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| Shooting Star | |
Many people would regard becoming Prime Minister as the pinnacle of a
successful career. It's a bit hard to move up from there, and even a move
sideways (like becoming Prime Minister of a different country) can be pretty
tricky. Little Johnny, however is full of big surprises. Having been written
off as a Prime Ministerial impossibility several times during his
not-so-meteoric rise, he now faces a further promotion before his long
anticipated retirement. Johnny is no longer a deputy sheriff - he's now the
real thing. Dubya, the drawling Texan cowboy who brought you Gulf Wars II, the man who
brought down Saddam (though didn't manage to him to justice), the anchorman for
the axes of evil, and the bane of the UN yes-men pronounced that Johnny was a
clever man who had married well (unlike Tony), and that Australia was a full
sheriff. And isn't Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed furious! No such
accolades for the tantrum-throwing, venomous, outraged Jew-bashing Islamic
Caucasian-hater, and he was ropeable. In fairness though, he didn't actually
say that Australia was a terrorist state - he said that Australia would be
perceived as a terrorist state. That is, he plays the same game as
Australia's ABC, insisting that
millions of people have these opinions without actually expressing them
himself. Mahathir is about to retire, and at least expected to go out as Little Johnny's
equal. No amount of wishing was going to get him that star though. He might
have been leader longer than Johnny, and might have overseen a greater average
economic growth, but he's still just the retiring leader of a squalid, corrupt,
poverty-stricken religious cesspool. And his efforts to lock Australia out of
Asian trade are quietly crumbling as Thailand agrees to a bilateral free-trade
agreement with Australia, and others seem likely to follow. The bilateral free-trade agreements are upsetting others too. Bureaucrats
attempting to negotiate global free trade agreements suggest that
bilateral agreements undermine globalization because
they (by definition) discriminate against all countries who are not part of
them. True enough, but what they miss is the fact that eventually there will be
so many ('inefficient') bilateral trade agreements between countries, that
global trade agreements will be just a more efficient way to manage (or not to
manage) the same thing. Global free trade won't seem that scary when you
already have bilateral free-trade agreements with half the countries in the
world. As long as petty bureaucrats don't stuff it up, it'll just happen. The
anti-globalization protesters will wake up one day, and it will be done -
particularly as oversleeping is so easy when you're on the dole. With Dubya about to arrive Australia (presumably to pin
the star on Johnny's chest), Johnny has recalled parliament. Nothing like
rubbing leftist noses in it, and the little waste of tax-payers money is no
worse than any other. The fact that the Greens are going to drag some family
members of Guantanamo bay inmates along (complete with trademark orange
overalls) is just part of the show. But none of that will dull the twinkle in Johnny's eye. After all - he's the
sheriff. And that star is just what he needs to go out in a blaze of glory.
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