Vote early, vote often..

• Florida voter suppression
• Republicans 'test' fraudulent voting
• Ohio seeks to limit voting 
• Pennsylvania 'voting malfunctions'
• National voter suppression
• Florida election results debacle
• Voting Rights Watch 2012 

No matter how low the percentages I am always saddened and dismayed by the level of poor planning, inadequate resourcing, Jim Crow-ing, voter suppression, fraud and skulduggery in US elections. Among other things, this last Presidential election will be historic for the fact that it was decided without the state of Florida, where the usual electoral abomination has morphed into a clustercuss so bad it still isn't clear who won, or lost, and what, if anything.

I'm past being outraged at the hypocrisy of the "home of democracy" rhetoric when seen against blatantly anti-democratic practices that appear year after year, but it still concerns, saddens and disappoints me. Outside of America we are constantly presented with US propaganda that "America = democracy". It's been the banner under which aggressive American foreign policy (including several wars) has been waged. Good or bad there is a cost to this:

If America cannot conduct its own democratic process with enough truth, honesty and valuing of the democratic principle, how can it expect any other 'emerging democracies' to use elections as anything other than a cynical smokescreen for ruthless power politics? 

How can Egyptians, Libyans, Syrians, Afghans, Somalis or Pakistanis think of democracy as anything but a sham, a winner-takes-all game to be played as dirty as can be gotten away with? 

Since winning a rigged vote on the day confers international credibility for the 'duly elected' government, why not cheat, lie, swindle and even murder to achieve that win? Isn't this the way in which Robert Mugabe has survived as leader of Zimbabwe for decades?

Colin Small - Republican fraudster

We all (around the world) have to live with the results of American elections. Every economy around the world will be affected by the flow on effects of American economic policies. When America sneezes we all catch the cold. In just the same way our democracies are affected by America's democracy.

This is why we pay such close attention. No matter what the outcome, the eight-hour queues to vote, the deliberate under-resourcing, the outright fraud, the racially targeted voter suppression and the politicized management of American elections shows a very poor picture of America to the world. It undermines the political credibility of America's elected representatives, and breeds cynicism about American foreign policy, laying it open to a justifiable charge of hypocrisy.

Sexism, Misogyny and the Gillard Woman

We all know the speech. 15 minutes of lucid, clear and well-argued excoriation of a Leader of the Opposition who has been deliberately trying to undermine Prime Minister Julia Gillard's confidence and emotional self-control in the Australian Parliament's House of Representatives. Women around the world have listened to and watched the inspiring YouTube video of the speech. It is all the more powerful in that there are clearly strong emotions under tight control in Julia Gillard's landmark performance.

And there has been the inevitable backlash, a global backlash from conservative and mysogynist pundits, columnists and unlicensed public loud-mouths, male and female, decrying and seeking to minimize the importance of this landmark political event. For it is a landmark event. The 21st century's first major public statement that women have arrived in politics (again) and the ways of the past won't wash. Feminism is back, and it has teeth. 

Most of the anti-Gillard backlash has been focussed on two elements. The first is the hoary old chestnut that by playing the gender card, by crying foul when foul behaviour is evident is weakness. It's the feminine inability to stand up to rough politics and take it like a man. It's evidence that, by nature, women can't take it. That they really are weak, emotional and unfit for high office. That their opinions and actions do not matter. Abbott's Opposition has already labelled criticism of his sexist attitudes by female Government Ministers as the attacks of a "handbag hit-squad" in an attempt to trivialize and belittle their comments.

The second element is that 'playing the gender card' is a diversion from the real business of politics, that it's a sign of 'political' weakness, a sign that the issue of entrenched misogyny and sexist behaviour isn't a mainstream issue, it's trivial and irrelevant. Nothing could be further than the truth.

There is a direct and inextricable link between the politics of right-wing authoritarianism and male-dominated politics and political practice. Misogyny, an underlying contempt for women, is no different, in process and practice, than an underlying contempt for any group outside of traditional patriarchal politics. Gays and lesbians, immigrants, the unemployed, the elderly, any of Mitt Romney's 47% fit the paradigm. Which is where this all started in the first place.

When right wing shock-jock Allan Jones claimed that Julia Gillard's father had "died of shame" because of her "lies" he did more than cause offense. He handed Tony Abbott a nasty little meme to add to his already extensive bag of snide and vicious asides he has been whispering across the despatch box in an ongoing campaign to undermine Julia Gillard's confidence and self-control. The nation was rightly appalled at the original spiteful comment from Jones. That Abbot would pick up the cudgel and use several times to suggest the Government should "die of shame" was a low act by any standards. 

More importantly it was a behaviour that betrayed an underlying attitude.  A crude, sexist behaviour that would never have been tried with a male Prime Minister. It betrayed an underlying contempt for Julia Gillard as a woman, as any woman, who could be emotionally attacked and bullied. Not any politician who stands between him and the office of Prime Minister. Contempt for a woman because she is a woman.

Just by the way, how's that working out for you, Tony?

When Julia Gillard called out Abbott on this she was not playing the gender card, she was calling a spade a spade. When she denounced Abbott's vile, emotionally based tactics she made it clear that Abbott's sexist behaviour is evidence for his underlying attitude of contempt and mysogyny. It could not be more clear. 

No-one who saw the speech or who replays it on YouTube can deny it's accuracy and power and it's direct assault on misogyny as contempt. This wasn't a woman whining or complaining that he was "being mean" or "hurtful". It wasn't a woman complaining that it wasn't fair. This was a strong, determined and powerful woman making it perfectly clear that his comments were offensive, would not slow her down, and were utterly contemptible.

Jones and Abbott have done us a positive service. This what misogyny looks like. This is what misogyny sounds like. This is what we will not stand for, or put up with without calling out those who think they can bully women for the sexist, misogynistic scumbags that they are.

Tony Abbott may well love the women in his life, may well think of them with genuine respect, admiration and affection. That doesn't mean he isn't a misogynist scumbag in his dealings with the world, and particularly in his very public role in politics and in parliament. He had his first lesson this week that his behaviour betrays his attitudes and that he needs to change his ways, man up, and grow a pair.

How Free Is Your Free Speech?

Angry of Mayfair is currently in the USA and has been watching the Alan Jones "died of shame" melodrama from somewhere with a guaranteed right to free speech. 

The ugly exposure of Jones' cruel remarks at a Young Liberals smug-fest led to a horrified reaction and public backlash, an internet campaign and self-pitying claims of cyber-bullying by the offender. Now Jones and his defenders are 'outraged' by a satirical TV show and it's lampoons. It's a sad, but predictable, attempt at muddying the waters, because there are some facts about free speech that Jones and his ilk don't want you to think about (and they apply to every right-wing shock jock).

The first is this: When Alan Jones talks it isn't for free.

Alan Jones isn't employing free speech. He gets PAID to pour his divisive, misogynist, xenophobic, fear-mongering, dog-whistle politics into the ether. This isn't happening by chance, there's a great deal of profit to be had, both by his radio station and the companies who line up to advertise on it. This is about money. This is hate-speech for money, and lots of it. So let's be clear about how this works. 

Jones' appeal is simple. He's the lazy-thinking, public bar loudmouth who reduces every problem to one of them b@stards versus us good blokes. There are no problems that can't be reduced to a coin-toss of us decent, hard-working, struggle-street Aussies and our trickle-down millionaire exemplars of greed versus them. 

'Them' of course can be anyone different from us: Queue-jumping illegal-immigrant boat-scum, gangs of teenage ethnic dole bludgers who refuse to fit in; scary, angry Muslims who might be terrorists; castrating bitches who never shut up about equal pay and rape and abortion; socialist politicians who want to steal your money and raise your taxes; tree-hugging greenies who want to raise your taxes and steal your money, the list goes on.

The list goes on, but they all have one thing in common. They all demand that you think beyond your own short-term interest, that you show some consideration for another point of view, that you spare a thought for others. They threaten your right to be petty, greedy, self-absorbed and mentally lazy. Far better to just react viscerally and emotionally, to be one of us. Nice safe comfortable us.

The drunker you get the more sense he makes.

The point of this is that when you react with the knee-jerk greed-fear-hatred of the hind-brain you are easily suggestible. When your fear buttons are pushed you are far more likely to (a) lash out at the nearest, weakest target put in front of you, and (b) grab hungrily at what your greed response is presented with before the scary thing steals it from you.

When your emotions rule thinking goes by the board, and you"ll buy the next comforting lie and the next, and, of course, you'll buy the product that's put in front of you. Not immediately, of course, but soon, and the more you listen the more you believe, the better it feels to be one of us, to want the Mercedes Benz that shows us just how strong, brave and successful we are.

The profits from this fear-mongering, hate-mongering, greed-mongering retardathon are in the millions. That's not free speech under any rational definition. 

Real free speech is when 100,000 people use their laptops and iPads to say that they won't be part of the system that pays this pig a fortune to peddle his ignorant, right-wing, hatred and fear designed to keep people dumb, ill-informed, and reacting with emotion, buying with emotion.

Jones calls it cyber-bullying. It's not. 

It's free speech in action. 

Free, unpaid, private citizens speaking out. 

Free speech is the right of the unpaid, non-professional, private citizen to say NO to the paid propaganda of corporate greed, nationalist war-mongering and ugly, hate-spewing demagogues. 

We choose, as a society, to extend that right to journalists and news organizations so that we can guarantee that the truth gets told. That the public record is based on facts, not the spin of misogynist bully-boys.

That's the democracy of the 21st century. For the first time we have the technology to make immediate personal democratic opinion a player in the world. That frightens some people. "Mob rule" they cry as they cling to their comforting prophets of profit and complacency. The only rational response is to get involved, to think, to consider, to see another's point of view. Who knows, it may make the world a better place.

How we teach Mateship at the Australian Defence Force Academy.

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"They call it mateship, son.
The supreme Australian virtue.
Mateship. Stand by your mates.
A mate will never let you down, ever.
Loyalty, son, that's what it's all about.

Truth is, though, mateship ain't all it's cracked up to be.
Truth is, though, it has a dark side, a nasty, brutal, vicious streak
running all the way through it.

Because mateship is the opposite of discipline.
Mateship is the opposite of the rule of law.

Mateship only exists, can only exist, when you break the rules.
Mateship only exists when you do stuff for which you can get busted.

We can't show loyalty to someone who doesn't need it, can we?
Ain't possible, is it? Don't work that way. Don't work like that at all.
If you haven't given us something to cover up, to cover you for..
Well, nobody's loyalty gets tested, does it?
Nothing to lie about, nothing to prove.

But if you pull a fast one.
If you come up with a stunt that can get you thrown out, some
dirty little joke we can all enjoy, something crass and ugly and mean..

Well, we're right behind you, ain't we?
We're behind you all the way.

That's how it works.
That's how it starts.
Mateship, its a tradition.

The only sin that mateship can't cover, and this is important Sunshine,
So pin them ears back, is the 11th commandment.
Which as we all know, is Thou shalt not get caught.

Suspicion's easy. If they suspect you of something, no problem.
We just band together and stone-wall 'em.
Tell 'em nothin', take 'em nowhere.
Joke 'em if they can't take a fuck.

Which is where we come to the issue at hand, mate.

See for there to be an us, there has to be a them.
For there to be a bunch of mates, there have to be outsiders.
"Dune-coons." "Sand-niggaz." Sluts, scrags and poofters.

That's why we hate 'em, smack 'em about, kick the shit out of 'em.
Good for us, tough shit for them.
We all join in, mate, that's the thing.
We all join in and give the poofter a good going over in barracks.
We all join in and give the slut a good going over on Skype.
That's how we know who's us and who's them.

And don't worry about the Sergeant Major.
He's a mate too.
And don't worry about the Officers.
'Cos they're mates too.
So they'll see you right, son.
They'll keep it from coming out, causing a stink, eh??

'Cos they were here before you mate, weren't they?
They know the score, all of 'em.
When the shit starts flying in Afghani-bloody-stan,
A mate needs to know he can count on his mates to look out for him.
Stands to reason, son, stands to reason.

So don't worry about the sheilas, mate, or the poofs.
They're not real soldiers mate, everyone knows that.
We've seen 'em come and we've seen 'em go.
Fuckin' slags and fuckin' poofs.
Useless, mate, fuckin' useless.

Unless you're so stupid you get yourself caught red-handed.
In which case, well, we've done our best mate,
But you're just too bloody stupid.
You didn't make the grade.
You'll just have to take your lumps and like it.
Just remember one thing, though, eh?

You're still enough of a mate to keep your bloody mouth shut.
You may be up to your neck in it.
But you don't drop anyone else in the shit, do you?
Not if you know what's good for you."...
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Loyalty's the one big thing we need,
If we plan to behave less than well.
When the enemy's them that would make you pay,
For raising your own bit of hell.

Lawyer tells of ADF rape.

Critics slam ADFA culture.

Sex scandal discredits recruits.

Minister Smith orders six new inquiries.

Culture of abuse 20 years old.

Toxic culture has long history.

What’s more important, I ask you?
There’s a war on, or didn’t you know?
The poofter we bashed or the slag that we raped,
Or seeing your best mate brung low?

.o0o.

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On Writing.

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Writing, in and of itself, is nothing.
Writing, in and of itself, is everything.
Writing, in and of itself, is enough.
Writing, in and of itself, can never be enough.

Writing, in and of itself, is the one truly human act of creation.

An unlettered child can sing and make music. An untutored child can draw or paint a picture. But to write requires mastery, the drawing together of language, logic and rhetoric in the flow of thoughts and ideas, streams of consciousness, poetic metre and prosaic rhythm. To write requires a consciousness beyond the self, beyond the itch and scratch of animal need, beyond the demotic prosody of circumstance; beyond the fixations of a fevered mind, the obsessive ordering of black and white, the chicken scratchings on white vellum that betray a mind too narrow and too cluttered.

Yet writing, in and of itself, is destruction, a crucifixion, the nailing of bloodied words to the white and plastic page. The deaths of endless possibilities lies cold and grim 'neath the gravid wealth of words. At twelve minutes past four in the morning I lie, sleepless and uncomfortable. I press old hands against tired eyes. Words and ideas form in flashes of green and blue, exploding like raindrops on a slate roof, their vital water running into dark gutters, sluiced into oblivion. Unless I rise and write they'll slip away, stripping meaning from my mind in shreds and shards, pouring the endless flow of babble and cant into the darkness.

Yet to rummage in the cluttered drawers of self-regard and bathos does not constitute writing. For something further demands itself. A net of meaning that strains our glittering thoughts from the air, a lacework web of hooks that catches the mind of another, and another. Writing is more than typing or calligraphy. It links pure spirits, one to another. Successful writing, like true magic, calls spirits together.

And in that meeting something more is spawned. Living things are formed and shape themselves, drawing light and breath and existence from the ether. From the play of words, from style and substance, chirp and charm, from word and meme and memory. And we must create ourselves with the net, with the lacework tale, the story of our self and our words, or else disappear, fade like fog in wisps and whispers, vanish like love in tears and tantrums.

For if writing is the one truly human act of creation, then all writing springs from love. From the cleaving of separate selves from the All and One, from the cleaving together of kindred spirits. Sentences spring to bridge the gap elastic, stretching out to one another, drawing us in each to the other. Love calls forth and we must answer. The urge to be, to unite, to be known is unanswerable, more demanding and more stern than any mistress. A love of self that is truly selfless, the love for another that is our truest self, our most honest need and gravest weakness.

Our words we weave to bridge the unbridgeable. Bright phrases bubble in the dark, spreading light in flashing smiles. Turns of phrase return and turn again. Rare words like lepidoptera open sunlit wings, winking with false eyes. The juggle of wit and the gaudy display of learning conspire in secret falsehoods, inviting and ever misconstrued. We tell our lies in one another's heads. And on we write or like the circling shark die of lost momentum and petered-out thoughts, of loves lost and little princes found. The sandalled footprint of childish wisdom disappears into the desert of silence. The eye that reads blinks once and we are gone. Our words fade from the virgin page, restoring virtue in perfect punctuation.

To write is to exist.
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