Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Greg Melleuish, elites, John Howard, and long may bonnie Prince Charlie reign over us ...


(Above: a humble member of a non-elite, a genuine common or garden dinkum Aussie, as ready to have a beer at the Wenty RSL club as any local, and always ready to run a couple of bucks through the pokies while she's at it).

As usual, Greg Melleuish gets to munch on the wrong end of the pineapple, as he continues to drink the John Howard kool aid, or perhaps sample the same mushroom as Alice down the rabbit hole.

Whatever, and however you look at it, Politics is not a dirty word shows how delusional scribbling by a member of an elite - that's right the academic elite - can sound wonderfully funny.

Because in the process of jotting down notes in relation to the common 'joe' or 'josephine blow', and sounding a triumphal note about the defeat of the elites, and celebrating the joys of common democracy, Melleuish manages to put the cart before the horse, and celebrate the continuing rule of the English aristocracy in the antipodes as a victory for the anti-elitists.

Well thank the lord I'm not part of an academic elite, or come to that, a member of a political or bureaucratic elite, because it would immediately expose me to elitist comments about elites from elitists belonging to other elites, determined to undermine my particular brand of elitism.

Melleuish might think that the defeat of the republic was some kind of defeat for elites (led as the republican campaign was by that elitist Malcolm Turnbull, intent on becoming the new John Howard in his own elitist way), but it was of course a result designed to ensure that the prevailing conservative political elite could look forward to the election of the talking tampon as our king, long may he reign, glorious and victorious, over us. Ever so grateful guv'nor.

Here's Melleuish channeling John Howard:

In his address, Howard invoked the idea that the 1999 referendum represented the victory of the people and Australian democracy over the elites.

There will be those who scoff at this idea.


Well allow me to chortle, scoff and marvel at the notion that the defeat of the republic was somehow a victory of the people and Australian democracy over the elites. It was of course a victory for John Howard's brand of conservatism, and had bugger all to do with Australian democracy, or the interests or inclinations of the common herd, the swill to which I belong.

If Howard had been a genuine visionary, he would have developed a mechanism whereby Australians could have voted for a president as head of the republic, perhaps from a short list vetted by both houses of parliament in a joint sitting, and designed the process so that when Lizzie died, we wouldn't have to contemplate the spectacle of the talking tampon becoming King of Australia.

To talk of siding with the likes of David Flint as a triumph for Australian democracy is such a cack-assed view of the world that I'd really love to know the strength of acid tabs in Wollongong and who's the supplier to the residents of Wollongong.

Even Charlie me darling himself thinks it a bit of a joke, as noted by Barry Everingham in If our next King thinks we should be a republic, then ...

Harry M Miller’s revelation that Prince Charles wondered why Australia remained a constitutional monarchy will come as no surprise to those of us who have been reporting on and watching the British royals for some time.

Howard had of course drunk the kool aid of his hero Robert Gordon Menzies, as determined an elitist and brown noser of British royalty as has been produced in this wide brown land in the last hundred years, and my god we work hard at producing such cinque port brown nosers. As Everingham notes:

... in recent years the so called “mystique” which once surrounded that elite, out of touch mob, has been stripped bare by the behavior of the family’s younger members who are no longer taken seriously, except of course by die-hard monarchists.

The have ceased to royal and have cloaked themselves in celebrity.

It’s a known fact that when the Duke of Edinburgh heard we rejected the opportunity to become a republic ten years ago he snapped: those Australians must be bloody mad!

Prince Charles might come across as being loopy – but he’s far from that. The bloke has of course lived a life of privilege, but somehow he’s crashed through all that and does great things for disadvantaged young people.

But so what?

As this country’s, God help us, next head of state, what he does for his own people – is of no concern in Australia. The monarchists would have us believe the British royal family is Australia’s royal family…funny that. not an Australian among them!

Harry M Miller’s revelation couldn’t have come at a better time. If the next King of Australia wonders why we don’t become a republic, why don’t we do something about it?


Could it be because there's a conservative elite determined to keep this apron string wrapped around the Australian people, even if a majority of Australians favor a republic, and a majority of those favor direct election?

Well so it would seem. How else to see Howard's deviant, devious political scheming as anything other than an elitist desire to maintain things the way we were back in the quarter acre blocks of the nineteen fifties.

Fortunately politics rarely conforms to the lyrics of a Barbra Streisand song, and in due course we will eventually crank our way towards a republic.

Meantime, can someone explain to a member of an elite carrying on about elites and celebrating the common person that it might work for a politician like Howard but when dressed up as political analysis, it reads like hornswoggling nonsense of the most meretricious kind.

Now read this and suppress your desire to chortle:

... every time a matter that was once considered to be an issue for democracy or politics is handed over to a group of experts it would be true to say that an elite has triumphed over the people. There may be many among those elites who prefer something like Plato's expert-dominated republic to the messiness of democracy.

It is up to the rest of us to ensure that matters of public importance are not appropriated by expert elites and their politics.

By golly can someone explain that to the editor of The Australian, so we don't get members of the academic elite boasting about how their brand of expert populism and their conservative politics has rescued the body politic from the interfering ways of other elites, by rustling up a phony referendum to make sure the results go their way, and a bunch of elitist monarchists remain at the top of the power totem pole?

There's more, much more in the Melleuish piece, but I suddenly became fatigued, overwhelmed by what my resident physician assured me was a case of 'leet skills making lite points in an elitist way about the wonders of John Howard.

No, enough already. Too much humor is bad for you. Let's just celebrate the way the continuing rule of the British monarchy over Australian citizens is a triumph which defeats the elitist notions embedded in Plato's idea of a republic.

Plato hated the idea that ordinary people might have the capacity to run their own affairs, intones Melleuish with solemn dingity.

He much preferred a system in which individuals who had been educated for their role, the so-called guardians, ran society in what they believed to be the best interests of everyone.

Like the so called British monarchy? A bunch of so called guardians who run society for a handsome stipend in what they believe is the best interests of everyone?

Come on down bonnie Prince Charlie. Your humble elites await you, ready to doff the knee even if the Queen deems it no longer necessary. We've prepared the way, and we believe this constitutional monarchy to be the very best example of Plato's republic that we can currently find, and we cherish your role as guardian and fighter against the destruction of the planet.

There's guff, and then there's Melleuish flavored guff which outdoes even the magical meanderings of David Flint. Long may they ramble amongst us ...

(Below: another casually dressed member of a non-elite ready to support Australian democracy by donning the thongs, flip flops, call them what you will, putting on the board shorts or the budgie smugglers, and stubbie in hand, join the campaign against the vicious elites wanting to take power away from the people. With a bit of luck you might catch him on the Boulevarde at the 'Gong, either enjoying fish and chips from the newspaper, or showing off his rice boy car, such are his populist anti-elitist inclinations).


(Below: And just for your snap book, Robert Gordon Menzies as a determinedly anti-elitist lord warden of the Cinque Ports and constable of Dover Castle, as determined a slap in the face of poncy poseur anti-democratic forces and vainglorious elites as we've found in Australian politics).


1 comment:

  1. Was searching for something else on Google blog search and came across your listing. Glad I clicked the link cause you've given me a good old aussie chuckle, thanks!

    Now if we can only figure out a way to to get Nick Xenophon off his soap box about the pokies and focused on quasi religious cults, I'll be one happy Australian, that's for sure :-)))

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