Taking Strawmen to Extremes

“Let’s talk about John!”

Looking very wan,
the inept PM intones
“Let’s talk about John”

(a bogus man on
whom she could project wonted
lies—a noumenon

which she’ll use anon).
The poor cove has lost all hope;
his prospects are gone;

and, living upon
credit, damns Gillard’s stupid
global warming con.

The Treasurer, Swan,
is livid since his fictions
have now been outshone.

Gillard’s benison
to those folk whose lives she’s wrecked?
“Let’s talk about John!”

UPDATE I:

“Simpletons and Sloganeers”

“Inevitably, confronted with a fact,
economic simpletons and sloganeers
will squirm and throw in arguments to distract.”*

The PM, of course, would never bend our ears
with less than truthful words! She would not enact
a “carbon” tax once she’d given an exact
undertaking not to do so, or stoke fears
or ever break an oath, would she?  She’s attacked
only because she’s a woman, it appears.
Nonetheless, the PM who claims to oppose
“economic simpletons and sloganeers”
cannot seem to discern that she is one of those.

*  That passage in her speech I slightly redact.

UPDATE II:  the PM’s scriptwriter seems to have a commendable familiarity with Genesis 41:

“The Pharaoh might have kept one fifth part of the grain from the field”;
but the treasurer and I, for now, must take a smaller yield. 
Irksome checks on our authority, of course, should be repealed,
and we’ll find a way to screw all—not just the rather well-heeled.

Perhaps the PM and her ministers indulge in other Biblical allusions:

Julia Gillard:  Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?
Wayne Swan:  Abbott hath done this!

UPDATE III:  see “‘Imagine a wage earner’”, by Prof. Sinclair Davidson, wherein he writes:

It seems to be me that the only limit on how much they think they can spend is their imagination.

Somewhat luckily for us, our Government is extremely unimaginative. 

As a John or in the John

Gillard and her crew know naught of science
but well they know how to diddle clients;
it should not shock us when these paragons
denominate unwilling victims “johns”. 

Sometimes that word refers to “toilet”, too,
such as wherein the PM’s sleazy crew
would dump us; still, it isn’t fixed in bronze
quite yet that all must be reduced to johns.

UPDATE IV (30 April):  see The Prime Minister’s Exegesis”.

UPDATE V (30 April):  if you listen to the PM dogmatize, recall that she lies and lies and lies and lies.

UPDATE VI (30 April):  the PM’s office helpfully provides a transcript of the Question and Answer Session of the Reform Agenda Public Forum; after answering various fawning questions, the PM concluded with this eloquent response:

[Australians] should absorb that news, but they should also absorb the full suite of economic data available to people:  jobs continuing to be created, economic growth continuing to be there, us [!] making the wise investments to set us up for a stronger and a smarter and a fairer future, us [!] making responsible savings and asking people to share in the task of putting those savings together.

UPDATE VII (1 May):  see “No dragons live in PM’s perilous fiscal fantasy”, by Miranda Devine:

“John” appears to be the human embodiment of [Gillard’s] government, two weeks before Wayne Swan hands down his fifth Budget, complete with its fifth deficit.
In the real world, a man who found his income reduced would tighten his belt.  His family would look at the household budget and figure out what luxuries to give up.
Lamb might be off the menu, for instance, as would the Foxtel subscription, and the HCF membership.  The holiday overseas might become a trip to the Forster caravan park.  Private schools would have to wait until Year 11.
This is the sort of thrift Australian families have practised as a prudent response to global economic uncertainty, job insecurity, and a mercurial government, with household savings tripling in two years.
But the Prime Minister scoffs at such parsimony.
In “John’s world”—that arcadia of protected jobs, plenty of cash and government benefits that flow like water—, when John’s income is cut, he doesn’t curb spending.
Eat two-minute noodles for dinner?  Take his kids out of private school?  Perish the thought, says the PM.
He borrows money to keep his “family and lifestyle intact” because tomorrow is always another day of free money.
You can understand John’s behaviour only if, like everyone in government, the public service, academia and a good deal of the media, he has a protected job sheltered from the disciplines of the market.

UPDATE VIII (7 May):  our floundering PM said today that she’s “passionate about delivering better opportunities”:

The PM’s Passion

Her “being passionate” means nought
if those passions have no backing
from prudence, skill and learnèd thought.
In all three, she’s sadly lacking. 

UPDATE IX (7 May):  according to Hon. Wayne Swan, the Treasurer, “nobody has lost any money” after the Government announced that the promised increase to family benefits would never be delivered.  He should have a chat with the PM; when her imaginary friend, “John”, was told that “he [wouldn’t] get those promised increases”, she referred to his “loss of income”.