Adrian Gattenhof. Mullumbimby.
While prime minister Trumble paced the ‘sidewalk’ waiting on Trump, Trump was celebrating the scrapping of Obamacare. Thereby Trump consigned the poorest and sickest Americans back to the die-in-the-gutter health system that seems to be the default setting in a society that sees people not as citizens all deserving equal access to life’s necessities but as winners and losers, the latter deserving only the meanest scraps.
And while he waited out Trump’s disdain, I hope Trumble might have reflected on how successive governments have made Australia such a cheap and easy root to American regimes.
Our compliance is on the table even before the demand is made with our politicians and most media falling over themselves to announce what will be expected under the ‘alliance’ in the latest piece of American warmongering.
How inspiring if, instead of swallowing the indigestible lump of his pride and sucking up to Trump, Trumble had got back on his plane and come home. The personal is very political.
Who knows, Malcolm’s slighted hauteur could even have led to a first step towards an independent, non-aligned foreign policy. But we know it won’t.
