Pauline Hanson’s One Nation tearing itself apart

There’s an old political trope that says left wing parties can’t hold power for long before they start turning on each other and right wingers are much more disciplined and balanced. This is clearly bullshit as conservatives and especially extreme right wingers continue to eat themselves around the world.

The latest to provide me with some joy on this front is Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party here in Australia. They appear to be proving yet again if you get a group of fringe extremists together they’ll find reasons to turn on each other as much as they turn on others.

Centrelink’s “debt recovery” is a disaster and must be stopped

Here’s a story that’s an ugly combination of a conservative government waging war on the most vulnerable and the worst sort of bureaucratic fuck up. Centrelink, the government agency responsible for pensions and unemployment benefits embarked on a debt recovery plan which sounds fine in theory but their system is so deeply flawed that they have been demanding money from people who owe them nothing.

So far the government is acting as though they’re doing nothing wrong even though they’re driving people to the brink of suicide. This programme is fundamentally flawed – it can’t be fixed and it needs to be cancelled.

As an aside, here’s some advice if you happen to get one of these debt letters.

My promise: I won’t pander to people for popularity

While I’m sure that people I disagree with would say I’m pandering to people with the same opinion, there’s a difference between pandering and sharing an opinion. I’m sure it works against me in terms of viewers and subscribers on YouTube but I’m not going to shy away from potentially offending people in a misguided attempt to increase my popularity.

If I offend you feel free to point it out but be warned, there’s about a 99% chance I offended you on purpose and don’t give a shit how you feel. If you can’t respect me having a different opinion I don’t really give a shit about you.

Plus, I’m not going to tone down my delivery – this is my therapy.

 

Predictions for 2017

I spent some of today hanging out with some local YouTubers, socialising and talking about plans for the year. One of the things I’m really bad at is self promotion and marketing. What I have learned is that working with other people makes things easier.

It was also my first opportunity this year to make a video with my regular collaborator, AIDzee. We took the opportunity to use one of Melbourne’s colourful art alleys (in this case, Croft Alley) as a backdrop to talk about how we’re looking forward to seeing the extreme right eat each other.

Fake News is Everywhere

This is what I am convinced is going to be one of the big issues of 2017 (and beyond). While I think the Trump administration will dominate my blog and videos this year and ongoing issue is “fake news”. It’s hard to even define what that is but I’m going to spend a lot of this year trying.

Angry Bird Swoops Angry Aussie

No, not that sort of Angry Bird. There’s an Indian Mynah Bird that has decided it doesn’t like me so I decided to catch it on video.

A New Year

As we enter 2017 I figure, why not use this arbitrary moment to set some new goals? This is not a new year’s resolution as such but I want to reinvent/reinvigorate my online content this year and setting arbitrary tasks often helps me complete things.

The title of this blog, Angry 365 Days a Year, reflects the task I set myself in the first year of the blog’s creation: post something (hopefully angry) every day for a year. I actually achieved that goal so why not set myself the goal of repeating that feat this year?

Actually I can think of several reasons not to do that but we won’t listen to those negative voices.

This should be much easier than the first time. With the advances in technology I can post from my mobile so I don’t have to find a computer with an internet connection if I’m on the road. Plus, I have more practice in creating content (this was my first attempt at serious online content) so it isn’t an unknown to me.

I can’t promise you 365 days of brilliance but I think there will be some gems in there. I hope you come along for the ride.