The Howard Haters

"Honest©** John", the "rodent", HoWARd, - there exists many pet names to describe the target of our political misery. But, is John Howard a warm fluffy character, or the anti-Christ?

It is incredibly easy to attribute the blame for any political trend on the PM, that the degradation, near rape if I dare say, of our carefully sculpted, constructed, improved society, is solely caused by a single man. It works great for personal finger-waving, but does nothing for progression. And it's just pain-arse wrong.

Howard is not Stalin.

But it strikes me as a possibility that John is a lovely bloke, a people-person, an average Joe(y). (Stick with me on this one, pack an open mind.)

The Liberal Party is chock full of wonderful people, which are carefully filtered out from meaningful positions, leaving those who will basically do the bidding of the sponsors - the touchables you might say. More funding means more corruption - the reliance on the continuation of existing 'donations', let alone the possibility of more, unfortunately has drifted the entire party machine into a more mechanical form.

Ethically it is horrific, but it is natural progression.

Much like a media outlet not wishing to offend a corporate donor with articles that defame them, to jeopardise party donations through unfavorable policy is political death, and moral sacrifices have to made for a career to progress. The will of the people, and the good of the country fades away into the distance.

It's sad, but there really is no doubting it.

My point is, if John Howard was brought to trial for any of his miscellaneous atrocities, "just following orders" would be his major defense position. It's far greater than him, and he really is just a cog.

Many remove their working life from personal life, some because their working life requires such unpleasant activities - proctologist, prostitute, AWB officer, Liberal party MP, etc. A prostitute may not necessarily be amorous in their personal lives, and an MP might not be the harsh pragmatist they appear to be.

Being PM is a day job like any other. For some.

Pays the bills. Doing what you find physically or mentally exhausting for a living is much the same as doing what you find personally and morally offensive.

John Howard may cry himself to sleep at night, wishing the possibility existed for him to be a fragment of the man Bob Brown is. His family would know this, and maybe consoles him on it. Perchance he votes for a party other than his own.

There IS still good in him. I've felt it.

...He's more machine now than man; twisted and evil.

So when directing your outrage, it's imperative to acknowledge the fact that it is not one man. It's not even one party. And ultimately, vote-rigging aside, we also have ourselves to blame. "Howard" as a term for a particular regime refers to all of these.

Personally, I'm not a Howard hater. I'm a Howard hopeful. I may surrender to the force lightning of the empire, but I appeal for a turn against the Dark Side.

(No Bothans were harmed during the creation of this post.)