Things and stuff.

Reza Berati was a 22 year-old man that was shot in the head and killed inside Australia’s Manus Island detention center this week. This is despite claims of the immigration minister ‘Scott Morrison’ saying with, what is now an embarrassing amount of certitude, that he was shot outside the borders of the center and thus was likely committing some form of wrongdoing and therefore deserved it. He has since retracted this statement because it was entirely false.

It seems a bit rich to me that the liberal party is all of a sudden concerned about asylum seekers dying at sea. As soon as anyone questions for a moment their current border policy (Sovereign Borders, by the way. Sounds like a Stallone film) it’s ‘we’re saving lives dammit!’ as they flog the chest of a long-deceased horse. One minute it’s all ‘stop the boats’ and ‘lets get rid of the darkie-doos’ and now the Australian public are meant to believe that they just have the well-being of asylum seekers at heart? We’re meant to believe they’re just bleeding heart lefties like us that just want to save lives?

What utter crap.

If the Coalition had any respect or care for the lives of people that try to seek asylum, they’d let them in. It’s not okay for people to die at sea, but dying in our detention centers on land is fine? What about their probable deaths if they stayed in their country of origin? If saving lives was the goal the entire emigration system would be different.

'Oh yeah, we love asylum seekers, we want to keep them safe… just… elsewhere…'

The latest disaster at Manus Island is indicative of a larger feeling that this country has. Out of sight, out of mind. If we can stick them in camps and our fingers in our ears the ‘problem’ doesn’t exist. Which begs the question: is it a problem?

How many people actually seek asylum in Australia every year? Actual answer: not that many. Sure 2013 was a record number of cases but I think that probably had something to do with the global unrest of recent years, compounded with the ongoing refugee situations in Somalia and Sudan and, you know, all the other regular run-of-the-mill atrocities that we also fail to address on a day to day basis.

* https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au

And how many in, say, Italy?

And what about Turkey? Just out of Interest.

*Both: http://www.unhcr.org

I recall just a few years ago the Australian Government foresaw a skills and labour shortage in the coming years, so what they did was they paid people to have babies. They ingeniously called this scheme ‘the baby bonus’ and the slogan was ‘Have one for mum, one for dad and one for the country.’ Such was the population shortage that the government was bribing people to shit out kids. Oh and the controversy when they found out they were using the money for flatscreen TV’s. Just hilarious. Oh and we’re still doing it. WE ARE STILL PAYING BOGANS TO FUCK!

But we don’t want those smelly brown people in, no. There’s no room after all. There’s plenty of room for white trash little shits clogging up the gutter like abandoned litters of kittens, but if some brown people want in on a country that’s 2/3rds the size of America but is only beaten by Antarctica in terms of sparseness, the answer is ‘we’re full.’ Really?

"Fuck off, I’m full." - Monty Python’s Meaning of Life (1983)

Politicians here will never say this, of course, so they use codewords like ‘criminal’ or ‘lazy’ or ‘terrorist’ but what they really mean is black. You’re black and that means you’re not welcome. It’s xenophobia, plain and simple.

If you’re a woman you’ll also know the barrage of attacks being flung your way by the liberal party. The state legislature here in Victoria are proposing an amendment to its abortion laws which would enable doctors to lie to their patients on their personal feelings on abortion. And maybe use their medical sway in a slanted way to persuade the patient against it, because of their moral beliefs. As if women weren’t fragile enough in that situation.

So, this leads me to believe that if you’re a person (51% chance you’re a female and a, what, 40% chance you’re dark skinned?) the balance of probability is the Liberal Party hates you. You are most people and the government of this country hates you or wants to turn you into a baby factory. It’s so sickening that I couldn’t possibly swallow another bite. 

Fuck off, I’m full.

What exactly is the value proposition of soft drink? Most food and drinks have some kind of value proposition. They have some kind of element which is useful to the human body: a vitamin, a mineral, a fibre, a protein. Something that has some element of nutrition to it. It provides some sort of value to the person consuming. So what's the value of soft drink?

Soda companies know they can't market their product based on health - even that zero calorie stuff feels like drinking liquid cancer. They know that the public are a little too well informed and cynical to buy that one nowadays. Like doctors promoting cigarettes - that boat has well and truly sailed. 

So soft drinks need to sell 'happiness.' That's a tough sell for a company. They know they have no value proposition for the consumer. There is no good amount of soft drink to incorporate into a 'balanced diet' - whatever the hell that means. It's literally sugar water. So what do they do? They put a multi-ethnic-fun-bucket of fuckable young adults into a convertible and send them to the beach because... why again? I forget. All I remember is that coke is fizzy-good-make-feel-nice-times-and-I'm-so-thirsty-right-now.

What I find remarkable is that they've been able to con almost everyone into drinking their drink. They are one of the largest, most recognisable brands on the face of the planet, more so than Jesus or Obama. You show a kid in africa a picture of Jesus Christ they'll probably look at you quizzically and try to eat it (they're hungry, I'm guessing). Show them a coke and they'll get excited. It contains as many carbs as they'll ever consume in their lifetime.

I think there's something rotten and evil about having sugar and fat in such a plentiful and cheap supply in one part of the world and have people starving in another. It's wrong, and it feels - to me at least - that soft drink companies are at the heart of this problem. They are unextricatable from our society - and could almost be considered too big to fail. Look at your bottle of water - chances are it's owned by either coca cola or pepsi. The illusion of choice cleverly presented as a duopoly. Even opting out is really opting in.

So I ask you again, what is the value proposition of soft drink? Get some water out of your tap and drink that, I say. Since when did everything we drink have to taste good? Isn't enough that we eat food constantly because of how it tastes, but we need to taste something sugary and yummy when we drink too? Haven't we been entertained enough?

Sorry, I know that's not super funny, but they are things that people don't seem to want to talk about that interest me, and this is my blog after all. If I can't air my petty personal grievances here, then where? What is the value of soft drink to you?