First lines: Quarterly Essay
After two months of research for my QE on the new/far/alt right in Australia, two months of deep diving into the history of the neoliberal think tanks, German research papers on radicalisation, polling data and focus group research, funding sources for the Atlas Network and Advance Australia, academic papers on the algorithm and epistemic collapse and, well, heaps more, I finally placed arse to Aeron yesterday and wrote my opening pars.
You can leave your hometown, but you can never escape it. I sometimes feel as though Ipswich has followed me across oceans and decades, and I wonder why, because all it has to do is wait a while and I’ll be back. I was back for winter this year, flying up the freeway past the abandoned insane asylum on the other side of the train tracks, letting the car do most of the driving, wondering if anybody still cut laps in town, and how many laps I’d have to cut in an electric Volvo before somebody picked a fight.
Three laps, I reckon.
Three circuits of Limestone Street, up past the opshop and McDonald’s, a hairpin right around the bottlo at the Federal, down Brisbane Street past Vogels Sports Store, where I got my first Grey Nick and…
No, wait.
I’ve got so much thinky content in this piece that I decided I needed a solid, narrative opening, so I drove up to Ipswich to find me one voter each for Labor, Liberal and One Nation, hoping that their personal histories would provide the spine of the essay.
We’ll see.
As an aside, I accidently published this post at ASB, where two people quickly ‘liked’ it. I didn’t think anybody was at the Boob thru the week. Now I feel bad, like I should put more stuff there.
Your past shapes you, that is true but it's entirely up to you if you choose to let it define you.
Born in Port Hedland in the Pilbara in the early 70's, a rough as guts port/mining town. I was fortunate enough that my folks chose to send me to a boarding school in Perth. There I met a whole different bunch of guys - farmer's sons, sons of wealthy business men, even a Malaysian prince (he was 23rd in line to the throne). My world view massively expanded. I welcomed the change.
I found going home to be something that I started to not enjoy. The friends I had at home never developed like I did. So we drifted apart. I moved on.
I suspect that some of my old friends will have become One Neuron supporters. It's just who they are.
I think it was last year I heard an ad on the radio (yes, I listen to AM radio, because I live in the SC Hinterland where FM bounces off all the hippies Chakras or something) talking about what was happen in "the switch", and I was thinking WTF is The Switch? Turns out some people were trying to classy up Ipswich by calling it The 'Swich.