Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has called on Australians to boycott Woolworths.
This comes after the retailer announced it won’t be selling Australia Day merchandise this year.
Peter Dutton says Australians should be free to decide whether they want to celebrate Australia Day or not.
- Sky News Australia, 11th Jan 2024.
Although Woolworths has made a purely commercial decision to stop stocking Australia Day tat due to a lack of demand from customers, the Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton, has done his done his banana and looks like a right berk, in demanding that Australians boycott Woolworths. In the editorial opinion of Horse, we think that is it now the duty of every Australian to not only laugh at Peter Dutton but to point and laugh at Peter Dutton for looking like a eight berk.
Yeah, nah, bro'. We're not gunna boycott Woolies because you told us to. Mate, you've got a few roos loose in the top paddock if you think we're gunna to that, Spud.
Surely one of the great things about Australia is the way that Australians constantly poke fun at anyone in authority. Australia is not like the United States in that we are not stallions led by wolves. Nor is Australia like the United Kingdom in that we are not lions led by donkeys. No, Australia is actually a nation of goats led by dogs. Australians are on the whole industrious and diligent but only up to a point. Australians will pull behind a leader if the circumstances warrant it but they will also equally run everywhere in an uncontrollable rabble. Like a bunch of nanny goats and billy goats, we will bleat at everything, run around aimlessly, and generally make a right royal republican hash of the whole thing.
The problem with the push to make Australians patriotic is that it completely ignores the fact that Australians by nature just simply aren't patriotic. The Australian flag might very well be the national flag but who honestly cares? The actual colours of Australia are green and gold and it must be said that the Cricket Team, the Socceroos and Matildas, the Wallabies, the Kangaroos, and the various Olympic teams, bring Australians together more than any poxy waving of a blue bedsheet with stars on.
January 26th is not even 'Australia' Day. Australia as a nation was constituted on January 1st 1901; after the people of the six colonies all agreed to the project of Federation. However, the idea that Australia should be patriotic on January 1st is patently absurd. January 1st is already New Years' Day; which means that nobody and I mean nobody even cares a jot about the celebration of the actual founding of the nation. January 26th basically has to stand in for this because as Australia is really a actually of goats led by dogs and as we are only industrious and diligent to a point, then what we actually want is a public holiday.
So in this spirit of being Australian, let me poke fun at Peter Dutton, at Michaelia Cash, at Vikki Campion, at Caleb Bond, at Sharri Markson, at Andrew Bolt, at Rita Panahi, at Rowan Dean, et cetera. What the jinkies are you jackdaws going on about? Do you even live in Australia? I note that the only chorus of accusing people of not being Australian and not submitting to enforced patriotism comes from 'the firm' and the far-right. Regular Australians simply fail to register that patriotism should have any merit at all and in fact, are semi-suspicious of anyone who does think that patriotism should be a thing. Patriotism is a thing which is the clarion of tyrants, of buffoons, of dandies, of knaves, of tories, of killers, thieves and lawyers. Which one are you, Spud?
Particularly for Michaelia Cash who is the Senator for Western Australia and Peter Dutton who is the Member for Dickson in Queensland, I remind everyone that January 26th is actually 'NSW Proclamation' Day. That is the day, in what surely has to be the most boring anime transformation sequence ever, when Arthur Phillip magically transformed from Admiral of the Royal Navy to Governor of a Colony, by reading of Proclamation.
Speaking as a patriotic citizen, because the howling cries of jackdaws, whinnies of jackasses, and the prognostication of jackaninnies told me to, I find any celebration of NSW Proclamation Day to be hollow and vapid. We the good and fair people od New South Wales already know that we are the best; because we write it on our number plates. We are "The First State" and "The Premier State".
Maybe the Senator for Western Australia, Michaelia Cash, wants to admit that Western Australia is a sad sad joke. There is a time difference between Sydney and Perth. If it is 08:30pm in Sydney, then it is 1977 in Perth. Likewise, does Member for Dickson in Queensland, Peter Dutton, want to admit that Queensland is the Florida of Australia, and is propped up by Commonwealth revenues; mostly supplied by New South Wales and Victoria?
If prayer is the last refuge of a scoundrel, then surely patriotism is the second last? There is something to be said for patriotism but wrapping one's self in the flag is one of those things when if it is voluntary it is acceptable but if it is involuntary it rings hollow. Is it really possble to have compulsory fun? Compulsory patriotism and compulsory fun seems to the sort of thing that East Germany might have done. You will go on the holiday; you will travel Interflug; you will enjoy it; failure to do so has consequences. It is this fun or fist-of-fives approach which seeems common to the whole broadly authoritarian north of the political compass; with Stalin and Hitler seeing eye to eye about.
Here's the whole problem with enforced patriotism in Australia. We are goats. We think that you being serious is funny. We like making fun of seriousness. Wrapping yourself in the flag and demanding that the rest of do likewise is an instant request to be ridiculed. Patriotism is a thing of tyrants, of buffoons, of dandies, and we will absolutely make fun of you for being tyrants, buffoons, and dandies. We do not run from side to side like brainless sheep but we do run in all directions and laugh at your seriousness like a bunch of uncontrollable goats.
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