It's Not Funny Anymore, It's Just Really F*cking Depressing

It's Not Funny Anymore, It's Just Really F*cking Depressing

Seriously though.

Before I begin what is essentially just a few hundred words for me to express some form of disappointment with what’s going on in Australia right now, let me preface it by saying my knowledge of politics is pretty limited. I have a vague understanding of how things work, in that there’s a guy called the Prime Minister who is supposedly in charge of the country, and he has a mate who looks after the money side of things and then heaps of other people under him doing heaps of other things. And then there’s other groups of people who think they should be in charge of things ‘cause they’ll do it better.

I realise that’s probably not what you want to read going into an article that discusses politics in some form or another, but I also feel like it probably makes me a bit more relatable for you, the guy or girl who’s having a good time on the weekends and trying to make enough money during the week to continue doing so. Or going to University during the week so all these years of being a poor student get you a high-paying job down the line somewhere.

But fuck it, I'm going in. And as a fairly disinterested member of society who doesn’t generally feel like what happens in politics really affects him, I’m starting to get really depressed about what the leaders of this country think is okay/acceptable for us moving forward.

When Tony Abbott came into power everyone pretty much accepted it as inevitable. The opposition had been a shambles for a long time, changing leaders, putting a female in charge (Gasp!), then putting the other guy back in charge for some weird reason (me sounding vague here is genuine, I honestly don’t take enough interest in politics). If we’re being honest it basically got to the stage where any alternative was preferred, and so it made sense the most powerful alternative would take over. And Tony Abbott jumped into the drivers seat, and we, the disenfranchised people of Australia were like, ‘Man can’t believe Tony Abbott’s our prime minister now, that is a huge bummer’. Just a vaguely reluctant acceptance of the inevitable.

We coped with this by chucking some likes on Senator Scott Ludlam’s constant social media chatter, wishing Bill Shorten was an actual physical human being who had things to say, and making memes relating to Tony Abbott. Tone Abet you hilarious meme-lord, with your badly drawn pictures of our idiot in power. And we laughed and we continue to laugh, because what else can we do? The dude is Prime Minister, and there’s a very likely chance he’s going to be Prime Minister at least until the next election, so we may as well try and ease the pain of such a painful leader by having a laugh about it…

With all that in mind I’ll just skip ahead to yesterday’s comments, because it was just too much. You see having a laugh at our leader has been fun and all for the past couple of years, but for whatever reason, his comments pertaining to Wind Turbines and renewable energy broke me, and it’s completely changed me from just chuckling at funny memes about Tony Abbott (heck we shared one to our FB only yesterday) to being wholly crushed that someone in charge of what is essentially one of the best countries in the world, can so absent-mindedly just not give any kinds of fucks about it or its future.

LeunigAbbott

I know there’s been plenty of other instances where this could have and should have happened, but yesterday just really got to me. Whether you’re a climate change sceptic or not, I just can’t possibly fathom how someone can so blatantly fly against the majority of the developed world’s stance on renewable energy. Without so much a care in the world, and for such incredibly pathetic reasons. Pathetic isn’t a strong enough word, I’m not sure there is one.

“When I've been up close to these wind farms, there's no doubt, not only are they visually awful, they make a lot of noise.”

Really? So much money and so many promises have been made to the renewable energy sector to help working on alternatives to finite fossil fuels. Whether they’re doing it because they give a shit about the future, or they just saw an opportunity to cash in on growth in the renewable energy sector is kind of irrelevant. Renewable energy is such a fucking no brainer. Why the hell wouldn’t you want to support something like energy generated from wind? How is having these massive windmills out in the middle of nowhere any visually worse than factories and mines and that all other shit we rely on for energy?

If he had said he was only really concerned with the health effects of wind turbines, I’d be like, that’s a bit silly, but okay fair enough, here’s some research showing there doesn’t seem to be any adverse affects from wind turbines. But I do understand your concerns, let’s keep doing research to make sure of it… Look I’m reaching here, but you’ve come this far so you might as well stick it out.

But to simply state you don’t like the look of them? I don’t understand? Don’t fucking look at them. They’re out in the middle of nowhere. Out of sight and out of mind, while keeping us in line with most the rest of the world in trying to get emissions down and look after the future of our world. It’s so damaging. Short term it puts so much doubt on renewable energy programs and people trying to succeed in that sector. Long term is even worse, but it doesn’t matter, ‘cause that’s for our kids to worry about, right?

We used to be the lovable larrikins from down under, who didn’t mind a tinnie, loved our sport, loved a good yarn and had heaps of animals that could kill you. People laughed with us, they loved us.

Not anymore though. The rest of the world isn’t laughing with us, they’re laughing at us. We’re cruel. We’re close-minded. We’re not forward-thinking. We’re certainly not progressive. We’re embarrassing.

It’s not funny anymore, it’s really fucking depressing. Sharing memes of Tony Abbott doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s too easy and it has been from the start. The Liberal government doesn’t give a shit if you’re laughing at a funny picture of him. They're running the country how they want to run it, not how we should be running it together.

Do we care enough to do anything about it? I don’t know. All’s I’ve done so far is write this kinda ranty article on a website.

But I care about our country, because it’s a bloody good place to live. So maybe when that election does roll around next time, don’t just write “TONY ABBOTT IS A FUCKWIT LOL” on the ballot paper, take five minutes to think about what you want for Australia, and don’t just accept the inevitable.

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If you wanna read something from someone much more informed than I, THIS article by Jane Gilmore is pretty great.

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