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Mar. 29th, 2006 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsidheWell, I've just come home from V for Vendetta
You must see this film.
I saw the evils of totalitarianism shown for what they are.
I saw what happens when people are treated as things.
I saw Alan Moore's magickal background shine through many exchanges: Initiations in fire and water, freedom from fear as a necessary prerequisite to freedom.
I saw the joins where the love story was tacked on (although Mim thought that V showing love for Evey highlighted what he had taken from him).
But beyond that, it helped crystallise some thoughts for me.
I finally realised what it is about Howard's reign that gets to me: It is that he treats the country as if it were his. He is not acting as a guardian, but as an owner, in true Managerial Director style.
"We will decide who comes here, and the circumstances in which they come."
Remember that? Now ask yourself: who is 'we'? It's sure as hell not me. It's not you. It's not even the people who think that Howard's talking to them. "We" refers to Howard and his cabinet.
That's the thing. Just because Howard has ended up with more-or-less complete control, that doesn't mean he has any right to it, or that anyone does. When he speaks about morals, or Family Values, he does not speak for me. He does not speak for many of my friends or relatives, and even where he does speak for them in one aspect, turn around and they are revolted by another policy of his. And I refuse to submit to being defined as a good australian or not based on how closely my opinions square with John Howard's, on the theory that John Howard is somehow, thanks to his election, the canon of Right-Thinking, the avatar of 51%.
This is not John Howard's country, to dispose of as he pleases. And an election is not a mandate to do so either, because the country does not belong to the 51% who gave it to him. If they don't own it, then they can't give it away. And it's not my country, and it's not your country. It's OUR fucking country, and Howard is a caretaker. It is not the caretaker's right to sell off our country, piece by piece. It is not the caretaker's right to tell us what opinions we should, let alone must, be listening to. (Janet Albrechtson Good, Ramona Koval Bad.) It is not the caretaker's right to tell 49% of us that there is something wrong with us for disagreeing with him. (And, in a massive display of bad judgement, many of those 49% have taken up the same argument in reverse, but not as subtly and allowed Howard and his apparatchiks to take the high moral ground.)
Goddess dammit, It is not his fucking country and I am tired of being told that it is.
No, I am not suggesting that he is about to start medical experimentation on refugees. No, I am not suggesting that he is about to start arresting Labor voters en masse. He really truly does believe that everything he does is for the good of the nation and its people. But.
He is telling us that everyone who listens to the ABC is wrong, and that only the commercial channels have a right to exist. He did expand his powers to arrest pretty anyone he pleases. He did claim that a boat full of frightened starving desperate people was Australia's greatest Security Threat. He has displayed (and is displaying) a stunning disregard for the laws and treaties of the nation when they are inconvenient to him. And who let him do this? Everyone who voted for him. And everyone who didn't stop him. And that means me, and you. That means everyone who didn't do enough to stop him being able to get away with thinking that the country is his to do with as he pleases, that society is his to mold into a more pleasing shape.
And my claim to victimhood? I am an intellectual. I am politically left-wing. I am outspoken. I had a jewish great-grandmother. I have a jewish wife. For any of these, in other times, I could be Evey's father. And worse, I have a sense of history, and an awareness of déja vù. We have been here before, and if the circumstances are wrong, if we take the wrong turn, this could get very bad.
It is up to us to make sure that it doesn't.
You must see this film.
I saw the evils of totalitarianism shown for what they are.
I saw what happens when people are treated as things.
I saw Alan Moore's magickal background shine through many exchanges: Initiations in fire and water, freedom from fear as a necessary prerequisite to freedom.
I saw the joins where the love story was tacked on (although Mim thought that V showing love for Evey highlighted what he had taken from him).
But beyond that, it helped crystallise some thoughts for me.
I finally realised what it is about Howard's reign that gets to me: It is that he treats the country as if it were his. He is not acting as a guardian, but as an owner, in true Managerial Director style.
"We will decide who comes here, and the circumstances in which they come."
Remember that? Now ask yourself: who is 'we'? It's sure as hell not me. It's not you. It's not even the people who think that Howard's talking to them. "We" refers to Howard and his cabinet.
That's the thing. Just because Howard has ended up with more-or-less complete control, that doesn't mean he has any right to it, or that anyone does. When he speaks about morals, or Family Values, he does not speak for me. He does not speak for many of my friends or relatives, and even where he does speak for them in one aspect, turn around and they are revolted by another policy of his. And I refuse to submit to being defined as a good australian or not based on how closely my opinions square with John Howard's, on the theory that John Howard is somehow, thanks to his election, the canon of Right-Thinking, the avatar of 51%.
This is not John Howard's country, to dispose of as he pleases. And an election is not a mandate to do so either, because the country does not belong to the 51% who gave it to him. If they don't own it, then they can't give it away. And it's not my country, and it's not your country. It's OUR fucking country, and Howard is a caretaker. It is not the caretaker's right to sell off our country, piece by piece. It is not the caretaker's right to tell us what opinions we should, let alone must, be listening to. (Janet Albrechtson Good, Ramona Koval Bad.) It is not the caretaker's right to tell 49% of us that there is something wrong with us for disagreeing with him. (And, in a massive display of bad judgement, many of those 49% have taken up the same argument in reverse, but not as subtly and allowed Howard and his apparatchiks to take the high moral ground.)
Goddess dammit, It is not his fucking country and I am tired of being told that it is.
No, I am not suggesting that he is about to start medical experimentation on refugees. No, I am not suggesting that he is about to start arresting Labor voters en masse. He really truly does believe that everything he does is for the good of the nation and its people. But.
He is telling us that everyone who listens to the ABC is wrong, and that only the commercial channels have a right to exist. He did expand his powers to arrest pretty anyone he pleases. He did claim that a boat full of frightened starving desperate people was Australia's greatest Security Threat. He has displayed (and is displaying) a stunning disregard for the laws and treaties of the nation when they are inconvenient to him. And who let him do this? Everyone who voted for him. And everyone who didn't stop him. And that means me, and you. That means everyone who didn't do enough to stop him being able to get away with thinking that the country is his to do with as he pleases, that society is his to mold into a more pleasing shape.
And my claim to victimhood? I am an intellectual. I am politically left-wing. I am outspoken. I had a jewish great-grandmother. I have a jewish wife. For any of these, in other times, I could be Evey's father. And worse, I have a sense of history, and an awareness of déja vù. We have been here before, and if the circumstances are wrong, if we take the wrong turn, this could get very bad.
It is up to us to make sure that it doesn't.