politics

Boiling Water – 21st Century Fascism

Kirsdarke Friday night, Policy Analysis, Political Observation ,

From this article here: https://www.the-reframe.com/boiling-water/

Imagine you have a friend. Let’s call him Rick Reasonable.

Now imagine you have an enemy. Let’s call your enemy Bart B. Oilingwater.

Bart is a real piece of crap. Whenever he sees you, he throws boiling water at you. Usually you dodge it, but every once in a while, he catches you with a bit. You have some bad scarring on one arm, and a few places on your face and neck. And you have to constantly be on the lookout for Bart, because if you let your guard down, it’s scalding water time!

Rick is a good friend. He thinks it is really bad that Bart throws boiling water on you. He tells you this all the time. He’s written some letters to the newspaper about how bad Bart is for throwing boiling water on you. Sometimes he’ll even go out with you to watch your back. He’s got a popular TV show, and he’s gone on the record a few times that Bart is in the wrong for always trying to hit you in the face with boiling water.

Then one day you turn on the TV at the end of the day, and you see Rick has Bart on as a guest. Rick is arguing with Bart about whether or not it is good to douse you with boiling water at every available opportunity. Rick is … parsing things a little more than you’d like.

He wants to know if the water has to be boiling, if it can’t just be very hot. Bart says, no, no, it really does have to be boiling. But does it have to be water, Rick asks. Could it be something a bit easier to dodge, like molasses or tar? Bart thinks about this, and decides he isn’t sure. He’ll have to get back to Rick on that one—but really, he prefers water.

Rick wants to know if there can’t be days Bart could promise to not throw boiling water at you. Bart doesn’t really want to set that sort of precedent.

Rick would like to know why it needs to be you every time. Bart is shocked that Rick would suggest such a thing. He insists he doesn’t have a throwing-boiling-water-on-you-specifically bone in his body. He just believes in throwing boiling water, and you happen to be the one that’s there every time. He’d like to know why, if you apparently hate being struck with boiling water, you insist on being in areas where you know he will be throwing it. He suggests that Rick is really the one singling him, Bart, out, by being so intolerant of his rich cultural heritage of throwing boiling water on people. He hints that Rick’s constant scolding makes Bart want to seek you out specifically now, to throw boiling water on you, for daring to suppose such a thing of him.

Rick appears to have conceded that Bart absolutely does have a right to walk the streets carrying as much boiling water as he wants, in the long-standing tradition of our country. Bart appreciates Rick’s stance on the matter, and compliments him on his willingness to find common ground.

At the end of the segment, he and Bart agree to disagree on whether or not it is good to attempt to douse you with boiling water every day. Bart still thinks it is very good—though he insists it is not directed at you, but only at spaces that you happen to inhabit. He wonders, again, why you choose to inhabit those spaces. Rick continues to insist that throwing at the space that you inhabit is tantamount to throwing it at you, and that it is quite rude indeed. They shake hands. Then there is a commercial for Pepsi.

The next day, you confront Rick about this and he shrugs. “Man, I hate that bastard Bart,” he says, “but you have to hear both sides.”

How are we feeling about Rick?

Australian Election Day 2025

Kirsdarke election night, Featured Posts, Friday night, Political Observation , , ,

Finally it’s here, the day of the Australian Federal Election, 3 May 2025.

Polling has the Two-Party Preferred vote at roughly 52-48 to 53-47 to Labor, with primary votes for both Labor and the Coalition being in the mid-30’s, the Greens vote between 12-15%, One Nation being around 7-8%, and a large Other vote to fill the rest.

Feel free to post predictions, events that take place today, speculations, observations once the votes are counted, all are welcome.

There’s a high chance that things won’t be decided tomorrow night, there’s a lot of things up in the air, especially the Senate, but hopefully over the next few days they’ll be sorted out and determined for sure, and hopefully will result in a government that’s beneficial to Australia.

Elections in France and the UK

Kirsdarke election night, Political Observation , , , , ,

This is going to be a big week in international politics, because both France and the UK will be holding legislative elections.

In France, it will be held over 2 rounds on 30 June and 7 July via a runoff system. Incumbent President Emmanuel Macron’s Centrist Party is expected to suffer major losses to Marine Le Pen’s Populist Right party, with the French Socialist Left and Greens forming an alliance to contest this. Since the final results of Round 2 will be determined on what happens on Round 1, it’s difficult to predict what will happen. All that’s known is that there are 577 seats in the French Legislative Assembly, so a majority of 289 is needed. Currently, no parties seem to be able to secure that.

In the UK, there is a General Election due on 4 July (next Thursday), where the all-important BBC Exit Poll is due to be released on 10pm UK time, or 7am Friday Australian Eastern Time. But polls currently predict a massive majority to Keir Starmer’s Labour Party of 400+ seats with around 40% of the vote, what with the right wing vote split between incumbent Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party and Nigel Farage’s Reform Party, both of them at around 15-20% of the vote, and with the UK’s First-Past-The-Post voting system, there are no preferences as there is in Australia, simply the candidate with the most votes wins each of the 650 seats.

As a result, Labour is expected to easily win in a record landslide, according to the current polls. We’ll know by Friday.

EDIT: Now that both elections have been resolved, I thought it best to update the image on what the results were.

(Screenshot taken from CNN’s coverage)

Also results of the French election can be found here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_French_legislative_election#National_results

In a surprising result, Marine Le Pen’s far right National Front came 3rd, with the Socialist Left-Greens Alliance and Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Ensemble party utilising tactical voting very effectively to keep her lot out as best they could.