EXCLUSIVE: Corrupt, Anti-Democratic Behaviour In The Victorian Greens

Ahh the Greens. Everyone’s favourite communist party. Hardcore Marxism cloaked behind trees and cuddly animals –  what’s there not to love?

One thing I will say for Greens members, in all seriousness, is that whilst I may disagree with them on most ideological issues, I genuinely do like and respect the commitment their rank and file has to honesty and solid political possesses. Starry-eyed dreamy ideologues perhaps, but I respect that. They have ethics.

Indeed, the Greens have long prided themselves on transparency, on grassroots democracy. They have long berated the major parties for their preselection process, and made much political gain out of their claims to rank and file postal ballots for their preselections. They pride themselves on letting locals decide who their candidates are, and not having persons imposed upon them from above. And I do appreciate them for it.

Which is what makes the events of the last few weeks so much more horrendous and despicably scandalous.

Librophiliac Love Letter

I am perfectly well aware it is intellectually unfashionable these days to wax lyrical of the beauty of books and libraries. Books apparently are no longer meant to be viewed for their aesthetic appeal, and if you do so you are somehow viewed as an intellectual poser, uninterested in the real meaning behind books.

Quite frankly, however, I do not care. I like libraries (and bookshops). I like being in them. I like their very essence. I like the air. Whenever at school I was feeling poorly, I would just have to enter the library and immediately all was right with the world. If I end up surviving until home-owning age, my first plan will be to construct a proper library.

With that in mind, I came across this compendium of some of the world’s most beautiful libraries. Here are just three examples:

Monday Morning Music: A Tribute To Communism

Okay. So maybe communists were responsible for over 100 million murdered worldwide, unions are responsible for countless millions living in poverty,and the USSR was just pure evil. I accept that. No argument from me here.

But dammit, they really have good songs!

In hindsight, I suppose I can understand why people give me funny looks around the office hearing me singing these songs… but they’re really good!

UPDATE: Cr. Ross Grove has alerted me to the fact that that Australia has some good home-grown pro-union propaganda songs. Here are two from the CFMEU (possibly Australia’s most evil Union) I havn’t seen previously:

Paddy McGuinness’ Private Library Up For Sale

If I could afford it, I would fly back to Australia just for this. If anyone wants to attend as my proxy, please let me know.

From Thoughts on Freedom:

The private library of one of Australia’s most controversial and contrarian intellectuals, PP McGuinness, will be up for sale in Sydney on Saturday 21 November 2009.

The thousands of books in McGuinness’ collection describe the broad thinking and eclectic interests of a contrarian and often incendiary thinker. From Palgrave to poetry, politics to film, PP McGuinness’ private collection spanned all genres of literature and thought, and influenced McGuinness’s contribution to Australian intellectual history.

The Effect Of Australian Party-Political Culture On Your Soul

Jake Zanoni has a post up today on Pimpin’ For Freedom on the effect youth politics in Australia has on people. I do not agree with all of his conclusions, and he is factually incorrect on a number of points, but at the core, I feel he is correct in that the Australian political machine does have an effect on you. It does change you, and the result often isn’t very pretty (you can read a post where I set out similar concerns here).

Some extracts:

In essence that is THE natural journey for the student/youth political hack. Youth politics is a fringe activity of society, and an enclosed society with its own subculture and morality (or perhaps amorality). A downward spiral of ethics is the natural journey because unethical behaviour is the norm. Lying is not only acceptable, it is expected. Bullying behaviour is not only acceptable, it is expected. Oscar Wilde’s saying that “true friends stab you in the front” is very true for politics. Gossiping, exclusion, conspiracy, and hierarchy are all tools commonly used and abused.

The thing of it is that eventually you come to forget that this kind of behaviour isn’t on. You get so caught up in it all that not only do you embrace unethical behaviour, your entire perspective on morality shifts.

I did see myself change. Gradually I started to do things that were wrong, and I’d forget that they even were wrong. It took a very negative reaction from my fiancée to my behaviour at a branch meeting to wake me up, and even then it was a slow reversal. Politics had become such a central part of my life that all my major friends were involved. It became my social life and that is a very dangerous thing because you lose touch with normal people and normal behaviour. Yes political hacks out there, you are not normal people.

This isn’t about me feeling personally slighted; I just simply went out one night with basically a bunch of strangers who were welcoming and friendly. It reminded me of what real people are like. I went home and got really, really scared about the person I was becoming, the things I had been involved in, and the people I had left behind.

As Neitzsche said: “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you”.

On Mentioning Your Friends In Blog Posts (AKA Web 2.0 Name Dropping)

One of the things that struck me, as I was catching up on a weekends worth of blog posts this morning, was the fact that, in six separate posts, someone prefaced a link to some other piece by saying it was written by their “friend”. This is something that seems frequently done in the blogosphere, yet it is something that grates on me. For the simple reason that I do not feel it necessary to inform readers that you are “friends” with someone else who writes something worth reading.

Why? Because, and it could just be me,, but I tend to find (with all due respect to people who do this) that saying you’re friends with a prominent writer comes across as a rather gratuitous form of self-flattery, and that this is not only rather unnecessary, but also demeaning.

After all, if you need to tell everyone that you’re friends with someone, what does that say about your friendship? If you are truly friends with someone, is it really necessary for you to hammer the point home with all the subtlety of an anvil falling off a cliff Loony Tunes style? More importantly, what does it say about you that you feel the need to back yourself up by this appeal to personal relationships? Are you really so insecure that you need to flaunt your personal relationships??? Do we really need to know you’re friends with all these important people??? It really is the web 2.0 version of “oooh, look at moi”

On Left-Libertarianism

One of the things I’ve been trying to do recently is to encourage more guest posts on Thoughts On Freedom, the blog of the Australian Libertarian Society, so that we can expand our range of writers away from the usual suspects (and if anyone reading this is interested in contributing, please let me know).

I’m particularly excited about a post put up yesterday by Amy, who recently started up her self-described left-libertarian blog, Civil Tongues, (which I would strongly encourage everyone to check out).

I’ve always been interested in left-libertarianism, because on a cultural level at the least, I have strong sympathies with some of the left’s critiques of modern society; however I genuinely can not see the logic behind the left-libertarian argument. In her post, and the quite stimulating discussion in the comments thread, Amy makes quite a good case on how essentially that the difference between left and right libertarians is while we have similar outcomes in mind, we have very different ways of getting there.

I would strongly encourage all to read the post, and engage in the debate!

UPDATE: I forgot to link to the article! Oops! You can find it here.

An Ode To The Soft-Boiled Egg

There is no food greater than the egg.

Whether it be boiled or poached, fried or scrambled, it represents the pinnacle of culinary glory. Made into an omlette, it can be simply divine. Even simply poached, and eaten on fine bread slathered with good butter, it truly is the food of the gods. Simple, delicious, and signifying all that is great in the culinary world.

Which is why it saddens me that the humble egg is so insulted by pretty much anyone who attempts to cook it these days. I do not even speak of failure to attain elaborate egg constructions; complex French omelets, or poached eggs with caviar on rye. Rather, the fact that the simplest tasks seem beyond most people. How few people can poach truly is a national tragedy.

However, the real issue in abusing the egg is how they are no longer appreciated for their inner glory, but rather used only as mere supplements for “greater” things. For in trying to create complex creations, they destroy the delicate beauty of the egg.

And so I call for a revival of basics. For tradition. For going back to our roots. We need to recapture the truly good things in life, the simple pleasures that we so often neglect. And it begins with the soft-boiled egg. The simplest of all egg dishes, yet one which is consistently neglected. And, when tried, done abysmally. By neglecting the soft-boiled egg, we are neglecting not only our history, but our culinary soul.

Just think about what a soft boiled egg is for a moment. How it is a self-contained unit if pure flavour. Of pure goodness. Like you are eating the raw essence of life (quite literally!). It needs to garnishes, it needs no preparation. Just boil it well, and voila! Glory incarnate. It embodies good food at its core.

So. The next time you are making breakfast, the next time you need something to eat, consider the humble soft-boiled egg. Cook it properly, relish it in its beauty and simplicity, and hearken back to a simpler era of pure, and unadulterated, goodness.

(By the way, in case you are wondering, there really is no deep symbolism to this post. I am not writing about how the egg represents the nascent state of pure potentiality or anything like that. I just really like eggs).

The Joys Of Argument, & The Tyranny Of The Pastels

To continue my previous rant against the blandification of society, and to stress the points made therein, I make the following appendum:

No greater evil has befallen the world of conversation than the dictum to never speak politics or religion around a dinner table. And no greater tragedy has befallen interpersonal relationships than the fact that this dictum is almost universally blindly followed. For underpinning this vile doctrine is the foul stench of the odious construct, apparently so ingrained in modern consciousness that it is now accepted as a given, that we ought minimise difference, eliminate conflict, and do little more than politely agree. And as such, this doctrine symbolises all that is horrid about modern life.

I can think of no greater horror, no greater tragedy, than a world bereft of the intellectual fight. Of a friendship bereft of conflict. Of a world where pleasantness rules the day.

Conversation thrives on conflict. On emotion, on passion, on the true exchange of ideas. The fight, however abstract and intellectual, however obscure and theoretical, is what makes it exciting, what gets the blood rushing, and makes you feel like you are truly alive.

There is nothing greater than an argument that gets the blood boiling, that arouses your true feelings, and that forges a true connection between you and the person with whom you are speaking. Vitriol, insults and abuse, rather than things to look askance at, when underpinned by a common understanding of the rules of debate, are glorious in their very essence. For they are marks of feelings.

How can you form any true relationship based on agreeing? How can you truly appreciate the burning hot fires of passion without the conflict that make them appear? It is for this reason that I could never understand why political people often refuse to date their ideological opponents – what could be worse than a relationship where you do little more than stare at each other doe eyed and repeat “I agree”. What passion is there in that? What life??? Our emotional range ought never be limited to “happy” and “content”; it is the disagreements, the fire and brimstone, the pain that truly allow us to grow. It is at the extremes that true emotions are found – never at the centre.

We have become a society compromised not of bright colours and vivid lights, but rather one made up of pastels. Where the subtle hues dominate, and the extremes are left to languish.

And I can think of no greater hell than that.

The Fetish Of Happiness & The Damning Of The Different: My Indictment On Modern Society

It was watching a TV advertisement earlier tonight that did it. One about happiness and self-esteem. One that really made my blood boil. I have joked for some time about writing something about happy people annoy me, and, well, here it is.

We are living in a society obsessed with happiness. Beyond the point of fetish, we seek out a state of near-universal contentment. Sadness and suffering are viewed as an aberration, a departure from our ‘natural’ state. From Dr. Phil and Opera, to the 219,374 self help titles listed on Amazon, we as a society are engaged in an exercise to rid ourselves of all negative emotions.

On a daily basis are told we must be happy, we must always feel good. If not – there is something wrong with us. If anyone deviates two standard deviations from the mean must mean we are ill. If we feel slightly down, and we are told there is something wrong with us, something a little pill will fix. After all, a gramme is better than a damn. And heaven forbid a child shows signs of creativity – to the meds!

Yet it is this societal obsession with happiness that truly troubles me. For without its opposite, how can we truly say we lived. I’m not exactly the biggest fan of Keats, and find him somewhat overhyped, but I very much agree with him when he wrote “Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and troubles is to school an Intelligence and make it a Soul”. There is great truth in this. How can we grow as people, build character, and truly nourish the soul, without the negative experience that creates true personal growth?

How can we truly experience true blissful joy, without first feeling deep sorrow. How can we soar in the dizzying heights, without first being tormented in the terrible lows.  Our experiences would become shallow and meaningless, our emotions mere husks. For sadness is an essential part of the human experience, it is through sadness that we re-evaluate ourselves, we become better people, we sate our yearning for the intimate and deep relationships to those around us. It is how we can truly relate. Without it, we are but vapid, vacuous vessels of nothingness. No character, no personality, nothing.