… the question could, of course, be turned around the other way.
It was kinda hinted at in my last post, but since there’s been some discussion on the open thread about the crazed vehemence with which certain cowardly demographics make anonymous phone calls or post bile on the intertubes, it might be worth a post in and of itself.
Ideally, there’d be no need to discuss the frenzied rantings of the perenially angry. But, in an age when it seems that Her Maj’s Loyal Opposition takes its talking points from the One Nation website, and of polls and focus groups which suggest there’s a vote in reflecting back bottom-feeding prejudice, there probably is. All the journos who are so horrified at the sort of disgusting and threatening hate speech directed at Tony Windsor must be ignorant of the comments threads on some of the “blogs” published by their own employers, if they’re actually as shocked as they purport to be.
I suspect that Clive Hamilton is wrong to posit an organised campaign. There may well be something of that in the once fringe, now uncredited suppliers of “mainstream” talking points for the Liberals. But it’s more likely that this is a vicious feedback loop where the Abbotts of the world, with their ever aggressive and reckless rhetoric, stoke the fires of petit bourgeois middle aged men who already burn with resentment – the sorts of folks who are ever ready to blame Teh (Labor) Gubbermint and Teh Left for their failures in business and life. The discipline of the market never seems to be responsible for the failure of good hard working tax hating Aussies, does it? Neo-liberalism and populism are strange bedfellows.
When we have a mediaverse where the PM can be asked things like “shouldn’t you be called JuLIAR?”, though, and where a “people’s revolt” is a poor excuse for any vaguely coherent or even existent policy position, we have a problem.
One attempt at explanation comes from the ABC’s Insider-in-Chief, Barrie Cassidy (the sexist headline is his reponsibility, not mine for linking to it). Cassidy wrings his hands, but then reverts back to the lame and meaningless media stance of advising the opposition on its lines (why, precisely, is this the job of political commentators, and particularly those paid by the taxpayer?).
His opinion piece, if that is what it is, is a neat illustration of how the false equivalence involved in “balance” ends up being morally vacuous, as well as boring and predictable.
The truth is that the vicious nature of what is wrongly represented as public opinion under all sorts of guises (“the talkback radio audience”, “Western Sydney”…) has gone too far, and those like Tony Abbott who stoke it, quite deliberately and with all intent, by – for instance – calling for a “people’s revolt” should be called for that.
In the meantime, the meejah wizards puzzling over why “Coalition supporters are so angry” should train their gaze to their own backyards.
Oh, and everyone should read what Tony Windsor had to say.
And “angry Coalition supporters” should get a life. Or get a room.
Elsewhere: Mr Denmore on Radio Ga Ga.
Update: Tim Dunlop.
Good piece Kim. I came to the same conclusion reading Cassidy’s typically punch-pulling piece. He just seems incapable of making a clear statement – that there is an increasingly unhinged element to our politics and that Abbott and his gang are fuelling it.
After a promising start, Cassidy loses his nerve and goes off on a wierd tangent by pointing to tactical inconcistencies in the Opposition’s line of attack. This is Cassidy as “insider” – a former political adviser to Hawke who forever over-compensates for his stint with Labor by providing free political tips to the conservatives.
Such, as you say, is the false equivalence and empty sense of ‘balance’ that infests the national broadcaster. No-one is willing to come out and call a spade a spade.
I wrote about the angry political climate – and specifically the role of the talkback radio demagogues in today’s edition of The Failed Estate
Thanks, Mr Denmore, will link to your post.
Cassidy really is exemplary of all this. Nothing short of a death threat gets the attention of the meejah, it would seem. The fact that so-called public debate has been debased by vicious and personalised abuse and its misrepresenation as “debate” is just fuel for the embers of their fire.
Barry Cassidy is a fool if he thinks this is just another fiscal policy debate. This is really somewhere between large scale industrial action and the nation going to war in terms of provocation fuel.
It’s a lame pop culture reference, Kim, as per every editorial cartoon in every deadtree paper at budget time taking a Hollywood movie theme.
And I don’t think you want to ask the question, ‘So, any commenters here enjoy Stieg Larsson’s work?’ Bad subject to get into.
@3 – Fortunately, Nickws, being almost 39 now, I am exempt from understanding or picking up on Barrie Cassidy’s lame pop culture references. Unless Stieg Larsson’s work is mainly enjoyed by late 50 something blokes? But, as you say…
Props to Mr Denmore for “Radio Ga Ga” though!
Of course it’s all G***** B***’s fault.
I remember a lot of verbal violence towards Howard and his government while the libs were in power. Lots of fairly childish namecalling like the opposition do ow too Bet they got their share of death threats then. I think when the party people support are in opposition they feel quite powerless and tend to vent a lot. And unlike letters to the editors there’s very little filtering on many websites. Fairly harmless as long as no one actually acts on it.
‘public debate has been debased by vicious and personalised abuse and its misrepresenation as “debate”’
Its difficult to remember a time in recent political history when things were any different. Keating was always a dab hand at intimidating personal abuse, not to mention Costello or Abbot himself as Howard’s personal attack dog. In fact, it seems to be a prerequisite to have a designated ‘head kicker’ to divert the media/public, particularly when the party is under pressure.
I think you’re right that overblown aggro and unfiltered vilification are now seen as a run of the mill mode of political communication, rather than something for the ranting fringes.
I think there probably is a degree of planning or organisation. I don’t think there is some shadowy cabal planning or plotting out every second off the wall rant or aggressive crazy. But with such a narrowly controlled media, and with the one single national broadsheet having no compuction in regularly running blatant, undisguised, unhinged propaganda campaigns where truth is an optional extra – not to mention professional hatemongers like Piers Akerman and purveyors of provocating poison like Andrew Bolt – it doesn’t take very much of a prompt to unleash, and just as importantly validate, Tea Party level lunacy.
It’s pretty lame to draw trite comparisons with the Howard years, because:
a) You didn’t have senior members of the ALP inciting hatred and anger against the PM and others, as members of the coalition are consistently doing.
b) You didn’t have a feral media pack led by shock-jocks, rabid opinion columnists, and assorted MSM hangers on all gunning for the ALP and willing to excuse Abbott and his minions just about anything.
In short there is no comparison, and anyone who thinks there is has a very short memory or is being entirely disingenuous.
I’m a bit amused that Clive Hamilton is shocked, shocked at the likes of Gr**** B**d. I would have thought that any social commentator worth their salt would have frequented enough political/social blogs by now to be familiar with the nuttier reaches of the Ozblogosphere. I suppose prominent people have a kind of buffer from the usual net rough and tumble. We here know that it’s only moderation that allows us to discuss things here without GMB in our faces 24/7 and we only have to go over to Cataplexy to see him continuing on as if it was, indeed, still 1995.
Chris, only time Howard wore bullet prove, was when he was facing part of the same rabid mob about the guns!
Thank you Mr Denmore for coining the ‘perennially angry”, excellent analysis in your edition today. Totally agree we cannot afford to go the American way in politics, we will all together end up with a bloodier nose and poorer that way.
Blimey I know several people, well women to be specific, who have received death threats and worse from the mad men for yonks because they are politically active.
‘Worse’ in the sentence above includes decapitated animals on the doorstep, punctured tyres, groups of men stending in the street or parked in cars and shouting whilst displaying placards saying things like “A whore lives in this house’,broken windows, stalking [please don't suggest the obvious ie contacting the police], obscene and violent phone calls, e-mails [some signed even, yeah I know, not smart] …you get the point.
Been going on for decades.
That’s not to belittle the general theme here, just trying to add a dimension and point out its not popped out of the woodwork just last week.
Even though I raised the spectre of ‘both sides do it’ in my post @3 (after all, which sections were most vocal during the MUA lockout, or at the time of the invasion of Iraq?) I must point put there is a real dead-ender, lost cause tone to what opponents of action on climate change are saying. It really is more like Hansonism’s ‘we’re losing our country forever‘, and less like that opposition which came at Howard from the progressive side.
Here’s something to consider: two of the most resilient Australian Leftwing protest movements in recent decades, support for East Timorese independence and advocacy for an apology to the Stolen Generations—they ended up being vindicated, big time. Even the MUA won a famous legal victory.
Yet opposition to any action on AGW must be pure lost causism. (Ultra-pessimists, don’t let me rain on your parade—the world may still be doomed. But at least there will be entrenched govt policy to actively mitigate the destruction of the planet.)
Birdy was banned from Catallaxy ages ago, several years I think. It’s true he may be lurking in the form of a pseudonym but he’d only be able to get away with that if he behaved himself.
Shhsh. Quickly got off track with attacks on Barrie Cassidy, hmm, wasn’t aware he was the one stirrng up the hate. Maybe I missed that particular Ep of Insiders.
Good to see the PM stood up to Jones & Mitchell the other day, hopefully that’ll be a trend. In the last few years Labour seems to be afraid of psuhing or even defending its position.
Anyway,the question is ‘why are the angry so mad’? Good question and one we shoud think seriously about rather than just lay the blame at Tony Abbot and a few radio announcers. After all, many of the angry are natural Labor consituents.
Well..if any “good” has come from the vile shock jocks is that it has broken my dirty little secret habit of listening to talk back radio on the drive home. Man, I missed you JJJ! Now I slap my steering wheel to tunes and not rabid stupidity.
um, seriously did you miss the whole anti-workchoices campaign? No hatred or anger there!
Is Windsor sure it wasn’t just Catherine Deveny with a wrong number?
Most of the anger is brought about by half cocked nitwits like Swanny, et al, claiming someone called his loyal leader a murderous dictator. If only he could understand context. But no, he can’t, and all the dodgy little lap dogs suck it up and shake in their shoes. He is the Australian treasurer who was a part of the A-team that announced a tax that he or the other deadset winners can’t explain.
Ah the politics of bile. Tempers run hot on both sides of debates and there seems to always be some crazy people willing to offer death threats. Tim Andrews & co from Menzies House got a death threat for setting up a webpage opposed to the flood levy.
http://insidethemindoftim.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/civility-death-threats-stop-the-levy/
In 2007 at an APEC rally I got called racist scum more than once for advocating that Australia honor it’s free trade agreements from early APEC meetings.
Andrew Bolt says he gets regular death threats. On MTR today he said it was about one per day.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/lets_compare_our_messages_tony
Mark Latham used to make a virtue of being a hater. And Julia Gillard supported his tone and rhetoric.
Kevin Rudd refered to the Chinese as rat f*ckers who are trying to rat f*ck us.
I’m getting sufficiently fed up that I think I’m going to actually try to see my local Liberal MP to instruct him, as my representative in parliament, to object to the current low quality of debate from the Opposition benches.
They are not a ‘loyal opposition’ in any way, shape or form.
I want an opposition to challenge the incumbent government to do better for all of us, not behave like privileged ‘no chinned Henry Heehaws’ loudly sulking because someone else got what they were entitled to.
Bullying behaviour is not acceptable in any government workplace. It is unacceptable in our parliamentarians on either side of the house. Especially from those who seem to claim that they are ‘better’ in some way.
Seriously did you miss the whole anti-workchoices campaign? No hatred or anger there!
False equivalence, Chris. On one hand, you have legislation that removes workers’ rights. It was countered by a successful election campaign, and then other legislation to reverse it. People may have been angry, but 99% of people’s actions were legal, and the other 1% were at the level of disgruntled activists tearing down Liberal posters or throwing eggs at them. Illegal but petty.
On the other hand, you have this example from hannah’s dad@12:
Don’t say they’re the same, because that would be silly.
Nup.
Political proponents, opinionators, ranters and psychopaths are all ultimately plugged into the same currents of cultural energy. The earth is teetering on the edge of a new paradigm. The old wisdom and presuppositions no longer pertain.
Such a thing happens infrequently, but it is readily recognisable in retrospect. !848, 1917, 1968 — these are watershed years when the energies pent up by suppressed hopes or unarticulated fears were unleashed. Everyone feels the energy. Those who hate what it means grow mad. Those who love what it means grow impatient. They feel that the rules are about to change. The world is gripped either by fear or hope.
The petty, provincial politics of Australia are an imperfect reflection of larger forces. When those forces become manifest, Australian politics will adapt to them. Things will seem the same, but everything will be different.
Driving this new world will be the new realities of energy. For the first time ever energy will be less available and more expensive. These facts will make people more angry and more mad than any abstract notions of rights or liberties.
Welcome home Thomas Hobbes. At last life our world is solitary, nasty, brutish and short.
Insiders mightn’t be ev0l, but it is doing its part in killing journalism in this country. And Chris Urlmann is now bringing that same brand of opinion-disguised-as-straight-reportage to the 7:30 Report as its new cohost.
When the ABC is no longer able to do reports like ‘The Big League’ or ‘The Sunshine State’ (which I only know from history books) then bye bye public interest, hello Abbottesque ‘global warming is crap’ idiocracy.
The perennially angry may have something else to be angry about soon.
Nickws, I don’t have the same low opinion of the ABC as you do. I don’t see any link, direct or indirect, between any faults of the ABC and its journalists and the ‘angry’ of the title of this topic. And Jane, I reckon the perennially angry are more likely to be angry that the govt didn’t try harder – pull any dirty tricks- to make sure Hicks is still in Guantanamo.
I have seen, first hand, what happens to you if you challenge the leadership of the CFMEU in WA . . . and that is what they do to their own.
Cassidy, Crabbe, Uhlmann—they’re ennablers of every piece of conventional wisdom that just happens to come from the Right of Mal Turnbull.
IMO it’s because Alan Ramsay has been incredibly influential with his style of longform opinionating-disguised-as-analysis. I knew we were in trouble when I read he was a favourite of journalism students (though I never knew of any readers of his here in Melbourne from before the Internet.)
Who could’ve predicted that his genially cynical anti-politics rants would work so well for ABC broadcast journos, adapted for their very own anti-progressive house style?
2 quick points.
Try reading this if you can find it:
“Defending the national Tuckshop” by Michael Cathcart.
Use google to see what it is about.
Mass violent hysteria has been around for a long time in this country.
Nick Gye.
A couple of days ago Andrew Wilkie attacked the racism of the Liberal party and the media.
The ABC described his parliamentary speech as an
“extraordinary outburst”.
Again, you can use google to find the online article that used those words.
The events described in Cathcart’s book were provoked by the circumstances of 1917.
Well said Kim
Kim, some tentative answers to your question, in declining order of seriousness:
a) Social dislocation. The ‘perpetually angry’ hold certain political opinions and beliefs that were once socially acceptable in polite company. They once reaped the benefits of holding all the social capital and being able to tread on marginalised groups with impunity, including in everyday speech acts. Now, every time they open their mouth to express formerly unremarkable and pedestrian social views, they are reminded, rather abruptly, that their views are no longer considered part of the civilised mainstream of polite society. They’ve lost their social privileges, and they’re angry about it. Like a toddler screams when you take its rattle away.
b) The ‘Authoritarians’ theory of Bob Altemeyer is also a pretty insightful bit of explanation.
c) Devolution of postmodernist political theories into widespread (formal) relativism and even solipsism. Somehow or other, a lot of postmodern approaches to text, context and power have been taken as a license for ‘anything goes’…As in, you can have your own facts, everything is opinion, truth is subordinated to rhetoric, repetition and passion.
This kind of lowest-common-denominator corruption of otherwise useful and important theories tends to happen with theories that are somewhat opaque or difficult for the non-specialist to understand (witness how often quantum mechanical theories are cited as “proof” of all kinds of New Age woo-woo).
d) This post makes me so mad! You Stalinist!
e) Congratulations! You are the 8,749th fiercely independent, iconoclastic and above all, original thinker to conclude that LP is a groupthink hivemind that doesn’t get irony! Galileo smiles upon you!
Psychologising the explanation of some outbreaks has some explanatory power. However, occasionally, an outbreak has a larger, more compelling structural explanation. Genuine fears and vital interests are engaged. Sometimes verbal and physical violence is a rational response to a real threat.
Colonel Gaddafi sits in his bunker in Tripoli and provides psychological explanations for the Libyan uprising. Does he really believe that al Qaeda is drugging Libyan youth? Of course not. A psychological explanation for the uprising is necessary for him to continue to believe in the legitimacy of his regime and to deny the real causes of the uprising.
These people have always been with us. But before blogs they had no outlet, except talk back radio, and that was carefully controlled. With blogs anyone can say anything about anybody or anything at anytime, completely without consequence. In theory the laws against defamation and threatening people apply to blogs, but they rarely if ever enforced.
And, legalities aside, of course blogs are anonymous. Anyone can be as abusive as they like. In real life, there are social consequences from calling people Stalinist c..ts and telling them to kill themselves to people’s faces, so most people don’t do it, even if they are inclined to. On the net, there are no consequences. At worst you get banned from a blog under your assumed name.
It’s rather like Internet porn. The net did not create the demand for porn. It satisfied a demand that had always been there, but suppressed by relative lack of supply.
This presumes that MPs are “delegates” of the people rather than “representatives” of the people. A common mistake.
You mean an invented strawman and an almost instinctive distrust of economic reform are strange bedfellows? Gosh.
Are people angry, Kim?
Abbott and his cronies are faking anger.
Shock jocks are always angry.
A small minority have anger issues and are now popping up on blogs (as Sam notes).
But is there any evidence of widespread, mainstream anger?
Abbott seems to think he can get a “Tea Party” happening here.
But in the US, people are really angry and have plenty to be angry about: mass unemployment, collapsing house prices etc.
Life is just too comfortable in Australia to get very angry about anything for very long.
Great post, Kim. Yes, there is a lot of mad anger out there – and there are plenty of vested interests who have no compunction in fostering it and trying to harness it to sectional advantage.
I don’t listen to talkback radio, but I’ve come to the conclusion that much of the extremity of current political discourse is facilitated by Internets technology, whereby ignorant haters can share and disseminate any amount of disinformation to other aggrieved and alienated idiots.
I’m not just talking about the frootloop fringe like Stormfront etc – most of us would be aware that many mainstream sites attract and encourage the expression of hateful sentiments under the guise of ‘freedom of speech’. Think of Bolt, Blair, OLO, Catallaxy etc as sites that routinely accept or favour commentary that vilifies members of minority groups, fosters ignorance about topics such as AGW and asylum seekers, or establishes hate speech as normal discourse.
I used to have such high hopes of the Internets providing better ways for people to network and collaborate positively, but it seems to me that what’s occurring is a rather sick parody of the ‘e-democracy’ that was touted a decade or so back.
Katz @29: “The events described in Cathcart’s book were provoked by the circumstances of 1917.”
Yes, and…?
Helen, see #22.
I can see how that works – after his polemic on matters environmental, Hamilton is most known, and despised, for advocating a kind of radical asceticism. That’s a double whammy for those whose response to the prospect of this massive but inevitable change is fear and loathing, so Hamilton probably sees more than the usual share of barking mad hate mail.
I gate-keep the emails that arrive through one of our local Greens groups websites. Sometimes some issue gets posted on a News Limited blog and you get a bunch of brave soles using anonymising websites to send nasty messages through the contact forms. It doesn’t have to be an issue with scale and weight to get these heroes fired up into threatening death on individuals and their families.
The nasty emails don’t get passed on to the intended recipient by the way. If they are directly threatening I try to trace them back to their origin so I can report them, often that’s futile.
Here’s an example:
The IP address is from an anonymiser service.
See Annabel Crabb today deliver the propostion that all these death threats and comparisons of the PM with terrorist dictators and condemnations of racism are just politicians being over-sensitive.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/03/3153646.htm
Apathy is what makes Australia a great place to live.
Sam @ 42 – thats not even particularly imaginative. We have a noticeboard at work for emails for particularly good rants from people. Some people just have no filter between the brain and the keyboard – no punctuation nor line breaks either.
But in the US, people are really angry and have plenty to be angry about: mass unemployment, collapsing house prices etc.
yes, but that’s not what they are angry about!
I tried reading it, Mr Denmore, but it just annoyed me. Crabb really does seem to be an idiot.
Choice quotes from Ms Crabb:
Don’t know what the capital letters on ‘Actual Argument’ are intened to signify, but if this is her idea of an what Parliament should be arguing, she is more of an air-head than I thought.
And really, anyone who believes that this is just business as usual with the internet thrown in is seriously deluded.
This is a concerted campaign to overthrow an elected government through intimidation, inflamed rhetoric and bully-boy tactics.
But hey, Annabel, it’s little more than a joke, right?
Those angry failures of middle aged men are everywhere, and everywhere their anger gives them clout even greater than their numbers. I’ve always thought the remedy is to offer them crude left populism rather than crude right populism – a bit of old-fashioned class warfare is the go. I’m surprised some of the media owners haven’t cottoned on to that and hired a traditional commo as a shock jock.
Tory mobs are, of course, hardly a new phenomenon anyway. dsquared has an excellent post here on the uses to which they can be put.
I called Crabb’s piece on Twitter a classic example of Professor Jay Rosen’s ‘view from nowhere’. He defines this as:
Tim Dunlop has picked up on this morning with a great blog post on Crabb’s conveniently beige view of politics.
Media legerdemain at work, now.
All those conservitard rantings are now buried beneath reports of a Labor backbench revolt, which is not actually happening.
Yes, front page of The Australian, key political talking point on the ABC and I presume other media outlets.
Rinse, recycle, repeat.
You really think these sites are run by ignorant haters sharing disinformation?
Take Catallaxy as an example. It is run by a university economics professor (Sinclair). You may not agree with him (I don’t always) but do you really believe his worldview and articles are built on ignorance or motivated towards disinforming people? I get the impression you are merely yearning for a one sided debate that suits your own personal worldview and agenda.
I think the Internet has and continues to be a great vehicle for engagement and debate. It allows people to collaborate and organise and disseminate ideas in a multitude of new and wonderful ways. It shouldn’t be expected to filter ideas and in fact the fact that it doesn’t is what makes it so much better than TV and newspapers.
On a divergent point here I used to think of this sort of thing as some grand conspiracy. But I now think it might just be the media’s lust for more stories.
Look at it this way, years ago there would have been some small story about some constituents being unhappy with the big new carbon tax.
But now you can get many many columns from one seed. You can whip up your audience into a state and then if one of them goes off on a tear influenced (key word: influenced, not instructed) you get more columns.
So for instance if you whip up your readers into a frenzy, then point out say where Rudd’s new digs are in another part of the paper you then might get down the road a story about vandalism or assualt. And then that’s the gift that keeps on giving because you’d have tones of followups and opinion pieces.
And no responsibility.
It’s not a right wing conspiracy. It’s the media beast sowing seeds for later consumption.
It depends what sort of traditional commo you have in mind. Trade unionists from the Communist Party of Australia (think Jack Mundey, Laurie Carmichael, John Halfpenny) were always best at pitching their appeal to politically engaged industrial workers whose lack of opportunities for formal education didn’t mean they lacked intelligence or the desire to learn through other channels. An Old Labor shock jock (of the kind of Old Labor type that ran the Victorian ALP in the 1960s) or a Maoist shock jock might be more the go.
A few days ago while stuck in sydney traffic for several work related hours I tuned in to 2GB (Jones and others) and was pleased to receive the reality check I deserved. Tradies, the bearers of all market virtue but scarcely capable of stringing words into a sentence, are clearly the future. I’ve warned my children that the times have changed and to watch their step. Katz @22 is an excellent summary but far too optimistic.
@25, maybe, but I think they may find it a little harder to ignore or justify the Rodent government’s lies. It’s a bit like the Haneef fiasco.
Twist and turn as they like, they can’t paper over those cracks and in this case the evidence comes from the US State Department, hardly a haven for left wing fruit cakes, I would have thought.
I do agree it will ramp up the apoplexy meter exponentially. I’m laying in popcorn, choc tops and a comfy chair.
Things really have cooled down in recent years. A few analogies made, a few pointed comments, a phone call to Tony Windsor telling him he is a mongrel dog, etc etc.
Not that long ago we were treated to politicians ranting on the floor of parliament that they hoped one another’s baby was born deformed, a group called Socialist Resistance was organising bashing attacks on pensioners who dared to listen to the speeches of a politician.
All in all, it is quite civilised now. What’s the fuss?
Hey, remember back in the zany, heady, crazy days of the twentieth century, back when we were all young and carefree, and leftists murdered ONE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE?! And tortured people, and persecuted people, and shut them up in labor camps and mental hospitals? Remember how all of that got done by leftists? Remember?
Doesn’t figure much in your narrative these days, duzzit. Some crackpot on fringe radio says something silly, and for you that’s enough to wash the oceans of blood off your hands?
Sorry, no, leftists — ain’t buyin’.
Get a worldview, and get a conscience.
Update: Tim Dunlop.
@59 – I’m presuming that comment is to be read as satire, j_p_z.
Because, obviously, all social democrats living in 2011 are totally and personally responsible for TEH CRIMES OF MAO AND STALIN. Or something?
You know, because all “leftists” are commos.
OK, pay attention!
All you mass murderers, you torturers, you gulag commandants and you mental hospital committers. Yes, you. You know who you are.
From now on, no posting for you on Larvatus Prodeo. Ever.
There ya go, Japerz. Fixed.
I for one am glad I won’t ever be sharing pixels with the likes of them again.
Fond as my memories of the late 60s are, perhaps the ‘let it all hang out’, and ‘primal scream’ therapies etc are having consequences: if you’re angry then let it out! People were once taught to imitate the good manners of their betters – self-control, no extreme, emotional, vulgar, loud behaviour.
Someone made the point earlier about porn being everywhere, well so is violence. Australian sport is mostly televised, glorified violence, there’s almost no room now for good maners in sport (it was called sportsmanship – that was before ‘winners are grinners’ became the thing). TV, video games … violence is commonplace, so why be surprised if our language has become more violent? Like alcohol, fat and sugar – we’re drowning in it. But hey, it’s making a lot of money for some.
Although the lower and middle classes haven’t been squeezed as much here as in the U.S. I think there are legitimate reasons to be angry. People look around and see that the system has been arranged to make the well-off very rich indeed, while their own lives are frazzled and very likely their children’s lives will be even more difficult.
Australian sport is mostly televised, glorified violence,
It used to be worse.
@34
TerjeP, if MPs are not the people we citizens appoint to represent us in parliament, what are they?
And how do I actually register that I think both sides are doing a poor job of governing?
Because if we all just let them get on with it, we might as well return to the feudal system of having influential bodies (individual or corparate) appoint MPs in rotten boroughs to do their bidding, and we are not citizens but subjects again.
“Australian sport is mostly televised, glorified violence,
It used to be worse”
But not as pervasive. Football on TV is practically endless – people watch hours and hours and hours of it.
shorter j_p_z
Oceans! Rivers! Of Blood! Comin’ atcha from LP HQ.
Red Rum! Red Rum!
Kim @61, I fear that you are making light of the personal moral responsibility of Sarah Hanson-Young and Kate Ellis for what Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and the Red Brigades did before they was born.
Norto, you know what the Greens are like — all blood, all the time. Oceans of it. On their hands.
I’ve seen their meetings. The agenda items are nothing but blood, blood, blood, from ‘Minutes of Last Meeting’ to ‘Any Other Business’.
OK STAP,
I’ll bite. Citations or it didn’t happen.
Mercurius — well I’m sure the Holocaust is just a lot of silly fun to you, too, right?
Don’t run away, and don’t get huffy, and don’t you fucking dare try to hide behind some ostensible badge of moral superiority. All of the things I described really happened. The Great Leap Forward was every damn bit as real as Auschwitz, and don’t you fucking dare try to deny that.
Now… Back with your jokes about the brutal deaths of millions of people, asshole.
???
Once again boring j_p_z hijacks yet another thread with his loony posturings.
Get a blog buddy. I for one will not be reading the drivel therein, particularly when you haven’t taken your pills.
Maybe some allowance has to be made for the time difference between here and j_p_z land, and the gentleman is in his cups?
Funny thing about the Holocaust, J_P_Z, I don’t hold Germans born since 1945 responsible for it.
I’m not cracking jokes about the Great Leap Forward. I’m cracking jokes about how ridiculous it is of you to attempt to pin “oceans of blood” on people writing here. But since you are a veritable conniseur of irony, I’m sure you already knew that.
On what basis do you attribute Mao’s “oceans of blood” to this humble blog? Or Pol Pot’s? Or Stalin? Or Mugabe?
cf. Kim’s original question at the top of the thread…
But first, let’s get back to how ridiculous you are:
——-
Greens Party AGM, 2011
——-
Agenda:
——-
1. Blood
2. Blood
3. Blood
4. Refreshments
5. Blood
6. Blood
7. Lunch
8. Blood
9. Blood
10. BLOOD!
11. Adjourn for dinner, followed by blood.
There’s an easy way to avoid the thread hijack.
Let’s just take a quick aside to tackle this head on.
Stalin. Leftist. A warning not to move too far to the left.
I’ll even go the extra mile. Hitler. Far left wing. I don’t care about the arguements. He was the leader of the Socialist Party. Q.E.D. Case closed.
Here’s the thing. None of us here want society to go full right wing. Or full left wing. Because oddly enough when you go to the extreme left or right you end up with mass human misery for the benefit of the few.
How dare the soft left whinge about the rhetoric ramping up because it’s from those percieved to be on the right?
You don’t understand. Much as I despised Howard’s polices back in the day I would never even have dreamed of ringing him up and hoping he would die. As far as a lot of us here are concerned the acceptable tools at our disposal are the vote, contacting (not threatening) our rep and maybe the odd protest. And I know it’s the same of my right wing friends.
But hey JPZ, great attempt at a derail. Let me Barrie Cassidy style advise you on the next blog you hit up with your wisdom on why the soft left should put up or shut up you should go the whole “oh these….” actually stuff it. Work it out yourself. Let’s get back on topic.
JPZ, why do you do this?
Mercurius @76, you have a needless duplication there – “Refreshments” = “blood”.
(except in our zombie sub-branch, where braaaaaaaaaaaaaaains are provided at half time.)
Ah,32 Liam that’s actually the core question of this thread.
And, like the question about why does a dog lick its nether regions, the answer is the same.
Because it/he can.
Same with the angry mad men.
As Mercurius pointed out back at #32 part [a].
Well Liam, I can’t speak for Japerz, but I’m sure that screaming MAO! STALIN! and passing out is more fun than, you know, coming up with an argument.
Why are people so unkind?
Why are the angry so mad?
Having read the j_p_z rant, I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that the divisions in our politics are not between “left” and “right” but between “sane” and “insane”.
How people calling for sensible moderation in public debate (and insistence on the publication of facts before radio demagogues engage in spittle-flecked rants) could be bracketed with Stalinists just defies logic.
This is all coming from the home of polarised politics and strawmen – the USA. Over there, anyone who doesn’t carry around an Uzi and a bible and who doesn’t see the federal government as a threat to civilisation is branded as a socialist.
Mercurius, it doesn’t sound like fun.
JPZ, I look out for and anticipate your comments here as they’re most usually interesting, well-considered and extremely erudite. It’s just that you seem to jump off the deep end every now and then, and it’s not informative or edifying when you do.
I hope you’re OK.
Well, it will be blood, blood and blood for real, it is just a question of how, when and where it will flow the most. For we, the global human population, are not just facing one critical moment with energy, as Katz has pointed out @23, but several others are lining up just as potent. More than a decade ago when I was seriously looking into AGW, I came to the conclusion that serious repercussions of unrestrained population growth will be felt before anything of substantial consequences of AGW will be registered. Of course it is not as straight forward as both are somewhat linked. However, another critical factor is the all pervasive complexity underlying every aspect of our live and our reliance thereof, such as in in technology, infrastructure, economy and communication etc.
So yeah, blood will flow, not just in the last century as Katz pointed out, but for millenia. However, anger is not a good insurance for prevention of thus in our patch of the woods. I repeat my conclusion in my above comment. If we follow the US of A example in angry politics, we will collectively end up with bloodier noses and much poorer than keeping a clear head.
Maybe going for the Carbon Tax and ‘confronting’ the mock chocks is Gillards proverbial ‘give the dog a bone’ so she can burgle the house, just saying.
If we visit Clive Hamilton’s Crikey thread at the link Kim provides, we find that our fowlmouthed feathered friend has liberally offloaded his guano on it.
Speaking of dictators – what about that fascist dictator Gillard
Marx schmarx, this isn’t the nineteen thirties or the nineteen fifties. It’s not about traditional class relations. It’s not the existential threat of the Russian revolution.
What we’re actually looking at is a continuation, by other means, of the reactionary anger provoked by the end of White Australia and the rise of the ‘permissive society’.
Ironically it’s the pacifist & socialist-friendly Arthur Calwell who was the first great icon of that tendency (though he was merely publicly saying what folk like Menzies were privately thinking circa 1970). Then Geoffrey Blainey and Howard had a go at it in the eighties. Then our girl Pauline in the nineties.
Scratch the surface and it’s all about the nonwhites, the poofters, the women who don’t know their places.
(I don’t even think all the Cold War Warriors were naturally synonymous with this. Santamaria never opposed the end of White Australia, and, in front of certain audiences at least, he was keen to emphasise his belief that capitalism was the great threat after the fall of the Soviet Union. His authoritarian desire to purge liberal Catholics from the Church wasn’t a projection of racial anxiety, so he gets a tick for that at least. OTOH Quadrant Magazine obviously is as much about post-White Australia racial anxiety as it is post-nuclear family anxiety, especially since Mabo.)
White Australia is my Godwin’s when it comes to bluntly analysing all this. Which makes me a better man than some(?)
So, we think the ABC, or certain people within it, is now hopelessly biased? The Australian every now and then wheels someone out who picks out a few instances from ABC current affairs as proof that the ABC is inherently left-wing, often citing Cassidy and Crabb as offenders. Andrew Bolt etc do the same. Now we have on this forum the same sort of limp thinking and analysis, the outcome of which is that the ABC is apparently some sort of stalking horse and cheerleader for the right wing of the Liberal Party. Why, even Alan Ramsay, that notorious right winger, gets a serve.
Some seem aggrieved that if a journalist doesn’t actively push the opinion that they (the some) hold then the journos are covert (overt?) right wing boosters for the Liberals.
Hmm, all reminiscent of undergraduate political discourse.
How is JulIAR any different from HoWARd, bLIAR and BusHitler?
Pot kettle black. A pox on both your houses.
Oh, la de da, Nick Gye. You clearly come from the school that thinks one can’t criticise any form of journalism without being able to be accused of talking one’s own book.
The ABC isn’t right wing. It isn’t left wing. It isn’t anything. And there’s the problem. It doesn’t SAY anything. Its journalists are all living under the stop watch desparately not trying to be seen to be ‘biased’.
The paranoia has become such that the national broadcaster is afraid of actually telling the truth, which is that Australia is importing the US techniques of extreme polarisation and the idea that the truth comes second to the the spin.
I’m not sure what planet you live on, but it isn’t one that I associate with any particular insight.
Tony wants a Tea Party.
It keeps the discourse where he likes it which is at the insult-trading immediately prior to a punch up.
John Hewson said that Abbott’s style throughout the 90′s was to create a dispute, apologize for going too far then create another dispute.
Abbott did that for a while as Opposition Leader, then started wheeling out the soft and cuddly Joe Hockey as his nominated apologiser for Abbott’s own excesses, but, as the apology count increased, has now resorted to putting his potty-mouth utterances into the mouths of Bernardi/Morrisson/Mirabella/Abetz and apologizing for them. Makes him look reasonable.
Nah, the dude likes chaos. Makes him feel powerful. Hewson was actually the same, as noted by George Mega.
Abbott is now presiding over the degeneration of an already degenerated political culture aiming for the creation of a semi-hysterical, aggression-oriented national non-conversion. Its ideal feature that it will lack reason so Tony can ramp the fear and trusims into it all the more easily.
To think he was a Rhodes Scholar…
The events described in Cathcart’s book happened in the 1920s and early 1930s, not in the early 21st century.
But thank you for attacking a thesis I wasn’t trying to defend.
Well… what planet do I come from? yeh right.
As to the assertion I ‘clearly come from the school…’ , I don’t know whether I do or not I don’t know what ‘talking one’s own book’ means’, haven’t come across that saying before.
Whatever planet I may happen to be on…my insight such as it is, is that it is so easy to accuse others of bias. You may well be on the mark about ABC journos not wanting to seem biased. But for me, an everday viewer of ABC news and occasional viewer of Lateline & Insiders , &7.30 report etc (and rare viewer of Q&A)I don’t see, detect, any underlying bias or cowardice, as as been asserted in at times fairly dramatic tones on this forum.
The Austrlian newspaper, for instance, blurs the lne between news and opinion, whereas what I appreciate about the ABC is that it doesn’t- its comment, say on the Drum, is clearly labeeld as opinion. Are wanting the ABC to blur that line as well as long as the opinion expressed accords with our own views?
Nick Gye. Read. What. I. Actually. Wrote @ 28.
I attacked Ramsay’s supposed form of journalism, aka his arrogant opinionating masquerading as journalism. I never said he had an ideological bias.
I did infer that the likes of Chris Uhlmann have an ideological bias. (Actually, scratch Cassidy and Crabbe from that list—I think it’s just Chris who is biased, as opposed to the other two are merely pushovers for ultraconservative CW.)
Instead of defending the more abstract idea of a perfect ABC, do you want to argue in favour of Uhlmann, what with his flagrant disrespect for the ABC’s charter’s rule about journalists being impartial?
No? I didn’t think so.
(I don’t want a Leftwing ABC, I just want one where reporters don’t actively promote the free market editorial prescriptions of The Economist as being superior to the “diabolical complexity” of what Australian parliamentary parties are currently legislating for.
Yet it’s not as if I have a problem with The Economist as a standalone media entity. Just its independent political opinions being espoused on my tax dime.
Complicated, no?
Nuance, you might want to try it.)
Katz, I know that.
As for attacking theses one isn’t trying to defend… Wait, what exactly are your arguing against? You’re the one playing Ms
.451917 on this thread, not me. Surely you do agree with Cathcart?Meh, when it comes to class analysis I prefer Norto’s contribution from the trendy Peter Finch wing of the Communist Party, not warmed over Leninism.
Nick the G, talking one’s book means promoting an outcome in which you are already invested – ideologically, emotionally, financially.
Sorry to patronise you. Didn’t mean to. Understand you value the ABC. So do I. My view is they promote a view from nowhere, which doesn’t really tell us anything except the progress of a tennis match which is meaningless to 99.9 per cent of the population.
They actually have an opportunity, thanks to their non-commercial status, to stand back from the noise and offer a wider perspective. But they don’t do that because their masters are urging them to be like Channel 9 (despite Leigh Sales cutely protesting about not chasing dodgy plumbers stories).
I must read Cathcart’s book. I believe one of my grandfathers was on what I would regard as the Wrong Side of that episode. I think some of my relatives regard me as a class traitor.
Ah!
What’s with the ‘ No? I didn’t think so.’, before I’ve even had a chance to reply.?? So certain in the correctness of your view.
I have heard people express the view that Chris U is particularly biased towards the Liberals or some sort of free market ideology – well I haven’t picked that up, but then again maybe I am not looking keenly enough for bias.
Who is CW??
I too don’t have a problem with the Economist, I find some of their stuff to be of interest.
You imply that you don’t want the ABC to have independent political opinions at taxpayers’ expense (I assume you are referring to the ABC and not to the Economist). That is a view that has been put by others, particularly with the expansion of ABC on-line, incl the Drum & ABC 24. To me that’s a question of whether the ABC should be in this ‘marketplace’. And does it detract from thier news or are the 2 getting blurred, a la the Oz. I like the way the ABC has opinion (though I think ABC 24 is a bit of dud)and manages it.Whether or not that fits in with an abstract idea of a perfect ABC..? well, there’ll be lots of views there
You advise me of trying nuance! Puzzling. When what we get overwhelmingly coming though this forum, as with a lot of blogs and comments on new sites, is Certainty.
p.s as I pointed out before this has strayed off the topic but perhaps is a good illustration how a little bit anger (and associated insults) can arise quite quickly
Mr Denmore,
do you think they (ABC) have got worse/ chnanged over recent years?
Nick G it is good to remember that Howard stacked the ABC Board in his image. Aunty was put under extreme pressure to reflect his right wing world view.
Thus the likes of Bolt, Sheridan, Henderson and many other one eyed opposition supporters invade it’s day to day running as commentators.
CW is conventional wisdom. A little of the latter would be much appreciated, if you don’t mind.
If you can’t see why it’s unethical for Chris Uhlmann to state that Gillard’s policy is leading the economy towards ruin (even if he says it in the goddamned passive-voice form) then I see no point in continuing this debate.
TerjeP @ 53:
I was talking about the boofheaded commentary, not the site owners. Mind you, what motivates obviously intelligent people to knowingly foster the promulgation of ignorance and hatred is beyond me.
Even Bolt must be aware of the vilificatory nature of many of the comments that his blog posts provoke. What good does he think will come of it? What good do you think is achieved by the viral dissemination of hatred and disinformation on the Internets?
Buggered if I know what makes haters and their sponsors tick.
“I too don’t have a problem with the Economist”
well that’s fine, but then you’re obviously not on the left side of politics.
Russell,
one can only deduce so much about a person from one line…
Quite a lot from that line.
Nickws,
I don’t agree with some of what he has written in the article you have linked to. But, I don’t find it as offensive as you do.
Is his piece new or opinion? If the latter (whcih Is my view) And should the ABC’s chief politcal reporter being writing opinion pieces, does doing so compromise him as a news journalist? That’s getting to the rub I reckon.
Russell,
that’s taking a very simple view. One of the other posters here made a simlar comment, 93. He too is ‘obviously not on the left side of politics.’
“They actually have an opportunity, thanks to their non-commercial status, to stand back from the noise and offer a wider perspective. ”
agreed.
@65
We do appoint them to represent us. We don’t appoint them to do what we want. A represenative is different to a delegate.
For instance a delegate to the UN is supposed to do what their home nation government tells them to do. They don’t act autonomously. They take instructions and obey orders. On the other hand a representative does their own thing. Ian Thorpe represented Australia at the olympics. He swims his own race.
The point of representative government is that the parliament should be a microcosm of society that has the opportunity to consider things more deeply than society in general. MPs are supposed to be one of us. Like people on a jury they are expected to approximate the views of society. However neither an MP nor those on a jury are obliged to do what is popular.
Voting is partly about accountability but more so it is about a method of ensuring a representative parliament. I think it works but it isn’t optimal.
Sortition would be a far better means to select representatives but it wouldn’t be as accountable. Elections and the capacity of politicians to lie (and our strange capacity to believe them) tends toward a less representative outcome.
Nick Gye,
People who don’t have a problem with The Economist have to go and sit with TerjeP, on the other side. He’ll have lots of other things for you: Quadrant, the IPA Review, The Spectator, Reason ….. Over on this side we read The New Statesman, Arena, Dissent, Green Left Weekly ……
SATP @ “Not that long ago we were treated to politicians ranting on the floor of parliament that they hoped one another’s baby was born deformed”
Yep, and within the last few days the current Australian PM was compared with Gaddafi, and accused of deliberately “luring” refugees to their deaths.
I wonder why these more recent examples didn’t spring to mind though steve?
“a group called Socialist Resistance was organising bashing attacks on pensioners who dared to listen to the speeches of a politician.”
Got any evidence for that?
j_p_z @ 59
“leftists murdered ONE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE?! And tortured people, and persecuted people, and shut them up in labor camps and mental hospitals?”
Sorry about that japes, we was jus’ funnin’
Hopefully now that teh left have finally accepted blame for mao, pol pot and stalin, you on the right can finally put all these guys behined you…
COLONEL HUGO BANZER, President of Bolivia
FULGENCIO BATISTA, President of Cuba
SIR HASSANAL BOLKIAH, the Sultan of Brunei
P. W. BOTHA, President of South Africa
GENERAL HUMBERTO BRANCO, President of Brazil
VINICIO CEREZO, President of Guatemala
CHIANG KAI-SHEK, President of Taiwan
ROBERTO SUAZO CORDOVA, President of Honduras
ALFREDO CRISTIANI, President of El Salvador
NGO DINH DIEM, President of South Viet Nam
GENERAL SAMUEL DOE, President of Liberia
FRANÇOIS & JEAN CLAUDE DUVALIER, Presidents-for-Life of Haiti
GENERAL FRANCISCO FRANCO, President of Spain
ADOLF HITLER, Chancellor of Germany
HUSSAN II, King of Morocco
FERDINAND MARCOS, President of the Philippines
MAXIMILIANO HERNANDEZ MARTINEZ, General of El Salvador
MOBUTU SESE SEKO, President of Zaire
GENERAL MANUEL NORIEGA, Chief of Defense forces, Panama
TURGUT OZAL, Prime Minister of Turkey
MOHAMMAD REZA PAHLEVI, Shah of Iran, King of Kings
GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS, Prime Minister of Greece
PARK CHUNG HEE, President of South Korea
GENERAL AUGUSTO PINOCHET, President of Chile
GENERAL SITIVENI RABUKA, Commander, Armed Forces of Fiji
GENERAL EFRAIN RIOS MONT, President of Guatemala
ANTONIO DE OLIVEIRA SALAZAR, Prime Minister of Portugal
HALIE SELASSIE, Emperor of Ethiopia
IAN SMITH, Prime Minister of Rhodesia
ANASTASIO SOMOZA, SR. AND JR., Presidents of Nicaragua
ALFREDO STROESSNER, President-for-Life of Paraguay
GENERAL SUHARTO, President of Indonesia
RAFAEL LEONIDAS TRUJILLO, President of the Dominican Republic
GENERAL JORGE RAFAEL VIDELA, President of Argentina
MOHAMMED ZIA UL-HAQ, President of Pakistan….
Or maybe not…
Russell,
Really, that is a pathetic comment.
You judge my reading material (and me) from one line of one post? And that of ‘Nickwss’ and ‘TerjeP’(I think the former at least would take exception to your simple view about what reading of the Economist means..).
It’s us vs them. Your comment..’over on this side’ is revealing. You are quick to categorise into ‘we’ and them
“Over on this side we read The New Statesman, Arena, Dissent, Green Left Weekly”
I don’t read any of ‘em, do i have to change sides now?!1?
Russell,
is that the fabled LP irony coming to the fore? I’m not sure — Quadrant is probably a bridge too far, but The Economist…? There are some fairly sane articles in The Economist. Some famously bad ones as well, but it’s not on my banned list or anything. (I remember for example reading some interesting articles about the 2009 winners of the nobel prize in economics.)
Nick G seems to be honestly expressing his opinion, and seems to be interested in a discussion, so maybe you can start to explain your positions a bit and not just state them?
But don’t mind me.
Well, The Economist is its own worst enemy. The current issue has to carry a number of letters which take it to task for poorly based economic commentary. Good thing too. How much deeper does that problem go, one wonders.
On the wider issue, it seems to me, it isn’t the finger-wagging, ranting, insult style that the Right have made their own. It’s the sheer blistering ignorance.
Cut and paste some nonsense that’s being artfully posted/circulated by those in on the joke. Complete lack of any attempt to “check” or source facts or wild claims, before posting the vitriol. Deliberate distortion of other’s comments.
The Punch is the classic Oz example of the potential good and awful weakness of the blogosphere. Sloppy opinion, for the most part, slackly checked for factual content, often couched in inflammatory terms to bait for responses.
And then the posters own efforts in reply. The standardis off the scale, not just for finger-wagging ranting and personal insult but worse, for basic ignorance and factual error, though as easily checked for online as The Punch itself.
From the recurrence of themes and phrases, its plain that much of the dross has been snipped from elsewhere – and not always the sillier columns of the Tele.
Much could be done to raise the standard there, with little effort, simply by consistency in moderating to the house rules. Too hard, apparently. Moderation on The Punch is a standing joke, even among regulars there.
So, few decent authors of decent articles, right or left. Almost no sensible posters of right or left. The exceptions you can count on one hand, and even then, one regular sound piece is nothing more than a direct copy of the original on another National source.
Barometer of popular opinion? Hardly.
“Democracy” at work? Quite the opposite.
But don’t try telling The Punch that – you’ll likely get “moderated”. Or the posters – they’ll slag all over you.
Listen to Fran Kelly and Michelle Grattan on Breakfast sometime. Not clearly labelled as opinion, but full of comments of the “Hey, Abbott really landed a punch on her, didn’t he? Do you think Gillard is Not Looking Prime Ministerial today?”… type.
Nick WS @100, Uhlmann didn’t really write “Hand’s up”, did he? * goes off and checks * Erk, he really did. And these are the “senior” writers young journos are supposed to look up to. I thought the conservatives on the ABC board were supposed to be all about a return to basics, 3 Rs, grammar ‘n spelling ‘n punctuation, eh? /nitpick
Loe2 @ 99. As I’ve said here before time and time again, not only did Howard stack the board and get the ABC back on track with bias (where it would get in the shit if it was negative to the Coalition) Rudd (and Gillard) to their great credit didn’t do the traditionsl sweep the board and upper level clean and start again that most governments do with the ABC.
Unfortunately what the ABC has taken from that is that being anti Labor is OK as they’ll let you hold your opinion but being anti Coalition can be hazardous to your career health.
I miss the old ABC that used to ask the hard questions of both sides of politics. Many was the time I would hear an ALP pollie go on the ‘lefty’ ABC and be surprised at the robustness of the questions. (I still remember the gutlessness of the ALP not going on Triple J in the late 90′s to be interviewed.)
Still I can’t blame them. After a nasty incident on another forum a long time ago I tend to review then delete rather than send any comments that are too critical of the Coalition. When I kick the ALP I know that the worst I’ll get nowadays is robust debate. Whereas in the past criticising the Coalition can result in some nasty real world consequences.
Nick Gye, if I take a little license to caricature your basic positions — just as a cartoonist might accentuate physical features to underline a point, you understand — can you see some problems with your underlying assumptions as you have put them so far?…
1) ‘Detecting Bias Is Difficult Therefore We Shouldn’t Try’.
2) ‘Right and Left are mirror-images of each other, equal and opposition reactions at all times, therefore all political debate is moot.’
3) ‘Balance is when you present facts and bullshit in equal measure’.
4) ‘It’s all in the eye of the beholder, we can only trust the view from nowhere that sees nothing’.
5) ‘LP is a groupthink hivemind devoid of irony and I am the 8,749th fiercely independent, original thinker to arrive at this novel conclusion’.
Of the above, I think (1) and (2) are the most egregious errors.
(2) In particular is the reflexive, aggressive assertion of moral equivalence to every political act. So for example, JuLIAR is just as fair as HoWARd, because, you know, there’s no meaningful moral distinction between breaking a promise about a 6c-a-litre carbon tax, and getting our country involved in two wars. It’s all the same.
If you seriously believe that left-and-right are just squabbling siblings engaged in an eternal mirror-battle, where actions and reactions are equal-and-opposite pantomime, then progress is impossible and all political argument is moot and sterile.
In which case, what are you doing here?
Well, why are the angry so mad? It seems to me that it’s a lonely place, neo-conservatism. As a neo-conservatist, you’re restricted to looking at the way individuals interact. You don’t believe in social context to explain individual behavior…
Even the concept of a government tends towards notions of the heroic nature of a governments leaders. The government is a monument to the nation. There’s a kind of Forest Gump-ishness to conservatism, which — and I agree with Kim’s intro — sets you up for a fail on one level, but equally restricts not only your ability to describe and explain political problems but to find ways to act on them.
I’m going to get a bit esoteric now in my search for an adequate analogy and mention the light wave/particle duality thing. Individuals are always present in any kind of social interaction so it’s always possible to take that perspective, but to conceptually limit yourself to that perspective must be incredibly frustrating:
Conservatives are restricted to blaming the falsity of social thinking: “If only we didn’t have taxes…”, “If only we didn’t have a social/ public education system”, “If only there was no social welfare/ medical system…”
While the only avenue of action which they have is on the individual level. And, the individual is a very emotional being and frustration, anger and fear are part of an individual’s emotional response to his/her environment.
Look, there’s a reason why it’s neo-conservatism. It’s anachronistic. Neo-conservatism doesn’t have the flexibility and the different layers of abstraction to describe the (political) world today. The inconsistencies are papered over by a mixture of religion and myth. And here too, the myths that we’ve inherited from antiquity are generally fairly violent and angry stories…
It’s an entertaining read, HD.
Chapter and verse on the episodes discussed are lacking because the Cth Govt under Menzies, I seem to recall, destroyed much of the records that would have demonstrated how close were the ties of various Tory governments to right wing militias. This was a deliberate conspiracy of silence.
It is more than likely that your grandfather may have been caught up in the movement if he were of the right age and social class. The more famous militia was the NSW New Guard. But in fact the nation-wide Old Guard was much larger. Cathcart estimates that on a per capita basis the Old Guard was bigger than the contemporary German Freikorps, whose activities are detailed in every history book.
The doings of the Old Guard were so thoroughly erased from historical memory that D.H. Lawrence’s “Kangaroo” was regarded as political fantasy rather than thinly disguised political reportage. It took dogged reconstruction by Cathcart and others to redress somewhat these erasures.
To make a point of historical comparison, in Australia in the early 21st century we have nothing like those post-WWI militias, whereas in the US right-wing militias are quite active. Thus, so far, Australians have not got angry enough to run about in armed bands.
Perhaps the historical erasures mentioned above have played a role in deflecting Australians from this course.
Sorry, the above should be addressed to DI(nr).
Mercurius @116
“Balance is when you present facts and bullshit in equal measure”
I like it. You should put that on a T-shirt. (Maybe underneath the ABC logo.)
Seconding I&U on the T-shirt. But we probably need to do it for all the big media organisations, not just Auntie.
Just a set of cartoon scales, titled “Balance”, with the word “Facts” on one side and “Bullshit” on the other.
Helen, doesn’t your ol’ man do shirts?
Got these quotes off a Slacktivist thread (tanx Brandi)
“There are many people for whom hate and rage pay a larger dividend of immediate satisfaction than love. Congenitally aggressive, they soon become adrenalin addicts, deliberately indulging their ugliest passions for the sake of the ‘kick’ they derive from their psychically stimulated endocrines. Knowing that one self-assertion always ends by evoking other and hostile self-assertions, they sedulously cultivate their truculence. And, sure enough, very soon they find themselves in the thick of a fight. But a fight is what they most enjoy; for it is while they are fighting that their blood chemistry makes them feel most intensely themselves. ‘Feeling good,’ they naturally assume that they are good. Adrenalin addiction is rationalized as Righteous Indignation and finally, like the prophet Jonah, they are convinced, unshakably, that they do well to be angry.”
Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudun
“Partisan loyalty is socially disastrous; but for individuals it can be richly rewarding– more rewarding, in many ways, than even concupiscence or avarice. Whoremongers and money-grubbers find it hard to feel very proud of their activities. But partisanship is a complex passion which permits those who indulge in it to make the best of both worlds. Because they do these things for the sake of a group which is, by definition, good and even sacred, they can admire themselves and loathe their neighbors, they can seek power and money, can enjoy the pleasures of aggression and cruelty, not merely without feeling guilty, but with a positive glow of conscious virtue. Loyalty to their group transforms these pleasant vices into acts of heroism. Partisans are aware of themselves, not as sinners or criminals, but as altruists and idealists. And with certain qualifications, this is in fact what they are. The only trouble is that their altruism is merely egoism at one remove, and that the ideal, for which they are really in many cases to lay down their lives, is nothing but the rationalization of corporate interests and party passions.”
Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudun
FDB – yes he does. You can also do your own T shirts through CafePress, but I have no idea of the costings (or minimum print runs.)
But T shirts are so…reminiscent of undergraduate political discourse.
Tigtog, following on from I & U said
I think we could go with a design that looks like the “scales of justice” with the two things being weighed by “Aunty ABC”
Then again, perhaps a Holy Grail reference might work with science and evidence-based policy on the one side and a duck with Blot’s face on the other.
Science turned me into a newt! could be amusing.
The real problem here is, part a, that journalism no longer is about news and facts. Journalism is about opinion and conflict. Part b, is that where Global Warming is concerned the politicians are horrendously under informed. Part c, might be that when political dogmas become attached to a poorly undertood issue in transition conflict is certain.
For instance in a time of extended drought political opinions converge because the solutions are obvious. In a time of extreme drought opinions converge because survival options are limitited and obvious. In a time of extreme financial failure opinions converge, as we recently saw, if albeit for a very brief period.
The problems arise when there is no physically applied danger. The current highly aggressive political environment is a product of poor understanding, particularly on the ALP side. By not grasping the Global Warming issue firmly, and determinedly the ALP has allowed the noise to signal ratio to amplify nearly out of control.
For the ALP to survive they had better get their act together and grasp the knowledge, not the dogma, but the essential understanding of what the Global Warming/Peak Oil danger is all about. And they had better do it fast, and they had better do it universally. The longer they woffle around listening to opinion rather than fact, the greater the danger we are all in.
Adrian, I haven’t been an undergrad since 1979 and you’ll prise my Great Flying Spaghetti Monster T shirt out of my cold, dead hands.
Back to the Angry: Christopher Pyne has maintained the level of Wacky by alleging “a conspiracy” against private schools.
Re Helen 130.
This deserves a thread of its own but the latest MySchool could have busted the issue of private school funding wide open.
If so Gillard deserves a lot of credit.
The private schools, no fools they, can see this, and they don’t like it at all, hence Pyne.
Sam @131,
Second that. I was pretty unhappy at Myschool v1 with its comparisons of apples and oranges. But it is now starting to become more meaningful and useful.
Perhaps Gillard is more strategic than generally credited
Helen, my comment was a quotation from the esteemed Nick Gye, above, for whom the only suitable political discourse is distinctly postgraduate.
My favourite t shirt is about 10 years old now and features a large picture of a ship (presumably) from the first fleet with the simple words underneath: BOAT PEOPLE.
Unfortunately it shrunk so no good for me, but my wife still wears it to this day.
Yes, with the My Schools web site, let’s hope so, in which case Gillard Garret deserve a lot of credit.
The ABC had independent schools spinmeister Stephen O’Dogherty talking averages and the fact that fine buidings don’t make for quality educational outcomes blah blah blah. He sounded unusually subdued, however.
Would also say that Abbott feels himself sliding into irrelevance as the sitting of teh new Senate comes closer. He is angry because his time is short (h/t Book Of Revelation).
No thread for this as yet but Big Bob Brown is not fooling anybody with his ‘innocent as Anastasia’ routine on why he wants the Federal veto on Territoty laws removed.
‘Its just for Democracy’ – my gangrenous toe jam indeed!!
If the Territories were proposing asphalting the Katherine Gorge or banning Islamic schools he WOULD NOT be going into bat for them. Its for Euthanasia and Gay Marriage. Which he’s entitled to fight for, of couse, but please be straight about it Bob.
Talking about angry people and mad people, @geeksrulz on Twitter just posted this video of a recent Tea Party protest against Moslem families in California gathering for a fund-raiser for homeless people. Seems we’re going the same way – unless Abbott develops a conscience and puts down the ugly strain in his own party:
The conspiracy stuff is nonsense.
I think Tony Windsor is right. We may very well have to waoit for some right wing nutter to kill a left/centre left/independent politicuan before some of us come to our senses. And even then it will continue. I’m having a little trouble reading all of this thread because of my poor etesight but I got the gist of it. Presumably I’m not alone in starting to get afraid for this country?
I think they really meant Roads Scholar.
I don’t want the ABC to reflect my view, or anyone else’s either. I want to see both sides of the issue, unfiltered through a journalists prejudices.
I am fed up with the ABC presenting only what the opposition thinks about any and all issues, for a change I’d also like to hear what the government has to say.
And I’d really like to see well-researched current affairs programs, not the current lazy parroting of Murdochracy lies and innuendo. It’s not that hard FFS; a computer and google is a start.
PB @137
Even that won’t have any effect. It will be countered by the Islamic Extremist Defence: ‘There are only a tiny number of extremists so the actual aggression in the debate is meaningless since it only causes a couple of fringe-dwelling radicals to kill people’
Leigh Sales is not exactly raising the bar to a very high level when she claims that there’ll be no shonky plumbers on the new 7.30.
And in the puff piece on the new show in the SMH, Chris Ulhmann’s CV neglected to mention that he stood for the ACT Legislative Assembly as a representative of some far right Christian group. Funny about that.
I just want the ABC news and current affairs to be interesting, intelligent insightful, analytical, irreverant when required, and above all fearless of vested interests.
At the moment it is none of these things.
tigtog @ 123 (or thereabouts), the balance / bullshit thing really should be applied solely to the ABC, because none of the other media outlets are obliged by their charter to be balanced.
Helen, if Mr Bucket includes this in his line of fine apparel, I’d definitely buy a couple (in XXXL, please – I have a similar problem to adrian with shrinking clothing … )
““Over on this side we read The New Statesman, Arena, Dissent, Green Left Weekly”
I don’t read any of ‘em, do i have to change sides now?”
Duncan, I just assumed we were all assiduous readers of Green Left weekly – especially the pages in Arabic.
I like those Huxley quotes up thread. Another reason for the angry and mad is a frustrated sense of entitlement. I think that’s nearer the mark than the racism that Nickws referred to. The powerful always have that sense of entitlement – it was very obvious when the ALP won in 1972, after 20 years the conservatives were just so used to being in power.
But it also applies at the other, powerless, end of society. One of the reasons it’s getting worse is advertising (that’s one more for my list, we’re drowning in alcohol, violence, porn, fat, sugar and advertising). There’s a whole other virtual reality surrounding people now where everyone is rich, young and beautiful and constantly enjoying the latest toys, and you too should have all this because “you deserve it”. If apparently everyone else can have all this, why can’t you? What has made your life rubbish?
Whiney Pyney fears transparency over schools funding: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/myschool-20-website-revelations-to-hurt-independent-schools-funding-opposition/story-fn59nlz9-1226015875623
Lefty E,
What on earth could Pyne be suggesting? Surely not that transparency will reveal Government funding of independent schools to be unfair.
Pyne is implying that the taxpayer should wait until this info is released by Wikileaks.
Shorter Pyne, an alumnus of St Ignatius College, Adelaide: Measuring the right-to-know against the Old School Tie? No contest!
Garrett has said that the release of this information going is going to be a “game changer.”
Yep.
that’s one more for my list, we’re drowning in alcohol, violence, porn, fat, sugar and advertising
Not drowning. Waving.
While on the subject of mad:
Republican 2012 presidential frontrunner Mike Huckabee on Barack Obama and the British Empire:
Hello … the Tea Party has named itself after resisters against persecution by which Empire again?
Oh, yes … it was the British Empire!
No coherent conceptual map of the world could explain Huckabee’s outburst. Yet he is favoured to be allowed to have his finger hover over the Red Button.
Astounding.
Jane@138: which two sides would you like to see? The National’s and the Liberal Party’s persepctive? Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt’s? Most issues have more than “both” sides to them, and it doesn’t take much to find them if you’re willing to look. This is where “balance” so often fails – as soon as the journalist finds a second viewpoint, they stop looking. It doesn’t matter whether either viewpoint is well-founded, as long as there are two.
I’m still somewhat shocked that a couple of years ago the Daily Telegraph published my cell phone number in the middle of a pack of incendary lies, and it turned out that there was nothing I could do about it. The Press Council agreed that the publication was wrong, and NewsLtd accepted that. I had to change my phone number due to the torrents of abuse that went on for weeks (I was using the SIM just to collect SMS’s to see how long it went on for). The Police took their “oh dear that’s awful we can’t do anything” approach to the death threats, not even being willing to ring the people back and ask them to desist.
“Not drowning. Waving”
That doesn’t sound quite right.
Still, floating along while reciting poetry, daiquiri in one hand, might be better than being angry and mad.
Katz @ 147
Quite apart from your take on it, if Mike Huckabee thinks that Barack Obama grew up in Kenya then he’s mad anyway. Or can’t read, since its all in “Dreams From My Father”.
“Shorter Pyne, an alumnus of St Ignatius College, Adelaide…”
Oh, christ, not another one. The real “conspiracy” is being run by the jesuits. The coalition is full of the obviously bad product of their nasty prat teaching method.
Still, floating along while reciting poetry, daiquiri in one hand
And a skin mag in the other, takeaway two curry and rice with roti on the table, and Border Security on the TV. So come with me, we’ll go and see, the Big Rock Candy Mountain…
“There’s a whole other virtual reality surrounding people now where everyone is rich, young and beautiful and constantly enjoying the latest toys, and you too should have all this because “you deserve it”.”
Stop it russ, your turning my humors from sanguine to bilious.
btw, i may not be a regular ‘green leftist weekly’ reader (arabic edition) but i did grow up reading new internationalist. Surely that counts for something?!
I wonder if Annabel Crabb thinks this is just more of the same harmless behavior that people are getting over sensitive about.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8219784/police-investigate-threats-against-windsor
Apparently Miranda the Devine is singing from the same songsheet. Just imagine if these voices of light and reason were subject to just a fraction of this kind of abuse and intimidation – we’d never hear the end of it.
Hoi. I came out of the Jesuits! And I turned out alright. I think?
Well you see a death threat is isn’t actual incivility unless there is an actual 4 letter word used. Therefore decorum is maintained and one can laugh off as inconsequential, threats to other people’s lives.
That’s the conservatives for you – always ready to sacrifice other people’s lives and rights as long as they aren’t targetted.
Nick@15
“After all, many of the angry are natural Labor consituents.”
What is a natural Labor constituent?
Someone who refuses the epidural before they vote.
Russell, don’t underestimate the ability of the people under discussion to hold the other responsible for the loss of their status (their entitlement).
The Hansonites could have made a fairly convincing attack on the economic rationalist consensus, yet they had to go and drag up the old Calwell/Blainey ethno-grievance-first arguments, i.e. “we’re being swamped by Asians.”
(John Paquerelli has stated he was influenced by those two figures I mention.)
Oh, and everything the Coalition has said about refugees since Tampa. That’s just staring us in the face, isn’t it?
Jpz is on a roll.
It seems that anyone associated with the Maoist regime(6 degrees of seperation to the Greens) is a mass murdering bastard of the highest degree.
Lets get some history on the table, you insufferable right wing git….
It was your beloved Republican president Nixon who was kowtowing to Beijing whilst bombing the crap out of the Viets, Laotians and Cambodians. Look to your own mass murdering bastards.
“Hoi. I came out of the Jesuits! And I turned out alright. I think?”
Ah, yes. It’s the thinking.
Oh all right, Mr Denmore and Frank Brennan, seem to have survived the wheely-bin treatment of their time, relatively unscathed. They must have maintained invisibility for the duration, you would have to say.
@150, hearing from the Libs and the Nats or Dolt and any other RWDB commentator is hardly getting two sides of any argument except maybe who is the bigger and better servant of Emperor Rupert.
AndrewC @126
Ripper quotes. Perfect.
Dexitrober @161
You owe me one pair of uncacked daks. Still chucklng
joe2 @ 156,
Great state member we’ve got. His trimming is characteristic. Won’t say any more because he’s very litigous.
@ 126
Damn you Aldous Huxley! You made this entire thread redundant, ~80 years before it was even written!
Let’s give up on the court system middlemen; speedier retribution can be organised by media.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/low-actor-matthew-newton-needs-some-of-his-own-medicine/story-e6frezz0-1225909565750
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/people/matthew-newton-mentally-ill-and-fears-being-attacked-lawyer-tells-avo-hearing-20110302-1bdwd.html
Joe2
Your correct.
Paul Kent should be arrested and charged with, inciting an act of chivalry ,accessory to an act of karma and encouraging an illegal from of social corrective behavioural medication.
Poor Matthew,
CRAIGY, you drip. If you think that is what I really meant you are an even bigger tosser than Paul Kent. And that is saying something.
Ohh joe
you sound mad and angry.
Calm down.
Tell me , what was the point of your post @170?
( Without the weak name-calling, of course)
Craigy, it’s spelt I R O N Y. Use of meaning opposite to the literal words, to good effect.
joe2 has given a fine example, by irony, of the rantosphere witchhunt at work.
By way of contrast, your contribution was an attempt at sarcasm, but misspelt, mispunctuated, misapplied, and missing the point.
My Word
Your interpretation of the differecce bettween irony and sarcassm seems to be based on a pre-concieved idea of,the idological position of the comentors.
But if you think you can articulate ,boths Joe2 and my positions better than we can,Go ahead.
(apolagees for tha poor speling and punctuasion.
As for me , the irony is that Matthew Newton cries for sympathy.
“Like the boy who killed his parents to collect the inheritance , and pleads for leniency because he is an orphan “
Thanks My Word. CRAIGY IS T R O L L.
Been thinking about this thread a bit.
Anyone seen this video on conformity?
Kind of interesting.
A stdy that claims to identify the brains “hate circuit”.
I think this is the actual paper.
adrian says:
March 4, 2011 at 5:39 pm
Apparently Miranda the Devine is singing from the same songsheet. Just imagine if these voices of light and reason were subject to just a fraction of this kind of abuse and intimidation – we’d never hear the end of it.
I’m sure MD hets more than her fair share of death threats. She just doesn’t whinge about it.
PeterTB, if you really think MD could resist publicising death threats in her most supercilious mocking style replete with partisan dogwhistles up the wazoo, you must be reading a very different columnist.
I grant you that she wouldn’t whinge about them. She would revel in them.
PeterTB said:
More to the point, if you edit out the foul language and the death threats perhaps she sees the messages as merely conveying widespread community opinion. H/T: Miranda Devine thought of this method first
For some reason the I was unable to view the link joe2 gave at #156 to the Tony Windsor threats stuff until today.
Today I had a look at it.
Check out the photo of Windsor and the caption underneath.
Is that a subtle bit of spin by 9MSN?
Maybe this comment should be on the spin thread.
Here is the link again.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8219784/police-investigate-threats-against-windsor
I do believe Proverbs 15:1 is apposite to this thread:
Amen.
There is only one way you can be sure about this Peter TB.
Are you confessing?
Katz, were I so inclined, I think I could do a bit better than “The caller swore at Windsor, saying “You’re a f—ing liar, a dog, a rat… I hope you die, you bastard.”.
It’s not really even a threat, is it? And, unless Windsor is actually suffering from some life threatening ailment, it is not as nasty as similarly worded “threats” directed at a certain conservative journalist.
tigtog, without trying to legitimise threatening behaviour, I think you might be surprised at how widespread this threatening kind of behaviour is.
Yep PeterTB
An example?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/04/3155242.htm?section=entertainment
“An example?”
No. But keep trying Craigy.
Peter TB: “…it is not as nasty as similarly worded “threats” directed at a certain conservative journalist.”
If you can’t provide at least one example of such ‘threats’, you’re talking through your arse as per usual.
PeterTB, I’m a feminist blogger. I get regular evidence of how widespread threatening behaviour is, in my inbox.
I stand by my evaluation that if MD had stacks of threats to display, she’d be flourishing them under a spotlight.
I also think Windsor’s observation that in 20 years of Parliament his experience with crank/threat mail/phone contact has been minimal, and that it’s only since he agreed to form the coalition government with Labor that he’s been receiving such threats in appreciable volume is indeed an interesting one.
Whose toes did he step on now that he wasn’t stepping on before? Hmm?
Ok adrian
This?
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/andrews–10276153
No Craigy. I’ll leave you to figure out why. But keep trying.
I think Peter may have been referring to the emails Blair received while he was undergoing treatment for cancer.
Aww cmon Adrian
She was a journalist from ESPN (RW media outlet)
Maybe Windsor’s emailer had a” thing” for him .
He was popular,
Was.
Tony Windsor is an eminently sensible man. I don’t know him well but I do know him. Sufficiently to conclude that he is not prone to making rash statements. If he says he’s had a death threat, he’s had a seath threat. Its not something he’d go broadcasting if he wasn’t absolutely certain. Even when he pays out on the Nats whom he doesn’t much like, he majes certain he gets his facts straight,
And what does one call that alteration of his Wihipedia bio? The cops seem to be taking it absolutely seriously.
Its curious how the RWDBs are playing this down. If I had a suspicious mind I’d say they had guilty consciences.
Someone edited his wikipedia site to claim he was the first politician to be assassinated in Australia.
That seems like a direct threat to me. (Its also not true. John Newman and Ivens Buffett were both killed in office. I doubt the wikied knew that when they changed his details and made the threat tho.)
PB@193
Being relatively new to to this “blog” thing, I looked up RWDB.
Did your RWDB mean ” RIGHT WING DEATH BEAST”?
I thought it was ding bat not death beast.
Jules
This was the one i got.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=r.w.d.b.
CRAIGY, on what planet is a sports channel a “RW media outlet”? Sports is sports.
She’s a courtside “colour & movement” reporter. Whatever is going on with the guy threatening her is most unlikely to be about politics.
CRAIGY: the definition they use – “Supporters of conservative politics, as named by supporters of left wing politics” – is pretty dumb. It’s used for the Andrew Bolts and Tim Blairs of the world – right wing, vitriolic and moronic. You wouldn’t use it for traditional conservatives like Mal Fraser, self-styled centrists like Ken Parish at Club Troppo, or libertarians such as Jacques.
As Paul Burns said @193
I’ve met Tony Windsor too. He is as unflappable as a concrete flag.
If he says he’s getting death threats, he’s worried.
Despicable & cowardly as death threats are, they are a part of life for turncoats.
Perhaps he could contact the Colston family for tips on how to cope.
DOSG
As Paul Burns is a bloke ,i think is most honest and respectable, i was surprised when i looked it up .
tigtog”
“”"CRAIGY, on what planet is a sports channel a “RW media outlet”?”"”
Who owns or has owned ESPN? Influence ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESPN
As for the motives of the “Windsor death threat emailer” i’ll wait for the courts to decide. Not my preconceived ideas.
SATP, last time I looked, Tony Windsor was an independent. How then does that make him a ‘turncoat’ as you say for giving Labor his vote on supply issues in a hung parliament??
Or are you simply saying that he backed the wrong side, in your partisan view?
Perhaps SATP is implying that many electors of New England cannot read and/or reason and therefore did not know that Tony Windsor ceased to be a member of the National Party as recently as 2001.
Understandable mistake.
Mr. Denmore, you are no journalist. I expect nothing better from Katz, who has the most obtuse mind on this forum.
Windsor’s electorate was the lowest ALP primary vote in the country, (perhaps I am wrong & it was Oakshott’s electorate?) The electorate is former, & will be again, National Party territory. This would be a clue that his electorate does not want him to form govt with the ALP.
Or are you both just smarting at the reminder that the ALP side of politics has treated the Colstons despicably, far worse than anything that will ever happen to Windsor?
Mr. Denmore, please explain any partisan political view I may have. Back it up with facts.
I cannot believe that you’re seriously discussing the meaning of RWDB?! RWDB is not meant to be understood literally. An equivalent term would be the Loony-Left. It’s called name calling.
From the Guardian this morning:
Marine Le Pen more popular than President Sarkozy, says French poll.
This is going to be the future of politics in the short to mid term as it’s an obvious point of conflict. Perhaps some of us have underestimated the repercussions of the global financial crisis? The global financial crisis was an attack on the sovereignty of the state and the national body politic.
If voters are skeptical about the ability of their government to reflect their interests they are downright ambivalent and/ or scared of the machinations of global finance, who seem unbeholden to any form of public regulation while at the same time wielding so much power over national governments and economies.
It has only been slight of hand tricks by the European Bank which have enabled the EU not to completely fall apart financially. Vast personal profits are being made at the apparent cost of citizens with the blessing of their governments.
Both center left and right wing governments have been skewered by global financial corporations which has caused a political vacuum which is being filled by less than serious political parties such as the Tea Party and the likes of France’s National Front.
A significant factor in the current anti-multicultural rhetoric (above and beyond the general background racism) is a desire for governments or political representation which reflects the (self)-interest of the voters.
On Insiders today the panel was suggesting the ‘people’s revolution’/call to anger of Mr. Rabbit is a consequence of his frustration at how smoothly the minority government is functioning.
At first, glowing with joy at his predictions of an unworkable coalition, Abbott luxuriated in fantasises of a quick return to power, but unhappily for the Lib/Nats, since last October 72 pieces of legislation have passed the Lower House and none have been rejected.
As Atkins and Taylor said, since Abbott can’t get Parliament to stop functioning he intends to blow the place up via inciting public anger and sundry acts of bastardry such as inciting maniacs through inflammatory language.
Next off the rank a ‘citizen’s protest’, an anti-Carbon Tax rally organized behind the scenes by Cory Bernadi, who is becoming to Abbott what Abbott was to Howard.
So, the angry are angry because of the crass rage of Mr. T. Abbott who recklessly incites them.
The difference is very clear, SATP: Windsor was elected as an independent. Colston was elected as an ALP Senator.
More generally, what could the LNP possibly have to offer a independent in a regional seat? More economic rationalism, no to the NBN. At best some pork that doesnt benefit the rest of regional Australia.
Their choice was not only correct, it was politically unsurprising.
SATP Windsor obviously has nothing but contempt for Abbott, he clearly doesn’t trust Abbott and views him as a dangerous individual who doesn’t deserve power cos of his lack of trustworthiness. He never says this outright but it seems pretty obvious from his body language and what he doesn’t say. I am sure if someone other than Abbott had been leading the Libs it would have been a different story.
Joe, I think you are right about all that. Tho its not just the far right that are objecting to the screwing of people by the economic non state superpowers. There’s alot of other resistance from the lefty anarchist side of politics in europe.
And the US. What happened in Wisconsin (legislators bailing to prevent a Quorum wrt to anti collective bargaining legislation combined with an authorisation to sell any public assetts at any price) was and is great and may be a turning point cos the Kochs have been busted there and they are driving alot of this astro turfed “hijack the angry” politics.
It may actually fragment the tea party, with any luck.
RWDB = Right Wing Ding Bat in my book.I use it frequently to describe people with far right attitudes.
Re Tony Windsor. The scuttlebut in New England after the election which turned out to be false was that he was going with the Coalition. When he didn’t I concluded they must have been so bloody awful (which of course they are at present)that no-one with any integrity could support them. And among Windsor’s many admirable qualities is his integrity.
When Windsor said he thought that the recent violent rhetoric was being orchestrated, I took it that he meant that it was Abbott who was orchestrating it.
Windsor doesn’t like the Nats, silkworm, and it might have to do with them. It all goes backpreselection battles up/down here years ago where Windsor lost out on a state Nat preselection so he stood as an independent. He’s currently involved in a stoush with one of the local radio stations up here which he says is just a propaganda arm of the National Party, but you could say that for much of the media in New England. The Nats and Windsor have been mortal enemies for years now, and at times the Nats have played some really dirty politics with him but he has stood above it all and not fought back at their same low level. Though this is being played out on a national level nowadays its been going on for ages.
Which is not to say Windsor isn’t absolutely sincere in his belief that the ALP would make/does make a better minority government.
Jules #209
I disagree Jules. For years Windsor has had a chip on his shoulder about the National Party & by extension the Liberal Party. There is considerable long term bad blood.
He was never going to side with the coalition. This was never in any doubt. Only those whose knowledge of him is peripheral would say otherwise.
This urge to stick it to the Conservative side of politics was shared by his electorate (they did, after all continually vote him back in.) However their desire to stick it to the conservatives was unlikely to have extended to actually suppporting the ALP.
This has led to considerable ill-will toward him from his electorate.
Swearing at him over the phone (or death threats if you like) is the one inevitable consequence of supporting the ALP that Windsor was not prepared for. It can be quite debilitating.
Quite likely about now he is feeling the strain of this ill-will, and isn’t happy about it. It can be quite wearing knowing one has several years (& perhaps a lifetime) of it ahead.
Silkworm #211
It may have been Windsor’s intention to mean this, but he was too oblique. I certainly didn’t take it that way.
Of course Abbot wouldn’t need to orchestrate any such thing. There would be no end of people able to decide on such a course of action all by themselves. (This is why public figures, police, etc have unlisted telephone numbers)
“Wouldn’t need to and isn’t orchestrating, are of course two separate things. Abbott has form in this area. He’s able to play as dirty as anyone in national politics, perhaps dirtier.
Thanks for that, Paul. Yes, I can see that it is probably the Nats in New England that are doing this, though the hand of Abbott cannot be discounted.
silkworm,
I’m sure Abbott’s got his grubby fingers all over it. In the Howard years, presumably with Howard’s agreement, the Natsa up here were continually taking credit for Windsor’s achievements, to the point of shutting him out of local openings of Fed. Government funded programmes etc. There’s no reason to suppose the Libs are not playing the same seedy game still, with extra visciousness since Windsor has backed an ALP minority government. Sometimes politics in New England has to be seen to be believed, but I won’t expatiate on the dog eat dog nature of it, which, unfortunately can go right down to local government level. The problem the Nats have with Windsor,may be that he knows where all the bodies are buried.
@194 Hey Jules, don’t forget about Donald Mackay! Okay he wasn’t in office. Also, Arthur Calwell copped a bullet in office, but yeah okay, was relatively unharmed.
I’ll disagree Paul Burns. The problem the Nats have with Windsor (him recently backing the ALP into govt aside) is that he has he taken two of their seats (state seat, then the federal seat) & lots of their votes. They (nats) have lost lots of face by spending 20 years trying to retake his seats & failing.
A significant portion of the “natural” constituency (for want of a better word) of the National Party has for 20 years of so, been so browned off at the Nats that they have voted independant in several seats.
Many of those so voting independant have taken great delight in personally & continually rubbing it in to rusted-on National Party faithful.
Also do not underestimate the continuing impact of Howard’s gun control on the nats. The best that can be said is they were decimated by the fallout from this. (Decimated is only 10%, the impact on the nats was & may still be, much higher)
Re: Miranda Devine (MD) gets Death threats so Windsor needs to HTFU, surely it’s obvious that MD wants to encourage death threats. I mean it it ever happened, if it ever came true, it’s like, she’s got the whole flame suit on, has a plane on the runway ready to fly her and the kids to Libya (may be Fiji) at the first sign of the tumbrels. I reckon Windsor would be still tapping out his pipe as the yobs broke through the French doors and set about with glee.
I dunno about Mackay, cos I knew a Calabrese guy in melb who swore blind he was killed cos he was originally involved in some way with the griffith weed trade.
I heard that years ago and it certainly doesn’t fit with everything else I’ve ever heard about him tho.
There was an alleged attempt on the lives of the Royals when old parliament house was opened actually.
And someone took a pot shot at the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) when he visited Sydney in 1865.
And, of course, there was the incident involving Billy Hughes, an egg, and a railway station…
For the first time in his life SATP attempts to be acute, and fails.
His “analysis” fails to explain how Windsor beat off the Nats TWICE!
Could it be that Windsor attracts many votes from Labor supporters as well? Last election Windsor won almost 62% of the primary vote! I’d go so far as to suggest that Windsor attracted more ALP supporters than Nat supporters.
Nevertheless I do prefer this new SATP attempting to rise above his rural idiocy. Some folks may say that SATP trying to be acute is like Samuel Johnson’s dog walking on its hind legs. But I disagree.
Well done you! Keep trying SATP.
I guess the angry are so mad because when the National Party couldn’t convince people to vote for it in New England, it expected the bloke who did win the votes to just hand them over.
‘Born to rule’ may be a cliche of the Liberal Party, but the mentality is clearly alive and well in the Nats.
Live in a New England town. Locals here are not frothing at the mouth about the ‘turncoat’. He has huge personal support, and nothing has changed in local sentiment since the election.
Remember, our state MP (for at least the next three weeks, anyway…) is an independent too. Must be something in the water around here.
Drove through Oakshott’s electorate recently. Did a survey of one person (the Servo operator). His opinion ‘ they’re all politicians’ meaning he couldn’t care less who Oakshott supports.
Mercurius,
Part of the reason was the absolute hopelessness of Nat candidates in the New England area. The bloke that succeeded Sinclair was so bad that it is alleged if you weren’t a Coalition supporter he wouldn’t do anything to help you, a marked contrast to Ian Sinclair who was an excellent local member to his constituents. Sure, he followed the party line, but if you had a problem with a govt. department he was right on it and fixed it.
terangeree my Mums parents actually met on the train to Canberra in 1927. My Pop was a bodyguard/valet for the Governer of Tassie, there’s some footage of the VIPs on a dias and he is standing in the background watching the crowd, and my Nan was a maid or something for some other VIP.
They both volunteered to act as decoys and travelled as the Duke and Duchess in case the Italian Anarchists (I think) actually managed to shoot the Duke. Its hard to track down any info about it these days, but my family still has the gifts they were given in appreciation.
Personally I’d probably be on the side of the Italian Anarchists but still, my Pop was a great fella. (For an ex Black and Tan.)
Even insults have customs of usage, Joe@206, and I was trying to get CRAIGY up to speed as to how “RWDB” is used.
People don’t get called “RWDB” just because they’re conservative. They have to engage in (or encourage) venomous trolling to earn the moniker.
CRAIGY is a lame troll.
Jules, that’s a great story!
Regarding Nationals seat entitlement rage, I’d be interested to know how many death threats Clover Moore received in the 1990s when she (with Tony Windsor) switched from supporting the Coalition under Greiner to abandoning them and forcing an election. I would suspect the number would be close to zero.
Liam @ 230, the times are different 15 or so years on. We’re looking at the consequences of Howard’s Kulturkampf, after all.
Down and Out,
“Right Wing Death Beast” is so obviously a caricature, I just can’t believe that some people take it seriously. Even the fact that it’s only used as RWDB, reminds you of other great acronyms Weapons of Mass Destruction, which sounds like a heavy metal band, or something that Dr. Doom would own.
Cheers, it sure is isn’t it Helen. Its almost enough to make a movie plot. Love story, international intrigue evil foreign turrists… Its cool tho. I wouldn’t exist if Parliament House never opened.
I love feeling that connected to Australian history. There must be so many great stories like that out there tho, barely remebered, and forgotten in many cases. There must be millions of tales like that in Australia, cos there are a few in my family.
I know we’re drifting OT a bit, so to drag it back…
I’m angry, and mad, but thats beside the point.
I agree with Kim’s point:
To a point, but its not an either or. The Tea Party is an organised manufactured fake movement. Sure once upon a time it was kind of grass roots, I know someone who attended a “Tea Party” meeting in Texas 5 years ago. It was lefty anarchist in nature (it was in Austin) anti prohibition, pro immigration basically the opposite of today’s thing.
But similar things were starting among the full on militant militia types as well, and it was far closer to today’s demented tea party than the Austin Anarchists, but still a long way from it.
This astro turfing is being busted lots lately. HBGary Federal, Team Themis a etc etc was one example. THe funding of the Tea Party by the Kochtopus or its associate groups, and their effort in Wisconsin is pretty interesting.
These guys are not idiots. They used the Tea party to attack Obama and mobilised his supporters to his side to defend his actions from mad nutjobs with guns while they lobbied him to basically do whatever benefited the faux Libertarian jerkwad ideology they support. One where govt is moved out of the way so profits can be made.
It appears they are trying to pull a similar scam in Wisconsin, tho perhaps that Daily Kos article is a little paranoid. Perhaps not tho.
This is what Abbott is copying in his calls for a “people’s revolt”. I dunno if he’s doing it with the subtlety and skill that the Kochtopus is obviously using tho.
This sort of angry reaction doesn’t have to be that organised. It can be open sourced if its done right, then its easier to manipulate.
I just found this – brilliant.
Ian Murphy of the Buffalo beast Interviews Wisconsin gov Scott Walker while pretending to be David Koch. Its an interesting read.
(I’ll stop going on about Wisconsin now – my main point is to get across that I think much of this “opposition anger” is attempting to copy the US example.)
In the broader context of anger, if in many ways Calwell was a deeply conservative Labor man, he at least had the spirit and the spine to later meet and forgive the man who had shot at him. And that man, after years of apparent mental illness, was able to recover and has since made a life for himself as a well-regarded author.
That sort of patience and courage -on both men’s part – eludes those who prefer the ranting, the finger pointing, the strident sloppy argument, and the sort of public witch-hunting called for by sloppier posters like eg Craigy.
And for the record, Terangeree at 221, it was Prince Alfred, Duke of Endinburgh whose assassiantion was attempted, and in 1868 not 1865. Being the second son of Victoria, Alfred was not (and could not) be Prince of Wales.
. Shot in the back by the Fenian O’Farrell, Alfred recovered and the overwhelming public reaction for once did some good – the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital is the direct result of an appeal to commemorate his recovery. O’Farrell was hung.
Sic: Edinburgh.
Comparing Abbott to Goebells – water off a duck’s back for the Left . . .
Nothing tos ee here – move along.