As this is a political blog, I need to be constantly aware of the dangers such an undertaking may entail. If I am not careful in what I say, my unrelenting hateful tirades could easily be misconstrued in some way and possibly incite controversy, discord, animosity, animality, animation or even anamorphism (n. a distorted projection or perspective) amongst the ranks of my beloved readers.

For this reason, I have decided to begin with a rather lighthearted opinion piece, titled

"WHY WE NEED THE DEATH PENALTY IN AUSTRALIA!"

That, of course, is simply the title of my piece. It gives no indication of what the piece is really about, but rather serves as a symbolic exemplar of the kind of material I will be delving in to.

(What's that, you say? The title was misleading? Well, it's no more misleading than Catcher in the Rye!)

What I really want to discuss is a phenomenon I have noticed about social media. Often I will be leisurely perusing a friend's Facebook page when suddenly I unwittingly stumble upon some comment they have casually left on their wall expressing an extreme or intolerant view, or else a link to the website of some radical interest group.

But this confuses me. Because invariably this friend will be the most pleasant, level-headed and tolerant person you can imagine in real life. Yet somehow the powers of the internet manage to tap deep into the recesses of the person's soul and dig up his or her [yes, I chose to go with the awkward gender-neutral option rather than misusing the pronoun'their' to refer to the singular possessive, but please know, dear reader, that inside I am screaming, yes, SCREAMING with rage!!! Why can't somebody invent a singular gender-neutral pronoun, goddammit!!!!!!!! AAAHHHHHHHHHRRRRRGH!!! I'm dying here, you bastards!] deepest and darkest and most extreme beliefs and takes that tiny, barely acknowledged facet of this person's world-view, which, for all intents and purposes, has absolutely no bearing on how the person interacts with other humans on a daily basis, and then broadcasts this extreme view to all the person's friends and family.

Some commentators have blamed the anonymous nature of the internet as one of the reasons otherwise level-headed people post extreme views, but this doesn't apply to Facebook, because EVERYBODY KNOWS WHO YOU ARE, YOU NUT!

Sometimes I wait for these people to come to their senses the next day and remove the incendiary material, but most often it just stays up there.

Has anybody else noticed this? [This question is designed to provoke a discussion between myself and my readers. This is one of the positive aspects of the internet, and one which many political scientists believe will usher in a new era of deliberative democracy. I will leave this topic for another post, but let me just say for now that I think those political scientists are mostly a bunch of postmodernist idealists who vastly overestimate the dialectical power of the internet, which in reality functions more as an echo chamber that simply reinforces people's existing views].

In due season,

Hack

Enthusiastic Hack’s FAIR SHAKE OF THE SAUCE BOTTLE

Why am I writing a political blog, you might ask (or you might not. In fact, most likely such a question would probably never occur to you. Who ever really questions the motives behind another’s impetus to create? Do you ask a fish why it swims, or a tram driver why he mumbles, or your environmental activist friend why he refuses to own a car and yet is constantly asking you for a lift somewhere? No, you don’t, do you? But perhaps you should pluck up the courage to broach the subject with him some time). The reason I started this political blog is because I looked around me to see what was going on in the world and noticed a couch and a television and a bookcase and a rug and four walls. But then I realised there wasn’t much to learn from looking around me, so I began to read newspapers and watch ABC4 and learned far more about the world that way. And one thing in particular I learned was that when it comes to politics in Australia, nobody seems to know what they are talking about. Not one of these political commentators seems to have any clue.

So I thought, well if that’s the case, then somebody like me must be perfectly qualified for the task. In fact, I am so politically ignorant that I almost feel I have a moral obligation to become a political commentator.

So, this is my blog, bleeding before you. This is me down on my knees. These foolish games are tearing me apart.

in due season,
E. Hack

fair shake baby

wooo hooooo

i got me a real life blog