02.27.2003 || 01h59

Australia

For a long time, I've thought that Australia was cool. I mean, hyper-cool. Sort of like Canada without the fiery influence of the French, I guess. I mean, They've got a similar makeup to ours: the socio-democratic model of doing your national business, the constant tug of the brits and the Yanks, and a pretty damned different take on things than either of those countries would necessarily want.

I have had reason, over recent months, to revise my view of Australia. Like Canada, rampant privatisation has created a bit of a mess with their telecom industry. Like Canada, they are being pressured to drop the 'socio' part from their socio-democracy. Like Canada, they really don't quite know what to do with their aborigines, and like Canada, they at least know how to spell. Yay us, right?

Well, no: Unlike Canada, they opted *not* to ratify the Kyoto agreement. Meaning that two of the so-called 'dirty three' are still dirty, whereas at least *we're* fucking trying. I'd also like to say that the Prime Minister of Australia's a bastard who's going to get Australian civilians killed right alongside Americans as Australia becomes more and more viewed in Muslim areas as an American sidekick. It's become clear that, whereas Canada has finally turned the US down flat over Iraq, Australia's picked up the traditional Canadian practise of saying 'ready aye ready' to Washington. Please note the rather stark contrast here.

Added to that is the stupid idea that the Australian government had of 'legalising' pre-emptive strikes against targets in other nations that could at some point flirt with the idea of maybe spawning a terrorist or two, which nicely undermined all the work that Australia had done in previous years to become a more integral part of the Pacific Rim. nice one, guys. I don't know if that went through or no, but even toying with the idea of striking at targets in your neighbouring countries amounts to either invasion or terrorism. Think straight for a minute, fer fuksakes.

Oh, and the fact that there's a fucking concentration camp at Woomera, run by a subsidiary of a private US security company (known as 'Wackenhut,' incidentally), at which the inmates are killing themselves, because it's better than staying there, seems to be somewhat Nazi-istic in nature.

The CBC to-day outlined some of the ways in which the USA has begun taking on policies that begin to make the environment resemble that of 1930s Germany (hell-o, racial profiling). I say that Australia is becoming to the US what Austria was to Germany, and I feel so let down by that. So fucking let down.



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older shite

One last little note... - 09.21.2006

de-stressing, biking and terrorism - 06.06.2006

Mildly stressed... - 05.29.2006

More crime stupidity - 05.28.2006

Scary stuff - 05.25.2006

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