Lefties miss Howard
Hating Howard gave life real meaning. What is a good leftie to do now, asks Catherine Deveny.
No, we don't.
No, it didn't.
And plenty.
What the hell is wrong with you? Sure, we're enjoying the feeling of less shame being associated with the office of Prime Minister, but, christ. It's hardly a freaking utopia. We've elected the Labor Party, not a genuinely progressive lot. There's still plenty to fight for and against. (They're still cutting taxes. They're still maintaining two-tier health and education systems. They still aren't creating a public dental scheme. They're still not building new public transport infrastructure. They're still maintaining the anti-civil liberty "anti-terrorism" legislation Howard left them. They're still refusing to end discrimination against gay people.)
I know you've got a few column inches to fill, but would you mind not misrepresenting lefties as
- hateful twats ("The left loves a whinge, a wine and a rant");
- witless idiots ("When a comedian bagged WorkChoices, the treatment of asylum seekers, Howard's refusal to say sorry, our involvement in Iraq or his pandering to the aspirationals, we cheered."); and
- gullible fools ("The 2020 yakfest at the weekend was further evidence of this. People are being heard. Not being heard? Here's a microphone, what would you like to say?")?
I've suddenly realised where the righties get their bizarre fantasy strawman version of "the left" from - it's from people like Deveny. A version of the left that's made of boring carpers who complain but don't actually want anything to genuinely change; a version of "the left" whose idea of humour is calling Bush stupid; a version of "the left" which thinks empty symbolism is some kind of achievement in and of itself.
Hell, *I* have contempt for that kind of tribal "lefty". That's leftism as a psychological condition, a social phenomenon; not a principle for policy development towards better, fairer, more inclusive and democratic government. The people Deveny's talking about (and with whom she apparently identifies) are not lefties - they're the "latte drinkers" of urban legend!
Bugger it, the rest of us are going to have to find a new word for ourselves.
UPDATE: Gee, there's a surprise.
