Wednesday’s tragic events in Damascus expose the hysterical tenor of Australian politics for the sham that it is. Say what you like about Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott or Julia Gillard, but none of them are going to drop a chemical-laden warhead on your children as they sleep.
From ‘Two Mothers’ by Gerard McCulloch
My friend Gerard helps put our local outrage into perspective.
We live in, objectively, one of the best and most privileged nations on Earth. Australia topped this list three years in a row.
Our politicians try to frighten us into thinking that our lives are going to be worse under their opposition. That is manufactured fear.
Currently the most contentious issue in our country has nothing to do with our quality of life and everything to do with our pastimes.
While on a golden ticket like this we would be fools to mess with our government’s makeup. But we were unhappy with our Prime Minister’s mode of dress, or the way she spoke, or the deals she made. So we put her out on the street despite the fact that, under her leadership we were the happiest country in the world.
Gerard helps point out how ashamed we should feel for our actions, our complaints and our attitude. The people who should be most ashamed are those in our media who dictate the discourse and then complain about the quality of discourse.
While they are a bunch of tools, we remain a bunch of fools. We prefer to not think for ourselves: sucking in whatever tripe they try to fill our heads with. We snap to our manufactured outrage without taking the time to learn all the facts.
While we continue to undervalue our privilege and play the role of a nation of middle class victims we don’t deserve to be the happiest country in the world.
But we don’t call ourselves happy. We are ‘the lucky country’ because luck has nothing to do with hard work. We top the OECD list despite ourselves and, truth be told, we will continue to act like we don’t deserve the honour until we fulfil our own prophecy.
We won the lottery and that’s a burden we just can’t handle.