Is TPA the only truly neutral voice in this election? Are we even neutral? We don’t even know.
*****
The Media
I picked up a Daily Telegraph the other day – don’t judge me, I was flicking to the sport – when a little side bar caught my eye. ‘Greens Latest Lunacy’* was the heading. I chuckled sadly at this brazen lack of objectivity and read the so-called ‘lunacy’. It was about some Greens candidate saying Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau, was his inspiration.
They lambasted him for having the hide to compare himself to a charming and handsome leader whose mother “partied with the Rolling Stones,” happily ignoring the fact he only said Trudeau was an inspiration, not that he was in any way like him. I find inspiration in Lebron James and I’ve got to tell you, I’m nothing like Lebron James. The closest I come to his discipline is typing the word into Pornhub.
But it got me thinking, have Australian journalists just simply given up? “Don’t believe everything that you read in the papers,” was an oft touted line back in the day when people actually read papers, but now it might be more accurate to say “Don’t believe anything that you read in the papers.” I sure as hell don’t. The sport scores are about the only thing I trust and even then I’ll often seek a second source.
We live in a write it now, worry about the facts later era and whatever quality journalism there may be out there is swiftly lost in a fetid ejaculation of quickly thrown together articles ending in a string of ‘Tweets’ by sad loners and B-grade celebrities. Journalists these days don’t even have the self-respect to write their own words! Or maybe I’m being unfair of JStar69 from Penrith. She really nailed it in her 140 character rant. #Lol.
Slovenly, gravy stained, political writers spit bile at whoever their bosses tell them too and television journalists put on their make up and read their lines, and don’t really think too much about anything, apart from who they can get get to go down on them on the weekend.
These days I get most of my news from ABC Radio, as they seem to be the most level-headed, but the Lib’s would have us believe they are all wild-eyed lefties. Am I a wild-eyed lefty for listening? I don’t think I am, I’d like to think I’m in the middle, but maybe I’m delusional.
Sure, I don’t want to see the word destroyed and innocent people die, all in the name of a dollar, but should that make me left-wing? It just seems like simple common sense to me. Schoolyard shit, really. Be nice to your neighbours and don’t burn down your own fucking house.
There was an interesting story on the radio the other day (yes, ABC) about conservative Republican voters in America being uneasy on Donald Trump because of his vague position on abortion and small businesses being able to refuse LGBT people service. These are their main concerns? Really?
I can empathise with conservative attitudes to immigration to a certain extent, but when something doesn’t directly affect you in any way whatsoever, why care so much? Just bake the fucking cake for the gay couple and take their money! Stick a pube in it, if they really offend you so much.** That’s what capitalism is all about!
But I’m rambling now. This election has sent me into a babbling delirium and I don’t know what’s up and what’s down. Who’s right and who’s left. Where I am or even who I’m going to vote for. All I know is I want this monstrosity to end.
By Alasdair McClintock
Twitter: @AWJP83
* I’m taking this from memory, that may not be 100% verbatim, but it’s more of less accurate.
** I would like to stress I am not advocating putting pubic hairs in anybody’s food, much less members of the LGBT community.
Read Week One – The Leaders here
Read Week Two – The Major Parties here
Read Week Three – The Big Issues here