etbe – Russell Coker

There’s a story going around the neo-con blogs titled “The Squirrel and the Grasshopper”. It was forwarded to me by a business associate with the claim that it’s “right on the money”. It’s strange that someone could be considered to be “right on the money” for Australia when essentially the same text is posted in the UK, New Zealand, and Sweden (from a 30 second google search – I’m sure that the neo-cons in other countries have posted it too).

The following are the neo-con ideas promoted by the story in question:

1. To mis-represent a local main-stream political party that is known for representing workers (the ALP in the case of Australia) as being extremist and associated with Greenpeace (an organization that is out of favor at the moment and disliked by many people who vote for main-stream parties).
2. To spread the “liberal press” lie that wing-nuts like to believe. Any analysis of the press will show that most multi-national media organizations are quite biased towards the right-wing groups.
3. Making false claims about the legal system to drive support for recent fascistic legal changes. In the case of Australia this means allowing employers to lay off employees and immediately re-hire them at a lower rate, allowing employees to be laid off if factory equipment breaks down, and for almost any reason you can imagine. Driving the idea that the judges are incompetent and therefore imposing legislation to remove judicial discretion is an important step in removing civil rights.
4. Claims that the government is communist and takes the property from the middle-classes and gives it to unworthy people. In fact the opposite is true (for Australia at least). Large companies and wealthy individuals are routinely given community property. The toll roads are the best example of this, the government closes public roads that can be used as an alternative to a toll road, and then politicians get paid off after they leave office. Far from taking money from people who work (as the neo-con propaganda claims) the government allows big corporations to do so with impunity. The Australian government (as many governments in first-world countries) has been becoming increasingly fascistic recently.
5. The claim that asylum seekers are terrorists. If the government wanted to stop terrorism then they would cease involvement with those parts of the world. However only plebians (people like us) are likely to be hurt by terrorism so the government has little motivation to stop it – it’s good for winning elections! By joining the invasion of Iraq the Australian government helped al Quaeda establish new training bases while also giving al Quaeda (and related organizations) a reason to target Australia. Also whenever a war is started people will be forced to leave their homes and seek asylum else-where. If you don’t want asylum seekers seeking entry to your country then you don’t want to mess up other countries and force people to flee.
6. Support for the “war on drugs”. That war has been at best a stale-mate and generally a loss for a century now. The approach that is being adopted experimentally of legal supply of hard drugs to addicts seems to have more promise. Incidentally the breaches in border security that are established for the purpose of drug smuggling are available for any illegal purpose that pays enough – if al Quaeda wanted to smuggle weapons into a first-world country they would probably get drug dealers to do it for them. I’ll blog more on this topic in future.

There you have it, The Squirrel and the Grasshopper covered all of the neo-con propaganda bases apart from the pro-Christian angle.

For the benefit of anyone who is thinking of forwarding on a “parable” in future, the first thing you might want to do is a google search on it. Search for comments and also search for who is promoting it. If a message you are considering forwarding is being promoted by people who are obviously racist or who discriminate against people on the basis of religion then you might consider whether you want to associate yourself with them by forwarding the message.

Yesterday I handed out “how to vote” cards for the Greens at the state election. It did seem to be a significant waste to have so much paper produced. Slightly more than half the voters who visited my polling booth took cards from all parties, which was obviously of little use. There is some useful information to be gained from reading the cards from all parties, but nothing that you can analyse during the short period spent waiting in line. I expect that most people decide who to vote for before they get anywhere near the polling booth and just accept the cards because they feel that it may be rude to reject them. While ironically some people who didn’t like the Greens refused to accept a card from me and told me that they didn’t want it with the impression that they would offend me, I’d rather save the trees and not give cards to people who don’t want to use them…

I spoke to a representative of the Family First party who tried to convince me that the Greens should be against homosexuality because the Greens are “against unnatural things“, he also claimed that people who choose not to have children (being gay is apparently choosing not to have children) are selfish – unless of course they are a celibate priest. He also managed to offend a supporter of the ALP in two different ways which led to an amusing heated debate and then left before I could have any more fun. For the reference of other Family First people, I’ve pasted in the dictionary definitions of “homo” and “hetero”, when used as prefixes those Greek derived words mean “like attracting like” and “opposites attract”. An example of such usage is the term “homo-charged electrets” used in electronics.

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Hetero- \Het"er*o-\ [Gr. "e`teros other.]
  A combining form signifying other, other than usual,
  different; as, heteroclite, heterodox, heterogamous.
  [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Homo- \Ho"mo-\
 A combining form from Gr. "omo`s, one and the same, common,
 joint.
 [1913 Webster]

From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]:
HOMO. This Latin word, in its most enlarged sense, includes both man and
woman. 2 Inst. 45. Vide Man.

The ALP (usually known as Labor) supporters had unfortunately believed the lies of their own apparatchiks. They were convinced that the Greens were directing preferences to the Liberal party, even though in most districts the Greens actually directed preferences to the ALP! The only exceptions were a small number of districts with split preferences (favoring neither Liberal nor ALP). It continually amazes me that while helping the ALP they were attacking us! Once I showed the ALP supporters the cards I was distributing they became quite friendly, as the Greens had a very low chance of winning the lower house in the districts for the polling place in question the preferences would go to the ALP.

It was interesting to talk to a Liberal supporter, he supports the workplace reforms implemented by the Federal government (Liberal) because he was hired for his current job because his employer can easily get rid of him if the business has a down-turn. It is hard to argue with someone who has only got a job because of the policy in question, but I did point out that continuity of employment is a major factor when applying for a mortgage. I recently bought a house and had a significant amount of hassle from the banks due to the fact that I work as a contractor. I had previously enquired about borrowing twice as much money while at my last permanent position and had much fewer problems from the banks.

I mentioned some of the other bad things the Liberal government has done (such as invading Iraq for no good cause), but the Liberal supporter was too sensible to comment on any of the issues where he would only lose. This however left him with not very much to say.

Most of the work of handing out the cards was quite boring and very tiring. Fortunately a friend decided to visit and help out so there were three people handing out Greens cards instead of the scheduled two which made it easier work. The ALP apparently had four people which seems to be an optimal number as there were voters arriving from two directions and no matter where they came from at least two ALP supporters would be able to intercept them.

Surprisingly the work was easier at the most busy times. When the queue stretched out into the street I could stoll along the queue and give the cards to the voters. When the queue disappeared later in the day the voters were walking past at high speed and I had to move quickly to get to them.

Now it’s time to start planning for the next Federal election.