Do we really have a democracy when the only real choice is between 2 right-wing Christian Fundamentalists? It like the supposed choice between Brittany and Christina - a choice between 2 Mouseketeers is no real choice at all, either way you end up with a Mouseketeer.

no rob, as all are tired of seeing, and i'm tired of writing, we don't have a democracy. we have parliamentary rule. this is a variety of oligarchy, not democracy. the fact that the political guild passes the reins back and forth from one faction to another at (usually) 10 yr intervals is supposed to represent freedom and civilian sovereignty.

many believe it, but i have read about how they do things in switzerland, and some american states like california, so i don't.

if you want to know what democracy should be like, google 'direct democracy'. you have to use 'direct' because 'democracy' alone has been hijacked by the oligarchs and their followers, to cloud discussion.

conspiracy conspiracy everywhere....so much, so much that i just don't care

Whatever can be rightly said against Kevin Rudd, the choice betweeen him and John Howard is still very important.

We may end up in one or two years time having as low a regard for Rudd as we did for Keating and as the British now do for Blair, but if we can't bring ourselves to remove from office a government as incompetent and malevolent as the Howard Government, with the AWB scandal, the Iraq War, 'Work Choices' and it's lying $55 million plus taxpayer funded advertising saturation campaign, now implicitily acknowledged to be a lie by even the Governnent itself, etc, etc then we have no hope.

We have no hope if we get Rudd - that really will be back to the future. Australia has just managed to crawl out of the dark ages in respect to industrial relations. Okay, there are howls about Work Choices as was but the reality is that we cannot afford to go back to the ALP/union version of IR. We have lost countless jobs overseas because we have priced ourselves out of the market and insist on living beyond our means. It may not seem as if it is living beyond our means when people "struggle" to find the money to pay off the mortgage on the larger than necessary house with all mod cons, the two cars, the things the kids demand because of advertising, the convenience food and the weekly entertainment etc etc but the reality is that most of the world manages on far less. Rudd and his crew are telling us we can have our cake and eat it too...and that is far more dishonest than being told we have Workchoices because more of us will end with no work at all.

The only problem with an election involving Brit and Christina is that I couldn't have both of them...

<sniggers at thought of being sandwiched by Brit and Chrissie>
...

<but shudders as mental image morphs into J-Ho and Kaptain Krudd>

yeeeccchhhhh!