When is Australia going to become a nation the rest of the world can trust?
Repeatedly, for decades now, perhaps most of this century at least – and perhaps more – the Australian people have been subject to gross mismanagement, shameful disservice and global embarrassment by its ‘two-party-one-policy’, swings and roundabouts, Federal government, which has made not one decision proven to be beneficial to those people it vociferously purports (during election periods) to serve and support. It may even go so far back as the known CIA involvement in the early regime-change operation which toppled the Whitlam government in the 70s (he was trying to break Australia away from US control), because since that time (I know of none earlier) that country (my chosen country – I was mostly apolitical back then, as I guess I still am now although, if anything, I tend toward the socialist side of the spectrum) has undeniably been a subservient toe-rag for those same goddamned Yanqui bastards.
Which only goes to prove that it is not ‘government’ that runs the country (in fact any country claiming to be a democracy – there is no such thing as ‘democracy’), it is in fact a backroom establishment of dubiously entitled people, of wealth and power, influenced by who knows what and driven from who knows where, which tells the dubiously elected front-seat clowns what they will do. And that may or may not coincide with what they promised to do – chiefly not. But always surrounded by rhetoric to cover reasons why it must now be done that way – because of this or that external factor. Could a bagful of river-bottom eels be any more slippery?
And so it is, or should be, of no surprise to anybody, that no democracy ever succeeds by fair and honourable means. I guess you can work out what the opposite of that would be. What should be of complete surprise to everybody, is why folk living in a ‘democracy’ are content to live that way. It makes no sense. It is as though a veil of blindness covers over all the perfectly obvious blemishes of the pockmarked imperfections and downright ugly scars which cover up what people see of the system under which they live – or perhaps ‘exist’ would be a better description. And that is not how life is meant to be.
Such a nation is, of course, Australia. Ask almost any Australian and they would proclaim they live in the best democracy in the world. Everything is fine. Bloody bewdy, mate!
And yet that is not how the world envisages Australia. Except for in a few nations, no more than a handful (who in any case look down their noses at us), we are a nation not to be trusted. An unworthy nation. A nation that doesn’t know who it is or where it should be. And that makes Australia very vulnerable to manipulation by predatory nations – especially ones that claim to be ‘friends’ and allies – like the US, the most hated nation on the planet. Australia’s international reputation is also plummeting with every decision we make to align ourselves with that hated nation, and we will find ourselves soon occupying similar basement level relationships as the US if we continue to do so.
Take this statement on human rights (of far greater importance than Aussies think)…
Australia’s resistance to the international standards on human rights leaves a big question mark on the actual situation in Australia’s prisons. Australia has an abysmal reputation when it comes to protecting the health and human rights of those in detention. Adult jails, youth detention facilities, and immigration detention centers have all been accused of human rights violations. The incarceration of Indigenous communities and the detention of refugees in the country have also raised international concerns.
Human rights black hole in Australia only becomes deeper without UN supervision – Global Times
There are more far-reaching issues than this of course, but this is the one that came to hand today – and it will suffice as an example. I have outlined the basic reasons why human rights are mishandled in Australia already, but there is another underlying reason which exacerbates the situation. Australia, being a federation, has a two-tier government structure- State and Federal (three systems if you count local jurisdictions, but this is one issue that is broader than local administration). The fact that the two systems are at constant loggerheads over shared legal and administrative responsibilities, and the funding of those aspects, represents a large chunk of the problem. Global Times discusses this very aptly in the linked article.
I have said all I want to say on that, and encourage you to read the article if you wish to know more.
There is no real answer to this or related problems. The system simply does not work. It is in fact unworkable. Changing governments, as in all democracies, alters nothing. Only a complete overthrow of the system would do that, and the few of those that have in history been successfully managed, have been bloody affairs. Regime-change operations produce half-baked, unstable, and short-lived systems. Invasion and restructure from the ground up? Unlikely to succeed, unless as a form of liberation from recognised oppression, canvassed by referendum, and popularly welcomed by the people. We have seen a number of those in recent years. And we may see more. Will Australia be one of them?
I can think of no other way. Established systems rely on tradition to maintain their power and authority. The beneficiaries of that power do not easily relinquish it. I once heard it said that the benefit of democracy was that it allows only gradual change. That, in my experience, is not true. Democracy allows no change – at least not for the common people. They get poorer, in real terms (although I suppose that is in fact a change), as the elite get richer. If any section of a community gets richer, it is only at the expense and with the sanctioned permission (however knowingly or unwittingly granted) of the rest.
But, of course, Australia does not have to go through such upheaval at all – except perhaps for some vengeful reaction of cast off warders – we can simply perform a realignment of our affiliations to work alongside more preferable and amenable partners. Wouldn’t that be a better and more productive idea? And it would work wonders for our global reputation.
Not Something Else 
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