Story by Atomou

If the Greens think that they have gained a victory by siding with enemy to deliver us this appalling Senate electoral mangling, I ask them to remember Pyrrhus who, after the battle against the Romans, he looked at the field in front of him, completely covered with the mangled corpses of his men (in a grotesque pile of brotherhood with the Romans) said “If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined.”

On that battle alone he has lost 6,000 of his soldiers.

How many soldiers have the Greens lost in this absurd Pyrrhic victory?

And who is the enemy here?

The enemy is not the LNP kennel of mongrels. It would be the same if the Greens had sided with the other lot of mongrels, the ALP because the enemy here are not the parties and their policies but a closed, unapproachable Govn’t. It is the Fortress Govn’t which, behind the well secured walls the career politicians do deals with each other to… to build more walls, as impenetrable as possible so that their seats can be safe, no matter who’s the sitter.

The enemy is the corrupt Govn’t.

The enemy is the Netanyahu type wall that encloses the self proclaimed elite and excludes those wishing to take part in the activities of a Democratic Parliament, activities which are quintessential to Democracy.

What does the word mean, what did it mean over two and a half thousand years when Peisistratus invented it and invented the system? “Demos” is us. All of us. “Cracy” (aka Kratos) is strength, power, also Govn’t. Democracy therefore means “people power.”

The Govn’t consists of -yes, you may have heard the words, now uttered by charlatans, “power by the people, of the people and for the people.”

And without the demos, there is no Democracy and without Democracy there is no civilization and without civilization the people die.

The enemy is the wall which the coalition of LNP-Greens have just now erected around Democracy.

In ancient Athens where it all began, during a sitting of Parliament state police would get a huge rope and, using it like a fish net, gathered all the lazy citizens and brought them to the assembly. Some 6,000 men would be gathered there to hear and to speak various motions about the city. Six thousand men would represent something very near 10% of the eligible citizens.

Any one of them could raise, walk to the podium and speak his mind.

Any one of them!

No “Parties,” no “coalitions” but individual citizens -farmers, candlestick makers, smiths and sculptors. All there and all able to speak their mind. Thucydides records a great many of these speeches and they make a very engaging read.

This deed in which the Greens participated is not a reform, certainly not one achieved by democratic means. It is a mangling of Democracy’s first principle: the universal right to be a politician, that is, a member of the Polis, of the State.

It was a coup against a Principle, the vital principle that’s at the heart of a civilised society. Remove it, as they did and we have nothing short of a CleptoKhazaria or North Korea.

Nothing short of every foul apartheid regime that lives on the delusion that it has exclusive rights to power.

I want my neighbour on the left and my neighbour on the right and my neighbour across the road to be able to use his right as a member of a society to enter Parliament and to air his views -no matter how appalling they might be; and mate, are there not people with appalling views in there already?- on the floor of the australian agora, the seat of govn’t. I want them to be able to speak where voices are heard not dismissed or disfigured by the lying, self interested press, floating in the sewers of the country.

Let them enter and let them speak. If their utterances are unwise then in an inclusive Parliament wiser voices will correct them.

People in political parties don’t speak their mind. Their mind is silenced by the inner-sanctum of the party in what they call a democratic vote. This is cabinet democracy and has nothing to do with people’s democracy. It is a self serving democracy for dictators.

A member of a party can hardly do anything wrong if s/he simply tows the line. If they miss out getting elected the next time, then the party -the worst, most abhorrent of grotesque cabals- will find him/her a sinecure of some sort to see him/her through his/her life, along with a most generous pension and all sorts of other bonuses.

The independent candidate, the one who is unattached to a party will have no such “assistance” from anyone. If s/he misbehaves, that is if he goes against the will of the people, s/he will be out of the House and out of a job. They are on their own and only their views, their heart, their intelligence will dictate where they end up.

Parties are rife with corruption. Wheeling and dealing and self interest is their adhesive. The political contagion which grips one politician can and almost certainly spread to the rest of the party.

Let me rather have a govn’t of independents, much like the one that ruled ancient Athens and much of the rest of Greece.

Finally, I have heard a nauseating number of times the slogan that the Greens had this policy in their books for over a decade!

So what?

And so what if it was Bob Brown who put it together?

It was wrong then and it certainly is wrong now. It should have been ditched then and it should certainly be ditched now. It is a foul policy, an indubitably wrong policy if we are to pride ourselves that we are ruled democratically.

Of all the great things that Bob has achieved over the years, did the Greens have to focus on this error of his and make it out to be the very emblem of virtue?

And why was it utterly dormant for a decade?

And did those who voted for the Greens ever suspected -even if they knew that the policy was there- that this party will launch into an election with that piece of anathema?

I certainly didn’t and not only have I been voting for the Greens for the last decade but was an active volunteer with them.

Never thought I’d see the election in which this nonsense will be so vigorously promoted.

“I am afraid. Very afraid!

I am afraid that the doors and windows of Parliament are shutting us out ever more certainly and ever more securely and that all we will be able to do henceforth is to see the very badly acted Theatre of the Absurd they present us, called Question  Time.”