Who will rid us of this troublesome Abbott?

Peta Credlin and her amazing evil monkey puppet
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This post is a little unconventional as far as blog posts go because I'm not trying to reveal my deep inside knowledge and incredible insights to an adoring audience of millions (that was sarcasm, by the way), but instead I'm posing a question, because I'm having difficulties in coming to grips with exactly how best to approach the horrifying situation this country finds itself in.

With my previous post on this subject (of only five months ago, but it seems like longer) I thought it was worthwhile to list the actions and policies of the Abbott government with which I disagreed. It was a long list and I ended up having to generalise, but I thought it was worth doing; partly to raise awareness amongst those who hadn't been paying attention, and partly to dispute the assumption that "all politicians are as bad as each other and there's nothing you can do about it". [OK, I don't have any audience worth speaking of, so this was arguably a waste of time. Nevertheless, you never know who'll get here via an obscure search, or what might suddenly go viral and if we all do our bit to fight the bad memes etc. etc. ]

But now it seems things have got worse to the extent that there doesn't seem to be any benefit in listing policies or explaining why they are wrong. All but the wilfully blind can see what is happening, and all but the wilfully ignorant (or those who hope to benefit from what is essentially systematic wrecking of the country) can see that it's bad.

A couple of examples from personal experience:

A few months after the election I was working in a Northern Territory town. I won't be naming any names. This town is a red-necked place where, until recently, Aboriginal people were openly referred to by many as "coons" (now they use the word "indigenous" with an ironic wink, which is not much of an improvement) and where Rudd's Apology was greeted with foaming-at-the-mouth rage.

Two workers were trading banter and one retorted "Next you'll be saying I voted for Tony Abbott!". This, apparently, was the worst possible insult that he could imagine.

At another work-site in the North of Queensland (not quite as red-necked but hardly a hot bed of left-wing radicals), a feeling of resentment against the government seemed to hang over the place like a toxic cloud. In the past, during the worst parts of the media campaign against Gillard, you'd hear a few people sounding off here and there, but it was nothing like that this time. This time a feeling of depression and suppressed anger seemed to fill every single person in the place.

There was a worker there who rides a Harley. He is dead-set against the current fire-arms laws and desires a return to the Gold Standard (which is the identifying mark of a libertarian). I wouldn't be surprised if he had a Confederate flag flying outside of the caravan in which he lives. [I should in fairness point out that he's a really good person to work with: easy to get along with, highly skilled and willing to go to considerable personal inconvenience to do a job right. Stereotypes only go so far.]

Politically speaking, you would think he would be a natural Abbott supporter, but he is irate at the Abbott government. His opinion is that their handling of the country is so bad that they should be executed for treason. He had never said anything like this about Rudd or Gillard.

And that was before the budget came out...

So there doesn't seem to be any point in banging on about how loathsome Abbott and his partners in crime are, and why what they are doing is so disastrous. It's like an outbreak of the Black Plague; everyone gets that it's bad, and most important thing is working out what can we do about it.

So what can we do about it?

It seems to me that there is only one reason that Abbott is currently in power: the vicious, unrelenting and totally one-sided press campaign against Labor. In my entire life (and bear in mind that I've lived through the greater part of the Cold War) I have never seen such blatant bias and outright lying by such an overwhelming majority of the mainstream media.

If it was wasn't for that, there's no way Abbott could have won. He has an obnoxious personality, his political views are extremist and out of step with perhaps 90% of the population, and his party didn't go to the election with any real policies (three-word slogans don't count). In any remotely fair contest, the Coalition would have been decimated.

The fact that the media is specifically biased in favour of the Coalition (rather than, say, just being right-wing in general), is most clearly indicated by the behaviour of the Coalition itself. They seem confident to tell obvious lies and contradict themselves in the most blatant manner. The only way that they would this is if they know the media will always cover for them.

And when I say "media", I am of course talking about Rupert Murdoch.

Now, the book Coup d'Etat - A Practical Handbook [Edward Luttwak 1968] - which is a sort of 20th Century version of Machiavelli's The Prince - has the following to say:

"If a political entity is actually controlled by a group which is not structured politically, then obviously political methods cannot be used to seize power. This is the case of a country dominated by a business unit. Imagine, for example, that General Motors did control the USA, in the sense that the Presidency and Congress acted as its stooges. If that were the case, power would have to be seized in Detroit, not Washington."

So it would seem that rather than worrying about Abbott, a better strategy would be to concentrate on Murdoch. It makes more sense to destroy Sauron than waste your effort fighting his orcs and trolls.

But how can this be done?

As Luttwak has pointed out, the normal political tools - protests, petitions and so on - aren't of any use.

Boycott his papers? Maybe, but they make a loss anyway. Their purpose is to influence people and not to make money.

I'll be damned if I want to wait around for him to die off; he could hang around for another decade or more, and cause an extraordinary amount of damage in the process.

Any suggestions? Anyone?

Help, please!