More Bilge

Friday, 27 December 2002

Apart from a brewing internal brawl at Australia's National Museum, there's little to pick up on in today's news, so I'm taking this opportunity to post the second draft of The Pro-Bilge Manifesto. I'm hopeful that this draft will take the manifesto a lot of the way towards a final version because, frankly, the joke is already wearing thin and won't bear another repetition. In a blatant attempt to pitch the manifesto at an international market, I've eliminated specific references to Australia and Australians.

The Pro-Bilge Manifesto

(Alternative Titles: The Bilge Manifesto, The Bilgist Manifesto)

We, the undersigned, as free citizens of a nation with a nominal tradition of free speech, declare that:

1. It is the right of every author to write bilge.

2. It is the right of any newspaper or magazine to publish a wide variety of bilge in order to attract as wide a readership as possible.

3. Similarly it is the right of every television channel and radio station to broadcast bilge for identical commercial reasons.

4. It is the right of every book publisher to publish bilge for exactly the same reasons.

5. In relation to the right to publish bilge we accept that this is a commercial imperative and a legitimate way of doing business in a free market economy.

6. It is the right of every citizen to read, listen to, or watch the bilge of their choice, without interference or hindrance from others.

7. We recognise that the practice of pissing in the bilge to lend weight to our complaints about the stink is an egregious self-indulgence.

8. We accept that the production of a large quantity of bilge is an unavoidable consequence of the exercise of free speech and that the preservation of public morals through the prevention of writing is properly the business of government appointed professional censors, not amateurs like us.

Mindful of these principles we hereby renounce amateur attempts to suppress bilge and swear to defend to a point which is as close to death as we find personally congenial our right to continue the production of bilge. This we swear by the dirt on our keyboards and the hairy grunge that gets stuck to those rollers inside our mouses. It shall not have gathered in vain.