1/7/10‏

Ah yes, this is where the struggling begins...

A slow day at work, where the minutes crawl by like snails, and stimulation is scarce. Where I begin scarping at the bottom of the creativitity barrel for some type of anything. I'm hoping that if I continue meandering in meaningless dialogue some type of inspiration will strike me like lightning. No luck so far, not a cloud on the horizon.

Perhaps it is my own criticism for my own content. I write a lot of trash, and rereading that trash depresses me a great deal, as it confirms the fact that I am a trashmaker. I delete a lot. The curse of this fact is that I produce little. It may be quality but it comes with so much irregularity that being consistent becomes unrewarding. I wish I could just skip to being Stephen King.

I get tired of this 'Stop the Boats!' rhetoric I keep hearing. Here's the most practical way to stop the boats: end all wars or start our own. There's a lot to indicate that John Howard didn't stop the boats, the lack of war in our part of the world did.

If there's killers out there in the world, then there are also bound to be people running away from those killers, those killers being terrorists, rebels, diseases, poverty, famine, corruption, whatever you can poke a stick at. The political spin on this has marginalized the suffering and desperation of these victims, and allowed Australian's to induldge a dismissive resentment towards these people, accussing them of crimes they cannot even understand they've committed.

I acknowledge that the issue is complicated. There are legitimate immigrants to consider, security issues, integration etc.

But I can deduct this:

Suffering people come to our shores, and we incarcerate them in conditions that cause mental trauma and depression with no end in sight, and Australia attempts to justify that in vastly overstated political jargon and exaggerated fear-mongering. That is what I find unacceptable in the Government, and in my fellow citizens.

There is no easy answer, but there are obvious ways forward from the cruel shitstorm of politicial motivated policies that are in place now. I do hope that soon, stopping the suffering of these people gets the priority it deserves, instead of the indulgence of fears to win votes.

Peace,

Michael Thackray,

(Looks like my technique worked.)