You Are Poor, Blame Cate Blanchett

By Darryl Mason

The Professional Idiot plays another game of "Don't Look Up, Look Over There". As expected, in a time of crisis. As appears to be his duty.

So who do you blame for the world financial crisis? Ultra-rich bankers you say? No, don't blame modern day robber barons using the stock market ("Come on in, everyone's a winner!") to suck away even minor wealth and replace it with debt slavery, The Professional Idiot wants you to blame....err, Hollywood stars! Like Cate Blanchett! And Cate Blanchett!

Don't look at how much cream was being scooped away by the people who are supposed to guard your investments, deposits and minimal wealth, leaving you with watery-milky soup, look at what Hollywood stars earn for entertaining people, or at least attempting to.

In such a crisis as we have now, someone must be blamed, particularly for making the poor even poorer. This is when you need what Mark Latham called "the dancing bears" - a conga-line of opinionists, throughout the dominant Murdoch media, all pumping the same turgid dogma, all trying to sell the exact same creed. So far, it's mostly been : Blame The Poor, The Stupid Poor, Why Won't You Just Blame The Poor?

But that can't last, and won't. Not even the stupid poor believe that rank bullshit.

The Professional Idiot is testing the waters with "Blame Hollywood Stars! Look How Much They Earn!", but only the most porridge-minded of his readers are soaking up that bait. The Professional Idiot's own newspaper is crowded daily with stories about wealthy Hollywood stars and seven-figure sports celebrities. Rich celebrity fodder pays The Professional Idiot's wages for fuck's sake. His boss built a media empire on the piddle and crap of rich celebrity lives.

Blame the poor, blame Hollywood stars, but whatever you do, don't blame those who were paid handsomely with the most minor expectation that they would not lose everything.

Don't Look Up, Look Over There.


Most Australians can't, won't blame the poor, here or in the US, for what is now happening, because they too are finding out just how poor they actually are, or soon will be.

People know, or at least have an idea, of who fucked them over. And it wasn't The Poor, or Cate Blanchett.


Kevin Rudd's talk of "extreme capitalism" and "extremists" terrified the shit out of Australia's smallest financial minority. Terrorists who shout their God's name as they sprint into schoolyards are "extremists", not money-drenched CEOs, or coke-addled traders.

There must have been many outraged cries of "What The Fuck? The little shit is talking about US all over the fucking NEWS!"

John Howard would never have betrayed his patrons in such a reckless, feckless way.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

There is a clear and growing anger in Australian society about where in fuck all their money has gone.

And it's obvious, even from reading the financial crisis-related comments threads that now only occasionally appear on Rupert Murdoch's online media, that this anger has to be focused somewhere. Else. Or else.

But the soon to be majority poor are not blaming Hollywood stars for the strip-mining of their investments and the value of their homes.

They know who is to blame. They know it's not Hollywood stars, or the American Poor, who believed President Bush's repetitive, hypnotic seven year long sales pitch of why they all had to become home owners. John Howard pitched the same mantras to potential debt slaves as well, but with an Australian flavour satchel sprinkled over the top.

"BuyAHomeBuyItNowAndFillItWithStuff" created entire industries, dozens of TV shows, racks of magazines, a slew of mind-melting media, including glossy liftouts in The Professional Idiot's own newspaper, generating billions over the Relaxed & Comfortable Years in advertising revenue, which flowed into "We're All So Fucking Rich! Let's Buy Heaps Of Shit On Credit!" advertorial content, everywhere, marketed as news and current affairs.

Of course it worked.

Of course hundreds of thousands of people rushed out to buy a home and fill it with stuff, even when they knew they couldn't afford it. Everywhere they looked was the same omnipresent advertising, the message simple, always the same : "Credit Is Easy, Buy Now, You Can Only Get More Richerer!"

Once in every generation the scam works, or works well enough to create a new population of debt slaves, who will keep working, until death, and pass on debts to their children.

Poor people can find anger easy, usually after the despair has passed. They must now be encouraged, by people like The Professional Idiot, to focus that anger on their neighbours, the people who ride the same buses and trains as they do, but who may not hold the same political or religious beliefs. Or even better, find a way to blame those who live somewhere else, another suburb, another town, city or country. But still mostly poor people. And blame Cate Blanchett, of course.

Don't look up, look over there.


So if the poor and/or Cate Blanchett are not to blame, who then to blame?

Can Muslims be blamed? That whole anti-usury thing at the core of their belief system probably rules most of them out. A shame that.

But what about Al Qaeda? Are they short-selling enthusiasts? Do they shift around a trillion or two a day trading derivatives? Were they purposely mass-hyping property values in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth from their laptops in the high mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan?

What about the all-purpose Immigrants? They've always been good, hell for two hundred years, as an emotional scratching post for Australian community discontent.

But the problem now is, of course, that there's so many of them here, at backyard barbecues, in offices, in cinema foyers, in the pub, that that kind of loose talk just won't stand. Because the Immigrants will tell you, hey bro, we got fucking ripped off as well.

So it's time to for Rupert's dancing bears to circle the wagons, protect The Ultra-Rich, and find someone, anyone else to blame.

Anyone but those who are most responsible.