Pixelated Semantics

A schizotypical inventory

Tyranny's day of the lord

The PM manages to acknowledge "this poor man", who begged for his life as a propaganda coup for one side or another. Then jets to Bjelke's burial, where he joins the Premier in leading a mass forgetting of one of the most corrupt and insidiously anti-democratic regimes ever seen in this country. In King George Sq, Brisbane, the scene of the first civil rights campaign marches was briefly reinvigorated by a few hundred die-hards. "A last act of defiance", the Australian called it, though it was also apparently a vigil for those "with a lasting dislike for the memory of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen". As one of the speakers pointed out, there were no faces of hatred in the crowd, alluding to the Premier's remarks earlier in the day that he was "over hatred" by way of almost calculated slur against anyone who dared to remember the corruption that festered its way around the sunshine state for so long. ABC TV news alluded to "detractors", perhaps as if the Fitzgerald Enquiry's findings had no bearing on contemporary reality. Ruled as a demagogue and died as a media-induced folk saint. As most of the coverage would seem. Historian and political commentator Ross Fitzgerald, to the contrary, provides what is probably the most comprehensive and honest epiphet for the old fascist. The opening remarks include the observation that:

"[Joh] ran a corrupt and vicious regime that blighted the lives of tens of thousands of people, not just Aborigines and Islanders, not just civil libertarians, not just trade unionists [...] but ordinary citizens who had the temerity to oppose his regime."

In fact the only face of hatred in the square was the sole representative of Joh's "supporters" who could barely contain a state of mind that perhaps is best described as "regressive", and was treated with the utmost tolerance by the crowd of "detractors" and the small number of police alike. Which is how it mostly always has been here, in my experience; the notions of hating, violent demonstrators remain a persistent ghost for demagogues to conjour in support of their own petty tyrannies. A "circus" one commentator observed before the event - which is about the level that most seem to want their politics interpreted these days. There were necessary memories in the square, for good reasons, better reasons than to rehabilitate one who for want of due process, was not innocent, but not properly prosecuted. And for the "good christian" who persecuted and destroyed so many:

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. (2 Peter 3:10)"

Item posted by AutoEditor at 8:31 pm ::