Thanks Hoi! Yep, I do tryhoi.polloi wrote:Maat, I understand the need to 'unplug' periodically. I feel like I'm teetering on the brink of another break from the forum. Anyhow, glad to hear you are well. That is good enough for me, just knowing someone like you is still out there giving people shit.
Yes, Antipodean, if I remember correctly, I think I did miss that “compulsory” activity in ’75 too (busy with something more important at the time) but when I also first discovered that ignoring the subsequent ‘official letter’ of demand (to justify or pay $50 fine) made ‘em go away.antipodean wrote: Hi Maat, glad you found the funny side to my earlier post.
I found it difficult to get my head around, how an Australian who lived through the Whitlam years, familiar with this (and a major contributor) research, can have such a positive take on how the very people were probably fighting against managed, to over turn a democratically elected government.
Just curious (or possibly nosey),when you say you "haven't even voted in over 35 years", does that mean you've never voted, or you did vote after the sham of 11/11 1975, compelled to keep out them pesky Socialists.
Of course I was amused because usually only an ideologue still caught in that paradigm could automatically assume (for 2 years? ) that I must be/have been an active supporter of a political party/ideology just because I tried to point out in context how the overtly radical, self-destructive Whitlam government brought about its own implosion based on observing, living and experiencing the actual, verifiable effects.
The point I thought I made clear was that regardless of whether the only safeguard/check built into Australia’s screwy parliamentary system was used rightly or wrongly to oust an elected government, and regardless of whether Whitlam’s lot were really ever set up &/or entrapped, the fact remains that it was immediately given back to the populace as required for their final say & the election result endorsing the dismissal was a national landslide.
I have never said or implied that the Australian “Liberal” party (i.e. so-called Conservatives) were ever any better or any less corrupt, on the contrary — they’re all lying politicians FFS — but in 2-party systems that’s the only bullshit “choice” we’re ever given. There’s no difference between them in Aus anyway, “Labor” & “Liberal” are both effectively “Socialist”, or whatever meaningless label you prefer. Remember it was a “Liberal” PM who said “All the way with LBJ” for sending Aussie boys to Viet Nam in ’66 (as I mentioned before here), and a “Liberal” government that confiscated and banned privately owned guns nationwide in ’97!
Clear enough now?
Ref my Art Corner post:
http://cluesforum.info/viewtopic.php?p=2372592#p2372592