Gerard Henderson’s article in today’s SMH argues that Howard Haters are their own worst enemies, because their insular lives and obsession with blaming everything on Howard leaves them so out of touch with ‘ordinary Australians’ that they have no impact on elections.
The problem with much, but not all, opposition to Howard is it is obsessive and consequently has little impact in the marginal seats in suburban and regional Australia. Opponents of Howardism would have much more impact if they threw the switch to rationality with respect to the Prime Minister and ceased their consistent condemnation of Kim Beazley and Labor.
I can see what Henderson is getting at, and of course I am interested in what ‘the Left’ can do in Australia to turn things around politically. However, this article is so packed full of stereotypes and so completely lacking in any real analysis that it really provides no actual insight into this question. The target audience here appears to be those Howard-supporters who relish in mocking the Left and who refuse to let reality or complexity get in the way of their favourite pastime. The ‘average day’ of the monolithic Howard-hating intelligentsia is absurd – for one thing, the amount of media consumption described is over-the-top, not to mention the limited number of people who actually do work in the Humanities department of Australian universities. But the real limitation to this article, for me, is the assumption that those of us who hate what Howard is doing to Australia are solely concerned with getting the Opposition into power.
While I would be very happy if Howard and the Coalition generally were not in power in Australia, this isn’t really the end of the line for me. If you take a long-term view of politics, then the quality of the government, be they ALP or Coalition, and the quality of the media, civil society, and other social institutions are all issues that merit attention. Once you acknowledge this broader level of concern, the activities that Henderson mocks in his article suddenly make a lot more sense – particularly when you take into account that he has conveniently narrowed them down to only the most stereotypical. Of course, that still doesn’t address the question of what ‘the Left’ can do in Australia to turn things around politically, but my point is that this particular article (or other similar rants against ‘the Left’) isn’t where we are going to find the answer.
I had a 50 something cabbie who told me on Friday night, apropos of nothing much, that he couldn’t stand Howard and liked Keating. I don’t think he was moonlighting from his other job as a Cultural Studies Lecturer. I’ve heard the same sentiment articulated in public bars. What Gerry et al forget is 47% of Australians didn’t vote for the Coalition last time. Hint for Gerry – lots live in the suburbs, in regional and rural areas etc.
I actually don’t think there’s much need to counter this sort of thing. The question of coming up with appealing policy and a narrative to switch 47% to 51% is a different kettle of fish, but I doubt all this ranting and raving has much effect on it either way, except perhaps to demoralise those to whom it’s addressed.
The typical day thing is hilarious, though. I wonder what Gerry’s typical day involves…
“The it’s-Howard’s-fault refrain is heard repeatedly across the land.”
what the? has he been reading my blog?
Although, clearly, he hasn’t understood the jist of the “refrain of the Right-eous” argument…
“Right now, the irrationality of so many Howard haters has the unintended consequence of enhancing Howardism.”
Hmmmm…. Is this the mode of argument that sets up neoliberal economic and social policy as the only ‘rational’ way??? T’is an interesting rhetorical move. It means that politicians are powerless in the face of hegemonising global forces. ‘Of course you pay bribes, that’s how you do business…’
Miranda Devine’s most recent column attempts to run the same line of argument. See flashman’s post (and my comment) here: http://www.electronsoup.net/?q=node/268#comment
GH: “It may sound strange. But in intelligentsia land, you can get through an entire day without hearing anything but criticism of the Howard Government. Here’s how such a day in the life of a Howard-hater might work – via live radio/television, Foxtel iQ, iPod, tape, video, DVD and newspapers.”
How strange. No doubt a few people might be obsessed with “hating” Howard. But I bet there aren’t many. I certainly don’t “hate” him – I dislike his approach to government but I certainly don’t waste my emotions, energy and time on hating JH.
GH writes about a really strange “typical day” too.
It’s cheap and doesn’t contribute much to write stuff like this:
“Arise and read the editorial and letters and opinion pages of The Age, Australia’s most politically imbalanced broadsheet, judged on its coverage of the national security and industrial relations debates. Admire the cartoons of Michael Leunig, who has drawn Howard as a masked, kneecapping IRA terrorist. Look forward to next Saturday’s Herald in the hope that, again, Alan Ramsey will describe the PM as a “duplicitous toad” and refer to him as “Little Johnny”. Check The Australian to see if cartoonist Bill Leak still maintains “we are all little Johnnies now; smaller, meaner and less attractive”.
Go to work in a university humanities department and talk to your Howard-hating colleagues. It’s morning tea time. Go online and check out the most recent criticism of Howardism in John Menadue’s New Matilda journal of (almost identical) opinion. Agree with editor Jose Borghino’s view that Howard is the “hamster version” of Robert Menzies.
Break for lunch. Drop into an inner-city bookshop to check out the latest Howard-hating thesis on the Morry Schwartz-owned Black Inc’s publishing list, including such titles as The Barren Years: John Howard and Australian Political Culture. Admire past copies of Black Inc’s Quarterly Essay, featuring the likes of Mungo MacCallum and Guy Rundle. Buy the most recent issue of Schwartz’s quaintly named journal The Monthly, featuring yet another (very long) article by Robert Manne bagging Howard.
Spend the afternoon on research. Order a DVD of Richard Connolly’s taxpayer-subsidised film Three Dollars. Re-read Rayson’s taxpayer-subsidised play Two Brothers. Prepare a workshop on how to establish socialism in at least one country .
Drive home listening to the ABC Radio National’s Perspective program, followed by Sandy McCutcheon’s Australia Talks Back. Tune into ABC TV’s 7.30 Report to see which cabinet minister Kerry O’Brien is interrupting. Check out how alienated George Negus is on SBS TV. Go to sleep listening to Phillip Adams’ Late Night Live program. Dream of Gough Whitlam, Howard Dean, George Galloway. Wake up – read The Age.”
GH would do better to say that people should approach policies rationally rather than irrationally.
Coming soon to a Cultural Studies department near you? If he’s at all serious, it demonstrates his ignorance of what actually goes on in Universities… Yikes! That sounds elitist! Must get coffee… must read Robert Manne…
Personally, I dream of Ms Fits.
Segmentation at work. You satisfy the echo-chamber while trolling the other end of the spectrum. He successfully doubled his audience. Now his article got a bunch of hits through one of the biggest sites in ozplogistan linking to it.
If Gerard Henderson was posting here through an AOL account, he would probably write; YHBT HAND.
this stuff about Howard haters always give me a laugh.
AFTER keating got thrashed we had the spectre of a Liberal President alleging Keating was having affairs with both Janet holmesA Court and a young male violinist from the Symphony orchestra.
Ever wonder Why Iron Mark sprayed at tony Staley?
now that is what I would call hate
“ozplogistan”
What is this word? I have never encountered it before.
It’s shorthand for Australian political blogosphere. It is horribly, horribly mangled, but it was in reasonably common usage a couple of years ago. I’m pretty sure it was coined by John Quiggin.
Gerard’s typical day:
“Arise and read the editorial and letters and opinion pages of The Age. Note Australia’s most politically imbalanced broadsheet, judged according to my quaint right-wing views of its coverage of the national security and industrial relations debates. Seize upon the cartoons of Michael Leunig, who once drew Howard as a masked, kneecapping IRA terrorist. Look forward to next Saturday’s Herald hoping that, again, Alan Ramsey will describe the PM as a “duplicitous toad� and refer to him as “Little Johnny�. Check The Australian to make sure cartoonist Bill Leak still maintains “we are all little Johnnies now; smaller, meaner and less attractive�.
Go to work at the Sydney Institute and file morning’s reading under Howard-hating. It’s morning tea time. Go online and check out the most recent criticism of Howardism in John Menadue’s New Matilda journal of (almost identical) opinion. Note editor Jose Borghino’s view that Howard is the “hamster versionâ€? of Robert Menzies.
Break for lunch. Drop into an inner-city bookshop to check out the latest Howard-hating thesis on the Morry Schwartz-owned Black Inc’s publishing list, including such titles as The Barren Years: John Howard and Australian Political Culture. Note past copies of Black Inc’s Quarterly Essay, featuring the likes of Mungo MacCallum and Guy Rundle. Buy the most recent issue of Schwartz’s The Monthly, featuring yet another (very long) article by Robert Manne bagging Howard. File everything hunder Howard-hating.
Spend the afternoon fast asleep. Order a DVD of Richard Connolly’s taxpayer-subsidised film Three Dollars. Re-read Rayson’s taxpayer-subsidised play Two Brothers. Fantasise that the left is preparing a workshop on how to establish socialism in at least one country. Laugh at my own joke for half-an-hour hour. File my fantasies under Howard-hating and string it all together into yet another biased right-wing column on leftists. Adopt smug expression, knowing I get paid for writing the same biased drivel week in week out.
Drive home listening to the ABC Radio National’s Perspective program, followed by Sandy McCutcheon’s Australia Talks Back. Tune into ABC TV’s 7.30 Report to see which cabinet minister Kerry O’Brien is interrupting. Check out how alienated George Negus is on SBS TV. Go to sleep listening to Phillip Adams’ Late Night Live program. Nightmares of Gough Whitlam, Howard Dean, George Galloway. Wake up – check under my bed for leftists, read The Age.â€?
Hating on the haters. A giant circle of self-referentiality. The ouribouros of Howard.
Too right, Kate. I think the Howard-hater-haters hate the haters more than the haters hate Howard.
I do hear this quite a bit from people. Is it because people are unwilling to admit that they voted for Howard or is society really that segregated that liberal voters don’t socialise with labor voters?
Actually, Chris that is probably the most interesting question raised by the article. I personally know very few Howard voters (some of my grandparents, in-laws, family friends, one friend from Uni, and a couple of lecturers at the law school), and I would put that down to leading a fairly segregated life and having grown up in Canberra.
CS, I sat down at lunch wondering how one would go about summarising a day in the life of a Howard-voting right wing individual and then read your comment which was even more fun. Thank you.
Oh, and Robert thank you for the translation service. I probably should have guessed that one.
Crikey had a neat take on the Howard-hater-hater’s typical day:
The oddly-named Monthly has just arrived in my letterbox, featuring … a long (cover) article by Robert Manne about John Howard.
*sighs*
Zoe, but get with the program, if it’s 2pm you should be in an inner city bookshop. How’s planning for the seminar on “socialism in at least one country” coming along? Don’t let the side down, comrade!
What do you think of ‘The Monthly’*, Zoe?
I took out a 2 year sub when it first appeared but on the current standard of the mag, I won’t be renewing.
*Surely they could have come up with something better?
“Socialism in at least one country� sounds like it could be a good rallying slogan. What do people think?
Unlike most of the left Bob Hawke does not hate JH; he went down to see him at his 30 year celebration and had him around for a BBQ.
A mixed bag, Ron. I think probably two of the issues so far have been good reads. I haven’t opened the current one, but am looking forward to the Chloe Hooper article on Palm Island – I liked her article a while ago about the Young Libs.
Garner is a bit hit and miss, Robert Forster is excellent on music, and I share Gerard’s boredom with Robert Manne on Howard. I took out a year subscription, and wouldn’t renew for more than $40. The promise of new writers has not been fulfilled. I wonder why no-one’s been scouting out some of the excellent writers writing blogs?
I don’t read many magazines anymore, only really Harper’s which at $12 is easily more than twice as good as the Monthly. And it’s very thin on ads – apparently the owner’s prepared to cop losses for five years, and I think he’ll need that.
Is that an Oz edition of Harper’s?
(My apologies for hijacking the thread Cristy.)
No worries Ron, I am interested.
Cristy I see you are blaming JH for problems with health, education, everything. Considering that these are all state issues not federal is that fair and reasonable?
rog, who provides most of the funding? Who sets the legislative and regulatory agenda? It’s not the states. However, they should wear a heap of blame as well in health at least.
rog, where do you see this? I don’t believe that I mentioed health, education or everything in the above post. I mean, sure, I blame Howard when I stub my toe, but I didn’t write about it.
“Is that an Oz edition of Harper’s?”
Not that I have seen… its mostly full of American related stuff. Interesting though… the last issue I got had an interesting essay on Thomas Jefferson’s gospel (he basically edited out all the miracles) and the gospel of Thomas. Of course the connection between the two is non-existent, but it was an interesting read.
I must have a screw loose or something, because I’m a bit of a Howard hater and yet I read Quadrant and the Australian.
I like WBB’s take on it:
“it’s not getting any easier for your average Howard hater in the street.
Hmmmm. What’s Plan B, again? Waiting for the prick to die, it seems, is the best we’ve come up with so far.”
ROFL, as they say.
Re: Harper’s…
Yeah, American Harper’s – and I enjoyed the article Cliff mentions a great deal.
I’m more a Howard despairer than a hater, myself.
I am definitely N-O-T a so-called “Howard Hater” but he and his mob must go! And the sooner the better because for every day they stay in apparent power, the more danger we face and the deeper we sink into the economic mire.
If his government actually worked I would be deleriously happy – “even “relaxed and comfortable” – but his government doesn’t work and God help us when his whole fantasy world of imagined prosperity and fake wealth and awesome institutions evaporates …. and when the hard cruel real world wakes us up with a hell of a jolt.
On a scale of competence as a national leader: I put him slightly ahead of Galtieri, Mugabe and G. Bush MkII; definiely below Vidkun Qvisling, Chiang Ching-kuo, Mahatir Mohammed and John Major; not even in the same paddock as Ataturk, Sun Yat-sen, Truman, Khrushchov or any of the other outstanding national leaders.
And the “trendy lefties” must share a very large part of the blame for keeping this dud in office. ((Did I miss out on offending anyone?))
Quadrant, dare I say it, used to have one Robert Manne as editor! (in pre Howard-Hating days)…
Harper’s is a good mag.
I know Robert Manne used to write from the conservative side of things. What I’m interested to know is how much he actually changed his own perspective as opposed to how much conservatism itself has changed. I once heard Malcolm Fraser remark that he did not move further to the left, but that the right moved further right. How much is this the case with Manne?
“Too right, Kate. I think the Howard-hater-haters hate the haters more than the haters hate Howard. ”
LOL! In my case I suspect you are bang on target there.
Here’s my take on Manne, Cliff.
Well I semi-endorse some of Graham Bell’s points.
Howard’s actually been pretty damn good as a short term crisis manager – from Port Arthur to the Asian currency meltdown to the Bali bombing to the Boxing Day tusmani sumai tuismani big wave thingy. He did everything you’d want out of a good Aus PM. Fast, decisive, pragmatic and effective action.
My two big problems with him are:
a) when he manufactures or inflames issues for pure political gain- which all pollies do but in his case in a particularly unproductive and US atomic wedgie style; and
b) no attempt to plan ahead. A large chunk of his ecomomic luck is built on Hawke, Keating, Button et al working hard to lay a long-term legacy they’d never get to claim credit for but did so anyway because they felt it needed to be done.
However there seems to be no sense from Howard and co that they’re anything but the big end of town’s janitors and fixers. Australia’s never been richer and an awful lot is going rather well now. So this is exactly the moment when you can and should start hedging against the future. For a pro-business party, the Libs seem surprisingly ignorant of this fundamental business tenet.
This is true as far as it goes but it does not go nearly far enough.
The problem is not Howard-hating as such. There are plenty of good reasons to hate Howard’s ends and means.
Howard’s ideological ends – union-bashing, boss-pampering and climate-ignoring – should outrage most right-thinking people. His methodological means – brutal disregard for ministerial responsibility, flouting multilateral institutions and common indecency towards legitimate refugees – are also appalling.
And Howard-huggers like Henderson are frankly embarassing in their relentless spinning of Howard’s deceits and despicabilities.
The Howard-hating Wets come unstuck because they ignore or downplay Howard’s indisputable good deeds – his civilization of cultural identity and his militarization of national security.
Howard, more than any other politician in recent Australian history, has consolidated the Australian state from internal and external threats.
He has won tremendous victories in the “Culture War”. This has seen off some of the more disastrous follies and rogueries of the past generation’s social policy – ratbag feminists, multicultural segregationists, lame duck Republicans, indigenous seperatists etc.
The cultural benefits speak for themselves. A more beneficial and diverse immigration policy, a revival of the birthrate amongst educated females, a more realistic appreciation of Aboriginal social problems. Its all good.
Howard has also struck mighty blows in the “Terror War”, chiefly through the trouncing jihadists and ethnic cleansers in E Timor and Afghanistan and the empowerment of Shiite Iraq. Howard’s crucial role in encouraging and assisting the consolidation and democratization of Indonesia alone cements his place in history.
These actions, whatever their global merits, have certainly reinforced the US alliance, beefed up our defensive readiness and generally put the terroristic and militaristic threats to this nation on the back foot. So far, apart from Bali, there has been no domestic blow-back.
Most Australians recognise the values that Howard has stood up for in cultural and national conflicts have been civilized and beneficial. The Howard-haters are blind to this which is why they keep getting beaten like a drum.
Well, stap my vitals! Doesn’t Jack come across as almost a breath of fresh air and cool reason after Graeme Bird’s demented dervish bellowing?
And y’know Jack I agree with all the points you’ve made that I agree with. Just lose this cultural straw war thing and stop damning Birdlike everyone you think disagrees with you. Then who knows, we could be stepping out together for a nice night each time one of us is in the other’s town.
But lest folks think I’m drunk and getting maudlin (or even worse, soft and girly), I would like to draw your attention to these classic Strocchi clangers.
“..a revival of the birthrate amongst educated females”
Oh yes, a campaign to breed an elite. The problem here is that many of the kinda men who think like this are no position to do anything about it.
“Howard has also struck mighty blows in the “Terror Warâ€?, chiefly through the trouncing jihadists and ethnic cleansers in E Timor and Afghanistan and the empowerment of Shiite Iraq.”
Fitful and often token support for the US’s complete cockup in Central Asia are mighty blows in the “Terror Wars”? You’d frame a mousetrap as a cheese platter just to get attention and glory, wouldn’t you?
Howard haters and their ilk conveniently omit that it has been their very own Howard hating unelected swill, the senate, that has blocked the elected govt’s bills, until now.
Cristy – where did I see this? – on your own blog where you blamed Howard for every one of your ills, including your stubbed toe.
A good article, I thort. Andrew Bolt advanced a sharper version of the same argument here.
Howard has discovered (or rediscovered – I think Thatcher first put it to effective use) the best way of getting to the 15-20% or so of swinging voters who decide elections: he appeals directly to them over the heads of the liberal commentariat, who he knows will never vote for him, anyway.
David Williamson’s risible article on his unpleasant cruise experience provides a neat analogy. For every Williamson Howard loses, he wins the rest of the boatload.
Jeez Rob, I really, really hope the last part of your last comment isn’t intended as some kind of SIEV X related pun.
The connection didn’t occur, Laura, but then I have a sense of humour deficit.
Good, I’m glad it didn’t Rob…deficit or not, it’s no laughing matter as you know.
In response to Laura’s post (hon, you deserve your own comments!), why feel the need to justify yourself when the criticism doesn’t even apply to you – hey, you don’t even exist in the imagined world of a polemic like this. The university being attacked here is the one imagined in the minds of people who don’t work in it: a place where Left wing ideology dominates. Ha! Try telling that to a student like I had in my office this afternoon who hadn’t slept in two days (in week 2 of semester), who can hardly make it to lectures part time because they are too busy working jobs that might keep them in the state they love, in a ‘career’ that offers as much security as the next monthly contract. These students don’t have time for class, let alone clubs, societies or indeed unions for Howard hatin’.
It would be comforting if the Left did take such a predictable form; I’d make a career out of laughing at it too. But the people you and I know, read, and also care about have a range of views on social issues – not the least because we every now and then read the thoughts of women, we have a craving for ideas outside of mainstream press outlets, we don’t all live in the inner-city, and when we’re not busy having a life, we teach classes composed of hundreds of students from all over the world (because our universities cannot function without their upfront fees). In the world of this newspaper columnist, there are Howard haters and there are ordinary people, a choice that neatly corresponds with the belief that ‘you are either with us or against us’. Thankfully, there are a lot more sources around these days that can admit that things are a little more complicated.
Now that you mention it, though, I don’t see a connection between Howard-the-stinker and SIEV-X the …….. well, fill it in for yourself. Yes, bad joke. But I don’t buy Tony Kevin’s line on this at all.
The point is, Henderson and Bolt are reading your guys an important lesson, and you just won’t listen, because you hate the message’s point of origin. Labor will never get back until they re-capture the middle ground that can vote either his way, or that way, depending. Screaming ‘Howard’s a bastard!’ doesn’t persuade anyone but yourselves – and none (very few?) of the folks hereabouts would vote for Howard before or after you’d cut your left hands off. But the plain fact is Howard doesn’t care about you: he’s not after your vote. He won’t try to buy you off, because he doesn’t need to.
Labor has to get more mature, and realise that Howard has won lections for 10 years for a reason – the electorate prefers him to the alternative. And put some serious thought into what they propose to do about it (like, not screamingabuse, which is at the same time screaming abuse at the electorate).
All 100% correct & true Mel. Blogging like my effort today really isn’t much different from shouting angrily at the TV (or radio, or newspaper) and closing comments is an acknowledgement of that. (Textual critic that I am, Henderson’s little burlesque there probably stung so much because I noticed *he* began his story of an imaginary day with the same word (arise) *I* began the story of a real one. Hey maybe he reads my blog!
I better wash it, just in case.
Of course it stung for that reason, Laura. You recognised yourself in his caricature. You knew what he said was true. Doesn’t that compel some sense of self-reflection?
I’m at a loss to understand the reference to David Williamson’s cruise. Does this mean that I’m not a cultural elitist after all?
And what Mel said (he says after getting home at 10pm having worked an 11 hour day and teaching at 8pm, with nary a spare moment to plot the downfall of Western civ, praise Venezuela or even – sob – browse in an inner city bookstore – and my early morning on the way to work visit to the dvd store to try and get the Dune miniseries failed miserably!)…
Oh, and nice post, Laura. I can also report that I got my hair cut yesterday in time for the start of tutes in week 2
It was an analogy, Mark. And I think you are conscioulsy missing the point.
I still don’t get it, Rob. What’s David Williamson’s cruise article? I have no idea what you’re referring to. Did Williamson go on a cruise and write an article about it? Please enlighten me!
Haven’t you read it? Here it is. It’s fun, though David didn’t have much.
Excellent news, Mark. I’m hoping to make it to the hairdressers next weekend, but it’s probably not worth bothering, I’m sure I’ll come out looking like a latte-inhaling Monthly reader no matter what.
Rob the whole point of my convoluted post is that I don’t recognise the object of Henderson’s satire in that blunt-as little sketch. It doesn’t pack any punch as parody because it misses the mark so drastically. It’s like drawing a stick figure, writing a person’s name underneath, and calling it a realistic portrait.
I’m sorry, I thought you meant your real day was the same as his imaginary one.
I start the day with ‘arise’, too, but in the Omar Khayamaian sense.
I had fun, anyway, Laura, because I had my hair ironed – a thing that as a boy, I never knew existed until my last visit to my hair salon!
Rob, I’ll defer the reading of Williamson’s article. I don’t much care for him of late – Don’s Party and The Club were great but I saw that play about sexual harrassment (most un-PC by the way, sort of grumpy backlash anti-feminism stuff and wasn’t there one where he has a go at Foucault?) about a decade ago and thought it very poor. As I’ve commented before, I think you’re falling into Gerrie’s trap of confusing luvvies and lefties.
I’d rather read Shakespeare, Brecht, Marlowe or Schiller any day than Williamson. Frankly I don’t think there’s much of a canon in Australian theatre. Though perhaps that’s my ignorance talking.
To return, though, to Cristy’s question: well, of course you are!
Howard takes every opportunity to tell the waverers (that crucial 15-20%) that ‘I am one of you, I share your values and concerns’, and THE LEFT (The Left — the left) turns right round and tells them the bloody opposite. Is it any wonder he wins elections? Remember he only has to win about 11% of the undecideds, and he’s got it.
Personally, I didn’t feel at all offended by the article… rather I was heartened by it. I ardently hope that the right believes this caricature… I hope and pray that they lie back on their laurels thinking that their only opposition is a disconnected and cacaphonous minority. You don’t have to read Sunzi’s Art of War (and I haven’t) to intuit that one of the greatest mistakes one can make is to underestimate one’s enemy. These “Howard haters” of whom Henderson and Bolt speak, are simply a vocal minority. Howard may have defeated them on culture… but his future is in the hands of the rank and file of Australia’s labour force… who are soon to become guinea pigs in Johnny’s long sought after ideological experiment. In the words of Sir Humphrey, Howard is a “courageous” leader.
Sunzi’s Art of War should be in the reading queue ahead of Williamson, Cliff!
To change the topic slightly, I hope and fervently pray someone is working on a blog post called “A Day in the Life of Hendo”…
The only test of that is next election, Cliff. Everything else is just puff. But the right’s coming from a position of strength. And really, how does one actually underestimate Kim Beazley?
Yes, I rarely agree with Jack, including in most of the second half of his comment in this thread, but he’s no Birdman; more a gentleman.
I think the comments have been interesting, using Hendo as a springboard. But let’s be blunt. His column is no more than Hendo doing his common, and I think rather slimy (or at least cowardly, and certainly not scholarly) finger-pointing spray; using his strangely privileged column for publicly prejudicially naming ‘leftists’ under beds, in the same way that he made his media name in the first place. He plys a shameful trade.
“The only test of that is next election, Cliff. Everything else is just puff.”
Well, one can dream. Oh and didn’t you get the memo? “Puff” has been redefined by Dominoes pizza.
I missed the memo!
http://sopuff.com.au/home/default.asp
re: cs’s comments. I don’t understand why newspaper editors publish GH’s rubbish like this column. I mean, what is it’s worth other than as some weird caricature that says more about GH’s lack of something to write about?
Who did he use to come up with this caricature?
My sleeping patterns are very weird: it’s 12:30am in Sydney, I need to get up tomorrow at 6am, and I don’t feel tired at all due to a 2hr sleep this evening after work.
Coming in late as another lefty who’s worked her bum off all day, and is now relaxing with a glass of wine, excellent posts by Cristy and Laura and a great reality check comment from Mel.
I did make it to Riverbend books at Bulimba today, though, which I believe is Ruddy’s coffee shop of choice after he goes to the Anglican Church on Oxford St on Sundays.
Cliff, you must read Sunzi!
Oh, and I wish to note my agreement with this part of Jack’s comment (which will no doubt horrify him):
The culture war, I’m increasingly coming to believe, is an artefact of almost pure discourse though. It’s ethereal, somehow disconnected from the reality of lived experience. Which is proved by Hendo’s only connection to that experience being his imagination – fuelled by the same media consumption that he deplores.
Self-referential, tedious, but like cs, I think he’s done some good work in the world today (or rather Cristy and Laura have) by inspiring some good discussion.
Does it come with Coke Zero, Cliff?
I think you’re just avoiding the issue, CS. I think Laura got it, though without really admitting it. Henderson has your lot bang to rights.
No-one cares about your vote, not even Labor. It’s in the bag, locked up, and it still didn’t count. It didn’t win government for Labor. Labor has to win back a majority of the swingers. Anti-Howard rhetoric won’t do the trick – the last few elections have proved that. So how is Labor going to do it?
Henderson has your lot bang to rights.
Who is “your”?
I agree that Labor has to win the swingers, but what does “Henderson has your lot bang to rights.” mean?
Lefties, luvvies (assuming there is a distinction).
You’re no threat, no danger. Howard doesn’t need you. The only successful strategy for Labor is to take votes from Howard – the votes that Howard does need. I think the smart people in Labor realise it, but they balk at ditching the liberal commentariat. It’s one thing or the other, in my view.
I think Rob seems to mean to somehow imply that Hendo has a right bead on us Tah supporters.
Rob, I refer you to my comment at the top of the post.
Hendo deals in stereotypes.
Classic inner city seats like Adelaide and Brisbane were only just won by Labor in 2004. The latter is where I live. Lots of leafy streets, but a fair bit of poverty, and lots of Liberal voters who like lattes too. Labor got a higher primary vote in regional Capricornia than in inner city Brisbane. Wayne Swan’s seat of Lilley is much less latte than Brisbane and Swan did nicely. Much of Emerson’s seat of Rankin is classic mortgage belt/young families and he won nicely as well.
Kim’s right – Hendo is just noise.
I’m not saying that you couldn’t find inner city seats that were more solidly Labor, and obviously suburban ones that the Libs won, but the extreme polarisation that Hendo posits is rubbish – it’s a reflection of stereotyping and to be honest, Sydney-centricity.
To win next time, Labor needs one – or both – of two things. Another charismatic figure like Bob Hawke. And/or a suite of good public policies, excellently sold. I can’t see either even remotely on the horizon at this stage. Reality, people.
Any labor functionary worth (his) paypacket should know that they need to win votes off howard to win elections – there ain’t many votes left on the “left” for labor to garner, and they’d keep practically all of them (via preferences) if they moved a bit to appeal to swingers. I’m implicitly assuming a one-dimensional political continuum here.
What is a “luvvie”?
Also, I’m sorry, but Hendo’s writings don’t resonate with me at all – I try to understand things and so read publications that challenge my ideas.
Eloquently argued Rob. I give up. What was the argument again?
Or the Libs could just fall over. Howard wasn’t a charismatic leader and he appropriated most of Keating’s policy position – cleverly running on “we won’t change much, but you won’t have to put up with that bloke”. Having said that, yes, I’d like to see Labor have good leadership and good policy. But as I’m suggesting, Hendo does not provide the key. Most of his readers are probably Labor voters or small l Libs anyway.
Labor was in office for 13 years. The Libs will have had 13 years by the next poll.
Mark, is your gravatar FDR?
Sacha, unfortunately, the way Labor has been carrying on for the past few years you’d think their idea of winning was to take votes from the Greens. There’s no electoral mileage there. The Greens will vote Green – it’s a visceral thing now, beyond the strategic alliance Richardson was able to forge with them in the 80’s (he fooled them anyway, and if they don’t know it, they’re doubly fools). But their preferences will flow to Labor (or to the Dems, and thence to Labor). So as far as it’s possible, Labor has that vote locked up. There’s no point courting them.
And it’s suicide to try. For every Green Labor wins over, they’ll lose a thousand of the swingers.
Howard understands the brutal electoral logic, and exploits it. I’ve yet to seen any sign that Labor does.
I thought this was a post about Hendo and Howard-hating, Howard-hater-hating and Howard-hugging, not what the result of the next election will be and what could make the difference.
I mean, I don’t really care. Just sayin’
Yep, it’s FDR.
I suppose it’s tangentially on topic because Hendo refers to the last election.
But having done my 12 hour day today with only one large flat white and some crummy refec sandwiches to keep me going, I’m off to bed now. Gotta back up again tomorrow – fortunately only 9-5. Night all!
It’s what flows naturally and unforcedly from the question posed by the post and the subsequent discussion, cs. IMHO.
Rob, I thought it a rather deft swerve away from your indefensible ‘Hendo is right because I think he is right, and it is about “your lot”, even though no-one here recognises what he’s rabitting on about’ stance; but maybe that’s just me.
Chris, since I seem obscure, just for fun, here’s a cryptogram for you, with a key contextual inversion:
L I R N E H R.
It’s not hard. And no offence.
“Cliff, you must read Sunzi!”
It’s on my list (David Williamson isn’t, by the way). Which means I might get around to it next century sometime. If only I could be like Edgar Cayce and read books in my sleep by placing them under my pillow
“Does it come with Coke Zero, Cliff?”
Hehe, I was thinking the same thing.
“You’re no threat, no danger.”
When it suited the right-wing punditry the left are a potent cabal of cultural dictators corrupting the youth to be displayed before the nation as a threat to Australian values… and yet something has changed and now it is considered safe to simply gloat over their irrelevance and impotence.
Has there been much research on who these “swinging voters” are, and how they feel on cultural issues? I think the assumption here, and in Bolt and Henderson’s column, is that Howard’s success is due to his reconquest of the cultural highground for the mainstream. However, I was under the impression that the 2004 election was campaigned, and won, on economic grounds… and, if you ask me, the key to his defeat will be on the same ground also. Labour are already on the same page as the coalition on national security, and culture doesn’t seem to be much of an issue causing debate between the parties. To paraphrase Clinton, in my opinion it’ll be the economy stupid!
Cliff, my point was that electorally the left commentariat is of no danger or importance to Howard — as demonstrated in the last four elections. Culturally……well, that’s a different story. No-one has to elected to be a journalist or an Arts professor.
I don’t do cryptograms Rob, but if you can explain how you can justify your “the cap might not fit anyone but I insist that you still have to wear it, even if I don’t know you and haven’t done any research” stance, I’ll be interested to read it.
“Sacha, unfortunately, the way Labor has been carrying on for the past few years you’d think their idea of winning was to take votes from the Greens.”
Apart from Latham’s Tasmanian forest policy… how have they been doing this, exactly? If you ask me, since at least the last election, the ALP have been trying to rally support from their traditional power base – the working men and women of Australia.
cs, you attribute to me positions I do not recognise, so I find it hard to answer you. Perhaps you should try cryptograms?
“Culturally……well, that’s a different story. No-one has to elected to be a journalist or an Arts professor.”
No-one voted for Gerard Henderson or Andrew Bolt, either.
Rob, perhaps you should try your memory:
Henderson has your lot bang to rights.
Who is “your” and what is their “lot”?
“If you ask me, since at least the last election, the ALP have been trying to rally support from their traditional power base – the working men and women of Australia.”
Cliff, what accounts for their lack of success, then? I mean, their vote went backwards under Latham.
cs, ‘your lot’=lefties and luvvies. Not ‘lot’ as in burden or fate; simply a pejorative descriptor.
Sheer tautology. Hendo says “leftists are this”; and you say “he’s right because I think leftists are like he says”. Well, perhaps you and Hendo are right, in which case, as no-one here recognises themselves in his caricature, evidently no-one here is a “leftist”; in which case you should amend your “your”, or at least clarify who you are referring to.
Ah well, I’ll concede defeat to your logic, cs, and leave you the field.
BTW (clue!), the initials shift alternately forwards and backwards according to the commonest of multiplicants, and the second and fourth elements have been reversed.
to Cristy and Laura:
My first reactions were (1) I do hope Gerard Henderson has not taken to smoking non-tobacco substances whilst at the keyboard.
(2) Everything he said could, with only very minor changes, be said about Howard’s Young Fogeys and other assorted bigots and overpaid bludgers. (Just who did coin the expression Howard’s Young Fogeys?)
to Jack Strocchi:
Sorry but you are dead wrong about Howard winning any victories in the Culture Wars. He has always gone running off after a victory parade long after it has gone down the road and round the corner. He has always been a follower and a bully, never a leader (except on t v). Howard certainly did not “militarize national security”, he just fiddled with it and stuffed it up and in so doing put us all at greater risk, no matter what the papers say.
to Mark:
Capricornia was a wierd one. The local Member and her party branch had – how can I put it without litigation? – “not quite realized the reasonable expectations of some voters”. The Nationals had an outstanding candidate but really failed to support him – perhaps out of fear that, if he got in, he might drag his party into the 21st century. The incessent vilification and racism from down south against ordinary white Australians should have led to a resounding victory for any other candidate. Yet the ALP candidate was returned. Why?
“Cristy – where did I see this? – on your own blog where you blamed Howard for every one of your ills, including your stubbed toe.”
Oh, fair enough then Rog, I certainly do blame Howard for everything, but I am not going to defend that in this thread – particularly not the stubbed toe, that one is complicated.
Your specific question regarding education and health I think Mark covered quite well. Yes, they are State responsibiliities, but the amount of money available for them is worked out with the Commonwealth Government, blah blah blah…
Oh, and I don’t think very much of the NSW government on many of these issues anyway – I am quite capable of blaming many different people from all political backgrounds.
Rob, you have taken up the same assumption that I find problematic in the article – that all ‘we’ want is to get the ALP into office. While I am sure that this is the primary concern of some people with left-wing politics it would be a fairly hallow victory for me and not one that I am actually very concerned with.
I dislike Howard’s policies, I also dislike many of the ALP’s policies (just not as many), I maintain the right to be critical of both of them without having to simply choose one and champion them into office.
To inform me that this “strategy” will not get the result that you think I am after (ALP into office) is just silly, because I have no strategy and no such desired result.
Graham – I know very little about the situation in Capricornia, but for the last few decades the ALP has held the Rockhampton-based federal seat at all elections except the wipe-out ones (1975, 1996).
Boohoo! Here I am having my morning cup of coffee and there’s still days to go before Alan Ramsey columny goodness!
Oops, forgot, live in real world. Must go to work. (Not at University Humanities Department).
re: Cristy’s post – perhaps it’s easier to just lump all the “lefties” together rather than recognise that here’s a variety of perspectives, eg some people (like myself) want the ALP to be elected and some say “I maintain the right to be critical of both of them without having to simply choose one and champion them into office”.
(PS while I want the ALP to be elected, I like Cristy’s approach.)
Judging by Henderson’s value system as expressed or implied in what he says and writes, I’d be quite worried if he approved of my tastes in reading, beverages or anything else, and quite pleased to be trashed by him. What a shame the column is actually fantasy.
Given the tedious habit that right-wing pundits have of identifying so-called lefties and luvvies by what they drink, with latte and chardonnay singled out for special vilification, I’d like some right-winger on this thread to enlighten me: of what beverages do you approve?
Port and a good cigar? Tokay? Cognac in a brandy balloon? XXXX or VB (being non-elite of course)? Nescafe?
I know you wrote this so long ago (in blog time) that you’ve probably well & truly moved on, Rob, but:
I think you’re just avoiding the issue, CS. I think Laura got it, though without really admitting it. Henderson has your lot bang to rights.
No, he really doesn’t. That’s the point. Can’t say it any clearer than that. You think he’s diagnosed what’s wrong with people who oppose John Howard, but he’s diagnosed creatures of his own pale imaginings.
I like strong soy cappuccinos – havn’t had a latte for years (if ever?). Probably ’cause I don’t identify as a lefty. (Although my opposition to some of Howard’s policies means I’m obviously self-delusion.)
Sorry – self-delusional.
From Charles Richardson in Crikey yesterday:
The article is a condensed version of the speech Henderson gave last Friday night at the John Howard’s Decade conference – in Peter Brent’s words, “many of today’s gags were test-run there.” As an after-dinner speech it worked well, partly because Henderson doesn’t back away from a fight: he took questions afterwards, and stayed till the end, mingling with his critics.
Reactions were mixed; only a handful of those present would have agreed with Henderson’s praise of Howard. At the other extreme, some regarded him as beyond the pale, and said so in no uncertain terms. But the majority were somewhere in the middle: they disagreed with him, but they appreciated the value of some of what he said.
I found little evidence there for the idea that social science academics are humourless and intolerant. Most of them applauded Henderson, and laughed at his jokes, despite being the targets of them.
And of course they invited him in the first place, and (as he said) encouraged him to be provocative.
Thankfully we only got the condensed version.
As a black tea drinker, I feel very left out!
I like both latte and chardonnay and drink far too much of both.
Cristy – fair enough, but getting Labor elected would seem to be the most effective and practical way of getting rid of Howard.
Yes, it would, but this is actually not my major concern in life – stereotypes aside. There are so many things that I care a lot more about.
As an irrelevant aside, I also quite like lattes, but not chardonnay. I am more partial to weak cloudy apple juice myself…
“cloudy apple juice” – yum – and orange juice with pith*!
*No, I don’t have a lisp!
I mentioned way above this somewhere that I haven’t been too impressed with ‘The Monthly’ recently. Well, today I received the March issue and I have to say it’s one of the best issues for a while.
I like having to ‘eat my words’ sometimes.
The emphasis on Howard’s leadership is mostly misplaced. He is certainly the best thing the Coalition has going for it, which only shows what a weak squad they field.
Howard is an epiphenomenon of an electorate which is conservative in the true sense of the word: tired of constructivist change, whether economic rationalism or cultural progressivism, forced onto the populus by the elites.
Hanson was an acute symptom of this conservatism. Howard is more chronic and fatiguing for that reason.
Dunno about Howard Haters, but:
“Drive home listening to the ABC Radio National’s Perspective program, followed by Sandy McCutcheon’s Australia Talks Back. Tune into ABC TV’s 7.30 Report to see which cabinet minister Kerry O’Brien is interrupting. Check out how alienated George Negus is on SBS TV. Go to sleep listening to Phillip Adams’ Late Night Live program.”
just about describes a typical weekday for me (not much on the radio in the bush). I wonder if Hendo’s having me watched, or if it’s Nab’s bloody hidden webcam again.
Most of them applauded Henderson, and laughed at his jokes, despite being the targets of them.
Damn soggies, all those pseudo Howard-haters. We’ll never win at this rate, I tell ya.
Sacha:
Capricornia is a puzzle. Figures alone can be misleading. Rural voters should be rock-solid behind the Nationals but they’re not. Rockhampton used to be a Labor town but but workers and ex-workers have been betrayed by the ALP so often in recent years that either the Libs or One Nation should have won in massive landslides, yet they didn’t even get a look-in. Democrats have a fighting chance of winning a Reps seat but they’re holed-up in the university “Green Zone”. Family First had a brilliant vigorous campaign but the voters rejected them. Sorry, I haven’t got any answers.
Is something simiar happening in other electorates? All we ever hear about is the Two Pary Prefered Basis pollsters’ scam.
There are lots of mining towns about Rockhampton – perhaps these are solid for Labor? I don’t know. Certainly Mt Morgan was (and maybe still is) Labor voting. In state elections Labor has practically always won Rockhampton while Vince Lester (National) did quite well in Peak Downs (to the west of Rocky). There could be “popularity of a local member” factors as well.
There’s usually a fair amount of stability in voting figures – so a swing of 10% from one party to another is pretty unusual. I don’t know the reason for this – no doubt the political scientists could say more.
Sacha: Thanks.
I live in Capricornia, and so have become a bit of a student of its eccentricities. I know it’s not directly to the purpose of the post, but it’s interesting, and there’s some reasons why it really shouldn’t be held up as an example of anything, really.
It’s a real mixed bag in Central Queensland – Rockhampton, which is large enough (and has had enough of an influx of “southerners� recently) to be getting similar in demographic to middle class suburbia/mortgage belt (house prices are through the roof). Then there’s a big swathe of traditional & solid National Party hinterland – beef & grain, small country towns, with some very high National votes (>70%) in some booths. One of the only National Party gains in the last state election was Shane Knuth, in this area (although I think classifying him as a “gain� might be stretching things a bit).
But then, right in the middle, you’ve got heavily unionised Bowen Basin coal-mining towns, with the largest percentage Labour vote in the country (Moranbah [at better than 80%], Collinsville, Blackwater & Dysart, particularly). And they are generally what tips the balance, and will become more so with the expansion of the industry in the last couple of years.
The Rockhampton effect (as it grows and becomes even more suburban) will tips things further towards the Libs, Dems & Greens, as will the influx of contractors and others into the Bowen Basin. The Nationals vote is probably falling as rural industries decline. And the mining unions ability to turn out a block vote will probably grow next time in the aftermath of Work Choices – my personal opinion is that this will be one of the few places in the country where that campaign will gain traction at the next election.
Plus, the Libs fielding a woman named Kuntschik can’t have done them any favours.
Shane Knuth – wasn’t he a One Nation MP at some point, Tony?
Shane Knuth won Charters Towers in 2004 after an ALP candidate won it in 2001. His brother Jeff Knuth won Burdekin as a One Nation candidate in 1998.
I seem to recall that labor notionally held Charters Towers before the 1992 election but that the Nats actually won it.
Yeah. But wasn’t Liberal candidate in Capricornia, Di Kuntschik, given full-on fanatical savagings by the Liberals themselves right from her pre-selection onwards?
Have there been any outbreaks of unreported democracy elsewhere in Australia?
Nabakov on 7 March 2006 at 8:16 pm
The only clangers that Nabakov will be hearing come from the sound of him shooting himself in his foot.
Not really a campaign to breed an elite, more a campaign to keep the elite breeding. Its true that most eugenicists, like most uber-intellectuals, have not been overly virile men. Lee Kwan Yu has been the most ardent exponent of the eugenics perspective in modern times. He seems to have had no trouble in getting issue. But this is not an argument against their position. It tends to strengthen the urgency of the exhortation to elites to at least breed at replacement values.
But I am more concerned about the well-being of the sisters. There are a lot of embittered feminist spinsters who are mourning the children they never had. It would have been nice for them to have at least one trophy child to console them in their dotage.
I have gone out of my way to say, Iraq-attack is a monumental cock-up and a conspiracy to boot. Still Howard has managed to finesse Australia’s involvement in this mess so that we get some brownie points from the US but have not so far suffered much blowback from the Islamists at home or abroad.
War Nerd persuasively argues that Afghanistan/Pakistan is mostly a success story, despite the constraints on this effort placed by the Iraq fiasco. Certainly, to make a scientific apples-to-apples comparison, the US has done much better there than the USSR.
East Timor, last time I checked, sits north of the Indian Ocean. John Howard is something of a cult figure amongst people of that nation that he liberated.
Howard’s management of the AUS-INDON relationship has been magnificent, perhaps the crowning foreign policy achievement of his premiership. Whereas under Keating we engaged in appeasement, cronyism and pandering now under Howard the relationship is on a sound footing based on mutual respect and interest.
Howard, more than any other foreign politician, has nursed Indonesia into democratic capitalist modernity, helping to steer it away from the Scylla of dictatorship and the Charybdis of anarchy. He has played a key part in putting Indonesia onto the moderate side of Islamic civilization and thereby denying the terrorists a breeding ground right on our doorstep.
The Wets and Doves are their own worst enemies for denying or ignoring this plain fact.
Ah, Jack’s back, once again packing very few actual facts into an awful lot of handwaving.
Though to be fair, he does link to a two and half year old column in an obscure online publication to prove the WOT is going well in Afghanistan.
Perhaps Jack, you’d like to check out some slightly more up to date reports.
“Not really a campaign to breed an elite, more a campaign to keep the elite breeding.�
Why since you put it like that, it all makes sense. It’s not six of one, it’s half a dozen of the other buns in the oven.
How would it work though? Could HECS payments be cut according to how many kids are spawned? Would breeding licenses be issued according to comparative educational attainments. Would a PhD at Melb University be worth four kids while a BA from Toowomba U be worth one? Will all expenses paid dirty weekends be offered for MENSA members? Will folks in the top tax bracket be offered free maternity and childcare support?
Will there be an attitudinal change campaign? “Think you’re smart? Then screw you.�
How will Jack’s beloved ordinary Australians react to being told they’re not fucking good for Australia.
And how many kids do you have Jack? I’m making a wild guess here that you’d might class yourself as part of the elite.
Nabakov on 11 March 2006 at 2:53 pm
Nabakov’s links only show that there is a deal of ruin in Afghanistan, what with drug croppers refusing to go straight, fundamentalists maintaining a foothold in their homeland and ethnic conflict still flaring up. So what, ‘twas ever thus. This is Afghanistan we are talking about. Its filled with Afghani tribesmen not Swiss burghers.
The remarkable thing about Afghanistan is what has gone right. A democracy has been established – the first proper one ever there? – women have more rights and a pro-Western government is in power. There’s plenty there to like and readers will not learn much from Nabakov’s cock-eyed perspective on this glass-more-than-half-full result.
Nabakov says:
Nabakov misses the elementary logic behind my rather feeble pun. I am not especially keen to breed a race of super-men (although a species of super-computers might come in handy). I am keen to see intelligent women reproduce their genes and memes up to at least replacement values.
The alternative is what we see in South West Asia (eg Lebanon) where the influence of educated female spinsters is swamped by the issue of uneducated female matrons. This Darwinian sexual selection causes a reactionary turn in cultural values which is a major reason why Middle Easter politics are the way they are. Numbers, a wise man once said, are of the essence.
Nabakov says:
Its already working. Howard has managed to
rev up the birthrate amongst working females, partly through the baby bonus and partly through the property boom. The baby boom is not huge, but it’s a start.
Nabakov says:
Low marks for logic and comprehension. I did not say that the “ordinary Australians were not…good for Australia�. I merely suggested that it would be nice if elites did not unbreed themselves into extinction. This would not be good for everyone.
Obviously elites are better at what they are doing than the general populus – that’s why they are elites! And clearly elite capacities can be somewhat expressed in family blood lines. So the general level is kept high if elites keep reproducing, so long as there is circulation and mobility. Although Australian’s occasionally like to lop tall poppies they generally don’t like it when the tall poppies fail to grow or leave the patch.
I cant see anything particularly wrong with these truisms.
Nabakov says:
Nabakov’s wild guess, like his educated ones, is off beam. Elites are indicated by their peer-group acceptance as such. I have not made the cut and am unwilling to entertain delusions about my status.
Nabakov says:
None yet, but I have a defacto spouse which is a start. Have I touched a raw nerve here?
Jack Strocchi said: But I am more concerned about the well-being of the sisters. There are a lot of embittered feminist spinsters who are mourning the children they never had.
You may well want to think so — but really, must you trot out this tired old turkey? The fact that Virginia Hausegger didn’t know in 2002 that a woman’s reproductive powers take a nose-dive around 35ish and just keep on diving thereafter says quite a lot about Virginia Hausegger and bugger-all about anybody else.
The ‘embittered feminist spinster’ is just a wish-fulfilment fantasy of a certain kind of man. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but actually very few feminists are embittered, except perhaps by the glacierlike pace of reform. I know a lot of embittered women, and every single one of them is married or divorced with children and no earning potential worth the name.
I know you’re enjoying using the word ’spinster’ because you think it’s an insult, but its etymology is ‘a woman who spins’, that is, earns her own living. Besides, it’s 2006 — the idea that the unmarried state bears any necessary relation to childlessness has very little traction in contemporary life.
I don’t know what’s with your links, Jack, but I remain unenlightened as to Howard has “managed to rev up the birth rate” as the link points to an error message on this blog. However, I think you consistently over-estimate the power of government to make too much difference to private decisions, and “fertility policy” is a good example. Which is odd in a self-professed Cultural Dry.
Pavlov’s Cat says on 11 March 2006 at 10:06 pm
Perhaps. But Virginia has a fair few sisters brooding over the empty nest. The recent massive upsurge in IVF for mature females is surely proof that there is something to the notion that there are many women who slept through the ringing of their biological clock are now desperately trying to catch up with motherhood. This is proved by the outcry over the proposed restriction of public funding for repeated IVF cycles to mature women and the clamour to allow lesbians, single career women and other “socially infertile� classes of female to have eligibility for IVF.
Pavlov’s Cat says
If I have put anyone’s nose out of joint with my constructions then I apologise. My intention is to deride hard-core feminism, not taunt childless women.
I have reasonably close personal experience with females suffering this tragic state. Believe me, barrenness is the last wish I would have fulfilled for any woman, whether feminist or femme.
Pavlov’s Cat says
I expect that such women are embittered about poor or unfortunate spouse and job choices, rather than their maternal status. I am all for women to earn money proportionate to their productive contribution to society. Child production is still necessary for the reproduction of social and special systems so I support efforts to reward stay-at-home mothers.
No, it’s not proved at all, Jack, unless you assume that IVF is only a treatment for “mature females” or that single and lesbian women “clamouring” for equal access to treatmet are all “mature femaies” and there’s no indication that’s the case.
I wonder also why men don’t get regularly classified as “embittered” as women and particularly feminists do in the Strocchiverse.
Another puzzle solved.
Over the past fortnight or so, I’ve noticed a few people complaining about being censored / moderated on this weblog.
I have written a few exceptionally brilliant, truly enlightening comments (ones that should have brought me offers of my own ABC program and a regular 100-column-centimetre spot in The Australian) then sent them off to Larvatus Prodeo. But, to my horror, they did not appear on LP!! Censorship! Free Speech repressed! Bias! Bloody murder! And then I noticed something funny when I mouse-clicked on the SUBMIT button; sometimes a pre-publishing text appeared, sometimes it didn’t, so I checked further and guess what……..?
May I suggest that some who complained about censorship may, sometimes, merely have a mouse or keyboard problem.
Anyway, I’ve solved my own mouse problem by using a ball-pein hammer instead of my finger to click on SUBMIT ….. but the shop is starting to run out of mouses ….
My intention is to deride hard-core feminism, not taunt childless women.
I have reasonably close personal experience with females suffering this tragic state. Believe me, barrenness is the last wish I would have fulfilled for any woman, whether feminist or femme.
Bravissimo! Such brio! Such passion! Such bathos!
Pity your words don’t match your intentions Jack. Love the way you manage to pack that dismissive “females” right next to the hyperbole of “suffering this tragic fate” in that second sentence – a deft combination of cheap point scoring and faux sympathy that. Now if you’d stuck with “women”, rather than going for the elegant variation (see Fowler’s MEU) maybe you could have stayed on message. As it is, it sounds like your really close personal experience didn’t touch you all that deeply. Save us the further details, please – not the sort of conversation we want while the port, cigars and Continental postcards are doing the rounds of the table.
And “barrenness”? Blimey, mate, take it easy on the biblical rhetoric. These days we call it infertility, in part because, thanks to feminism, whether hard-core or soft-core, we’ve learnt to value women as er, people, and not just a pair of child-bearing hips with lactatory facilities a little way upstairs.
Still, it’s good to see that you’re so generous in spirit towards the feminists and femmes. But it leaves me wondering – what about the butches?
Mark on 12 March 2006 at 4:27 pm
I am willing to make this reckless assumption based on anecdote and observation. But if the average age of the many recent IVF applicants – whether married, single or lesbian – is much below ~35 years (ie “mature”) then I am pleased to stand corrected.
Does Mark Bahnisch have any hard data to back up his querulous skepticism or are we in for another bout of Fyodor-like frivolous and “directionless quibble”?
For sure, the Wets show plenty of signs of long term embitterness and probably half of these are male. But the more strident feminists cant help drawing attention to that aspect of their being. I am thinking of the tragic case of Germanine Greer.
I’m sure I could find the data if I tried, Jack. My point is that you never bother – you “prove” your case – from some link to a story that doesn’t demonstrate what you say it does – then bolster it by anecdote. But anyway, the ongoing seminar in logical fallacies and social science method’s opposite is worthwhile, I guess.
Shorter Jack Strocchi.
While I agree Afghanistan remains a morass of fanatical terrorists, brutal warlords and epic drug harvests, this doesn’t disprove my point the WOT is going rather well there.
Lebanon is a reactionary place because of uneducated middle-aged women.
Keeping the elites breeding for the greater good of our Heimat is elementary logic. Family blood lines are important here.
Do I practice what I preach? Well I know what you are but what am I?
If Virginia Hausegger didn’t exist, Jack would have to invent her. Hang on, he has invented a whole clamouring horde of unruly and embittered women based on one sloppily written and stupid article. Quelle surprise!
Nabakov blunders badly, again:
Talk about letting the perfect being the enemy of the pretty good! What I actually said was that the WoT was going BTE and quite good relative to the relevant comparisons. The comparative historical method is the proper way to make realistic historical evaluations, at least if one wants to maintain some kind of scientific credibility.
Nabakov implies that the US’s deposing the Taliban, smashing Al Quaeda’s bases, dampening down chronic civil war, establishing basic democratic institutions and promoting women’s civil rights in a nation that has known little else but sexist, fundamentalist and ethnic civil war and despotism does not represent a significant gain in the War on Islamist terrorism.
Compare the US’s results in Afghanistan to the USSR’s result when it attempted to achieve similar ideological and geo-political goals in that benighted nation. And compare all these to the default position of the Afghan “state”: the war of all against all in the state of nature ie reactionary barbarism.
This tells us all we need to know in this case about the abysmal historical ignorance and warped priorities of the Left’s own worst enemies: themselves.
Demography is destiny in populist societies. And the problem can be sourced to certain form of fertility, not “middle aged”-ness, amongst Lebanons tribal areas.
Yes, at least until robots get to human-scale intelligence. At current rates of progress this milestone may be reached before the comparable achievement is made by a certain soggy species of political agents.
Argumentum ad hominum again. Why the creepy obsession with my private life, I wonder?
P.S. East Timor, FTI of our geo-political advisor, sits atop the Indian Ocean, not “Central Asia”. And the WoT is going quite well there, with jihadists and ethnic cleansers given a hiding by Evil King John.
Would it kill Nabakov to freely and generously admit this or does a concession to his blinkered world view in this case have to be yanked out light a rotten tooth?
Even shorter Strocchi: 2000 fact-free, supposition-laden words, peppered with outdated, irrelevant or broken links amply proves whatever point I thought I was making.
Oh and Jack, if yer gonna haul out hoary old Usenet flamewar chestnuts like “touched a nerve” and “oh, you’re obessesing about me”, do try to actually put them in a logical context. Otherwise it does so look like just more petulant shots fired off at random as another one of your grand theories of the line sinks beneath the waves, holed below the waterline by reality again.
I’d just like to add: East Timor isn’t anywhere near the Indian ocean, let alone ‘atop’ it.
*checks map*
bah! it’s kinda near. but not atop. Strocchi always wrong. Leinad sleep now.
By the way, Jack, how come I get “Kim opines” while everyone else has to make do with “X says”… should I be flattered?
… at least until robots get to human-scale intelligence. At current rates of progress this milestone may be reached before the comparable achievement is made by a certain soggy species of political agents.
Hey! Get out of their way
Hey! Of getway their out
They’re gonna want a union soon
Oil break that’s dead on noon
Hey! Their way out of get.
You won’t have to grease their palms
Shorter hours longer arms
Rise just watch them rise
The rise of the robots
Versatran Series F!
Hey! Get out of their way
Hey! Way their out of get
Metal fashioned into men
No ticker I could drop a tear
Hey! Out their way get of
Good workers they don’t get bored
Don’t get mad at bosses yet
Rise
Just watch them rise
The rise of the robots
Versatran Series F!
(The Stranglers, Hey (Rise of the Robots) from Black and White, 1978)