Clive Palmer sings with his mum Nancy, at a Christmas Day lunch he hosted for 600 disadvantaged people in 2012. Picture: Glenn Barnes
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
– Steve Jobs (Apple Inc)
Watching last evening’s election results TV coverage, I was frankly disgusted, and not a little angered, by the open disrespect, the thinly-disguised ridicule, shown by so many Canberra press gallery “personalities” (looking at you in particular, CH7’s Mark Riley) and major political party apparatchiks, towards neophyte politician Clive Palmer.
Whatever one may think of the man, or his policy ideas — though one very strongly suspects that the mockery is much, much more to do with wealth-envy and body image-driven prejudice against the man, rather than any rational argument against the policies — the simple fact remains that some 6% of the nation’s voters — more than half a million Australians — consciously chose to vote for Palmer United Party candidates as their FIRST preference in this election.
It is a vivid reflection on the mockers’ limited intellectual capacity, lack of self-awareness, and preening arrogance, that they fail to recognise that to mock Clive Palmer and the Palmer United Party, is really to mock the many hundreds of thousands of Australians who chose to vote for him.
As regular readers know, your humble blogger views the world rather differently to most.
Prior to this election, Professor Steve Keen (another “crazy” person) had asked me if I had seen Clive Palmer on the ABC’s ‘Q&A’ program, and urged me to catch it on iView:
A month or so later, I felt further impressed by Clive the man — the human being — in his long form interview with Ellen Fanning on SBS’s ‘The Observer Effect’ (skip to 29:38).
But truth be told, I still had taken no particularly pressing interest in Clive Palmer’s political aspirations, until the mainstream Australian media and major party politicians began a transparently obvious campaign of smearing him.
The Australian newspaper.
Andrew Bolt.
Barnaby Joyce.
And many more.
To quote the late, great George Carlin: “I have certain rules I live by. My first rule: I don’t believe anything the government tells me. Nothing. Zero. And I don’t take very seriously the media or the press in this country…“.
There’s another rule I live by too.
If the main stream of worldly thought has taken a particular view — and especially if it is a view that is being pushed strongly — then my default view is that it is almost certainly wrong.
And, against the best interests of the majority of people.
If the “establishment” Coles vs Woolworths political parties, and/or their incestuous friends in the mainstream media, obviously want you to believe that something or someone is “crazy”; if they seem to not want you to consider something too carefully, or with an open mind, then that should be a great big flashing neon sign telling you that you DO want to consider it carefully.
I have not assessed the Palmer United Party’s policies. And frankly, at present I don’t much care if they are (in my own opinion, for whatever that is worth) any good or not.
What I do care about, is that everyone — and especially everyone who can attract well over half a million first preference votes — is given a free and fair opportunity to be heard, without being mocked, ridiculed, cut off, badgered, smeared, or subjected to smarmy “rolled-eyes” treatment.
Whether they are “nuts”, or (far more likely) not.
Here’s to the “crazy” ones …
Barnaby Is Right 
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