Copping it sour

People of the Lie
John Howard accused the script writers of Bastard Boys and McLeod’s Daughters of bias. In relation Boys it would be impossible to pick out any particular incident that illustrated his point. The show hadn’t even finished before people inclined to see it as biased were writing to editors all over Australia. It certainly made me feel proud of the role of unions in Australia, so it is not surprising that it made some people feel uncomfortable. But does that make it biased? In Daughters it was specifically the scene when the new owner of the truck stop told his mechanic he was fired, but offered him another job on an Australian Workplace Agreement. The mechanic heroically told him where to stick it, and his girlfriend rightly said, You can’t do that. To which the owner replied, I think you’ll find that I can. He then did the divide and conquer thing by offering the girlfriend the mechanic’s job, which she rejected, at first but then, less heroically, accepted, albeit on a limited basis, illustrating the vulnerability of people in the workplace to management thuggery. I say that this was management thuggery and that the girlfriend was right above because government commentators asserted that what the owner did would have been illegal under Work Choices. I’m happy to take their word for that. But that doesn’t mean that such things do not go on.

If government groupies were watching on Friday night (18/5/07) they would have seen Jean Price aca Penelope Keith make an excoriating remark in No job for a lady about nuclear as anything but a clean option for power, the more insidious because “you can’t see the dirt.” I guess that makes the BBC is biased against the Howard government too.

Ridiculous? Yes. As ridiculous as the government’s position on Boys and Daughters. What are they saying? You can’t make reference in a popular television programme to issues of significance in the community? No? Then, that it is unacceptable to misrepresent those issues? See Management Thuggery below on whether or not Daughters misrepresented what actually goes on in some workplaces in Byron Shire, for example.

Taken at face value, the government is behaving like a bunch of cry-babies. Even if they had a case, copping it sweet would do more to prove their worth than whining. But I don’t believe their snivelling is actually genuine. They’re using an old trick made infamous in the 1930s: Lie through your teeth – the bigger the lie the better – and some people will fall into line, not because they’re stupid but because it suits them. That is to say, the hearers know that what is being said is a lie and don’t actually believe it. But the simple fact that the statement is out there, and can be said to be true, justifies their acting as though it were true.

Now let’s get something straight. On the scale of possible lies – compared with children overboard, for example – this accusation of bias in a couple of TV programs that just happen to occur in the same week is pretty small fry. But it is how it fits into a consistent pattern of behaviour that matters here.

The government knows that the accusation of bias is ridiculous. They’re not that stupid. Deceitful, yes. But stupid? No. They’re making the accusation because they have nothing to offer. They’re on the ropes, and they are fighting foul. Foul because the deliberate use of lies gives people so disposed license to do likewise. It’s one thing to do what ever it takes to stay in power. But what sort of leadership is that? What kind of country are we becoming in order to keep this government in power? What does it benefit a government to gain another term in office but lose the soul of the country?

John Howard claims to be the better economic manager on offer in the upcoming election. Let’s suppose for a moment that he’s right. So what? Being the best economic manager may not be the best qualification for leading the country. Economics is about money. Right? And money, despite recent assertions to the contrary by Richard Dawkins, is the root of all evil. Right? And the biggest evil of all is to lie.