Hi. I am Rob Scott
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 http://wheelercentre.com/dailies/post/917d5c7f8916

In response to the above:

This all fits in very well with the Gillard constructed message as to why she took the deeply unpopular step of removing the ‘geek’ the population as a whole had favoured over John Howard in 2007.

It may well be true that the media knows Rudd is a liar but can’t name him for ‘ethical’ reasons but are we just to believe that a former prime Minister would outright lie to his TV constituency? Surely the epithet of ’liar’ is one too heavy to bear in this day and age for anybody who seeks high office?

So, the truth, as is often the case may lie somewhere in the middle, or perhaps somewhere else.

Rather than taking aim at journalists for doing their job as part of the ‘Bury Kevin, send him to heaven’ movement, it would be better to look at the actions of the political caste as a whole during this unedifying scuffle over power. Nevertheless, it is possible that this unseemly thrashing around for first position at the trough of power may eventually be seen as a struggle for the soul and perhaps the future of the ALP.

 Why should we dismiss the wisdom of the masses, as expressed by the often extremely accurate polls in the newspapers?

These expressions of public opinion are marvellously two-edged. Had they shown overwhelming support for Ms Gillard, they would have been trumpeted from the rooftops as a source of legitimacy for the strategy that replaced Mr Rudd. Now they are seen as the tattered whims of a ‘television oriented’ sub literate mass. Your correspondent’s reduction of the mass opinion to that of a representation of the preferences of someone with the mind of a 14 year old is breathtaking.

What if there is something to this mass opinion. The people have often been right and governments have often spent a lot of time and energy in attempting to prove them wrong. The Iraq War is an easy reference point for this kind of attitude.

Government has increasingly become about ’governance’, that is the manipulation of the population for the Political and Economic aims of the elite that constitutes the ‘ new class’. Power is influence is wealth is power.

People such as Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard are both representatives of this new class. So are people such as Mr Abbott. I remember all of them from my days in Student Politics in the 1970’s. Unfortunately they represent nobody much other than themselves and a giant careerist clique which sails behind them in their wake. Their pursuit of governance is pretty similar. It favours large corporations, swift transitions from government positions into lucrative private positions and a veritable culture of non-transparent transfers of wealth and power. This occurs between members of a class separated from most people by privilege, education, wealth and the thousand and one perks of office.

In a slow motion version of the situation where Greece, the mother of Democracy has been shackled and asset stripped for the benefit of a few unscrupulous investors, we too are faced with a choice between Democracy and a new oligarchy.

Are we to believe that the sole reason Mr Rudd is so offensive to his colleagues is because of his dictatorial manner? He ran the Queensland Public service of course and apparently without major train wrecks.

Did he perhaps represent a little too much probity and a little too much control for those whose reward for years of service to the ‘Labour Movement’ is a small empire to run, a swathe of privileges, a Commonwealth car and a Gold Pass?

Incidentally, let us not forget that Mr. Rudd’s family is rich because of government outsourcing of employment services.

It is perhaps Rudd’s very popularity that is his nemesis. It works against the betterment of the hive. The power structures of governance require a team spirit and a social and cultural removal from the needs and lives of the majority. The majority in political terms has been reduced to the few voters in the marginal seats who can deliver power to the political machine with the best spin on the day.

The Liberals are of course in on the game, they just had a seat ready for them through personal or ideological connections, but they increasingly have more in common with their Labor playmates than with the populous at large, even their traditional Conservative base. Malcolm Fraser is the living epitome of that separation between the old and new face of the Liberals. They have swung so far to the right in economic terms that he appears as a populist troublemaker to most of his political heirs.

Has anybody bothered to note the recent obscene increases in Departmental secretaries and hence MP’s pay? These put Parliamentarians even more squarely in the same tax bracket as the Merchant bankers and their friends. The average TV watching beer swilling yokel doesn’t get a look in with their ‘Representatives’ living like high end yuppies  while manufacturing jobs slowly drift out to sea and Union Secretaries cry crocodile tears all the way to the next pre-selection.

Perhaps the voters out in TV land just wanted someone they believed in rather than someone who told them what to believe?

Rob Scott

Rob Scott