Have you ever been to Writers Week in Adelaide?
If it ever gets up again in the same fashion, don't. Just ... don't go. It's outdoors, the weather is usually frankly disgustingly hot and you're surrounded by wealthy wilting widows, wealthy wilting divorced men, wilting writers, wilting bookfloggers and far too many wanna-be-famous drunks and drabs to count.
Worse, the place is infested with poets, whining children's authors, politicians earnestly 'mixing with the people', all of whom are either wilting, drunk, or both.
No, I know. I'm a writer and yet, I don't have a lot of time for writers.
The raita that the WW Board recently cancelled was someone who, in my view, should never have been invited. Nor, indeed, should anyone who is a fan of that prick Netanyahu. Well, not to speak at the event, anyway. Perhaps put such opinionated dills in a ring in a big stadium, arm them with a gladius, a sica, a heavy scutum shield, and a rete and fascina, ding a bell and let them go at it.
May the best bigoted dingbat win (we could sell the streaming rights and build homes for our far-too-many homeless).
I'd prefer some raita, if I'm honest. Boom-tish!
Why? Well, most creatives - including politicians - are fully enthused with getting their thing out there (feel free to snicker, this is an equal-humour article) with damn-all regard to the consequences.
Let's start with: “We have a right to free speech”.
Horseshit.
No, really. According to the Aussie Human Rights Commission, General Comment 34 of the Australian Constitution "emphasises that freedom of expression and opinion are the foundation stone for a free and democratic society and a necessary condition for the promotion and protection of human rights".
This addresses freedom of opinion, of expression, of expression and the media, the right to access to information, the importance of freedom of expression in a democratic society and yada yada yada like that.
In other words, you can think it, and you can say it. And it also means that you can say it on a stage and everyone else can howl you down.
Unfortunately, this means that the audience must be composed of people with a reasonable standard of education and knowledge. But, as I'm sure you know, the recent pandemic (remember that?) revealed that there is vast number of truly fucking ignorant and utterly stupid individuals roaming loose who - despite an education system which won't let you go until you're aged at least 15 - are prone to believe the most numbskull of ideas.
And yes, I'm referring not to media reports but actual conversations with people I know who astounded me by banging on about the “plandemic”, Bill Gates, 5G and how the coronavirus is bigger than most and can be stopped by wearing a facemask. Yes, I did suggest perhaps a quick peruse of Encyclopaedia Britannica, which on each occasion was met with a knowing smirk and an amazing 'heh-heh-heh, you believe that, do you?'
So, back to creatives. They tend to have opinions. However misinformed and pig-ignorant they are. If a raita holds an opinion which tends to indicate they're all in favour of hurting other people simply because they're a different religion or skin colour - whether that's here or in another country - they have the right to their opinion. Just like those deluded (and no doubt dickless) fucksticks who squawk about “white power”.
Sure. You have the right to express your banal and sad opinion. But you don't have the right to be selected to speak in front of a pile of credulous lefty (or righty, for that matter) freckleheads with more money than sense.
As for the 180 writers who boycotted the Raitas Week shindig, good riddance. As far as I'm concerned, you didn't think this through at all. Sure. Say what you like, publish it, even. (Ever read the ridiculous (and vile) “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”? The Holy Bible? “Jonathan Livingstone Seagull”? “Das Kapital”?) But your opinion, however expressed, doesn't - or shouldn't - guarantee you a platform - and certainly not one paid for by the taxpayer. Your opinion is just opinion, like mine. Not validation.
AI generated image of a dummy spit
But wait. I have more. What could be done to make Raitas Week a proper, popular event? I mean, the heat alone precludes so many that only the unwary writers accept, surely?
So first, hold the bloody thing somewhere air-conditioned. Preferably not in the middle of summer, either.
Second, how about attracting a pile of best-selling authors? Sure, that would mean a bigger budget, so that the event could continue to patronise whatever minor writers are being lionised this year, and the freckleheads in from the leafy burbias. But most importantly, the majority of readers in this country would actually be catered for - and they're certainly not catered for now.
While I'm on the subject of free speech, I'm utterly sick to death of the bandwaggoning freaks banging on about Bondi. Shut up. Let those who need to grieve, grieve in peace. Irrespective of political or religious belief, the deranged will always be deranged - we need to fix the gun laws a little more firmly, and we need more folks in ASIO watching out for the deranged.
Mind you, ASIO is probably spending far too many resources on those two deranged cancerous polyps, Barney and Porleen.
My last word? Yeah, be free. But stop hurting people, it's wrong. Stop fucking fighting.
Ah... now, wait for it... wait for it... nope, no change. Human beings are still shitheads.
See how effective my opinion is?
