what’s in a name?

the cat is not really being sucked up by a vacume cleaner
he is just horrified at what spellcheck is doing to the english lingo

Needed a vac and couldn’t decide which model to buy, so I went with a brand name. This was a big mistake. The brand no longer represented anything beyond a name. Naturally I had thrown away the warranty card. After 3 months gave up trying to find any way to identify or contact the manufacturer. There was no company with that brand name incorporated or even registered as trading under that name. The name was air.

Bought a mini muffin one day and when I unwrapped it, the end of it was rather mangled. It had definitely not been mangled by anything mechanical, it had been ratted. Tried and failed to find anyway to tell the manufacturer their product sucks.

I do prefer a particular brand of tuna because of its taste and texture. Brands don’t always let us down. But I won’t be surprised if it does, one day, and I will never buy it again.

Supermarkets are making their second attempt to launch their own generic brands. The first time, a few decades ago, they tried to appeal based on a no frills price. It has all but fizzled out. Now, they are trying to establish their own brands as of equal quality but better value, or even of greater quality. Competitors’ brands are slowly but inexorably being starved of shelf space. I don’t buy them because I resent the manipulation behind them. Monopoly is not just about screwing the customer, it’s about screwing the supplier as well. Sooner or later suppliers of these generic brands will find their nuts [or ovaries] in a vice in much the same way our dairy farmers already have.

Today, the worst performing, once-trusted but no longer reliable, can’t find anyone interested in what I think let alone prepared to accept responsibility for their product brand, is the Labor Party.

The stuff they produce falls apart and won’t work properly. There is nowhere one can go to have it repaired. I gag on anything they ask me to swallow cos an image of ratshit keeps floating before my eyes. And they have managed to squeeze out all the little players and turn the market for votes into an oligopoly, both chains desperate to screw anyone who comes within cooee. [Well, it seems the Greens brand was synonymous with the name Brown and has, metaphorically speaking, been removed from the shelves.]

Labor no longer stands for anything. A slogan like “there are enzymes in Labor” would be as meaningful as anything they will soon trot out. They are trading solely on their name and the name is no longer one many voters are inclined to trust again, now or in the future.

To paraphrase Bill Hayden’s comment from 30 years ago, a drover’s dog could lead the Liberal Coalition to victory at the next election. In fact, it seems the Coalition is so stable it will be led by the same drover’s dog in September twenty thirteen as it was in twenty ten.

So, where do we go from here?

I shall probably vote for the coalition. The best I can hope for is that the party which is pissing on my leg is one that won’t be trying to convince me it’s raining. If no party is going to give a crap about workers, would-be-workers, the older people who built what we now have [if it hasn’t been sold], the young who should be our future, the ill who deserve some compassion, and more, then I’ll vote for the one that is open about sucking up to the world’s richest woman but will possibly pay off some the national debt as well.

There is no face or name in the Labor Party that can resurrect it now, or in the next ten years. No one with a soupcon of ambition or intelligence would throw away their political career by signing on to a stuffed brand.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. At least, it is only likely to be a bad thing temporarily. There is a huge gap in the market and, God willing, a new third force in politics will appear that actually promises to stand for something. After 3 years of being pissed on during a Coalition induced drought, voters will start buying the new brand. The Labor Party will go the way of the DLP, the Democrats, and the whackos that run what’s left of the Greens.

 

You might be comforted to know none of my grandiose predictions ever bear fruit. But the time, like Labor itself, has never been riper.