THIN BLUE LIE - PART 3
There is a reason why people must start at the bottom and work their way up. There is a reason why merit is used to determine suitability for certain roles. Staff performance and the effectiveness of an agency or a service depends heavily upon ability and suitability. People out of their depth perform badly and take-out their frustrations on those below them, driving off better, more competent personnel whose performance may outshine their own lest they be replaced by more qualified staff.
And for evidence of that
kind of behaviour we have no further to look than Ros Bates herself, and what
happened to one of her staff, a man called Epstein. While what (allegedly)
happened to Epstein is not an isolated incident in the public service, it is rare
for the simple fact that the media bothered to report on it. The vast majority
of these incidents go unreported, unrecorded, and are covered-up by the very
people who inflict the workplace harassment: management and the political
figures in charge of those port-folios.
Victims that
attempt to come forward, to make a complaint or expose problems are not
afforded protection under the government’s whistle-blower laws. Those laws,
like laws against Workplace Bullying, are a sick joke, a pretense to make the
public feel safe and happy but which do nothing because victims are still
forced to remain silent. The only reason Mr Epstein did not suffer the same
fate as every other low-ranking staff member in the public service and private
sector is because the media saw the opportunity to profit from the what
happened to him, his position under Ros Bates a commodity of high value.
Most victims,
it seems, are simply defamed and bullied into resigning or are fire, their
ability to earn income lost and life impacted in a detrimental manner from
which they may never recover. It’s even worse if they have a spouse and
children who relied upon that income. And, in most cases, the victim is so
disadvantaged they have no means to take legal action to seek justice. This
vile behavior has been inflicted by politicians and rotten management in the
police and public services for decades, and the news media couldn’t care less.
But in the midst of crying
poor, slashing the funding for education, domestic violence and child
protection services, and raising taxes (directly and indirectly) on the most
disadvantaged to help fund tax concessions for the wealthy, Malcom Turnbull
took time out from mocking the disadvantaged, blaming the unemployed and
single-parents for budget woes resulting from his own government’s ineptitude,
and bullying anybody who dares attempt to challenge the mean-spirited,
hypocritical ideologies and agenda of the LNP. And then he used an opportunity
to appear a better man than what he was by associating with better people.
Mining Magnate Andrew
Forest, a man who made his fortune exploiting opportunity, advantage, and the
labours of others, was donating $400 million to charity. Russell Crowe was
there too, a man who has never hesitated to use his wealth to help others for
no other reason than he can, and to do otherwise would be such an alien concept
to him he would probably be physically ill if he didn’t. And wedged between
them, like a dog at a picnic table trying to steal food, was Malcom Turnbull,
literally rubbing shoulders with them, making sure the public saw him and
thought “what great men”.
Turnbull declared the
donation an “extraordinary act”, his behaviour and the proximity to Crowe
clouding his judgement and revealing his true motives. What Forest did was an
extraordinary deed. What Turnbull was
doing was an act, not extraordinary
by any means, but an all-too familiar performance. He spoke of love,
generosity, and leadership, three concepts with which he was all-too
unfamiliar, and then launched into his usual dig and snarky commentary on
anybody that dared challenge his hypocrisy.
What the news media
failed to focus on was the running side-commentary during the whole sordid
incident. A great act of generosity sullied by a nasty little over-privileged
prick who attempted to use it to justify his opposition to actually taxing the
wealthy in a more appropriate, fairer, manner. “This is not extracted from you
by force of law”, Turnbull said, as if the generosity of Forrest was something
the wealthy always did. Evidence has demonstrated the vast majority of wealthy
people are just as miserly as Turnbull, resisting (regardless of the laws) even
what little taxation they are actually required to pay.
But it didn’t end there.
“Don’t worry, mate,” our Prime Minister said in response to Bill Shorten
thanking and praising Forrest for his generosity, “he’ll be back to disparaging
millionaires by tomorrow”. Shorten just shook his head. And Turnbull has the
arrogance to claim Shorten started a class-war. The terrorism of that war has
been inflicted on the disadvantaged by the LNP for generations, but only now
have Shorten and the ALP really started to push back. Perhaps Turnbull doesn’t
really understand what it means.
Maybe Turnbull assumed
“class” meant the way we behave toward one another. If that’s the case, then he
has demonstrated a serious absence of even the most basic, fundamental social
mores, and Shorten is facing an unarmed opponent in a battle of wits. It is
disturbing that we have such a psychotic Prime Minister, who will not hesitate
to mock, insult and slander political opponents and the disadvantaged, those
who dare ask for a fair go, yet attempt to wear like a hat the lower colon of
folks like Forrest and Crowe, to be seen as a man who actually cares about the
very people he will not hesitate to victimise.
We can see you, Turnbull.
We know exactly what you are. There’s a reason why the LNP polls and your
approval rating are so low. Not all of us get that sick little rush of pleasure
when you behave like a vindictive little bully. The vast majority of us have
more social fibre. Only your most dedicated sycophants are as morally and
ethically bankrupt as you. Your rhetoric sounds contrite, empty, hollow. It
lacks conviction. We can see what lurks within you, the shifty looks in your
eyes, the leer, the contempt for the less fortunate.
The Salvation Army has
recently revealed the results of their research into poverty, revealing as many
as three million Australians struggling to survive below the poverty line. They
are the casualties of the war of terror waged by the LNP. They are blamed for
their inability to find work in an environment where there are around 750,000
officially registered unemployed, and over a million under-employed, but only
enough vacancies for about 120,000 of them.
Worse, they are
disenfranchised, ostracised, vilified, and a culture of hate inflicted on them,
nourished by the LNP in its efforts to distract self-centred bullies who are
better off yet frustrated by high taxes that fund the extravagant lifestyles of
politicians and their wealthy mates. And now you’ve introduced new laws to
punish people who don’t attend job interviews or Work for the Dole programmes
that violate minimum wage, Super, workplace bullying and other laws. You can
cut them off from their $37 a day for weeks, or even permanently, while politicians
have a base salary of $535 a day and can actually influence and affect the
employment market. The unemployed aren’t the problem: it’s politicians.
It’s bad enough the
financial stress leads to hardship, but it also leads to an escalation of
desperate people using alcohol, drugs and gambling to help them cope or escape,
and that leads to domestic violence, child abuse, suicide, and worse. And, as
if that’s bad enough, there’s all the half-wit right-wing nut-jobs to put up
with. All their idiot comments. “Can’t feed ‘em, don’t breed ‘em” doesn’t help
people who had children before their circumstances went sideways, before they
lost their job, or their partner died, or their partner buggered off because
they were a self-centred prick. Perhaps the idiots who make comments like that
should consider “won’t educate, don’t procreate” before they fill the world
with more fools.
We don’t need to be
lectured by the over-privileged and free-range idiots insulated from reality by
their wealth, affluence, bigotry, arrogance, and or circumstances. We don’t
want to hear their stupid comments. They have no idea what they’re talking
about, yet they flap their mouths and blame their victims. They’re part of the
problem. But it’s not all their fault. Yes, they’re too stupid to learn, but
the media is also largely to blame. The media feeds limited intellects a diet
of BS news stories and narcissistic entertainment that condition them to be the
lack-wits they are, and fail to use opportunities to help them be any
better.
One hand giveth, while
the other taketh away… as one boot pushes down on your throat, and the other
attempts to impart enough force to ensure your testicles occupy the same space
as your kidneys. This is the approach to social justice inflicted by right-wing
politics, by all the self-righteous hypocrites whose claim to wisdom is mired
in the ignorance of arrogance and bigotry, trash that know nothing about what
the most disadvantaged (whose misery they cause) must endure, yet feel
qualified to blame, vilify and lecture their victims. If only they could shut
their mouths and engage what little intelligence they possess.
We are ruled by politicians who have no real interest in addressing
systemic failure, and are responsible for most of the entrenched culture of
corruption because they either set the example, or make no attempt to do
anything real to end it. It’s bad enough with the so-called left-wing ALP,
which now occupies a twisted middle-ground after a seismic shift of global
politics to the extreme right, but with the LNP dominating our Federal and many
State governments, social-justice has taken the same path as economic-equality:
the gap between the fortunate and the oppressed masses is a gulf of staggering
and reprehensible proportions.
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