Vote for me, I know nothing and hate the same things you do #auspol

Just can't stop thinking about the title of Nicholas Gruen's post over at Club Troppo - produced above.

And the content of course. This is so relevant and magnificently sums up the trouble that we are having with our politics at the moment.

There is nothing much that I can add - except to say - go read it a few times and share it widely.

And while I am pointing to top notch Australian sources - the macrobusiness piece on "Understanding the Australian Economy" is fantastic - a clear outline of important *must have* information. You won't find anything like it in our mainstream media.

And Mr Denmore has created a first class review of George Megalogenis' "The Australian Moment". So good it caused me to buy the book.

I won't link to any of them - if you are interested enough then you will find them.

But I can't finish this post without my customary dig at our mainstream media. Fair dinkum, the Murdoch daily rags are hopeless and getting worse.

I am still in Hobart and for the first time in about ten years - scanned a copy of the Mercury this morning at breakfast. My usual breakfast reading comprises picking the interesting items out of my Google Reader feed and following the links - wherever they go. As Forrest Gump said - "life is like a box of chocolates".

It usually takes an hour or so and I like to think that I am reasonably well informed about important issues as a result. Such is my personal delusion.

My scan of the Mercury lasted a full 20 seconds. The *fluff and bubble* that is masquerading as content is just atrocious. Not a single piece was worthy of the term "content". And yet there is so much that is interesting and exciting happening in Hobart - you would have thought that "The Mercury" would be alert to at least some of it.

Nope apparently not. Because like all Murdoch media - they are blinded by ideology and they have an agenda.

As Andrew Bacevich says "Ideology makes people stupid". And Murdoch channels that in an attempt to influence our politics.

Which is why as a nation we seem to "vote for people who know nothing and hate the same things that we do".