Lindsay Perigo
The Politically Incorrect Show - 24/09/1999
Music - Die Fledermaus
Good afternoon, Kaya Oraaa & welcome to the Politically Incorrect Show on the free speech network, Radio Pacific, for Friday September 24, proudly sponsored by Tuariki Tobacco Ltd, the show that says bugger the politicians & bureaucrats & all the other bossyboot busybodies who try to run our lives with our money; that stands tall for free enterprise, achievement, profit, & excellence, against the state-worshippers in our midst; that stands above all for the most sacred thing in the universe, the liberty of the human individual.
Music up, music down!
Two expressions I hate with a passion - "middle of the road" and "mainstream." "Mainstream," in this culture, as Ayn Rand liked to point out, is not a stream at all but a stagnant swamp; and why anyone would want to sit in the middle of a road is quite beyond me. Yet this is our sacred ground. Take politics. The First Commandment for any political party that is Public Relations-conscious is: Thou Shalt Not Say Anything That Is Or Might Be Seen To Be "Extreme." Now of course the surest way of honouring that Commandment is not to say anything at all, which is why you get the current phenomenon of Shipley-speak (which is not confined to the Headmistress after whom it is named - it is rampant). The "It is my expectation that this issue will be addressed by the parties concerned in the appropriate way at the appropriate time and that these issues will be worked through comprehensively so that they will be resolved in a manner satisfactory to all" sort of stuff. So I made that one up; but is it radically different from this one, which is real: "One thing I am personally clear about is that I don't think we can leave the ownership of major assets in Auckland in anything other than a certain state"? That's telling'em, Headmistress!
The reason for this sort of gibberish is you. Spin-doctors tell the politicians that you are frightened of anything that resembles a firm conviction or a definite policy, that you run a mile from things like principles and clarity because they bespeak something dangerous, radical and extreme. Personally I still find that hard to believe - my experience on this programme, for one thing, tells me the opposite - but perhaps the spin doctors are right. It is, after all, the parties that most faithfully follow their dictates that get elected. The more mush, the more votes. Your votes.
Well, I'm here to proclaim proudly that I AM radical, dangerous and extreme. And to let you into a secret. Everyone is extreme. You can't avoid it, actually. The middle-of-the-roaders are extreme in their commitment to mush. The point is not whether one is extreme, but what it is one is extreme about. You know well enough what I'm extreme about. Let me offer Ayn Rand's analysis of what the mush-merchants' extremism leads to - and ask yourself if she didn't, in 1946, describe perfectly the public life of New Zealand in 1999, as well as the inner state of most New Zealanders and their private relationships:
"Nothing and nobody is reliable. There is no way to pin a man down to anything definite, nor to count on him. He has no character, he has no identity. It is not a world of crooks and dishonesty - crooks have a tangible, definite purpose such as robbery ... it is much worse. It is a world in the exact image of a parasite's soul - a gray, shapeless fog. A world with a treacherous quicksand under one's feet - and no defined outlines, no solid shapes, no fixed entities; a heavy, passive, stagnant fog in which something moves, as if trying to form, but dissolves the moment you attempt to focus on or touch it. ... In personal life, the attempts at happiness are dismal failures - forced, unconvincing, unsatisfying, a pretence at joy rather than real joy - everything is bloodless, in half-tones, in faded, washed-out, blotched pastels - the love affairs, the marriages, the friendships. Emotions proceed from reason - and where there are no firm, rational convictions, there can be no real emotions."
A perfect description of the reign of the spin-doctors - in politics, and in the souls of men. There may not be much you can do about the politics right now, but you can reclaim your soul from the spin-doctors whenever you choose. First thing to do is jump out of that stinking cesspool called the mainstream, hose yourself down and uncover your real self!
If you enjoyed this, why not subscribe?