winning over the demos

just believe

I made a youtube vid of the following, but it's not very good. I've unfortunately spent a small fortune on a crappy camera, but that's not the only reason why the vid's crap.

The trial by media, and the judgment by politicians, of Bill Henson – I haven’t seen anything of the images in question apart from what has flashed across the TV screen – is an object lesson in the untrustworthiness of that particular specimen, the politician I mean. I heard Krudd venting his view that the images were disgusting and that they had no artistic merit whatsoever, and I’ve heard other pollies, particularly of the right, unsurprisingly, jumping on that particular bandwagon. Therein lies the cancer at the heart of democracy. But before focusing on that, let’s focus on Krudd. It has come to my attention that Mr Krudd is a Christian. Having read the bible not so long ago, I need to point out to my viewers – and this might relieve you of the onerous task of reading the thing yourself, though it does have a few bright moments – I need to point out that the deity whose biography is to be found in the old testament, or tanach is a mass-murdering curmudgeon with no redeeming moral features whatsoever. Mr Krudd presumably communes with this disgusting entity, the list of whose crimes makes Joseph Stalin look like a kindergarten teacher, every Sunday. It’s quite likely that he asks advice from him on how to run the country. The fact that this entity is merely a figment of the collective imagination, is neither here nor there, for Krudd believes in his existence, knows about the crimes he commits according to the tanach, and not only considers him a good sort, he actually worships him and considers him even more important than sliced bread.

Now I’ve heard of Stalin worshippers, and apparently there are quite a few of them in the old USSR, not to be confused with my greatly improved version. I’ve never met any of them – though I do recall encountering a drunken old Hitler fan in my younger pub-crawling days in the seventies. It made me feel a bit queasy. The point is, such a type wouldn’t draw me to him like a sort of moral magnet, really. Frankly, I wouldn’t be much interested in a Stalinist’s views on any moral issue. I’d just consider him a bit beyond the pale. And that’s how I feel, too about Christians. Sorry Mr Krudd.

And then there are politicians in general. Though there are honorable exceptions, they like to come on strong about these sorts of issues. Strength is always a winning sign in politics isn’t it? And politics is largely about winning. Winning your vote. Winning over the demos, the demotico, that’s you folks. And it’s come to be an essential article of faith in politics that you won’t win over the demos, by being wishy-washy. I don’t know. I’m not sure, I can’t answer that – these are rude phrases for politicians – they try not to use them in public. And one of the rudest phrases of all is – I haven’t made up my mind. You’ll rarely hear a politician being so gauche as to use such phrases in public, and if they do, it’s almost certain that they’ll get into a lot of trouble. And this is particularly the case if the subject happens to be one of those moral hot potatoes like, paedophilia and child pornography.

I’ve written more, but lost it – it’s on the video. It’s great how reading aloud makes editing so much easier, though then it becomes editing for reading aloud, not editing for pageworthiness, not quite the same thing.