Watching John Howard grow up

Watching John Howard this morning reminded me how dehumanising is the work of such a man. This sentence can be taken in two ways; Howard dehumanises others as he tends to the needs of his constituents, or, Howard himself is increasingly dehumanised as he divides and spoils his constituency.

The spirit of power and the machinations of retaining power possess the man. By constantly reminding us that he primarily serves his party Howard is perceived as divisive. He puts his party ahead of others who are not of his party, and by extension, who remain irrelevant to his purview other than to facilitate his hold on power.

Howard lies. This disconnectedness that helps Howard deliver his savagely dishonest lies betrays the inherent disloyalty our Prime Minister has for Australia’s populations. He feels no qualms about lying constantly to us. As long as it serves the interests of the Coaltion Howard feels justified in lying to the Australian public.

Such a man had a beginning. It was long ago, in the days when sandwiches and pies were served at tuckshops. His Mum and Dad were sort of decent people who somehow gave birth to John. It wasn’t their fault. They didn’t know how he’d turn out. They went ahead and brought him up as well as they could. Sent little Johnny to Sunday School and taught him that size didn’t matter.

Unfortunately for John, size did matter.

John Howard learned at an early age to stand his ground and look the victim. His nascent bushy eyebrows gave his squinty blue eyes a hurt that withered the bully. It is the next best thing to tears. A bully keeps taunting the victim until submission empowers the bully. Howard’s look of hurt was surrogate submission that beguiled others into deleting their attack on him. You didn’t want to be caught inflicting pain upon the cowardly eyes of the vanquished. Besides, Howard was a runt, a nobody of consequence, to be ignored.

Howard relied upon his size.

Surrender to the inevitable thrashing was not an option Howard would ever take. John saw no sense in braving it out in face of inevitable defeat. So he developed that look that got him out of the firing line, so to speak. It was a look that told people he was a wimp, a callow coward and would never become a threat to others. It instructed others to hold him in contempt. Howard relied upon his size to belie the cunning and malevolent image of himself that was growing with each passing moment.

When little John Howard committed his first major sin he relied upon his runty appearance to get him out of trouble. He simply squinted miserably, whined in that dreadful fashion of his, and denied everything. It was to be a method by which he served the Australian people for more than thirty unfortunate years.
The sin happened while John Howard was a young student at a Sydney school. He was not a noble looking human being. Quite the contrary; he was, in the normal view of things, ugly. His voice was ugly and his temper was ugly. None liked little John Howard. Many had been at the end of a whipping because he had informed on them. He enjoyed telling his teachers of the misbehaviour of his classmates.