Rudd's honeymoon and Abbott's one night stand
December 18th, 2009 by Anna Winter | Published in Levity, Music, Politics, Women | 234 Comments
So no doubt all you ladies out there have finally felt that you have permission to admit your passion for the love rug.
“What about the Love Rug?” he demanded. “Can’t you lift your gaze?” (via)
Emboldened by Ms Albrechtsen’s words I will admit to a level of respect for the man. His beliefs really are genuine and well-considered. He, for the moment at least, seems rather incapable of bullshitting the electorate about what he thinks. On a certain level I find that more understandable and easy to empathise with than I do politicians with no discernible policy ideas or passions at all.
But invoking the bad boy fantasy in support of Abbott’s chances is more apt than Ms Albrechtsen seems to understand. Sure the fantasy of catching and taming the bad boy might be common, but almost everyone understands it as fantasy. We all know that in real life it plays out as an action-packed summer, ending in heartbreak and/or difficult life lessons (and maybe even a love child).
Of course, most of us also cast our votes for reasons other than analogies with teenage fantasy. But that’s all a little serious for a Friday afternoon. So instead, listen to Sabian Wilde do a Gregorian chant about the Mad Monk.
[audio:http://inconversationwith.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/091114_icw_madmonk.mp3]
The Liberals are having their Mark Latham before their Beazley. Testerone is a dangerous political ingredient. Wonder if Joe Hockey do better than Kim. ALP have an new ad attacking Abbott – Taking Australia Backwards. They’re taking him seriously.
“His beliefs really are genuine and well-considered.”
You must be joking???? His beliefs about the greatest issue of the day (global warming in case you’ve forgotten) are neither genuine nor well-considered, and appear to change depending on the audience.
Shheesh maybe you are angling for Janet Planet’s job when she retires, although you need to get the word count up a bit.
so you’re not a lesbian then?
Man I’d love some deconstruction of Planet Janet’s pose in the print version of the O.O. So suggestive.
Yes adrian, because my generalisation about Abbott doesn’t apply to every single policy idea he has, I am clearly just like Janet Albrechtsen.
And for the purpose of illustrating that the crack is being shared around beyond the Liberal Party and into the offices of The Australian, and at great cost to my own dignity, let me put up a recent status update of mine on Facebook* upon the elevation of THE TONY to the leadership – whereupon my young niece (one of those young women who reads Cosmo) indicates the depth of Abbott’s impact upon her consciousness.
As so ended the unknowing and unknown passion of the Casey. Which produced a vomiting kind of feeling in four different women, some Liberal, some Labor, some very young, some not.
And so, when Albrechtson victoriously sums up her call to arms with:
she may well be right. But not, at least, in the way she thinks.
*Names changed for privacy purposes
It’s impossible to be sure what Abbott is “passionate” about since he is characterized, quite rightly, as a political weathervane.
The only thing that is consistent about him is wanting to get to the top and a willingess to say or do anything in pursuit of that end.
Fran, I really think that’s the one accusation you can’t lay on Abbott.
Thanks Casey, that was brilliant!
The Albrechtsen thing is at least as treacly as the effort from the defined Miranda over at Fairfax, the other week.
Ugghh!
Anna,
from the mouths of babes, seriously.
Anna
How many positions has Abbott had on climate change? Passing the CPRS? Work choices?
The man is an out and out boofhead and intellectually indolent as well. That’s a mark of someone who doesn’t take ideas seriously because he doesn’t care.
Anna! Are you insane? What planet do you live on?
“Beliefs genuine and well considered”! The man calls himself a “weather vane” on the issue of climate change! As well he admits to having read nothing on that subject except for “nearly finishing” Ian Plimer’s book!
“Incapable of bullshitting?” Ask Malcolm Turnbull about that, and those of us in the electorate who watch gob-smacked as he now claims to believe that climate change is real and to some extent man made and not the “crap” he so recently described it. Not to worry though in a few short weeks he’ll show us how to reduce our carbon footprint without Labor’s “great big tax”, the CPRS which is the result of years of research and consultation with scientists, economists, business interests and the community at large. That’s not bullshitting the electorate?
I could go on. Are you really taken in, disarmed, by his propensity to shrug off “mistakes” and to apologise for “offending” women with his views, his asking our “forgiveness” for past errors. His “confessions” smack to me of a superficial and ritual seeking of forgiveness without genuine repentence and change. Somehow his Jesuit education missed out on the teachings of St. Augustine.
I’m trusting that your post is a light hearted spoof, perhaps aimed at relieving the tension of this fateful day. I followed up the Gregorian chant, and yes it’s apt and amusing but Janet Albrechtson’s paean for this exhibitionist and dishonest politician which you say emboldened you to admit your liking for him is just nauseating.
Tony Abbott works hard on those pecs of his and he’s proud of them. Trust me, I know what it takes to stay looking like that at fifty plus. The hours he spends on cycling, surfing and in the gym keeping his body beautiful would be better spent in reading and research, particularly about climate change, for his own and all our sakes.
Agreed with Fran.
“He, for the moment at least, seems rather incapable of bullshitting the electorate about what he thinks.”
Incapable because he’s a shithouse liar, not for want of trying or conviction.
He does have the conviction that anything Tony Abbott says is right; and that particular Gibraltar will remain steadfast regardless how frequently the ship of reality crashes ‘pon it. However this characteristic is hardly unique in Parliament House.
Patricia, it was supposed to be a light-hearted post, but at the same time, I stand by that particular point.
Workchoices is proof of that. He’s basically said they’ll lose the name, but keep the policy. On the Today show a week or so back he was asked about his views on covenant marriage and was unable to stop himself from stopping at no, a Liberal Government would not be introducing them, and continued into a but… you know… they’d be good…
Seriously, writing Abbott off as lacking in policy convictions and only in it for the perks of office is to completely misunderstand the enemy, and lose sight of the fact that his terrifying beliefs are genuine and that he’d introduce them if he could.
I think it’s worth considering why the Libs might want people to think that way about him. A conviction politician who genuinely wants to work to reshape the nation according to his beliefs is much more frightening than your typical polly who changes his mind with the polls.
“….than your typical polly who changes his mind with the polls.”
Are we talking about Weathervane here?
Mind you, he wouldnt be the first to do a neat line in “conviction” polly while in fact being the breeze-sniffer par excellence. Howard comes to mind. Its quite a skill to create that impression while shifting all over the shop.
Abbott’s problem is his ‘convictions’ are anathema to the electoral middle ground. Im prepared to go on record, once again, to predict 2010 will produce the lowest coalition vote since 1983.
I think both both perspectives are true about Abbott. He’s a weathervanve about climate change because he doesn’t care much about it, so he switches accordin to expediency. As you said Lefty E, he has his convictions that he can’t hide and they are indeed anathema to the mainstream.
Janet Albrechtsen has a strange idea about what women may look for in the person who conducts the government of a modern, sophisticated and diverse polity.
Should a woman want a person who “presents as a bureaucrat full of complicated, contorted language. He is spin personified, with every phrase brainstormed by teams of advisers” [Rudd] less than a man?
Why would a woman be less inclined than a man to view these qualities as desirable in a PM? After all, he is elected to run the country, not to give foot massages.
And then this:
Oh.My.God
Shorter Planet: If you vote for the Kewpie Doll, you may be a dyke.
The Mad Monk may melt Nigella’s fondue, but does that mean he can govern a nation?
How dumb does Planet think women are?
But is Tony a lipsniger?
We were waiting for you, Comrade.
Speaking of which, pretty sure I saw Missy H. in Northcote the other day!
That’s bullshit, Izquierdista, you’re being deliberately unpleasant.
That hirsute Tony You-Know-Who
Is shaggier than an African Gnu
But any hygienic gal
Thinks that Abbott is swell
For he’s as good for a floss as a screw.
Well I never – what a coincidence! Was just remarking to better half last night, that someone once told me women have 2 different approaches to what they want in a man.
On the one hand, the typical tall-dark-passionate type for sexy flings. On the other hand, someone who is sensible, responsible, reliable and good company for the longer term. I was speculating which it was, that Aussie women would apply, when voting for a potential PM?
First quizzical question from better half “Was this proposition put up by a man or a woman?”
Meself: “Errm, a man actually.”
Himself: “Humph, of course…(pause). Presumably Australian women have enough sense to use their heads when voting for a potential PM”
I take that as a vote of confidence in Aussie women! :)
But Liamista! We sneeze together, eat cheese together!
Cos we’re the special two.
Janet: What ya gunna repress Tony?
Tony: Whaddya got?
It may be in the eye of the beholder, but that rings much truer for me.
The only thing Rudd is passionate about is getting good service on RAAF-1.
I too have a “love rug”.
But mine swishes to the left
What occurs in this reported ‘Passion of the Tony’?
Well that’s right Craig as Abbott called himself a weathervane and that would, along with everything else he says, never ring true.
Albrechtsen is a loyal girl. A loyal, reactionary Liberal-fawning girl.
Liam, I’m almost afraid to ask – what is a “lipsniger”?
Patricia, an in house joke
And whats more Patricia.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lipsniger
Patricia, comments 695-700 on that thread sum it up.
lol @ Rx. But we should listen to what she says, cos her booty too is badonkadonkalicious.
Abbott a love rug? My God!But I guess if his penis is out of proportion with the rest of his body like his ears, Well! This bloke has all the sexual appeal of a dress shop manikin.And on top of all his other faults, he is as rude as the day is long.
The only thing consistent about Abbott, he wouldn’t get a root in a wood yard.
Vlad (Putin) the Impaler must surely be the lovely Janet’s true blue lefty bare-chested satanic mechanic fantasy. Tosser Abbot is just a projection.
I can only assume Janet hasn’t seen the man walk, sorry, shamble…
“Yes adrian, because my generalisation about Abbott doesn’t apply to every single policy idea he has, I am clearly just like Janet Albrechtsen.”
No, because you might be ‘angling for her job’ (a joke obviously) doesn’t mean you are ‘just like her’. Can’t imagine why you come to that conclusion. Nor did I state or imply that your generalisation applied to ‘every single policy idea’ he has which is why I used the example of the most significant issue that we face as symptomatic of his lack of conviction.
And your generalisation about Mr Abbott’s convictions, and ‘inability to bullshit the electorate’, is just so wide of the mark that I assumed it was some kind of joke. Mr Abbott takes the art of political bullshit to a higher level, beyond the reach of mere mortals.
Still if you want to swallow the hard right meme of Abbott being a ‘conviction’ politician, go right ahead.
I swallow* the meme of him being a conviction politician because I firmly believe he is one.
I don’t like his convictions, which makes me afraid, but I don’t think he’s an empty suit.
As an abortion rights campaigner and general feminazi, I have paid attention to Abbott for quite a long time, and I feel confident of my assessment.
But sorry for missing your joke.
*I’d like to impose a general ban on that word for the rest of this thread. Ew.
One Spring
does not a swallow* make.
“I will admit to a level of respect for the man.”
I so doing you are setting back the feminist cause by over 300 years. The man is every bogon dickhead’s women hating fantasy. He will not prevail.
“He’s basically said they’ll lose the name, but keep the policy.”
Jeeebus H Christ in season, and you’re trying to paint him as a “conviction” politician? You’ve wound yourself (dare I say it) into a Devine post-modern justification for your love of the rug.
‘… he wouldnt be the first to do a neat line in “conviction” polly while in fact being the breeze-sniffer par excellence. Howard comes to mind.’
As does professional maverick John dipshit McCain, who also prefers ‘convictions’ (i.e. uninformed prejudices) over properly considered conclusions. Let’s hope the fate visited by electors upon Howard and McCain also awaits Abbott.
Albrechtsen’s piece epitomises everything that is contemptible about much contemporary ‘journalism’. Virtually every sentence is presented as a statement of fact when it is actually opinion. Opinion, moreover, that is either plain wrong at worst or highly contestable prejudice at best. The result is a stomach-churning piece of creative fiction like you might find at a website devoted to celebrities.
Honestly, don’t the contributors here understand the ramifications of their constant linking to second rate News Ltd hacks like Albrechtsen? You’re endorsing them as Australia’s pre-eminent intellectuals. They write and you react, thereby reinforcing the perceived relationship of community opinion leader and backseat sniper. It’s beyond pathetic.
Does anyone know how politics works for the people who are in the fray? Anna is a committed feminist. But not even she is capable of setting back feminism 300 years by admitting that there is something to be said for someone who actually has principles even if you hate those principles. Of course it takes some degree of nuance to understand that even if you hate everything a committed ideologue will stand for, you can still have a measure of respect for your enemy because he holds to some standards, however frightening they be. Because standards are actually rare in politics. Even if those standards absolutely suck. Anyone who has worked in the field will know this. Do you think great political adversaries have not respected each other, even if they abhorred each other’s views? He’s a true ideologue as opposed to a poll driven careerist who will sway where ever the votes are, like Hockey or like Howard, for that matter.
What’s so hard about that?
Have some human compassion, Ken. You and I might live in a real state – but most of the ppl round here live in places where the only newspaper in town is The Australian.
But wbb why allow a bunch of know-nothing prima donnas set the agenda in the first place? What’s more stimulating and informative, reading an original post by Robert or Brian or whomever about climate change, or reading someone’s critique of what an idiot has written in ‘The Australian’ together with obligatory link? I have no interest in reading anything written by any News Ltd columnist and I’m afraid I have trouble respecting anyone who seems to obsessively read the crap so they can write posts telling us all about it.
I’ll admit I like him. I fonly for who he is…oh.
Heck even Kevin and Julia like him. They’d rather be around him than Tanner and Swan.
Bless you, Casey.
One need only come to LP to see sexism at work. I honestly feel like giving up sometimes, because I think some of you really don’t read my posts anywhere near as carefully as you read the men who write here (or at all). And sometimes it’s fun to play with the idiots, but sometimes it’s seriously just tiresome.
Um my comment was aimed at Janet not you Anna. Hope I’m not one of them, but I guess that’s for others to judge. I actually quite liked your love child reference, poetic with gentle nuances.
Heh. Thanks.
And back at you, my hissyfit was not aimed at you ;) The word badonkadonkalicious is not to be sneezed at.
Gee, Casey#48, he doesn’t “see” people tho.
Don’t you think “convictions” are devalued when they qualify themselves or are predicated themselves on at least implied, if not actual, coercion and force?
What sould we think as to at least some of the outworkings of his “principles”; all the skullduggery that went on under Howard, from slandering Kirby J, to setting Paulin Hanson up.
At least Hanson wore her prejudices on her sleeve. Others rather dress them up in the ermine of “morality” which is actually just the outward shell of hollow piety.
For those curious, this writer has similar concerns as to some Labor leaders, to boot.
John Howard wasn’t an ideologue? Apart from when he first entered parliament 30 years ago announcing it as his lifelong dream to destroy the Unions? Got control of the senate brought in WorkChoices & bang, gone just the second PM to ever lose his seat, political career over. If it wasn’t for Howard’s staunch ideology the Libs would still be in government.
And what Ken Lovell said about Ltd News. I said this during the ’07 election campaign when peeps were losing their minds over Dennis Shanahan’s spinning, never quite understood why people here pay so much attention to their bullshit especially The Australian which no one reads much less buys.
For those who object to Ltd News links, I offer the example of Karl Kraus: staunch satirist in 1930s Vienna, pre-Godwin. His tiny paper excoriated the dominant, bourgeois newspaper of the city (the MSM of his day). His critique often appeared the next day, as he worked overnight to ridicule the afternoon edition. As close to blogging as print allowed.
He pointed out that the MSM pontificated on sexual morality while carrying dozens of ads for brothels. Hypocrisy! But that was only the most obvious of his targets….
In the face of the banality and horror of Adolf Godwin, he wrote, “this is beyond satire” and went into recess. A giant writer. The merest garbage can be a starting point for critique or drollery.
“Of course it takes some degree of nuance to understand that even if you hate everything a committed ideologue will stand for, you can still have a measure of respect for your enemy because he holds to some standards, however frightening they be.”
Well that’s just the point. I don’t happen to think that Abbott holds to any standards, apart from political expediency.
And what Ken Lovell said about News Ltd. I’m sure that they love to see themselves as setting whatever agenda it is they think that they are setting.
Abbott compared with Howard.
Yes Howard was driven by ideology. His success depended on looking like he wasn’t. Hilariously, it took Howard decades to learn that trick, despite the fact that he always wanted to be Liberal leader. For much of his career the funny little man genuinely believed that most Australians agreed with him. By the time he sprung WorkChoices on Australia he had grown tired of living a lie. The truth destroyed Howard.
Abbott is also driven by ideology. Because he never seriously plotted to win the Liberal leadership until recently, he didn’t care that people knew he was driven by ideology.
Now, with the Liberal Party in deep crisis, Abbott finds himself its somewhat reluctant leader. He is smart enough to know that his ideology is an electoral liability.
Hence the need to retrofit another image of Abbott to popular perceptions of him.
Hence the Albrechtsen article (and no doubt many others like it).
Will the truth eventually destroy Abbott too?
So there you have it ladies: bugger policy, you can’t deny your subterranean longings for the brutish rough-diamond. The Australian seems to have dropped all pretensions about being a serious broadsheet is now basically a Barbara Cartland novel. Maybe from now on it will be sold with Fabio’s wind-blown locks on the cover. I hope it doesn’t degenerate into an outright bodice-ripper……what the hell, even this confirmed heterosexual bloke can’t deny the Weather Vane sends my heart all a-flutter.
There’s a dreary predictability about right-wing apologetics. It reminds me of all the valiant and deeply improbable efforts to make Dubya look good. My favourite title: “Bush Country: How Dubya Became a Great President While Driving Liberals Insane” by John Podhoretz. That was written in 2004….I little prematurely perhaps.
Just a late meta-entry to put my hand up in support of Anna’s (and Casey’s) comments. Especially @ 51.
I thought the reception Anna got, gentlemen, was somewhat less than, err, “gentlemanly”. The locker-room atmosphere around here, while bracing, often falls far short of being a, quote unquote, safe space. And I’m one of the worst offenders, so I know when enough’s enough.
**Cue accusations that I have put back women’s rights over 9000 years by saying this**
And yes; Abbott is dangerous because he believes in what he’s doing. In case you hadn’t noticed, he’s “assassinated” Malcolm Turnbull, twice, in 10 short years. Over issues many of us at LP actually care about. And yet some of us can seriously state that the man who was a principal player in the defeat the Republic, and decapitated the prime-mover of the ETS from opposition, is no threat?
He’s easy to laugh at and dismiss, right up until the point he’s got the dagger at your throat.
In that context, Anna has the measure of the man far better than the irrelevant fluff by Albrechtsen, or the woeful underestimations of many of the commenters here.
And, may I just add, harrrrumph.
And yes, we all understand the know thine enemy line, but surely it’s better to know your enemy for what they actually are, rather than what they would like you to think they are.
All this conviction politician crap being pushed by the usual suspects in the right wing media ignores the fact that as a government minister and opposition spokesperson, Abbott has clearly failed to deliver on anything remotely resembling meaningful policy. So where exactly are these convictions?
Look Anna, I don’t want any trouble. You leave, I do. Okay?
Good, now that’s out of the way, let’s look at this frakkin quote here:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/12/01/11331/#comment-841131
Well who the hell be that? Liam, the beret that’s who. And what happened when he said that? Nothing, nada, niente, and no I don’t frakking believe the pearl clutching on this thread when a woman said it.
Frakk it, I’ve had enough of this sexist crapola for one weekend. I’m off to adopt my cat. They call it Gigi. No frakking way in hell is my cat going to be called Gigi. Im callin it Ripley. Any problems with that????
Wonder why when a bloke says it all the blokes all shut the frakk up.
Counter-proposition, Casey: nobody reads a word I say, while The Goddess of Reason is a much more interesting interlocutor. It’s just as likely.
I knew a student politican called Gigi, once, BTW, and she was a frightening, hard-stacking, ballot-rigging, funds-embezzling crook. Very cat-like in a lot of ways.
@62 Yes si…Ma’am! :D
And the cat, whatever you call it, will retains its secret true name.
Though its only a single example, which has been noted before, the effective banning of RU486 is a salient example of Abbott’s conviction politics. Yes Harradine played the fall guy in the Senate, but Abbott as the Minister had ample opportunity via his ministerial discretion by tweaking regulation rather than legislation to have quietly side-stepped it. He did not.
Nor let us forget his role in Howard’s ban on lesbian & single women having access to IVF. There was NO economic imperative at play here; no medical evidence to support such a ban; merely a conviction that such people were unfit to be allowed access to the same medical procedures that ‘normal’ nice married hetero people had.
But perhaps this doesn’t count as conviction politics effectively intruding upon policy as they are ‘women’s issues’ – not worth analysing? Anna is right – he is a conviction politician and those convictions have driven policy decisions. Which is why, buffoon he may be, he should not be under-estimated. Albrechtsen’s article is about playing the man, not the ball – because that is frankly a safer option for the right to pursue than having those convictions carefully and thoroughly exposed and explained.
Lipsnigger, our Tone? The Mad Monk, the blue ribbon boxer of Oxford? Surely you jest Liam? That’s a concept too hard to swallow, even as I lie dreaming of beaches.
I’m with Ken about the linkage to the Oz. It’s such a tiresome little rag why do we feel compelled to let it set the agenda? For all her dubious journalistic skills the Planet may have easily just printed the headline I Want Tony NOW! Her column is one shallow egotistical piece of crap.
But on the central idea of Anna’s that Abbott is a man with certain qualities including his well maintained torso and direct talking style I concur that he deserves a nod of recognition. However in recognising the things about Our Tone that make him the gleam in the Planet’s eye, it should also be noted that the same qualities invoke a very different reaction in me and I suspect, in a number of others as well.
No Mercurius, it’s not possible to underestimate Tony Abbott.
He has no permanent ideas, but merely a permananet desire to be loved by others enough to conclude that he is relvant.
Sadly for him, he really doesn’t understand how much of a plaything of others he is
FWIW Anna, I liked the post and agree that our Tone is deeply ideological.
I’m interested in the phenomenon of the conservative cheerleader like Planet Janet, who plays on the virility of conservative male leaders – and they have to be ideological to have that appeal. But they’re not really cheerleaders – they have their own commentary on the same topic and give as good as they get – it’s a hot bodies/hot minds thing. Anne Coulter in the US springs to mind. And there’s a discourse of feminism going on behind that. Don’t know what they thought of John McCain nominating his wife for Miss Beauty Chip “I told her with a little luck, she could be the only woman ever to serve as both the first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip.” – from the look on her face, she was trying not to dry-retch.
Don’t s’pose the cheerleading I’ve seen on LP about Julia Gillard is all that different.
I dunno why, when Tone shows a bit of contingency on topics political, he can’t be ideological. What is it with this black/white thing 100% one way or the other (those of you who have argued Tone isn’t ideological)? Are there simpleton pills in the water or something?
Springs to mind that when Tone and Julia used to flirt in Parliament, one of the things that Gillard could do to Tone is to use his ideology against his sense of political expediency. Tone would want to appear moderate on an issue and she would needle him to get his real viewpoint to show (or he’d lose patience). His rug was her doormat.
Howard became really good at combining ideology and expediency – an ideological warrior who was hugely expedient when he needed to be. Who said Tone couldn’t develop that skill? I find his ideologies scary and if he got better at playing that game, he would be twice as scary.
Hot bodies – hot minds: the pheromones of modern conservatism.
The dagger will be at our throats. Anna’s right. Abbott needs to be respected because he could be very dangerous. One needs to know one’s enemy.
OTOH, if he (and the rest of his gaggle of dark imps) keep on doing really stupid things we might might be lucky and not have to worry.
Tell that to MT, twice, (1999 & 2009).
Please elaborate, Fran? A stooge for crypto-Catholics? Pell’s Puppet? Minchin’s Muppet? Where are you going with this?
The thing is, Roger the Ghost, although I haven’t actually read Planet’s piece (and won’t – she’d raise my blood pressure to dangerous levels for a man celebrating his 59th birthday), she’s merely the public face of the conservatives’ love-affair with the Fuehrerprinzip. They just adore a strong, masculine leader (particularly if he’s a bit of a thug), and the Mad Monk fits the bill.
Those of you who don’t realise just what an ideologue he is should revisit the abortion pill thing. You’ll recall, I’m sure, how many times he lied during that, claiming that his religious beliefs weren’t influencing his role as Minister in charge of denying women’s reproductive rights.
All this frakkin locker-room talk is offending my
Catholicfeminist sensibilities.Happy birthday, DI(NR)!
And can I just second Anna’s comment at 51. I’ve been reading LP since 2004 and it’s been dismally clear to me for years that some, not all, of the male regulars at this blog simply do not read the comments made by women. And I’m quite sure that’s one of the reasons why this blog is much more of a Boys’ Own Space than it was five years ago.
I’ve been reading LP since 2004 and it’s been dismally clear to me for years that some, not all, of the female regulars at this blog simply do not read the comments made by men. And I’m quite sure that’s one of the reasons why this blog is much more of a Girls’ Own Space than it was five years ago.
Thanks, PC. I intend to celebrate it by getting drunk. (No surprises there, it’s what I do most nights.) Back on track, regrettably, you’re right that a lot of the blokes here don’t read (or at least take seriously) the comments by women.
Thank you, Silky, for that beautiful illustration of the point.
Anna Winter quoting Janet Albrechtsen:
Like Ms Winter and Ms Albrechtsen I like Abbott’s personality which is a breath of fresh air in the spin-doctored hermetically sealed chamber of governance. He is a mans man, which probably gives him cross-gender personal appeal. Quite to the contrary of the “Abbott’s problem with women” nonsense currently rattling around the Left-liberal echo chamber.
But personal appeals is one thing, political appeal is another. Australians tend to vote for politicians who represent a safe bet rather than people we would like to spend a night out on the town with. We also like our governing parties to be united, not divided. Abbott-L/NP loses on both counts.
Lets look as the most successful PMs in recent AUS history, going by length of tenure. The rule is the more boring the person the more successful the politician. Menzies of course ruled us for what seemed like 900 years over the course of three decades and no one could call him an all-round Aussie bloke. Then there was Fraser, the Easter Island statue man himself. Followed by Hawke, but only after he became a born-again bore and renounced boozing, cussing and womanizing. Then Howard, who even admirers like myself find hard to love. And now Rudd, possibly the most colorless individual to ever hold the highest office in the land.
Contrast that with socially exciting politicians like Whitlam, Kennett and Keating who burn brightly for a brief moment but quickly fizzle out with the public patience.
I have already predicted that the L/NP’s failure to support the ETS will cause them lose the next election by a landslide margin 54-46 TPP. Abbott’s undoubted sex appeal will make no difference to this coming disaster one way or another.
I’ve reread Anna’s post, and I see where I made my mistake. Anna starts out with:
This post was addressed to the ladies at LP. Anna never wanted the men to read her post at all.
Let me apologize on behalf of all the men at LP for having participated in this thread.
Keep digging, Silky.
Gosh, for a post put up under the ‘levity’ tag, this all got seeewious, didn’t it?
Well, yes. And on reflection, I’m starting to wonder if Janet, who does after all know her audience rather well, is actually playing to the (male) gallery with her strange comments like “…many of these same women may find themselves muttering quietly among their closest girlfriends that, secretly, they find Abbott attractive…” (emphasis added).
Because, as every Australian male knows, when teh wimmins are secretly talking in secret amongst their secret selves, with their close, close girlfriends, you know, the way they do, they’re secretly talking about us in secret, because, everything is, after all, all about us.
I’d say it’s Janet’s reader-friendly subtext, but it’s more of a completely explicit statement, that teh wimmins are always a-votin’ for all kinds of hysterical, irrational reasons, compared with men’s so-obvious-it-need-not-be-stated, rationality…
…So c’mon lads, let’s play the game of male electoral rationality: Who would you turn National for?
Mulberry boy I read your comments all the time, don’t be silly. Of course we want you here.
And such is your brilliance, that I did what you said over on the St Marys thread.
I went down to that parish priest round the corner. I told him to not to go near the children I don’t have at that catholic primary school they don’t go to, and to most certainly and under no circumstances, NOT provide them with any religious instruction as they do not exist.
Let me tell you, you were right. Feminists should just listen to you all the time.
The walls of St Peter’s Basilica fractured as I spoke. and the Catholic church fell down in a heap and I struck a blow for the all the Catholic and non Catholic feminists you care so much about cause that’s what you really wanted when you told me to do that right?
So you know you are so brilliant mulberry boy. You attacked me for being a) a crone without teeth b) a catholic mother inflicting abuse on my children. I am surprised you bypassed the maid stage all together. Wouldn’t be cause I swear like a frakking trooper on crack lately would it? Not ladylike enough for you is it?
Well let me see if I can frakkin tone it down a frakk. Make it more a boys space for you. Maybe then you will share your mulberry wine with me.
Who is that, Mercurius? Talk about blue eyes with nobody home!
DI, read the JPG filename in the link, and try teh Google. So I take it your steely male rationality is holding, so far? ;)
Sorry, Casey, I don’t share your fetish for mulberries.
I deserved that, Mercurius.
She had her legs broken because she was too short? My steely male rationality is in no danger. She gives women a bad name.
Orly David?
And to whom does Tony Abbott give a bad name, hmmm?
Casey, can it be possible that he doesn’t know?
Oh. oh. That’s the best laugh this week.
Oh here we go with the whisper campaign.
Tony Abbott’s conviction politics/abiding obsessions are on display here again today:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/all-kids-must-read-the-bible-federal-opposition-leader-tony-abbott-says/story-e6frf7l6-1225811885777
ZOMG @88! They’re whispering again! To their closest girlfriends! In secret! About US!!!
Come on silkworm, that’s a bit harsh. It’s obvious that is in reference to the targeted audience of Janet’s article.
Look I don’t know if there is a culture round here or not that is conducive to women or not. I find it hard to figure out gender, and incidentally assumed you were female until now. Pavlov’s Cat I assumed was male until I saw her commenting at Hoydens; and now quantum physics is irrevocable gendered female for me. I don’t know why either, but I can’t really see it as a bad thing ;-).
Well, yes, Mercurius. I thought we’d already established that (implicitly).
Actually, Mark @ 90, I think Abbott’s almost right there (for entirely the wrong reasons, of course), as long as it’s the King James version.
The language is beautiful, and, deconstructed, it would provide a useful antidote to fundamentalism.
Oh shit Mark, I just read that article. How does one describe our Tone?
A “man’s man”? I wouldn’t. I’d consider a man’s man someone who is comfortable with themselves, and to some degree that involves having an understanding and tolerance for different views. I’d put Anna in that category, and some of the other ladies around here, so please don’t even threaten to leave; occaisionally we all do need a literal beating with the proverbial broomstick.
@85-87. I lol’d.
@94 – David, Abbott appears to be gesturing to the argument that particular phrases aren’t commonly recognisable, etc, which is one often made, and one which I think represents a species of cultural nostalgia which can’t be revivified by the education system, no matter how hard one tried. Teaching Shakespeare doesn’t have the same cultural meaning as it once had, for instance.
At Griffith, we have a core curriculum for first year students in the Arts Faculty (Arts, Journalism, Communications, Criminal Justice degrees) which includes Effective Writing, New Communications Technologies, World History and a course called ‘Great Books’. The intent is to impart some skills not necessarily taught in high school, and some of the sort of cultural and historical literacy that it’s thought students need as part of a humanistic education. I’m in two minds as to whether the ‘Great Books’ (it’s one of those ‘this fortnight it’s Chaucer’ type subjects) really achieves anything much at all.
But that sort of course wouldn’t be the place for the Bible, and not just because it does actually have real implications for Muslim and Jewish and other students, as well as the great majority who are religiously apathetic.
If one were to teach the Bible in this context, it would have to be as a literary and historical text, which I’m sure is not what Tone intends (“bible study”). And the KJV, while beautiful to read, is not up to scratch as a translation in 2009.
Incidentally, happy birthday!
Mark @ 90, I wondered about this bit:
I take it he’ll also be advocating compulsory reading of the Koran, the Torah, the Vedas and what-all else. Super idea, I’m all for it.
Hey ladies in the place I’m callin’ out to ya
Never was a silkworm througher and througher
There’s more to him than you’ll ever understand
And he’s got more shoulder chips than Denis Shanahan
Tony Abbott, Tony Jones or even Jenny Macklin
He relates all his lines back to hatin’ on the Vatican
Hey ladies
Get funky
[Cowbell]
Yep! Comparative religion including a literary/cultural/historical approach to such texts would be a good idea, Dr Cat! Note that Tone wants the Western Civ type thing, though, if it’s not out and out religious instruction.
Anyway, I’d underline the point you and Casey were making with reference to that article – Abbott does bang on with the same stuff over and over. There aren’t any polls telling him he’d win elections with “women should have more babies” and “covenant marriage”. I have no doubt that he is a conviction politician, and I can’t work out what’s invested in denying it. It doesn’t mean, as a number of people have eloquently explained, that one has to agree with the said convictions.
Great link, Mark. Abbott is straight out of the box with this:
I’m sure he has timed his remarks especially for Christmas, but, if I can use another religious metaphor, he has crucified himself politically. Is he deliberately trying to incite the Teachers’ Unions, or is he really that oblivious to the consequences of what he says?
And then we come to this gem:
Tony is playing the old let’s-breed-more-Catholics/Christians game that is sure to excite (sexually?) his base, but again, politically, he is going to cop serious flak from environmentalists and feminists.
Which bible? There’s the rub! Does Tone mean the Vulgate, the Revised Catholic version, the Good News Bible or that naughty one that got itself and its publisher burnt, for including the commandment “Thou shalt commit adultery”? Or maybe Tone means all kids should learn to read the original texts, in the original Hebrew, so that the sort of misunderstandings that arise from error of translation and printers glosses can be avoided.
I must apologise for introducing the mulberry motif; it was careless play, not intended to harm any worms, cats, trees or bushes.
Not intended to offend you Mr silkworm.
PC, I’d be even happier if the Canon included the Dao De Ch’ing and Sun Tzu’s “Art of War”. The Confucian Analects and the I Ching wouldn’t go astray, either. Or the Buddhist Sutras. Tibetan Book of the Dead? Why not?
Why not throw in The God Delusion?
Pavlovs Cat sure said a mouthful with that comment about the Great Texts, significant to any one watching some of the fascinating docos on SBS or ABC on Islam as bedrock for civilisation, philosophy and science.
Whatever the skyscrapers, electronic gizmos and so forth, we are still a strikingly provincial and parochial civilisation. Most don’t know the bases on which our good fortune is founded and amongst those who do know, there are sections unprepared to admit that mighty “us” should have ever needed to learn anything, particularly swarthy “others”, from other parts of global civisation, let alone acknowledge or examine it to find out more about the extent of our own ignorance.
Talk about “medieval”.
Thanks for the birthday wishes, Mark. I’m going out for a curry feast (for once not cooked by me) with the Lady Friend and a couple of sons.
The God Delusion, while interesting and worthwhile, is not really old enough to part of the Canon. It’s not sufficiently well-written either. Dawkins is great at explaining how the world works, but it’s not exactly deathless prose.
The MMonk will at least appeal to those who ‘think’ in terms of “who would you rather have in the foxhole with you, Krudd or MM?”.
Nothing to do with the orice of fish or suitability to run the country but it’s hard to imagine (go on, TRY it) Krudd getting his hands dirty or his torse sweaty fire fighting or life saving.
I doubt that he has sufficient blood in his veins to get excited over a policy document.
On the other hand, amphibious, which of them would you rather have in charge of diplomatically averting a foxhole situation in the first place?
Reminds me. Have I missed it? Where’s the annual furore about some inner-suburban council not showing enough xmas piety with the size of their street decorations.
Whassamatta with red-blooded church-goers this year?
The Catholics came out with their manufactured controversy a couple of days ago:
http://media.nzherald.co.nz/webcontent/image/jpg/161209splPOSTER_460x230.jpg
On the topic of having different religious texts in schools, this is already part of the NSW curriculum (and probably other states as well – I haven’t checked). It is called “General Religious Education” but it only holds for public schools. I’m not sure how much it is practised in NSW public schools – there doesn’t appear to be much information about this on the web. In any case, religious schools simply ignore it. Most Catholic schools indulge in “Special Religious Education” where they push the articles of their own faith.
Mercurious,#80, mentioned reversing the rationale.
“Who would you turn National for”?
Well, must admit, after my mate dragged me in for a pit stop at a pub running strippers last evening on the way to the soccer, I could have almost mentioned three possibilities, except that they were all shaven round the pubes.
I actually asked one about this in conversation later, a lovely girl, but she looked surprised when I expressed that particular preference concerning this.
Ok. Seriously. Would the Nats go any further than a Britney Spears or Planet Janet ? A defined Miranda?
Probably Sarah Palin would be their answer.
How about an Angelina Jolie, Mercurious?
No. I’d vote for a political party on policy and on what I perceived to be the character of the leader.
Hence I would have had no trouble voting for Anna Bligh.
But that was PRE the QLD election…
Is it cause it’s Christmas?
Never mind.
Could you at least try to pretend you have gone completely insane, Mulberry boy?
It was a bunch of Liberal Anglicans what did it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/17/joseph-mary-billboard-god-is-a-hard-act-to-follow_n_395343.html
Because Mulberry Boy, she stayed a virgin ever after the babe was born, according to the Catholics.
Geez, if your gonna hate the Catholics at least hate the right hoodoos.
Frakkin nuts….
Cause, if you could successfully pretend you were insane, then I would have to refrain from slam dunking you back into my cardboard box every five seconds.
Further to the discussion back upthread a ways about ignoring Teh Ladies, the phenomenon is clearly not confined to LP. The more sharp-eyed among you may have noticed the last item in James Jeffrey’s “Strewth!” column in the Weekend Oz. The item is headed ‘Red shifts’ and reads as follows:
Why yes, Jeffrey. Perhaps it is time to start keeping a closer eye.
Happy Birthday DI(nr).
Heard a plaintive song from an upstairs window across from The Manly Daily
He left a metal cilise and a coarse brush next to a note
That said “use these down to your bones”
And before we knew we had a bleeding skin and it seemed easy being clean like him
We’re thinking maybe this one knows better than we do?
A Trinity going round in a verbal circle
He tries to double-dutch us so we’ll fit
And doesn’t that sound familiar? Doesn’t that hit a nerve close to home?
Doesn’t that make you shiver; the way things could be going?
And doesn’t it feel peculiar when everyone wants a little more?
And so that I do remember to never go that far,
Could you leave us with some scars on the thigh?
Next time he came with a bag of tricks, and smelled like sugar and
spoke like the ABC,
And he told us don’t trust them (the ALP), trust me
Then he pulled at our fears one by one, looked at our inside legs
clicking his tongue as he does, saying
“Tsk, ah, tsk. All this could bring the country undone.”
A Trinity going round in a verbal circle
He tries to double-dutch us so we’ll fit
And doesn’t that sound familiar? Doesn’t that hit a nerve close to home?
Doesn’t that make you shiver; the way things could be going?
And doesn’t it feel peculiar when everyone wants a little more?
And so that I do remember to never go that far,
Could you leave us with some scars on the thigh?
If you want to paint Tony as a convinction politician because he has certain aims he wants to achieve in politics and sticks to these, then really all pollies are convinction politicians. It’s a misuse of the term.
To my mind, a convinction politician has strong beliefs which they are upfront on and consistent about.
That’s not our Tone.
Yes, he’s against abortion, for bigger families, etc etc but he doesn’t run on those issues. He doesn’t stand up at election time and say “Elect me, I’ll limit abortions.” When he has the power to do so, he acts in ways to support his beliefs, but he doesn’t broadcast them.
He doesn’t say “Vote for me, I’m Catholic, I talk to Pell all the time” – instead, he hides his visits to Pell and is obviously disoncerted when asked about them.
And he doesn’t say “Elect me and we’ll reinstate WorkChoices”. Like Peacock, he’s going to change the label, and that’s all he’ll admit.
Someone who is so hard to pin down on policy issues and who changes his mind several times a day (comparing Copenhagen to Munich in the morning, repudiating this in the afternoon; saying he wouldn’t contest the leadership if Hockey ran and then doing so anyway; supporting an ETS in the lead up to an election and then deciding it’s crap) may be ideologically driven but is not a convinction politician.
A convinction politician is loud and proud about their beliefs and consistent about them. Sometimes Tony is loud, sometimes he’s proud and sometimes he’s consistent. He occasionally manages to be two at once. I don’t think he ever gets three ducks in a row.
He’s an ideologue. It’s a different thing.
The Catholics have their controversy. It gives them the opportunity to restate their faith.
Actually this billboard incident is small potatoes. The real media coup for them is the announcement that Mary McKillop will be sainted, just in time for Xmas. It will be good for the sale of rosaries.
PS. Casey, next time you have a drop of Eucharistic wine, you can pretend its mulberry wine, and think of me. This is my blood, etc.
I’m struggling to dissect the difference between conviction and bravado.
Casey and Silkworm, I reckon you two should kiss and make up before you engage in pseudo-cannibalistic rituals. Or at least share a peace pipe.
The The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima is a good movie imho.
@mehitabel,
A crypto-conviction politician then?
Does His Grace mean “just”? Doesn’t he really mean “ever”?
And if His Grace really means “ever”, then Mary’s and Joseph’s was never really a marriage under the later formulated canon laws regulating marriage.
Joseph or Mary could later have appealed to St. Peter, as first pope, to have this pseudo-marriage annulled on the grounds of non-consummation.
I can’t stop laughing; that billboard is terrific. There is no other place on earth quite like enzed. Did they commission that? Did someone say to the painter “No, make Joseph look more like a dud root and Mary needs to look long suffering too and roll another one while you’re at it”. Or do they order these things from a web site somewhere? Oh, dear. John Clark isn’t a comedian – he’s just being himself.
I was once forced by my family to go to church and listen to some guy giving his testimony (they were hoping to re convert me).
The man stood up, looked squarely at the congregation and said: “There comes a time in every person’s life when God puts the finger on them. And when God fingers you, you had better respond!”
Anna @ 51
But playing the sexism card does set feminism back. Casey’s was a reasoned response to comments; I don’t think she tried the “men don’t understand’ type line anywhere in her post. But your response to hers suggests a ‘we girls against the legion of male idiots’ approach, which is not only playing the victim but wimpy as well.
Maybe people don’t read your posts as attentively as you’d like because of something to do with the quality of your posting – the assumption I tend to make when people don’t pay attention to me!
If you don’t like the arguments against you, and you assume that the arguments have been made by men, respond to the arguments and not the gender.
Women need to win respect (at least in the sphere of public debate) in these forums by posting rational arguments. If others are irrational in their responses, then that will be noted.
I think your lead post was sloppy and poorly thought through. To claim Abbott doesn’t ‘bullshit’ is disprovable on a daily basis. To claim (as you later did) that you have special insight into him because you’ve kept track of him over the years and therefore we have to accept your assertions as true ‘cos you’re more informed than us is arrogant.
I agree that there is sexism on the net, but I would argue that responses like yours simply feed into it. If you meet irrationality with rationality, emotional with objectivity, this will be obvious to others. If you play the victim card, saying that all these big nasty mean men are pickin’ on you, and watch out, ‘cos you won’t come here and play anymore, then half your readers will roll their eyes and think ‘just like a woman.’
Thank you, Paul.
Truly memorable Curry Feast, at the Tandoori Oven on Unley Road. Ate and drank way too much.
Mercurius @ 64 quoted me
then responded
He’d respond, surely, cum hoc ergo propter hoc as I feel confident his study would have takne him there.
Mercurius also queried this claim by me:
Sadly for him, he really doesn’t understand how much of a plaything of others he is
asking whose plaything he was. Tony Abbott is a catspaw of whoever persuades him that he can obtain advantage from the conjuncture. At the moment, his puppeteers are the Minchiviks and via them, the filth merchants from the Minerals Council, the AAC, ACA etc who have their ‘hooks’ in deep (pun intended).
The Liberal Party is happy to have him precisely because
a) it has no saleable leaders
b) whoever gets the job is going to be buried in the next poll so there’s no downside to picking a loony. Abbott probably knows this and figures that his 15 minutes of notional relevance is as good as it gets.
Mehitabel,
I voraciously disagree, to myself that is, here in my lounge room where my new cat Gigi-Ripley is sitting in my cupboard and is a little bemused by the sudden noise activity. It has been my experience that whenever Anna posts, most people don’t even understand what her post is about, not because of the quality of HER posts, but because of the quality of some people’s brain capacities
I’m sorry but any quick survey of anna’s posts will bear out that simple truth.
She is, after all, so high most people don’t get her.
I’m afraid I can no longer honour the peace deal after such a display of arrogance.
The post was dumb. Mehitabel et al are right.
But I thought you said….
Well alright, no wine then.
But what about your white fleshy feast of a body. Not like you could flash that at the gym
You don’t need that body, let me transubstantiate you.
Goblin’s Feast, Silky go read it.
Mwahahhaa
Mwahahahahhahahah,
Come now, let’s be friends.
All that spinning spinning spinning.
Let me turn you into a butterfly…
“He, for the moment at least, seems rather incapable of bullshitting the electorate about what he thinks.”
“The great big tax” line that Tony throws about, every time he opens his mouth, is a perfect example of his capacity for pure bullshit. It would be a big ask to suggest that he does not know what he is doing with this. It’s very deceptive and quite creepy. And it, of course, comes off the back of him not so long ago supporting the ETS. It represents his complete flip-flop on policy
I’m also very dubious about the assertion his beliefs are “well-considered”. There is no way you could come to conclude, much of the rubbish he does, if you had thought the issues through properly. Many of his “beliefs” seem to me just part of the package he follows within his very conservative grouping of the catholic church.
Sorry Silkie, that was “Goblin Market” by Rossetti. Great narrative poem about the holy feast gone all primal.
Finishes like this
“”For there is no friend like a sister/In calm or stormy weather”
And there is something in that for all of us, don’t you think?
Casey, I haven’t responded to most of what you’ve written, basically because it is incomprehensible. Are you writing in a code that is only comprehensible to other Catholics? The stuff I do understand is you constantly trying to provoke me, on account of my well known atheism and anti-Catholicism. All this provocation tells me you are not much more than a cheap attention whore.
mehitabel, you seem like fun.
I’m quite aware of the dangers of claiming sexism, which is why I rarely do it. But thanks for your concern about how I will appear to people. I now understand more fully that this feminism project would be a lot more successful if we just stop pointing out sexist things.
Your feminism project would be a lot more successful if you cut out the snark.
Silky, there is a lot of play in what I do and yes, I am provocative, but it’s not really particularly nasty. I have no hatred towards you.
I don’t know why you hate the Catholic church so much. But I imagine you have your reasons and those I would respect, regardless of what they were. Strong feelings such as yours are not generally brought about without some provocation. If I have offended you in this respect, I apologise.
You might think about how to respect other peoples’ beliefs apart from your own, but that’s between you and your conscience.
One thing: I have noted that when I have provoked you into losing the plot, the stuff you commit to the page, as it were, contains some of the most misogynist bile I have ever read here. Ever.
Crone
Toothless
Deficient Mother
Cheap
Attention
Whore
While I have provoked you, might I suggest to you that you, that by using these lovely stereotypes as your comebacks, you pretty much prove Anna’s and Pavlov Cat’s point?
Do you have a problem with women Silkworm? One can only assume you do, when this is the sum total of your offerings in the online world of the stoush. And what a paltry stoush it was. You are right of course, it was unfair of me and I should not have stretched you as I did, when you were not even capable of it.
But at the very least, you should stop setting yourself up for such tremendous falls by making Anna’s and Pavlov’s points so pertinent.
joe2, I think it’s more complicated than that. Even the biggest ideologue, if they are to be successful, will occasionally change their mind about things, or support policies they think are less than ideal.
The ETS isn’t a matter of faith for either side. His changing his mind on that is not much of a counter-example to the pile of evidence for the opposing view: abortion, the role of women, marriage, etc. He doesn’t seem to believe in AGW, and my bet is that his religious beliefs stop him being very afraid of any predictions about the destruction of the planet. So the fact that he’s playing politics with a thing that he doesn’t think is important or urgent is meaningless.
Just because we are concerned about climate change doesn’t mean we can read his behaviour in that light. It’s like when anti-choicers try to paint us as monsters because we want women to get more access to abortion when there’s a holocaust going on in those abortion mills. If we believed that abortion was like the holocaust then we would be monstrous, but we don’t so we aren’t.
So silkworm, you’re suggesting that if I’d simply called mehitabel a cheap attention whore that I would be a more successful feminist as long as I wasn’t snarky when I said it?
You’re despicable, wormy.
“Your feminism project would be a lot more successful if you cut out the snark.”
Wow. You really nailed your colours to the mast with that one.
Of course it was probably Casey with her Catholic hocus-pocus feminist super-powers that MADE you do it, right?
OH MY GODDESS!!!
And we know who Bat is!!!!
Oh happy days
…all together now: don’t talk back and there’ll be no trouble, girly! (with a side-serve of “that mouth of yours’ll get you into trouble one day, young lady” ) ;)
Anna, maybe you are happy to draw a distinction between his just “playing politics” and “bullshitting the electorate”.
It does not do much for me. I think Judith Troeth was much closer to the mark when she characterised his “great big new tax” lie as calculated and “designed to scare people”. Regardless of what side one was on re the ETS he is very calculating on this, just as he was before taking over from Turnbull, with regard to asylum seeker arrivals. He characterised the government policy as ‘an invitation, to them all, to come here before Christmas’. Scaremongering and bullshitting all wrapped up in green, red and gold, I would say.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2009/s2760190.htm
mehitabel @ 125, let me help you with that:
There, that’s much clearer, isn’t it?
Casey, the bulk of your last post was offensive on a number of levels, not just because of the tone, but because it was full of wrong assumptions and false accusations. Given your general provocative tone, it’s hard to know whether this was deliberate or just dim-witted.
What really irritated me was the position of religious righteousness you took when you said:
Well, I don’t have respect for dumb beliefs. If you don’t like my atheism, come out with it and we’ll have it on, but cut out the personal crap.
Besides your religious beliefs, I also don’t have respect for your dishonest debating tactics. After you positioned yourself on the high moral ground, you then set out to tarnish me as sexist, first by raising it as a question (“Do you have a problem with women Silkworm?”), then by asserting it outright (“by making Anna’s and Pavlov’s points so pertinent”).
As for the stereotypes, I did go too far when I called you “crone” and “toothless,” (that was my playfulness), but I never called you a deficient mother. I wrongly assumed you had kids, but that was all. If you still have problems with that, then let me change it to this:
If you really want to strike a blow against the church, you can renounce your faith; or if that is too much, simply stop going to church.
I also never called you a “bitch.” You did that yourself. As for “cheap attention whore,” that only partly stands. You started out on the Hail Mary thread by calling on me to join the debate, and then when I showed up you launched into a personal attack on me. I can only guess why, but a large part of it is that you are an attention-seeker.
No, Mercurius, the post is ridiculous as many have aptly deconstructed, Adrian, Ken Lovell et al and accusations of sexism in retaliation are poor form, totally unpersuasive to this feminist and worst of all a misuse of and disservice to feminism itself.
No, Mercurius.
Firstly, I did try and alter the post to read “Everyone’ instead of ‘women’ but I buggered it up somehow in the attempt and LP vanished off the ether for a minute or so. So apologies.
All posters are entitled to be treated with respect on the net. Their arguments should be attacked on the basis of the soundness of their argument, regardless of their gender, ethnicity, religion, whatever. I would have no more respect for a poster who wrote here “You’re all picking on me because I’m Chinese” than Anna’s.
Excuse me? In Anna’s post @ 41, she doesn’t point to hard evidence of Abbott’s unswerving dedication to all things evil, she simply says she’s been watching him for years and therefore she should know. The clear implication is we can’t challenge her on this (which I did, a post interestingly enough she did not choose to respond to, which of course is her right) because of her greater knowledge.
Given that I am a woman, I think your last paragraph is silly, bordering on offensive. I’m not telling Anna to shut up. I’m telling her to argue the point, rather than playing the victim.
If Anna wants to test whether her arguments or her gender are affecting responses to her posts, there’s an easy way to do it – she can post under an assumed, non gender specific (or even male) name, and see if she gets the same kind of reaction.
I couldn’t see that Anna was under attack by sexist misogynists, but hey, maybe that’s just me, I’m so oppressed I don’t notice it anymore. She responded to a post which had nothing to do with sexism with a cry of “At last, a woman to support me!” There was no reason to do this, except perhaps that she felt she had no adequate response to the arguments made against her and was thus resorting to victimhood.
How about you prove me wrong, using facts and evidence, rather than just trying to parody what I was saying?
BTW, I’d bet my feminist credentials trump Anna’s any day.
I get so confused about where the personality begins and the spin ends.
We’re talking about Abbott right?
mehitabel, I have explained why I think they way I do about Abbott. If you choose to ignore it then that’s your call.
I was thankful for Casey re-stating my argument when it had been completely misinterpreted by quite a few people. The fact that you think that’s just because she’s a woman is your thing, not mine. It was more about her being able to read.
Er..what? You responded to Casey’s post with a remark about how hard you felt it was to deal with the sexism on the site. You’re the one who raised the issue of Casey’s gender.
I thought that responding to Casey’s post with a whinge about noone reading you properly because they’re all sexist (yes, I know I’m paraphrasing, but perhaps you need to express yourself more clearly, and I welcome you correcting my understanding of the post) was unwarranted and wimpy.
Unless you can come up with an alternative explantion for 51, I stand by that.
Oh noes!
Seriously, this is only a difficult concept if you’re deliberately being obtuse. I received some very crappy responses from a couple of commenters which annoyed me. Then someone came along and demonstrated that they had read what I wrote and did the work of understanding it and it was a relief. There have since been more people doing the same, both women and men, and I’m grateful to them all because it demonstrates that it wasn’t because I didn’t make sense because all those people understood me quite well. It had nothing to do with Casey being a woman, although I think it isn’t a total coincidence that the people who’ve most misrepresented my point are men.
I just re-read the thread and suggest that you do also. It’s quite a good one mostly. It will answer your questions if you truly want them answered.
Look Silkworm, you are not up to it. So I’m gonna stop here, because, well you are just not up to it. And I’m bored.
Go away now.
‘Bless you, Casey.
One need only come to LP to see sexism at work. I honestly feel like giving up sometimes, because I think some of you really don’t read my posts anywhere near as carefully as you read the men who write here (or at all). And sometimes it’s fun to play with the idiots, but sometimes it’s seriously just tiresome.’
So please explain what other interpretation can be put on this, other than: People don’t read my posts properly because I’m a woman.
You seem (in your last reply) to be admitting that people were having difficulty understanding your post. (My interpretation of this is that people disagreed with what you said – that is, comprehension perfect. I also vehemently disagreed with your portrayal of Abbott as a convinction politician who is open and honest about his beliefs. I’m fairly sure I understood what you were saying). Thus it seemed a minor miracle when someone else (a woman) came along who did.
If both males and females misunderstood you, why bring sexism up at all?
I have reread the thread, several times, as I’m quite careful about calling people. The comments leading up to your 51 were generally of the kind described above – disbelief that you could claim that TA was honest and open. There was one post which might have been sexist (I didn’t really understand it, seemed to be an in joke?) and another which referred to that.
As I keep saying, it’s not a good look to throw up suggestions of sexism when your arguments are under attack. It looks like you had no other answer.
As an after thought, I had a listen to Anna’s rapp-flavoured Canto Gregoriano; “Seize the Opus Dei”.
Piety was restored to the extent that I found my self raising my hands above my head and clapping in unison.
Anna, it was splendid cultural moment, on a par with Vogon poetry.
For the record, I fancy I understood your post.
I just didn’t share your inference. In the case of some people, there’s more to them than meets the eye. In Tony Abbott’s case, there’s quite a bit less. He’s about as significant as the defenders in Beau Geste.
Odd that such a neat post has generated such an acrimonious tail. I liked it; so thanks, Anna. Tony’s an interesting guy, like or not like his policies. A bit of a throwback to the times when pollies were prepared to stump up for what they were and what they thought, instead of presenting as air-brushed non-persons or bureaucratic windbags. I liked Mark Latham for the same reason. Geoff Honnor, in one of his typically ace comments, once alluded to to the ‘barely concealed unresolved sexual tension between Abbott and Julia Gillard’ (or words to that effect). Way to go.
(btw, Casey’s not the commenter formerly known as Jinmaro, is she?)
Ohh teh irony, it burns:
Anna @ 40 (emphasis added):
Mehitabel @ 125 (emphasis added):
and missing the point again @ 148 (emphasis added):
Mehitabel, there really is a world of difference between somebody saying “I feel confident of my assessment” vs. “you must accept my assertion as true” and/or “I should know”. If you really have reread this thread several times, then I’m surprised you didn’t pick that up. And if you’re really as committed to evidentiary and reasoned argument as you purport to be, I would hope you’ll retract the incorrect ascriptions you have made at 125 and repeated at 148. Anna wasn’t claiming what you claimed she was claiming, QED.
No, I honestly can’t imagine why Anna would say that some people just don’t understand her posts. And, when some readers fail to understand her posts, instead of putting in effort or showing an ounce of intellectual humility, the instant knee-jerk accusation is that of “irrationality”. No sexism here at all, it’s just another irrational sheila saying irrational things, move right along folks.
Comment @43 is quite clearly not even trying to understand my point.
Comment @48 ignores that a. I write original posts alongside the quick linky ones all the time, and Robert and Brian also do quick linky ones. But apparently it’s not enough to confine oneself to only reading and commenting on the posts that interest, it’s also necessary to express a lack of respect for me because I am interested in things that he is not interested in.
But to be fair, there were some carefully reasoned disagreements as well.
I’m not disagreeing that I said that some people don’t listen to me because I am a woman. That is, you’re correct, exactly what I’m saying. I’m disputing your assertion that my response to Casey was: “At last, a woman to support me!”
Any way, before the usual LP sexism brawl started, I thought the original point was to do with Albrechtsen as representative of teh system (eg Alpha Female rolemodel/Judas goat to demographic adressed), reinforcing unproductive modes of thinking within a certain part of the female demographic- as indeed occurs with reinforcement of the “ute man” mode with some men, for example. Think loosely along the lines of the intense alcohol advertising during the Ashes series this year
Eg, how the system keeps people dumbed-down; units commodified/reified, if you like.
Urrgh, swallowed by the spam filter. Was it just me, or something I said, I wonder.
You mentioned the j word, dude.
And be careful Casey doesn’t put a curse on you for that!
Rob, Casey is definitely not J-who-will-not-be-named.
She just swallowed* (and can’t refrain from burping occasionally) chapters of the same Cultural Studies textbook.
:D
* sorry, Anna
Do you want to explain that to me, Anna? (Email if you like.)
I agree about the boys’ club thing, though. What’s happened to the ebullient Kim?
Great post Anna. Your analysis of Abbott is convincing and the torches and pitchforks you’ve provoked offer eloquent testimony to the continuing inability of political blogging to create an exploratory medium which goes much beyond the resolutely partisan.
Sorry Rob, just a joke about Jinmaro, who has been very rude to most LPers in the past.
Oh. OK. I liked her. Good taste in opera.
It occurs to me that my qustion about Kim may have been thoughtless, so I apologise and withdraw.
Hope I didn’t misquote you, Geoff. But yes, good post, Anna.
Be you the Rob that the Ro used to have a thing for?
Ah those halcyon days, how we laughed and how we danced, sweet summer sweat as I recall.
Anyway, in what way did I bring the misty J to your eyes? (Who has been here btw – please come back Ro – I for one, miss you and your interesting ways of putting things).
Was it cause I split Silkworm down the middle, pulled out his guts and spread out his skin to dry?
In no way do I see the resemblance Rob. I may have stabbed it with a steely knife but I just did not kill the beast. Unlike the Ro, who is not so delicate, as we all know.
Nevertheless, I have my own MO. And I will down thee down there should you be suggesting that again.
Easy on the sweat and stuff there, Casey. I think I danced with J to the strains of The Magic Flute, but that’s all.
PS: Virtually and chastely. But I remember the moonlight.
Rob@170.
And you reckon you don’t have a sense of humour.
My point, Mercurius, was that we were to accept that Anna’s confidence in her assessment was well placed, because she’d been scrutinising him. Maybe you’re not into inference, but this implies that others (whose views are different to hers) have not.
If she’d been into ‘evidence based’ statements, she wouldn’t have referred to her years of Tony watching. She would have used actual examples e.g. “He made it clear when…that…and then he…”
I know TA is anti abortion, into big families, etc but I know it by reading between the lines of what he’s said and by backroom gossip. I don’t think there’s anything out there as bold and honest as Anna maintains.
Thus I would have liked Anna to come up with something more substantial to explain her defence of Abbott as a ‘no bullshit’ politician who tells it like it is.
Anna is the one who equated ‘not understanding her posts’ with ‘sexism’. She says that several posters, both male and female, made it clear they understood her posts, but singled out the female ‘because she could read.’ Go figure.
Jesus Christ, you just don’t know when to shut up, do you? Shouldn’t you be singing carols or something?
I thought jinmaro was prety fair in most of her comments, as I (dimly) recall them. I was sad to miss her.
mehitabel: RU486, bible classes, covenant marriage, welfare for the “deserving” poor and policies designed to encourage mothers to stay home, workchoices and more.
So far the only evidence I’ve been provided to argue against my view is the ETS, and I explained here I don’t believe it’s proof of a flip-flopper, or demonstrates a lack of policy convictions.
I’m happy to accept that people like Fran and Joe2 etc disagree me despite this. But plenty of evidence for my view has been presented here, both by me and by others. I don’t believe you have both re-read the thread and don’t already know that. One of those two things isn’t true.
Sorry, Anna, but he hasn’t (to my knowledge) been arguing for bible classes for years, that’s a recent brainfart.
My point (made ages ago) was that you can’t describe TA as avoiding bullshit. He’s full of it.
And he isn’t loud and proud when it comes to convinctions. Yes, we know what he believes, but not because he’s upfront enough to tell us so. He doesn’t cross the floor to support them, for example (like he did on the ETS).
I’m happy to agree to disagree on this one, it’s a quibble about terminology at most. And I haven’t read Battlelines: perhaps he’s honest about his convinctions there.
And as for ‘one of these things isn’t true’; well, yes, both of them can be. You think you’ve provided evidence for your views, I think you haven’t.
I think TA is a pollie out of the JH school of pollies: those in the know, know what you stand for, so you never have to say it out loud. I knew JWH wanted to introduce something like WorkChoices and would if he got the chance: it’s obvious it was a complete surprise to most people.
My Goddess, long have I longed for thee.
I will spare you the usual andalusian shit.
Now where the frakk have you been anyway????
Bless you, Bat @ 171.
Paul @ 174, yes, j*n*a*r* was sharp, very sharp. Combative, but very sharp. Just like Casey?
No I’m the sweet one. Ask the shredded bits of Silkworm that are trying to put themselves together as we speak. Good news though. He seems to have found the Lord as evidenced by his opening salutation up there of “Jesus Christ!” OH Hallelujah. Which remindeth me.
Now I heard there was a secret chord…
(Silkie, I.just.can’t.help.it.you.make.it.so.hard.like.you.are.begging.me.to.do.it.what.else.can.i.say.stop.tempting.me)
Anna, if you look at what I wrote@133, again, and what I reinterated @144 you will see that my main point was to do with the continuing and calculating use Tony has made of the big lie to discredit the ETS, not so much his flip-flop, which you prefer to focus on because it supports your argument better. I also gave another example of the phony Tony manipulative behaviour in regard to asylum seekers and a christmas invitation.
Complete bullshit that was, just as his hastily withdrawn and ill-considered suggestion that Kevin Rudd was somehow responsible for the drowning deaths of a number of people. Also, I certainly wonder how “genuine and well-considered” was his claim that Bernie Banton had a motive that was “not pure”. Though he did withdraw that one he is constanly quite loose with his gob and expects us all to forget it when he asks us nicely.
http://www.news.com.au/abbott-phones-in-banton-apology/story-0-1111114764079
OK, you’re not j*n*a*r*. But I love the Elizabeth Montgomery (‘Bewitched’) gravatar.
for Rob & Casey:
I revel in flowers without let,
An atom at random in space;
My soul dwells in regions ethereal,
And the world is my dreaming-place.
As the tops of the oceans I tower,
As the winds of the air spreading wide,
I am ‘stablished in might and dominion and power,
With the universe ranged at my side.
Before me the sun, moon, and stars,
Behind me the phoenix doth clang;
In the morning I lash my leviathans,
And I bathe my feet in Fusang.
Ssu-K’ung T’u AD 834-908 China
Rob, I’d love to get into that, but its Xmass and its an open debate with different viewpoints from different trajectories, to build a more complete and sometimes unexpected emerging picture.
If you want something closer to my personal viewpoint, re read Joe 2, #180.
On the other hand, Abbot is a human being too. Therefore I know, in the most private recesses of my heart of hearts, that he can be no worse than this writer, as a human being.
And as I tried to say early in thread above, he can’t be any worse than some of the scum from the Labor Right entrenched in places like NSW (just about all), QLD treasury, NT and elsewhere, or that pitiful child Conroy federally, for example.
Nor can I find much good to say even about Penny Wong, a person who I DID have hope in, after her nasty attempt to blame the Third world countries for the Copenhagen failure on the news tonight.
What the frakk? What is this shit? I was going to say Casey has finally lost it, but then again, did she ever have it?
joe2, I think we’re arguing different slightly things. None of us, no matter how ideological, cares about everything. And people who get into politics to do something about implementing their ideas will on occasion lie, compromise and manipulate. This is a person we’re talking about. They’re complex.
I know quite a few religious types who lean more left than right who are genuinely unconcerned with climate change because they don’t believe that God will let the world slip into total catastrophe – ie that the Rapture will happen before global warming takes its toll. Seen in that light, I don’t believe that Abbott’s politicking with the ETS disproves my theory. He’s just playing politics with something he doesn’t think matters too much.
But at heart, he’s still a man with genuine and passionately held ideas, who wants to do what he can to achieve them. That doesn’t mean he can’t also be an arrogant, lying arsehole. It just means that on the issues he cares about, he’s not capable of letting them go, and he cares about them enough to be incapable of convincing the electorate that he a. can change his mind on them, or b. won’t do whatever’s in his power to do to achieve them.
Here is the nub of your argument, I think you’ll agree it is barely acceptable as a Year 10 debating strategy.
“His beliefs really are genuine and well-considered.”
He’s a hard line Catholic, 2000 years of prejudice and bigotry.
“He, for the moment at least, seems rather incapable of bullshitting the electorate about what he thinks.”
He constantly states that his religion should not be an issue and yet it is constantly informing his decisions.
“On a certain level I find that more understandable and easy to empathise with than I do politicians with no discernible policy ideas or passions at all.”
Good for you. Are we supposed accept your assertions because you like the man?
And to those who feel that the tread has developed a “nasty tail”, I, and many others see Abbot for what he is, what the record show and that is a hardline religious conservative politician. No more to it than that. He is thus very unappealing.
In a light-hearted post about how I interpret Abbott the man then no, you don’t have to accept anything. It’s my frickin’ opinion, not the law according to LP.
Jeebus.
But the stupid levels of OMG ARE YOU NUTS!!1! imply that some of you actually think that I should change my mind because people think I’m wrong.
You know, Silkie, there’s a bit of your stomach over there in the corner. Go tuck it back in.
Now, about Goddess. She is an actual person on this thread you genius. We have a history and only she understands so don’t worry about that.
But I take it you are beginning to like my use of the word Frakk.
And good for you, I like your multi-culturation. It’s Ikean, you know.
It’s about time I explain my my bad language. You probably think it’s unholy. But here’s the curious thing. It’s holy!
Every swear word I know I found in the Ikea catalogue. And it was a miracle how it came about.
It was a message from God actually, while I was at Ikea. He sent Our Lady of the Holy Klappe* to appear to me, to tell me to use only Ikean while at the store. It was extraordinarily helpful when maneuvering my way through the infernal religious throngs that flocked there, you know how it is Silkie, mostly Catholics, holy water everywhere.
Per esempio, last time I was there, I tripped over someone’s rosary and had a tense conversation that went like this:
Needless to say, I got a wide berth after that.
Now your not gonna get rashist now are you?
Because I’m Ikean?
If you didn’t understand a word of that, that’s okay Silkie. It’s a God thing.
*Ikea Catalogue 2010
My God.
I don’t think I’d be congratulating myself if Casey understood anything I wrote!!
(Please insert smiley here).
Did Blake really have Tone in mind here?
For everything that lives is holy,
life delights in life;
Because the soul of sweet delight
can never be defil’d.
Fires enwrap the earthly globe,
yet Man is not consum’d;
Amidst the lustful fires he walks;
his feet become like brass,
His knees and thighs like silver,
and his breast and head like gold.
Mysterious ways Mehitabel. It is a terrible thing to see the face of God. Especially at Ikea.
The BLÅBÄRSSOPPA and KNÄCKEBRÖD are sacred to all Ikeans. It may seem weird and unfamiliar, but it’s not so difficult to interpret if you follow the diagrams.
I worship Ceiling Cat myself. The rest of you are just heathens.
Did someone bake some hashish into the holy wafers?
PavPuss – my point (not helped by several typos)was about it being a choice between the evil of two lessers, the false dichotomy so beloved of partisan types because they can’t/won’t acknowledge that there is little to choose except around the edges. Ralph Nader (among others) refers to there being merely one party with slightly different factions.
Break the mould, vote Independent or Green but don’t hold your breath – whomsoever one votes for, the government always wins.
Something has gone terribly wrong on this thread. Casey – I blame you (or me). But Ikean – I want to learn that language! Only then will I truly understand the ways of the world.
(Sorry, Anna.)
rob
are you initiated in the Blessed Hexagon of the Allen key?
Note: hexagon, not pentangle.
Rob, can you clarify this? Do you identify with Abbott’s political or religious beliefs?
One or the other, silkie. Possibly both.
Or neither.
Sorry if that’s not helpful.
Ok … that’s enough for me in this thread. Anna … you’re perfectly entitled to have whimsical fantasies over Latham and Abbott though I can’t imagine how our Pauline has eluded your gaze.
Maybe you just like ignorant populists, or envy them. Perhaps you yearn to speak your mind and feel constrained. Perhaps you’d be best advised to do so and lose the whimsy.
LP
Roger, that seems unnecessarily cryptic.
No, Rob, you’ve been very helpful. You’ve been around LP for quite a while posting right-wing talking points, so I know exactly where you’re coming from. Did you really think your evasive answers would fool anyone?
What I really want to know now is whether you find Abbott physically attractive. Does the sight of those budgie smugglers turn you on?
LOL Fran. It’s true that my biggest problem is an inability to speak my mind.
Do you know what I think Anna Winter is getting at?
That it is lazy to approach a consideration of a future leader of our nation, in this case Abbott, with “contempt prior to investigation” that precludes a serious objective consideration based on fact(s).
Whatever else he is, he is an alternative PM from the only serious alternative party we have to our current government. No matter how feeble we feel he is just now, we may be fortunate to have even this choice that’s no choice, if only to the point of him revealing to us what we DONT want in a leader.
In the meantime in opposition, if he keeps Rudd and co from getting too complacent, that would be a win of sorts, too?
Who knows, maybe a situation may arise where he becomes useful to the nation. Isn’t he entitled to fair consideration, same as even the worst of the rest of us aned even regardless of whether he would give us the same courtesy?
For our own sakes we need to know as much as possible about this fellow as soon as possible, because we want to make the best decison about him eventually at the ballot box, if only for our own sakes.
We actually have a gift given us by time, to waste through laziness, or to think seriously, prior to an eventual poll rendezvous
Sheesh, if he makes it to the next election. The internal vote was pretty close.
I assure you I didn’t slip any hash anywhere. Way too expensive for that, and drugs by consent is my motto. But hemp soup (siemieniotka) is a traditional Polish Christmas dish. Illegal to eat in Australia though.
I miss regular frezned too.
Fran Barlow @ #201, whatever else Abbott may be, he is neither ignorant nor a populist. In fact, the non-ignorance is one of the things that makes him so dangerous.
I’m actually a bit shocked by this thread. Some of you sound like those people in 1984 yelling HATE HATE HATE. I am implacably opposed to Abbott and almost all he stands for myself, as those who come over to my place occasionally will be aware, but this blind demonising is kind of scary. And the literal-minded taking it out on Anna for daring to divert from it is worse.
Dr Cat, yes it seems some here have difficulty differentiating between “mistaken” and “ignorant”. Abbott is the former, not the latter. A boofhead, yes, a buffoon, no. People who have been schooled by Jesuits are often adept at using arcane logic and rhetoric to prop up completely mistaken and unfounded beliefs, but rarely are their castles-in-the-air ‘built’ upon ignorance.
As for being “populist”, I think that is a much fairer characterisation of Abbott. Except when it isn’t. Some of his statements are straight out of the populist playbook, others appear crazy-brave statements that are driven by (mistaken) conviction and are likely to be on the heavily losing side of electoral calculus.
As for “hating” the enemy, I never saw much to gain in hating one’s enemy, viz. Mark Latham’s career. I much prefer to defeat my enemies than to hate them.
Based on observation, I’d suggest that Tony Abbott has a high but guarded esteem for his intellectual capabilities.
Following up on Mercurius’ observations about his Jesuit education, I would assert that Abbott has thoroughly taken to heart the historical methodology of Jesuitism during its heroic period, when Jesuit missionaries pursued dangerous missions behind enemy lines.
Concealment, blending into the surrounding cultural landscape and equivocation and diversion when under observation or interrogation were the only resources available to the heroic Jesuit.
Personally, sang froid and an ability to perceive how one looks in the eyes of others were crucial attributes for a successful Jesuit.
Trusted friends were essential for survival but persons were permitted to enter the circle of trust only after the most careful vetting.
Only the most determined, goal-oriented men could cope with the pressures this life imposed.
Abbott has adapted this methodology to his practice as a politician. And he is quite impressive at it.
Casey @129 Are you implying Anna is “high society” or merely LP’s guardian angel?
Aye, Katz: and there’s the rub. For People Skills, perhaps the two attributes he lacks to be truly effective at his “heroic” mission.
Thanks be to the FSM….
I think everyone’s running scared of Abbott’s alleged role as a conviction politician. Maybe he is, but he couldn’t have got any traction for the successful knifing of Turnbull unless the majority of his colleagues either shared his so-called “convictions” or are simply desperate and dateless.
So despite Planet’s sycophantic, carpet-loving slobbering, it won’t mean jack-sh!t unless he can successfully carry all the parliamentary weathervanes along with him for the duration.
I don’t believe he will be able to do that, particularly as he’ll have Turnbull sniping away at every opportunity and the disgruntled moderates dragging their heels. The conga line he’s currently got dancing along behind him is sooo last century. I mean, Bronnie Bishop and the Ghost Who Totters, FGS!!!
Bernice @65, I don’t believe Harradine was the fall-guy. As a red-hot catholic, he shared Abbott’s views on RU486 and his belief that women can’t be trusted with their reproductive equipment.
Paul, I think they are quite reliable in the doing stupid things department. Munchkin and his cohorts are still under the illusion that Howard’s way is what the vast unwashed want.
Jack Strocchi @77, the only time I’d want to be within a bull’s roar of Tony Abbott, would be if I needed to vomit. He is possibly the most unattractive (in all senses of the word) man, apart from the Rodent, I have ever set eyes on. Dead slugs have more sex and intellectual, appeal than the Mad Monk.
amphibous @108, seeing the Mad Monk would probably be the cause of any foxhole occupation, I’d certainly want the b@gger there to have a taste of his policy and “conviction” medicine.
“…but this blind demonising is kind of scary.”
P.C., Geoff Honnor@165 sees “torches and pitchforks” and I cannot see them here either. There is, understandable, robust questioning of the man who would be king. And quite expected too, given Anna’s provocative interpretation of his good points. None of which are backed up by sufficient evidence, imho.
Sure, Tony is not “ignorant”- all the more reason to expect better of him- but his attempt to rally an Abbott’s Army is pure populist shite.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/abbotts-army-enlisted-on-rudds-home-turf/story-e6frg6n6-1225808818684
I doubt that the Lib spinmeisters carefully workshopped this “Abbott’s Army” thing.
Looks to me like it was simply made up on the fly by Abbott and some close personal advisers.
Unlike with “Howard’s battlers” there is little evidence that outer suburban mums and dads have been antagonised by the dreaded urban elites allegedly in charge of the ALP.
My reading of the situation is that outer suburban mums and dads hear Abbott, look at each other queryingly, and say: “Abbott’s Army? Are we supposed to be in Abbott’s Army? Remember when we were “Howard’s Battlers”? And look at what that got us. Big Ears is a wanker.”
Had a bit of a muse about this convinction politician, non bullshitting type label and am wondering why it is only applied to extremists.
If I’m a middle of the road, centrist politician who spends all of my political life speaking out in support of pro choice, equality, world peace, multiculturalism, etc no one is going to spruik me as someone who speaks my mind, shoots from the hip and doesn’t bull shit the electorate.
If I’m consultative and inclusive and thus listen to my consituents, I’m not going to be lauded for my honesty and convinction.
But if I’m a loudmouth extemist with unpopular views who doesn’t give a toss what anyone else thinks because I’ve got God on my side, I’m labelled as honest, straight talking and a convinction politician.
Go figure.
Man Geoff you say that like it’s a bad thing—as if resolution and partisanship were the same as not being able to read, or give credit to political rivals for their undeniable virtues, or understand that “populism” has a precise political meaning which is not the same as “policies I don’t like”. It’s not partisanship we both think’s regrettable here, it’s as AW said, the OMG stupid.
Jesus some of you lot on this thread give elitism a bad name.
Obviously Dave, this is of terrible importance to the discussions at hand here. So let me be clear. I am implying I very much like the leather flying cap she wears as she sets little girl chillens free, into the ether, beyond gender, beyond the frakkin hair tearing that is going on here over one unremarkable observation. Further, I am also implying that not even Fyodor, who also appears in that clip, can keep up with her.
Now, please, continue.
That’s the crux of it, mehitabel. Views less controversial are also passionately held but not being as disputed it is not seen as courageous to hold them.
joe2, I think you’re looking at the politicking Abbott’s doing, and ignoring what he’s doing it for. If you think I’m saying that Abbott isn’t capable of using political techniques to win, then I’m not.
WTF? Do you seriously think that any of us have more respect for Abbott than a committed, hard-working and intelligent woman like Senator Claire Moore? Or just that we have so little ability for respect that if we use it up on Abbott there’ll be none left for Teh Good Guys?
False binaries, I see them.
“Looks to me like it was simply made up on the fly by Abbott and some close personal advisers.”
All Tony’s work I would say. He fancies an oi, oi, oi, backing team, like The Fanatics with -’if you don’t love it, leave’- flags and a triffic sense a huma.
I’m hoping that when he looks around for support, they will all have disappeared to the bar.
http://www.triplem.com.au/brisbane/sport/blog/aussie-fanatics-prank-the-pommies/20090810-572z.html
“joe2, I think you’re looking at the politicking Abbott’s doing, and ignoring what he’s doing it for.”
Fair enough, Anna. That is the really scary part and some people are already complaining about the smell of sulphur in the air! I thought I had already spoken about characteristics that I think direct his behaviour but to go much further risks being branded anti-catholic or jesuit. Here goes.
Both scenes I know very well and I see in him the sought of zealotry that made being around such places, where those regimes ruled, very tough places to inhabit. I would not wish the obvious Abbott enthusiasm for bending others to his will, on anyone.
What a nasty little country Australia would become if he was at the helm.
Anna
OK, reference the article which lauds the good Senator for her convinction politics.
I think Candy Broad in Victoria put in a pretty gutsy effort to ensure that pro choice laws got through Parliament, despite opposition from her own Premier. Does she get anything like the media applause Abbott gets? Or Joyce? Or even Hanson?
My point is that these people put up views which are recognised as reasonable and considered, and so do most politicians. But the ones who get lauded by the media for their honesty and straightforwardness are the extremists.
If you argued that this was because they were bravely taking a position which they know to be unpopular, while the reasoned and sensible types are just saying what we’d expect, then I’d accept that, although pointing out that people exposing minority views should not get the same exposure as those representing the mainstream.
But I can’t understand why the extremists are portrayed as more honest and principled that those who express more mainstream views.
Casey, Fyodor appears in that clip? wow! Also,is it true you’re a catholic? I only ask because Our Tone is a catholic and i thought that might be kinda an interesting coincidence…I don’t know any Catholics, all of my friends are practising pagans.
All this snark about what Anna said is a fascinating read after the fact especially given I thought the original post was somewhat lighthearted. Maybe I should get out more, grow some wings and practice my high wire routines. One thing for sure, we know Our Tone doesn’t have any wings ;)
mehitabel: What. Ev. Er.
for the record Casey I would just like to observe that I think Tal Bachman is probably miming…
Thanks for those, Anna. Very bland indeed beside your post on Abbott.
You didn’t need to take my post on extremists personally, you know. It was a general muse on the way the media works. A nutter like Mirabella gets far more publicity than someone like Pliberseck, who actually has more power than Mirabella ever has or will.
This is probably simply because nutters generate reactions, whereas middle of the roaders express opinions we expect and so are boring.
I’m just puzzled as to why we credit extremists with ‘speaking their mind’ and ‘remaining true to their convinctions’ when your average whitebread non controversial pollie is probably doing exactly the same thing.
MM either can’t help himself, or doesn’t care(it’s a toss off..errr..up), but his constant use of mediaeval concepts and language really scares the bejasus outa me. He’s often used the term Inquisition and not as an homage to Monty Python and on PM tonight he’s likened Krudd to Torquemada.
Way to divert attention from your religious fixations & mental geography!
Funny how no one has thought to comment further here, given Abbot’s crass reaction re refugees over the weegend. Here is a fellow who can be in emotional knots over the use of embryos for stem cell research, but finds nothing evil in the current world response to suffering refugees.
I thought of his public piety, then the Good Samaritan and Lazaras stories and walked off shaking my head.
@230
Yes I agree that his populist xenophobia tends to pour cold water on the OPs assertion about his convictions. I expect that Abbott realises the cupboard is bare policy and talent wise so he’ll happily ramp up the anti-asylum rhetoric as it’s all they’ve got. I also bet he’s praying (if he is indeed convinced it’s power) that the oppressive conditions in the Sri Lankan camps continue to provide him with a target for he and his colleagues outrage. Oh the conviction just shines through alright …
This Anna Winter thread from last December “Rudd’s honeymoon and Abbott’s one night stand” ought really to be viewed as a genuinely interesting document, in the wake of what’s passed since.
Interesting thread too paul. Rob Foot making one of his all-too-few appearances, J-Ro doing poetry and Casey witching about, and me being as usual spectacularly wrong. It’s got everything.
How about Mercurious’ comment, 209?