John Linton .........finally seen for being exactly that, albeit belatedly, by most of NSW's voters. Hans Christian Andersen's 'parable' comes true almost everywhere in our poor, benighted State - the emperor REALLY doesn't have any clothes at all (brings to mind a frightening image of the American Princess). The only pity is that so many of those corrupt travesties of human beings haven't ended up with the long prison sentences they so thoroughly deserve. Has there even been a more truly awful number of criminals ever given the chance to loot a State in any, so called, Western democracy in the history of the planet? The only disappointment was that the modern incarnation of Shakespeare's three witches (Keneally, Firth and Tebbut) somehow survived - in the latter two cases it seems that the electorate extended their new, probably all too brief, clarity of thought to seeing that 'the greens' were even crazier and more incompetent than Labor. It was also unsurprising to see that the voters who were so venally betrayed in the last Federal election dumped the Windsor and Oakshotte turncoat surrogates almost certainly signaling the end of those two venal hayseed's tenure in Federal politics come the next election.
I am under no illusions that a coalition NSW government will rebuild the devastation that is NSW either quickly or well. It's unclear whether the dishonesty and corruption that is endemic within the Australian Labor Party also infects the Liberal and National parties but it would be foolish to believe it doesn't; although whether those political parties reach the sames depths of personal and operational depravity as the Australian Labor party seems unlikely but cannot be totally dismissed. The other problem will almost certainly be that the true state of the treasury will now be revealed and there will be very little money to do anything after 16 unbridled years of Labor pillaging, raping and looting.
So what does it all mean - if anything? I think the sad, but not cynical, answer is - not much. While it's true things can't possibly be any worse it is highly likely that they won't get any better very quickly. NSW state departments are riddled with Labor appointees who are as incompetent and corrupt as the people who appointed them and permeate every level of every apparatus where Labor had any influence at all - and after 16 years of that sort of corruption it's hard to think of any area where that control didn't hold sway. So a lack of money and a lack of people within the NSW 'public service' (now there's an oxymoron) who can actually do something will ensure progress is going to be very, very slow.
It could be worse; I could live in the USA where corruption at every level of politics has been endemic since 1776 and the control of 300 million people's lives within its borders and billions outside its borders is regularly bought and sold by the venal few. NSW Labor modeled their operational and control systems on the Democratic Party's (now there's another example of Orwell's 'big lie' technique) State and city "machines" whereby money is used to produce whatever outcome is desired in every aspect of political activities. In the USA you buy the influence you need from the president on down. Democracy never existed in the USA (remember how their revered constitution describes slaves?) - it was from the very start a plutocracy and is the best demonstration of how a plutocracy is the only enduring method of controlling ANY national grouping in the world and always has been; only the trappings and descriptions are changed from time to time to create and maintain myths that this is not the case.
This situation was, as far as I'm aware, first lastingly and widely 'diagnosed' by John Dalberg-Acton's pithy phrase in the late 1800s. However it is self evidently true and has always been the case ever since the first 'political party' was brought in to existence. A 'political party's' SOLE reason for existence is to get its hands on the largest available sources of patronage and thereby divert as much money as possible into the hands of its members. While 'inventing' and 're-inventing' high minded sounding reasons for its existence over time it's first principle is to, ALWAYS, obtain power over others and therefore make its members rich at the cost of everyone else in the society in which it operates. I suppose that's why it's called a "party"?
My long term correspondent on the state of this sunset phase of humanity's destruction of the planet, the erudite and ever witty, Cynicus Supremus ("not his real name"), would say that, in this piece of scribbling, I have severely understated the levels of corruption that exist, and always have existed, in Australia, and around the planet, today....but then I don't have his level of education nor his far more acute observational skills.
The stench of corrosive corruption emanating from the rotting corpse of the 'ALP', a certain building in Sussex Street and every Labor politician that exists now or that has ever existed has become so all pervasive that this should be the end of that pernicious bunch of criminals. But can the NSW electorate remember just how incredibly awful those people are without having to destroy a State every time they allow them to con their way back to "power"?
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PS:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/one-small-word-one-giant-leap-for-nsw-20110327-1cbt9.html
PPS:
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/state-election-2011/no-room-for-sicko-populism-as-keating-unloads-on-labor-20110329-1cetz.html
PPPS:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/contributors/an-open-letter-to-eddie-obeid-20110329-1ceq0.html