Optimistic

Woo Hoo !!! Long Live President George Bush !!! Way Hey !!! Maiella !!! 100,000 of Iraq's Civilian Population Dead !!! Yipeee !!! Guantanamo Bay Here I Come !!! Yee Haa !!! Long Live Holiday Camps !!! Political Detainees Held Captive In The Australian Desert !!! Faantastick !!!

Now that kind of optimism is just stupid. Besides, you only thought I was being sarcastic. So why am I so optimistic? I mean in the supposed Optimism v Pessimism arena all peacelovers are supposed to wearily loathe and despise war and hang their heads in meek lament for the loss of human life and rights as war machinery grinds a jagged highway through civil liberty and disintegrating constitution, if you even have one. A constitution that is. No, Australia does not have a constitution. This is how come the Australian government can get away with concentration camps for refugees concealed in the outback, decimating the indigenous population and so called new security amendments that allow police to detain and strip search twelve year old children.

Where was I ? Oh yes, war machines grinding a jagged path through law and order in the name of security. And peacelovers hanging their heads in mild protestation. While on the other hand, in the supposed Optimism v Pessimism ring, Optimists clap their hands and wave their flags and chant their cheers and thank heaven that the big guard behind them has a belt with enough amo to fill the teeth of the entire population of some imaginary bad teeth place.

Yet here am I. Optimistic peaceloving champion of fairness and reason. Why am I so damn optimistic? Oh I don't know, perhaps the hoards of disaffected neophytes that have taken to the net in droves makes me happy. What ? Why ?! Well I get invited to election chat room parties where I can specialise in subversive low level infiltration and garnering valuable information for future plotting. Plus other reasons, as best and worst case scenarios;

Worst Case. Disillusioned masses support their favoured politician/s till the end, everything goes horribly wrong (that hasn't already) and I get to merrily crow "I told you so I told you so" from my hell cell between beatings in some holding centre especially for webloggers. Send me to the briar patch !!! Yes !!!

Best Case Scenario. We'll never be able to undo decades of patriarchal brainwashing but a bunch of rowdy Republicans online might just be an unexpected spoke in the wheels. At best it's a good way to distract the straights with cars from getting out too much, that way the streets are free'd up for more barefoot peace marches.

What else have I to be optimistic about ? I don't know. Maybe it's watching the excesses of capitalism crumble into disrepair. Perhaps watching hopeless men in parliament blundering around in the dark trying to grasp public opinion just makes me laugh. Grasp public opinion? Public opinion is a beach, a stretch of shifting sand dunes. Any attempt to measure public opinion is conducted by a hopelessly desperate little man in an uncomfortable suit with damp rolled up trouser cuffs crawling around on the shore buffeted by waves of pop sentiment as he futilely tries to gather grains of sand with a small plastic moulded bucket and faded spade. Is that man with the bucket a politician ? No, the politician is too far away to hear the waves roaring and watch the dunes shifting and to smell the salt. But he still gets to feel the sensation of public opinion slipping thorough his fingers, like sand through a sieve with a mesh too large to catch a grain of it. Oh yes, I am optimistic as I watch that guileless and imminent ship wreck with too much air in its sails pass over the finish line.

Why optimistic? Me ? Oh I don't know why. Maybe I'm just having a good hair day.