thinking about the future (fucked in the head)

wise old ppl will tell you that sometimes you need to think about the future. i dont mean the long-term future here, but the short term. specifically, what would be an appropriate reaction to the election of abbott?

if you believe the media, which you generally shouldn't in relation to a whole host of issues, his election in september is all but guaranteed. now obviously the eternal-ally-of-social-and-economic-conservatives australian media would say this, but let's just assume for the sake of argument it really is a sure thing.

suppose the liberals receive enough of the vote that they secure a decent majority in the house of reps. or even both houses, let's just say that they receive enough of the vote so that they have a real ability to make changes should they choose to.

what is to be done when abbott acts on his pledge in blood (woah! did someone say masculine and intense??) to repeal the carbon tax?

now i understand that the tax isin't really all that effective, but for the same reasons it also is relatively harmless. either way it is definitely a step in the right direction, something that should have been done years if not decades ago. and it is nowhere near the catastrophe that abbott claimed it to be  (remember the claims?) but all the same he has consistently portrayed it as such an injustice and riled loudly against it so much that i really doubt he will have any other option than to try and repeal it.

ive made my views about abbott and the liberal party under his leadership pretty clear to anyone who would listen for a while now. long story short, i believe he lacks the qualifications for the position of pm, but, more importantly, he has not behaved responsibly in opposition and therefore should not be rewarded for it.

so the question for me is, should the situation of 'prime minister abbott' develop, what is to be done?

what sort of resistance to his reactionary conservative leadership would be acceptable/practical? 

let's hypothesize that within 100 days of taking office he has trampled all over human rights, international law and australia's international image by forcing refugee boats to return to their port of origin. let's say that he has slashed the minimum wage and worker's rights, and stalled or scaled back a wide range of progressive social issues, and, at great cost and for no reason outside of his overblown pseudo-politics, scrapped the carbon tax.

what sort of people would we be if, knowing full well the danger posed to the entire planet by anthropomorphic climate change, we sat back and watched while a man who has stated explicitly he would say, do and believe anything to get in to office dismantle the only significant step our country (one of the highest per capita emitters) has done in the way of tackling what is without exaggeration the greatest issue of our time (or all time)

what obligation would we have to a political system that once again has demonstrably failed to act in the public interest? what respect would we be required to show to a man who for years has consciously appealed to the basest aspects of human nature in order to promote himself?

should we sit and talk amongst ourselves about the stupidity of the decisions? have a protest now and then, waiting for one of the rare electoral cycles where a (marginally) left-of-centre party can be briefly elected? (presumably only to be worn down by the daily bias of the commercial media year after year)

i'm not writing this with an answer in mind. i ask because i genuinely want to know what recourse to sane policy we might possibly have.

i want to know if we really will have to sit and watch as man who has offered basically zero in the way of policy, and who is the most rabidly conservative major party leader in decades, slowly (or not so slowly) eats away at all the things that have made australia actually great? (things like progressive values, generous social welfare, and a strong separation between religion and policy)

seriously, what could those with a perspective greater than their own immediate interests do to stop the lunacy?

hunger strike? hah.

petition our local representatives? super-hah.

armed resistance and/or assassination campaign? apart from being unbelievably counter-productive, that really isint the progressive style.  

my gut feeling is that we will have to sit and watch as the worst aspects of neo-liberalism and reactionary-conservatism are rammed down our throats. and when it is far too late for anything we could do to make a difference, we as a country will look back and say 'damn! wish we hadn't pursued policies of greed and xenophobia and ignorance at such a crucial time! why is the anzac day budget ten times the subsidies for renewable energy!? i wish we weren't seen as the rednecks of the world! wish we hadn't privatized every single goddamn thing, wish we had affordable high speed internet, wish we didn't let the vested interests totally control the national dialogue. damn and damn again!'

now is a point in time when australia should be reacting proactively to the very real dangers faced by all. we are in a unique position for a number of reasons and economically speaking one of the luckiest developed countries.

instead we have a population who insist they are struggling, contrary to all available evidence and completely regardless of income. "struggling" is no longer the domain of the actually disadvantaged. to suggest that the wealthy, by virtue of their wealth, are really not doing so poorly is in these bizarre times nothing but overt class war. the term "battler", an old favorite of the right, is in today's australia a synonym for citizen.    

we have one of the two major parties completely unwilling to even acknowledge or discuss the threat of global warming, even going so far as to question the scientific consensus, and another party too afraid of selfish voters to meet them head on. because as "battlers" we simply cannot afford to waste our time with such clearly trivial concerns such as the future viability of the entire planet.

we are going in the opposite direction to what we should be. at this point we really shouldn't be debating the science of global warming or the merits of reducing all aspects of life to market economics.

exactly when things should and need to be getting better, it seems they are getting worse. under a prime minister abbott we will in all likelihood be going to hell in a handbasket, but maybe it's not so important anyway, because we seem to be headed there regardless. 

maybe those old ppl i described as wise just now are not so wise after all. because if you have the ability to think, and you do choose to think about the future, it's not great. in fact, to put it bluntly, we are probably totally fucked as a nation and as a species.

on reflection i think it's far smarter to spend your time vilifying refugees and complaining about how you could be slightly richer. so that's why i'm going to cast my vote for tony abbott; because im fucked in the head