"The vast social project of moral levelling: It is not enough for the deviant to be normalised. The normal must be found to be deviant. Therefore, while for the criminals and the crazies deviancy has been defined down, for the ordinary deviancy has been defined up."
Charles Krauthammer
Normal, middle-class (male) life then stands exposed as the true home of violence, whilst regarding the places where it is actually rife - on the streets of damaged communities - excuses are made of social disadvantage.
Steve Moxon.
If in the circling circumference, in the swirling state of things, in a corner where he had to admit defeat, in a mainstream world which no longer belonged to him, if it ever had. The propaganda is blanketing, almost total. Every thought had been circumscribed. Normality was in the rafters. We thought we were different, way back then, way back when, and snuggled deep that wasn't the case. We had been totally betrayed, by the universities, by our politicians. Black was white and mealy mouthed little idiots sprouted propaganda about domestic violence. Vicious, violent bitches searched for the patriarchy. How ridiculous was that.
They liked to think they were embarked on a great project: remaking men. In fact all they were doing was feathering their own nests. Everyone had been double crossed. The betrayal was complete, but too clever by half. His was the one voice out of step; and he had long tired of it. There was no gain from being outside the pack. It was just that he couldn't run with the shibboleths, the myths, the tawdry fabrications. Both sides of politics, back then in the old days when left and right stood still long enough to be defined, betrayed the working man. They were too lazy, the politics of that day, to contradict or ignore the army of bureaucrats that ran the country.
He had lived long enough to see things for what they were; and for his pains was dismissed as a dinosaur. He quietly rewrote the government press releases; and wondered how things had come to this. He knew now, as his fingers splayed across the keyboards, that there had been a different time; decades before, when his work, all their work, had involved more than just regurgitating what they were told. When, oh glorious impossibility, thought for themselves and wrote what they wrote wanted. He couldn't think now exactly what it was that they did, but the very idea that they could have written stories without reference to the official releases was simply astonishing. Where did they get all their information from?
Memories came back; this time his head was full of unbidden memories and he didn't understand why. Perhaps it was having Julie at home; this tiny, pretty, gray eyed little woman curled up in his lounge room now, not in the armchairs at the institution. She still kept encouraging him to think for himself; and when he arrived at work, regular as clockwork as the old saying went, he carried with him a different, more sceptical stance. In the blur of it all, he increasingly knew there had been a different world.
One day he went down to the basement, where his work's library was, and searched back through the old newspapers to the days when he had been a young man, a bright, as he was discovering, young journalist; firebrand they used to call them. So much had been destroyed; and not just hope. The present generation was so totally brain washed they didn't even realise there had been a different world. Where people thought for themselves. Where the implants had never come. Where the Social Police Centre did not lie in flames. Where summer days had been alive with hope, insects buzzing.
Today's releases were even more boring than usual. He had no idea who, if anyone, read this stuff. While fEar stalked and the air burnt, he wrote about a council dispute over the widening of a canal. Residents said they were worried about their property prices, but what did the price of your house matter anymore? When you were zapped every time you stepped outside the frame. When the voice recognition software he used on the computer talked back to him. When his boss walked past, dumping another pile of puerile releases on his desk with a dismissive, contemptuous gesture. He looked up, hurt, and stared into blank eyes.
Some of the most dishonest people I've ever met in my life were involved in family law, he thought angrily. And then looked around him, startled by the intensity of the thought, not knowing where it came from. A fight over children? Dark days? Internally, he tested his implant. Some of the abilities were coming back; he shook some one's hand and saw their financial records, he passed by the rough part of town and could read in little boxes the criminal records of the people he saw. He was a champion. He wanted a different life. He knew there had been a different life. It was the origin of things he had never understood. How could all these people have allowed their minds to be wiped? Didn't anyone resist?
That evening, passing by the towers of despair as the council housing buildings had been known for decades, he looked at the ratbag scenes with renewed interest. Was this where they had all come from? Clearly these people had no implants. Their clothes were untidy and even from a distance he could tell they stank. There was a fire burning outside one of the buildings, a classic scene of urban decay. Can I put you first, one of them asked as they approached him. He shook his head. He had no idea what they meant. The smoke spread across the concrete walls of the housing project; and he quickened his pace. How could it be that these people lived without implants; but had not been killed. Or become successful. He walked quickly through the growing cold, frightened, but he knew not why.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/14/america/campaign.php
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton arranged to meet with uncommitted superdelegates Wednesday following her lopsided victory in the West Virginia primary, as her supporters argued that her appeal to some traditional Democratic voting blocks may change opinions despite the long odds against her.
Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, a Clinton supporter, said in an interview on CNN on Wednesday that "superdelegates have to have second thoughts" after West Virginia.
But Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico minimized the impact of the West Virginia, saying the state was "tailor-made" for Clinton.
Richardson, a supporter of Senator Barack Obama, said the continuing contest between the Democratic candidates was becoming harmful to the party. Also speaking on CNN, he said, "We have to unite behind the nominee."
Clinton defeated Obama on Tuesday in a primary where racial considerations emerged as an unusually salient factor. She drew strong support from white, working-class voters who have spurned Obama in recent contests.
http://news.smh.com.au/national/budget-reply-speech-crucial-for-nelson-20080515-2eef.html
Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson will get up in parliament tonight to give his official reply to the Rudd government's "high-taxing, high-spending" first budget.
With his poor showing in the opinion polls, some commentators believe Dr Nelson's performance will make or break his future as Liberal leader.
He has accused the government of having no serious economic plan for Australia.
"This is a classic Labor budget - increase taxes, increase spending - they're targeting groups and individuals that they don't particularly like," Dr Nelson said.
The Liberal leader and opposition treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull hammered Treasurer Wayne Swan over increased taxes, a rise in jobless forecasts and means testing for middle-class welfare in his first budget.
They attacked the budget for containing $19 billion in extra taxes on cars and alcohol and expectations that 134,000 people would become unemployed during the next financial year.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23700426-661,00.html
WAYNE Swan says the Government pulled back from more spending cuts in its first Budget because it didn't want to flatten the economy.
And the Treasurer has also admitted there will be a flight from private health insurance of up to 485,000 people as a result of Budget incentives for people to opt out of hospital cover.
The admissions came as confusion reigned in the Opposition with leader Brendan Nelson and shadow Treasurer Malcolm Turnbull contradicting themselves and threatening to use its numbers in the Senate to defeat a proposed higher tax on mixed alcoholic drinks.
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