“So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.” - Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions
This week children attending the
two large Islamic schools in Perth, schools I visited regularly as a bookseller,
were advised not to wear their uniforms on public transport. The reason? – They were being emotionally and
physically intimidated by members of the public. Got to remember these kids probably also
carry backpacks – that’s some scary shit right there. They say they’re just carrying
homework and a cut lunch but we don’t want to take any chances.
During the same week, a man
entered an Islamic school in Sydney swinging a machete and asking if this was
indeed an Islamic school. Kids hid under
their desks, got all upset – bit alarmist really. I mean, this bloke was clearly terrified. He has a right to protect himself from little
Johnny.
And then there’s the young New
Zealander who was bailed up at traffic lights on the Gold Coast by a car full
of patriots who threatened to behead him.
In their defense, the young man had a beard. I’m sure Mr. Abbott is currently looking into
some facial hair legislation to ensure we are at least threatening the right
people. Because we just can’t have
bearded people with darker skin driving willy-nilly around the
neighbourhood. We have a right to feel
safe.
Mr. Abbott’s War on Terror. This is some of the best goddamn marketing I
have ever seen. The whole idea of
marketing a weak product (and you are far more likely to die of Ebola right now
than succumb to a terrorist wielding a cutlass) is to artificially inflate the
need this product will satisfy. Like the
War on Mould in my shower: clearly the mould will kill me so I must buy
ridiculously expensive industrial strength toxic products that burn my eyes and
irritate my skin unless I’m wearing a full body condom while applying them. Marketing convinces me that filling my house
with poison will keep me safe.
These poisons are a great
distraction too. There’s lots of tiny,
tiny print on the bottles, and websites you can visit that describe what Mould
does to your respiratory tract. I don’t
want any of that microscopic shit controlling my life, except all of a sudden
it is. And I lose track of the fact that
if I rescue one more cat I’m more likely to trip over one on the way to the
toilet in the middle of the night, crack my head open, and bleed to death
before morning. And the Mould will end
up living longer than I do.
It’s the same
principle as showing something shiny to a screaming baby.
So climate
change, the cost of education, the insidious threat to our personal freedoms,
pensioner poverty, homelessness, welfare hysteria, our violation of human rights,
the depersonalization of people who look and sound different to us, and every
other nasty little right wing agenda-laden product peddled to us during the
last 12 months will slip into the back of our consciousness because all of a
sudden there’s something much bigger to worry about. But Uncle Tony will protect us.
Fear. No matter how contradictory or boilerplate
the origin, fear remains the one great controller and captivator of both
individuals and entire populations. And
we’re all suckling now...
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