- The Guardian
- Issue #2142
Propaganda polling
Dear comrade editor,
I was contacted by a polling agency last week, and curious to find out what it was about I decided to spare a few minutes and answer the questions. It was a frustrating and at the same time educational experience.
I was asked if I recognised a couple of names. I did not, but later discovered they were the Liberal and Labor candidates in my electorate. Endless questions followed, asking me to choose between Liberal, Labor, or undecided. The questions were loaded.
For example when asked to choose a preferred party on defence, the choice was between Liberal or Labor, I responded they are the same. “Oh so you are undecided.” My response: “No, I am not undecided. I prefer the Greens’ anti-AUKUS pro-peace policy.” “I’ll put undecided,” the pollster responded. “No, I am decided,” I replied.
“Would Liberal or Labor make a stronger government?” I questioned what is meant by that. The response was: “I’ll put undecided.”
This continued on a range of issues. Occasionally there was a question where I could choose, such as on health. I do not recall a question on climate change.
There were just two questions that provided for the inclusion of the Greens or independent – how I allocated my first preference in the last election and how I would vote on 3 May.
The questions reflected the main focus of mass media’s coverage of the election as if only two parties were standing. So much for opinion polls! No wonder they get it wrong so often. I wondered if the whole exercise was some sort of propaganda stunt.
M Santos
It’s a Crime – let’s say so
This is a local as well as a national and international issue. The recent execution of doctors and paramedics in Gaza by the Israeli military was not a ‘mistake,’ or a subject for some phony ‘investigation,’ but a crime. It was outright, cold blooded murder.
Our craven Trump-obsessed media has hardly mentioned the fact, and our spineless politicians, so keen to stamp out the distracting phantom of ‘anti-semitism,’ have not made any serious statement on the matter. In the eyes of the world, we are complicit with our age-old ‘friends,’ the USA and Israel, in a genocide happening before our very eyes.
Yes! Whether it’s indiscriminate bombings of civilians killing over 18,000 children (‘terrorists’?), or the ‘voluntary removal’ of the whole battered and decimated Palestinian population to make way for a luxury resort, there is no other word for it – it’s genocide alright.
In this forthcoming election its high time we began to assert our clear voice, our independent Australian view for the future of this world, and that voice of condemnation is certainly not coming from the two major parties, busily scuttling for cover on all the big global issues.
Show your disgust by registering a protest ‘Stop the Genocide’ vote in this forthcoming election. Don’t vote for Labor or the Coalition, and opt for candidates clearly condemning murderous Israeli imperialism.
Bob Treasure
Go Falcons!
Dear Comrade,
The documentary film Equal the Contest, screening on SBS until 27 May, is about the 2021 return of women’s footy to Castlemaine on Dja Dja Wurrung Country, Victoria, after 74 years.
Despite still being a male dominated sport, footy today is now played nationwide by 600,000 women and girls. AFLWomen’s, since its inception in 2017, became a force to be reckoned with and demanded gender equity at high level AFL policy. So what’s the score with Mount Alexander Falcons?
From the start MA Falcons have recruited gender diverse members, so when Mitch Nivalis (they/them), producer and film maker, saw its inclusive poster they jumped in boots ‘n all. Mitch discovered a team united in its diversity by a desire to have fun and form community.
This film traces battles fought for the team’s right to exist; to occupy space; to negotiate use of turf long and jealously guarded by cis men; and to break through sexism at regional level.
While country footy may seem mundane, for those who have experienced exclusion and discrimination, common to many LGBTQIA+ people in sporting arenas, a team like MA Falcons offers healing and a fresh start, tackling demons together, left, right, and centre.
I’d call this a revolutionary step towards what Arthur Miller had envisaged, “… life could be a comradely embrace, people helping one another rather than looking for ways to trip each other up.” Go Falcs!
Yours sincerely
M Whittle
Dja Dja Wurrung Country
Victoria
Get a dog
I thank Anna Pha for her clear explanation of tariffs (Guardian 2141), which I found very helpful at clearing up the issue under the hysteria. One passage stood out to me. Pha quotes Albanese saying “The administration’s tariffs have no basis in logic and they go against the basis of our two nation’s partnership. This is not the act of a friend.”
It’s a masterful understatement from Albo. The tariffs are not the act of a friend, they’re the act of an obnoxious bully. But the USA has never really been a friend. It has always been the global bully, putting the interests of US capital against the interests of the rest of the planet.
Albanese meekly whinging about ‘the act of a friend’ should remember the old saying that in politics if you want a friend, you should buy a dog.
Peter Farmer
Melbourne
