believe in social reform, trade unions, redistribution of wealth and socialism albeit the word itself does not form a portion of the name of The Party.

After graduation the man went to “work” on his dream. He carefully selected his place of employment on the basis of their political potential; mixing with powerful and wealthy people who can advance his ambitions. He was particular careful to avoid real responsibilities as those can lead for the occasional failure that may blot future résumés.

The hollow man was elected to the legislature when he was in his early forties. His arrival was marked by his famous inaugural speech, hollow or not, his self publicity machine went to work as he waited the opportunity to spring into the limelight.

Indeed when the opportunity arrived he challenged the “establishment” of the party for the party nomination and despite “family ties” and the experience of his opponent the hollow won his party nomination. A bitter election campaign followed.

The hollow man’s opponent now was a conservative man named John, much senior in age and with over 25 years experience as an elected member who also enjoys the benefits of incumbency. The hollow man would need all his wits to and a lots of money to win this battle.

The ensuing election campaign was one that was never seen before. The conservative opponent experience and age were portrayed as stuck in the past, the same old failed policies of the past in clear reference to his opponent’s age whilst the hollow man himself was portrayed as “young” and “cool”.

The hollow man has prove himself as a great orator although despite the hysteria of the young generation, his rhetoric was somewhat lacking when it came to the older generation. He was further greatly assisted by the mainstream media who almost in unison were all openly actively supporting him.

He opposed the war in Iraq but supported the War in Afghanistan (and saw no inconsistence in that) he supported socialistic program but described himself as economic conservative in fact many people said that he walked the two sides of the streets on just about any issue as he modified his policies to suit his audiences

He stuck to meaningless, yet emotional slogan such as change, hope and working families. He was the first to exploit the power of the Internet for political campaigning.

He won the election in the following November decisively, although not in what you would all a landslide.

*****

No, my friends, this is not the story of Barack Obama, that was the story of the election of Kevin Rudd in November 2007 as the Prime Minister of Australia by removing John, Mr. John Howard from office.

*****

I was struck by the similarities between the two from the first time I heard Barack Obama and I often mentioned it to my American conservative friends. As we down under have an handicap of 12 months on you Americans, let me tell you about the “achievements” of our hollow man whilst you were busy with your elections, a sort of Back To The Future, as I dubbed it at the time.

Firstly soon after taking office, our government ratified the Kyoto Protocol an utterly symbolic step but nevertheless gained a round of applause by the world greenery convention in Bali. You see our hollow man LOVES the world stage.

At the same time, and in an attempt to further impress the global eco-whackos, our illustrious Prime Minister and our Minister for the environment and stupid statements, inflated their chests and ordered the Australian Navy into the Southern Oceans to chase away the Japanese Whaler to discover that, according to the Antarctic Treaty to which Australia is a member, no military vessels are allowed – what started in a blast ended in a whimper by sending a “Custom Vessel” to “monitor the whaling.

This was only the first of making policy on the run as we have learned since.

Next the government celebrated a sorry day to the indigenous people of Australia, another divisive feel-good symbolic act that socialists are really good at. You see, this was our equivalent of the race card or the coming together cliché we often hear (and I thought that coming together is something people do in the privacy of their bedrooms 🙂

Next we had a funfest summit of one thousand of the brightest and smartest in the country to “recommend” future action Australia should take in the 21^st century. Before the election Kevin07 had told Australians that he had a plan for the country, after the election he needed Kate Blanchett and her like to tell him what to do.

In fact he did not need them to tell him what to do, going by the list of invitees, he needed them to tell him to do what he wanted to hear – the diversity of opinion was limited only by Kevin Rudd’s opinion. It was totally a Kevin07‘s scripted event.

Talking about Kevin07, Within a few month after taking office, our PM was dubbed Kevin707 after the RAAF (the Australian air force) Boeing 707 that used by the PM. By last September, when he was in office for merely 10 months, Kevin707 had accomplished 16 overseas trips, the man really likes the world’s stages which he spins to portray him as international statement. He enhances his image further by selectively leaking private conversation he has with word’s leaders to big note himself.

And of course there is climate change, the imaginary “crisis” that politicians love to exploit by spreading fear that enable them to push their agenda. Until about one year ago, it was only Australia and the US that stood firm against that global deception, Australia “fell” last November with the election of the Rudd government and the USA will no doubt follow under Obama.

It will not be long before we all can play the “spot the difference” game between Kevin07 and Obama08, In the meantime I have placed my bullshit detector on “silent”

© Copyright Jacob Klamer 2008

12 February 2008

Reading MySpace friend Pirate’s excellent blog Even Bigots have Freedom Of Speech I realised that watching the Obamination of America  I get a déjà vu feeling vis-à-vis the “Ruddicalisation” of Australia that culminated last November with the election of a “Hollow Man” one Mr. Kevin Rudd to be the Prime Minister of this country for three years.

The parallel between Rudd and Obama is astounding; Both relatively new to their political position, both have attempted to “re-right” their biography to portray a  more “suitable” story, both targeted the young voters with bumper sticker slogans and whilst one will not wear the American Flag on his lapel, the Australian Flag stood out in its absence in all Labor Party campaign ceremonies.

There must be a school for socialist aspirants to the highest position in the land in which students recite the “how-to-do” manual in the morning parade, immediately after singing The Internationale.

Just imagine Barack Obama get elected as the president, lightly hops on the White House steps, clapping hands and chanting yes we can …. And then what?

My guess is that he would be lost; Obama, who is a junior senator, has never held an executive or an administrative position in his life is now seeking to become the most powerful man on earth; making him the Commander in Chief is akin to putting a man who has never driven as much as a car, with automatic transmission, behind the wheel of a 12-gears-transmission, 18-wheeler semi-trailer and expect him to drive it proficiently.

My suggestion to my American friends is to go back to the future. What I mean by that is watch America’s future Obamination through the Australian current Ruddicalisation. It might give you a guide on the answer to the “then what” question.

With the notable exception of industrial relations, climate change and “me too-ing” our former Prime Minister, Mr. John Howard, Kevin Rudd was elected on a sleek promotion campaign that included bumper stickers, Kevin07 tee-shirts, YouTube  and empty slogans such as “working families”, “fresh ideas”, “embrace the future” and the like.

Senator Obama follows the same script almost to the letter.

Having won the election the very first Ruddical (or should I say “Ruddish”) act of our newly elected PM was to save the planet by ratifying the Kyoto protocol, a symbolic act which its timing has nothing to do with its ranking of importance (if you believe in that nonsense) but it had all to do with the fact an international conference on climate change was in progress in Bali when Rudd took office, a “not to miss” opportunity for Kevin’s applauded appearance on the world stage.

The second most important “achievement” of our new PM was to divide the nation and say “sorry” to the Aboriginal people for something that happened (or not) a few generations ago and to the left wing imaginary-cross generation guilt conscious we all must have. How much “reconciliation” such apology will bring is a matter of conjecture, but a good distraction from our real problems it certainly is.

I don’t know what would be Obama’s first action, if elected, but I grant you this: it will be a stunt, just as symbolic and just as meaningless.

With the opening of parliament this week the pattern of the Ruddicalisation is emerging, which is governed by stunts. Within the first week of Parliament sitting, Mr. Rudd announced that parliament will sit on Fridays but without government ministers (himself included) thus there will be no Question Time on Fridays.

Having just won a $100,000 increase in salary the new Prime Minister (who is married to millionaire wife), also announced this week that there will be no increases in parliamentarian salaries for the next 12 months, another “anti-inflation measure”.

For the 12 months prior to his election, we heard the then leader of the opposition, Mr. Rudd, calling himself an economic conservative whilst  acknowledging the accomplishments of the government of the day in term of a robust Australian economy. During the campaign Kevin07 had never criticized the Howard government for any of their economic policies – not even once! Instead he campaigned on undisclosed fresh ideas ,embracing the future and supporting working families, a term he plagiarised from an American Democratic election campaign.

Had you expected that after 70 days in office, Mr Rudd would have revealed what are his fresh ideas, you would be greatly disappointed. Instead, Kevin Rudd is going to invite one thousand (1,000) of the brightest minds in the country to convene in the Australia 2020 Summit and to come up with policy suggestions for the country. What has happened to Kevin07’s fresh ideas?  Did he forget them, or, more likely he had never had any to start with. Obviously it was just another one of his rhetorical campaign stunts.

I am not sure whether “2020” refers to the year 2020 or to hindsight vision of 20/20, in any event the list of invitees includes the usual suspects whose views are well known to agree with Kevin’s and with Labor Party policies. Andrew Bolt of the Melbourne Herald-Sun hit the mark by naming this charade  as The Charge Of The Bright Brigade.

Kevin07 now has to deal with it as continuing increases of interest rates by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) as a precautionary measure of, what the RBA sees as, coming inflationary pressures following the election of a Labor government; it reminds us all of the previous hard Labor terms we served (under Whitlam, Hawke and Keating) – if indeed inflation will materialised and interest rates continues to rise, it may well cost Kevin the next election which is due in just under 3 years.

The new Rudd government has quickly moved into immediate anti-inflationary measure and appointed a committee to count pencils and staplers and report to the PM himself, citing the Howard government “mismanagement” of the economy, 10 consecutive budget surplus produced by the Howard government notwithstanding.

(By contrast, in the last 30 years, only one budget surplus was produced by a Labor government, that was Paul Keating’s 1989/90 budget).

Hey mister, nothing much has changed since your election campaign, you knew what you were getting into, remember? Further, you were going to stop the blame game, remember? You said that you will take responsibility, remember? So stop whining and do what you suppose to do, GOVERN!

Wake up America, put down that Cool-Aid.