The nominations are in, and they make for an exceedingly good snapshot of the incredible year that was. Good job you lot.
PERSON OF THE YEAR:
Honourable mentions go to Greens MP Adam Bandt: “Achieved more in Parliament in three months than all other Members combined”; Independents Andrew Wilkie: “a man of honour, integrity and principle” and Rob Oakeshott: “for inspired speech making” and Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd: “for fastest recovery from a near fatal back-stabbing…”
But the overwhelmingly popular nominees are:
- Julian Assange: “He changed the rules”; “for doing to FOI what Napster did to music copyright”; “Hero or villian, he’s shaking the pillars of the earth”
- Tony Windsor: “handled enormous pressure both before and after the govt was formed, and seems to always act with good grace and professionalism”
- Bob Brown: “sticking with an uncompromising idea of politics and finally getting invited to the table” ; “He provides a beacon of hope in the ugly, slimy, grotty and grubby world of politics.”
- Julia Gillard: “For outfoxing Tony Abbott *after* the Federal election result,”She has the hardest job in Australia. She is smart, witty and knows how to do her job and try and keep everybody else happy.”
- Tony Abbott: ” for taking the Liberal Party from irrelevance to a hair’s breadth away from governing”; “he returned, like a zombie, from the dead and almost took over the world”
GOLDEN ARSEHAT FOR MOST APPALLING PERSON OF THE YEAR:
Honourable mentions to News Ltd columnist Andrew Bolt “excrutiatingly bombastic moron”; commentator Catherine Deveny; Brynne and Geoffrey Edelston “two for one”, Christopher Pyne “His head is so big he can;t see his shoes”; Clive Palmer “for simultaneously bullying governments to expand his bloated fortune and destroying a soccer team for no apparent reason”; Mark Latham and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but the most polarising people have proven to be:
And the nominees are…
- Julia Gillard: “for empty rhetoric”; “no backbone, no principles, no beliefs”
- Mark Arbib: “for services to himself, and himself ony”; “national and now international weasel”
- Sarah Palin: “we have to keep telling our American friends not to vote her in. God help us all if they don’t listen”; “every time she opens her mouth a fairy dies”
- Tony Abbott: “for infantile trivialisation of politics via mindless slogan” ; ” for the most myopic, negative election campaign I’ve ever seen”; “for losing graciouslessly”
- Chris Mitchell: “Leading one of Australia’s major media outlets directly towards a Fox News future.”
PERSON OF THE DECADE
Honourable mentions go out to Founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales, Google, Al Gore ” for trying to wake us up”; Harry Potter creator JK Rowling, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg; ” for helping me finally catch up with all my old school friends without having to go through the painful process of meeting them in person” and “O-PRah Win-FREY!! – contributions to: tourism, naked consumerism, ambiguous sexuality, getting Americans to read something other than McDonalds drive-thru menu boards, giving away heaps of free stuff, assuaging the racial-guilt of middle America – and a heap of other stuff” but here are our yes, SEVEN nominees. There’s a lot to cover off, OK?
- Barack Obama: “he’s competent, he’s trustworthy, he’s honest and he’s trying, against the most appalling legacy and the most intractable political system”; “I still have hope …”
- Bob Brown: “from founding the world’s first Green party to guiding them to the status of powerbrokers and arguably Australia’s first true third party (the Nationals aren’t a real party, don’t kid yourself) while still maintaining his principles and generally not being what we’ve been taught to expect from our politicians.”
- Aung San Suu Kyi: “The clear leader in an otherwise uninspiring field. An unwavering advocate for freedom and democracy and a beacon for all who cherish those causes. Her release from house arrest was one of the only moments of hope in the final year of this dismal decade.”
- Steve Jobs: ” For revolutionising the way we are entertained and informed”; “the development of mobile media technology will have long term effects. And I’m not an Apple geek.”
- John Howard: “for completing the free-market agenda and setting the parameters for political discussion for well after his departure”; “Sound economics GFC proofed us.” “Love him or loathe him…it’s hard to think of anyone who has changed the country more.
- Julian Assange: “for just possibly breaking into a new paradigm”; ” We should be proud that he is an Australian”;
- Tim Flannery: ” He’s brilliant, he’s eloquent, he’s a nice guy, he’s a great communicator, and he’s helped to lift at least some of our blockish heads out of the sand to face what we’d rather not – in the gentlest and nicest possible way. He manages to treat complete idiots with respect while informing them of the scientific facts.”
PLATINUM ARSEHAT FOR MOST APPALLING PERSON OF THE DECADE:
Honourable mentions go to convicted fraudster Bernie Madoff, 2GB commentator Alan Jones “has been free to spray his bile throughout the decade”; Vladimir Putin; North Korean despot Kim Jong Il and… Daryl Somers.
But our SEVEN nominees are…
- George W Bush: “for leaving office with his country in recession, two open-ended wars and the biggest budget deficit in history”; “How did he get elected twice?”; “worst president ever”; “really — you need me to explain?”
- Osama Bin Laden: “Ruined the new world order – what a party-pooper”; “this former CIA asset has lured the foolish American empire into an open-ended war in the Islamic heartland, destroying any hope of global peace and prosperity for the foreseeable future”; “Changed the way we live for the worst.”
- Rupert Murdoch: “for his consistent abuse of power via Fox in the USA, the UK and Australia”; “uses his mega media power for evil instead of good.”
- Robert Mugabe: “For clinging to power despite tearing the guts out of a potentially prosperous country by holding the entire population hostage”; “for his stellar efforts in running Zimbabwe.”
- John Howard: ” Workchoices, VSU, and Iraq, ‘nuf said”; “for how we treated asylum seekers”; “unwelcome enough to make us grateful to Kevin Rudd”; “it’s no mean feat to leave the country more mean spirited”
- Dick Cheney: “Halliburton, anyone?”; “The man behind the 43rd Arsehat of the United States of America”;
- Sarah Palin: ” for lowering the bar for US political candidacy from hokey to moronic”; “for further dividing a country in desperate need of uniting”.
You can see all the finalists for all categories on the survey page.
*VOTE NOW FOR THE FINALISTS OF THE CRIKEY READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS
The notion that Barack Obama is still considered an amazing President is truly a testament to just how well his silver tongue has hoodwinked everyone. The man is in no way the ‘progressive’ he claimed he was in his ’08 campaign, delivering nothing but total disarmament to the Republican minority in congress and the special interests which buy both parties. Pocket change at best.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been ended, nor show any signs of being reduced. Indeed, Obama has expanded the Afghan conflict, both with 30,000 new troops in-country and carrying out secret cross border attacks in to Yemen, Pakistan and Syria using unmanned drones and special forces. The private military presence in Iraq was secretly increased to allow the illusion of an end to the war, where most US combat forces were withdrawn. A clandestine campaign of assassination without trial against both US and foreign citizens also continues in many countries.
His oft touted successes, “historic” health care and financial reform, reveal to be little of the sort when examined closely. The former was little more than a give-away to big-pharma and the health-insurance lobby, despite the win on banning ‘pre-existing conditions’ as cause to deny cover. No single-payer or public option, promised in his campaign, was introduced to provide competition to private insurance companies. Citizens are forced to buy private insurance and no measures were introduced to ensure premiums do not continue to rise.
Financial reform also showed complete capitulation to Wall Street and the major banks. Risky derivative trading is still going on and nothing was done to break up ‘too big to fail’ banks. To add insult to injury, Obama is now pushing to continue the Bush-era tax cuts which expect to cost the country over $600 billion. A second great collapse is certainty, but this time with no more public money to bail out failed financial institutions.