Who Knows? - Rambalations 5

I don't know where this is going to go - just a warning. Lots of issues I want to touch on here, but I'll try to keep some logical and sensical flow going.

Who knows, I may even throw in an Anna Corin segue.

Since Louise asked for it, let's start with the impending election. It appears neither of the major parties in Australia have paid any notice to what has been happening around the world in the past 4 years. Or their own backyards. All I hear from the Liberal (I refuse to call it the coalition - when was the last time the Nats actually did anything?) party is economics disguised as big ticket item policies, geared towards the good of corporations, while all I hear from the Labor party is.... well whatever the Liberals say but with less focus on the economics and more geared towards the workers.

I don't hear anything from the minor parties. The mainstream media has made them vanish into thin, polluted air and they seem to be doing nothing in regards to the digital media. Maybe they're just not doing anything at all? Perhaps they'll speak up and/or be heard this week.

It has been entertaining watching the majors try to use digital media in their campaigns tho. Johnny Costello has made a repeated fool of himself on Youtube (search for his posts yourself - I aint shitting on my blog) while Ruddy Kevin discovered social networking platforms such as MySpace and Facebook. Still, they don't seem to get it. Or use it. Because, if they did, how could they possibly be so blind to what is going on around them?

Social networks have proved to be just that. People from all walks of life are finding their common interests and sharing their experiences with one another. Regardless of race, gender, religion, age, sexuality, financial status, location, physicality, appearance, education. We are engaging with one another and pissing off the old barriers, and not just online. But to make this work for you, you have to participate. This is where the major parties have failed. I have had not one political candidate or representative talk to me during the campaign. None. No-one representing any political party has approached me on the street, has knocked on my door, phoned me during dinner (although that could be because I do not have a fixed-line phone service) nor, thank fuck, posted a comment on my blog. Have any bothered approaching you?

If one did bother to engage with me in conversation, I would be happy to talk with them. Shit, there's heaps of issues being addressed in this election, so I'd be more than happy to hear their policy outlines. But only if they could speak frankly about them and not just talk spin.

And if they were to say something like this, they'd get my vote.

But all I am seeing is mass-market spin.

On the other hand, they may have been following blogs all this time and think that mass-advertising is something bloggers are really interested in, and therefore continue to use mass-market campaigning. Given the state of many blogs now, I can understand why they would think this. On a few pages that I flicked past today, I found it almost impossible to find actual content. It was there, squashed between adverts and paid-posts. But if I have to hunt for content, then I aint gonna read your page. And a lot of the content I did find was about this whole Google page-rank dispute that has developed - whatever that may be about. It appears to only impact people who use blogging as a means to make money. Since it seems to be largely based around blog advertising and has zero impact on me, I'll not be reading any further into it. Best of luck to those fighting that greedy corporation who had the audacity to change their own business practices.

There are other things I plan on focusing on this week.

Lastly, for what it's worth (and as this is a free blog, it's worth nothing), I'm not planning on voting for either of the major parties. No great surprise to any of you (ir)regular readers. One of them is going to win either way and both fail to impress me. Instead, I'll be voting for the minor party which focuses on those issues which I find important. Their preferences will end up going to one of the majors, but at least I've had my say on what issues are and aren't important according to my perception of the world (yes, world - even though this is an Australian election, we are players in world politics and apparently we're almost worth as much as the USA). If enough people voted in this way, we may see issues which are important according to the people actually being addressed.

Although I am undecided which minor party will receive my vote, I do know it will not be Family First. The last thing we need now is a bunch of right-winged 'Christian' zealots running the country.

Again.


Songs played while writing this entry:
"Where Is S" Infected Mushroom
"Dreams" Quench
"Bambaata Back To The Core" Goldie
"Drumstick" NJoi
"Scared" Slacker
"Perception" Cass Vs Slide
"It Doesn't Matter" The Chemical Brothers
"Konspiracy" Kemal
"Mockmoon Remix" Genlog
"Sweetness And Light" Itch-E And Scratch-E
"Niji" Denki Groove