Thinking back on Scott Ludlam's speech which I commented on yesterday, I realise that I picked a quote which had several levels of meaning. On the surface, it is a dig at Tony Abbott and, as it happens, oddly prescient. However, that's not what I saw when I first read it, and it's not the reason I reproduced it.
In fact, it nicely sums up something which has been lurking in the back of my brain for ages, and becoming more insistent as I get older. In a nutshell, the things that we think important today won't even be remembered tomorrow. To take it a step further, I'm starting to believe that today's society is obsessed with wanting everything now to be just right. Who says c'est la vie any more? We spend a big part of our lives trying to change our world to better suit what we believe is better. Part of that is that when we are faced with a perceived problem, we want to sort it out immediately. Two issues: a particular situation may only be problem from our point of view, and, whether we're right or wrong, we're too quick to intervene. I wonder, for example, if the world would be a worse, or a better, place if we hadn't got involved in WW1. We wouldn't have lost a generation of young men and there probably wouldn't have been a WW2 if we had let the Kaiser get on with it. The average peasant in Europe would have just accommodated German rule and got on with their lives, with little or no change to their hopes and aspirations. And I don't even need to mention George, Tony and John's wonderful adventures in Iraq as an example of the futile 'let's fix it' mentality.
Today, USA is taking sides about whether it will be possible to live with Donald Trump as President. Maybe, we should just say Que Sera Sera and Let It Be. I call that the Doris Day/Beatles philosophy.
In Australia, we are getting agitated about whether Tweedledum or Tweedledee will form a government. In the process, we are setting aside all the values we hold dear: honesty, fairness,
civility, respect, acceptance of another's point of view. As Scott Ludlam said, whatever government takes office will end up as just another thin greasy layer in the core sample of our political history. Maybe this is why nearly 1 million young people haven't even bothered to enrol to vote. Maybe they see it for the futile exercise it is. As a wise man said, the problem with elections is that, no matter who you vote for, you end up with a bunch of politicians in charge.
What would happen if they called an election and nobody turned up?
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