Kevin Andrews has a piece at The Drum today on what he claims to be the ideological origins and sins of The Greens. In typical fashion, Andrews’ views are the subject of a ‘news story’ by Christian Kerr in The Australian. Though Kerr doesn’t mention the presumably evil source of Andrews’ confused and meandering diatribe, given that News Limited has previously been slamming The Drum as a nasty anti-competitive and lefty infested ABC plot. Old time readers of Crikey might recall Kerr’s irrationality when it came to the topic of The Greens. Oh, and the Opposition Organ also features Graham Richardson spinning his usual line about The Greens (as well as giving readers the benefit of his deep wisdom on the 2010 election).
Andrews’ screed suggests he shouldn’t give up his day job. It has its origins in a speech given to the annual dinner of News Weekly on Wednesday. No doubt it was well received by the superannuated Santamarians, whose publication these days is arguably more obscure than Quadrant.
Andrews darkly warns of ‘ecological Marxism’, and implies that Adam Bandt is an ex-Communist; all part and parcel of the weird Cold War McCarthyism certain redoubtable Culture Warriors have been reviving this year so they can warn of left-wing entryism in The Greens, or something.
The clincher is probably the Howard era Immigration Minister’s bizarre remark that:
What the Greens present is the cutting edge of a clash within western civilization itself.
I think he means “represent”, but anyway.
I doubt that there’s much electoral payoff in this sort of pseudo-learned ideology critique. It says more about the weird world that people like Andrews inhabit, where there’s been some sort of Communist Plot to Overturn Eternal Verities like The Family gathering pace since the 1960s.
Over at New Matilda, Jeff Sparrow has some advice for The Greens on how to combat the smear campaign being run against them. Worth a read.
It would be useful to have their policies costed – e.g. what is the economic impact of stopping mining coal cold turkey?
This is quite droll when you consider that people who were Marxists, Trotskyists, Stalinists or Maoists when they were at university have run Quadrant magazine since 1998 and are the backbone of the intellectual Right in Australia.
Razor, that’d be short term pain and long term gain. The consequences of continuing to dig coal up are the exact opposite, esspecially as we’ve got maybe 50 years worth of the stuff at the present rate of increase of doing so.
The Conductor of the greatest symphony orchestra in the world – the Berlin Philharmonic, reckons we will be carbon-constrained from long-distance travel in the future. He must know – Al Gore knows and he isn’t good at anything.
I welcome my future Green overlords – especially if they are the cute euro chicks who always ask me to answer their surveys.
Yes – I thought it was that goood I should post it twice.
To quote Obiwan – I am LeBron!
50 years – really? That is a shit load of digging, trucking and shipping. Like to see the maths in that claim.
Then again it is the vibe of the matter – the real numbers don’t matter do they? Which whack job enviro scheme of the government is going to go tits up today?
“the cutting edge of a clash”?
Clashes don’t have cutting edges, they have boiling points. Methinks Kevin is mixing his kitchen metaphors. This may come of never having spent any time in one, if Benjamin Law’s brilliant tale (someone linked to it here the other day, but it’s on Crikey and therefore behind a paywall) of his recent encounter with Andrews’ wife is anything to go by.
That must be were I went wrong – never been a commie all my life except when it comes to the AFL Salary Cap and Draft.
And yet, the Victorian Liberal Party, which Andrews is a senior member of, will most likely preference the Greens over the Labor Party in the forthcoming Victorian election.
Go figure.
Paul Norton
The old adage is everyone is born a communist and dies a conservative. I, for one, have gone in different directions in small amounts over the years.
Does the old adage indicate timidity brought on my advancing years, or becoming wiser with the passing years?
I may have started a good old fashioned brawl with this one.
Have a good weekend, everybody.
Andrews’ screed suggests he shouldn’t give up his day job.
Nope, I’m pretty sure he should give up his day job, Kim, the sooner the better.
The Conductor of the greatest symphony orchestra in the world – the Berlin Philharmonic,
Once again Razor you are behind the times. Concertbegouw is the best.
Sam #8, let’s not forget that in the early 1980s Malcolm Fraser’s Federal Liberal government was recognising the Khmer Rouge-led coalition as the legitimate government of Cambodia – all in the name of opposing communism!
Probably the right has no way to counter the ideological challenge of the Greens,so they paint them ‘Red’ and fight the Cold War again, a generation after it ended.
Paul, the Fraser government was upholding the important principle of international law that a government, even a tyrannical murderous government, should not be ejected by military invasion.
This principle was upheld by the Howard government in the case of Iraq. Oh, wait …
Sam @ 8 – State and Federal – look up the difference some time.
Well, he’s certainy right when it comes to a “clash of values”
On one hand the Greens, who (can) find value and meaning beyond slavery to commodity fetishism and reassertion of power relations, defending civilisation.
Then we have myopes like Andrews ,so devoid of any sense of self reflexivity or consciousness, seeking to reimpose thmeselves and their pathologies, obvious to everyone else but themeselves, onto an unsuspecting community that deserves better from its so called leadersm than the bizare working out of a fascist psychosis.
Yawn.
I’d like to advance a motion to inform Kevin Andrews that An Inconvenient Truth does not represent the sum total of environmental research. I’ve never seen the film and don’t particularly care to; I just want people to stop acting like it is the font of all knowledge rather than a glossy portrayal of some of it.
Kevin Andrews attempts to defend his opinion:
by using the alleged analysis by John Black who categorised those who vote Green as their primary vote as:
.
I well remember the case of Dr Haneef, so as a riposte I will quote H L Mencken to support my opinion that Kevin Andrews was a bumbling Immigration Minister and, to boot, a despicable scaremonger.
Razor 15, the federal Liberal Party preferenced the Greens over Labor at the federal election, just a few months ago. This caused the election of Adam Bandt, the Greens candidate, in the federalseat of Melbourne.
On the likely trajectory of Australian coal production, this article is interesting:
The writer “stubborn mule” quoted ABARE
Then went on to note that this took no account of the likely grwoth rate in coal production, which would not remain at 2008 levels. In the 35 years between 1965 and 2000 they multiplied by a factor of six. The longterm average was 5% annual growth and the last five year average was 3.1%. At the lower growth rate, reserves will last 43 years. Even if the estimates of EDR are 50% lower than ABARE accepts, this only extends the window to 60 years, assuming 3.1% is maintained throughout. Australian coal is hoping for at least the 5% longterm rate, which would exhaust supplies in 46 years, assuming ABARE is pessimistic by 50%. If ABARE is right though we only have about 34 years — less than the assumed life of a new coal plant.
“Stubborn mule” concludes that at least one of the following must follow:
In the discussion below some suggested that EDR was not the same as “what was there to be dug up”. This is fair comment, but as one poster (“Sean Carmody”) noted:
As others note too, the constraint is not merely what is commercially recoverable. EROEI comes into it too. There’s no point recovering coal if the energy you using doing it exceeds the energy you get out of burning it.
Researchers such as David Mackay put the end of coal as a viable energy source no later than the end of the century and then only on very low growth rates. 2062 is cited on the basis of growth rates little more than 2%.
So as it turns out, constraining coal exports and reducing domestic consumption of coal may not merely be good global citizenship in defence of the biosphere and a globally important and scarce resource. It might well be in Australia’s narrow interests to husband its own scarce resources. That’s something even a rightwinger ought to get.
The question we should ask is not would we like coal exports and combustion to end?, because at some time in the lives of our children if not our own that must occur, but rather on what timeline and in what circumstances would we prefer this to happen and how would we like ourselves and the world to be placed when it does?
“Andrews’ screed suggests he shouldn’t give up his day job.”
He and his wife should give up family counselling as well.
Thanks for saving me the trouble of looking that up, Fran @ 20.
I’d assumed we still had about 90 years of coal left until I heard about the latest figures last night.
Fran – and if those numbers are correct then the market price of coal will signal what needs to happen.
Maybe NZ might then decide to unlock some of the coal it currently has decided not to mine.
Or maybe other power sources will be cheaper than coal.
Characterisation of Green voters could do with some work – about all that is known for certain is that they are in general better educated than the average. Where are the political sociologists when we need them?
With regard to the relationship between the Greens and Christianity a study of their origins in Tasmania and Western Australia might through up some more convincing empirical evidence than Kevin Andrews’history of ideas approach.
Kevin will no doubt be dismayed to learn that a number of Green candidates at the recent Federal election were active Christians and that their inspiration had nothing much to do with Stalin – Francis of Assisi, the old Testament prophets and the anti-imperial social movement kicked of by Jesus of Nazareth come to mind as more likely sources.
Heavens above, there’s so much going on there it’s impossible to know what the funniest quote would be. Personally, I find the notion of Jack Mundey radicalising all the ‘doctor’s wives’ in the ’70s particularly endearing. Ah yes, Toorak and Vaucluse a hot bed of radicalism. Keep the red flag flying.
P.S. I wish people would please stop using ‘doctors wives’ as an epithet, it’s at once silly, meaningless and misogynistic.
Andrews smells a commie:
Memo to KA, if you want to alarm folks about commies, publish the CVs of the folks at Quadrant.
There’s no doubt Jeff Sparrow’s article is spot on. certainly the MSM is a problem. Even at alternative sites, it difficult to get people away from their pet hobbyhorses, to consider the serious issues the Greens raise and offer answers that contribute to a better understanding as to why ecology, particularly at its confluence with pol economy,is so important.
What does it matter if an issue is couched in language not pol correct,to the taste of some, if it finally weans the sections of the public away from peripheral issues and onto something that- tangibly- affects us all?
Sam @8:
Razor @15:
So Andrews is a member of the Federal Liberal Party, and he’s not a member of the Victorian Liberal Party.
Razor, have I got it right?
Zoot 28, indeed, the Liberal Party is expressly a collection of independent state parties. There is no federal Liberal Party.
There are federal Liberal Party politicians, of course. But the idea that they have nothing to do with state politics is mistaken. Senator Erica Betz, for example, spends most of her time interfering in the affairs of the Tasmanian state Liberal party. She straight out ordered state leader Will Hodgman not to deal with the Greens after the election earlier this year.
I particularly enjoyed the comment from the self-described right wing Christian, who skewered Andrews.
“If Kevin Andrews want to frighten people about the Greens by contrasting them with people who hold to the Christian faith, he better first look at improving his theology.”
I enjoyed Andrews’ piece: it was completely lameass and demonstrated what an intellectually bankrupt position denialism is.
Its no wonder they keep losing the debate.
here’s a reality check: any intelligent right winger (and yes, there are many of those)hasnt gone near you chumps with a bargepole for about 4 years. They’re probably investing in Chinese solar, and may shortly own your a controlling stake in your own sorry denialist asses.
You guys are the B-team. A pack of chumps.
Kevin Andrews??!!
Thats your big hitter?
LOL!
You’re screwed.
I reckon it’s about time to revisit this thoughtful piece by Frank Brennan S.J. from before the federal election.
“Why a conscientious Christian could vote for the Greens”.
http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=22755
Howard C@9: The old adage I remember says something like “if you are not a Democrat when you are twenty you have no heart, if you are not a Republican by the time you are forty you have no brains.” However, that was before the Republicans morphed from conservatives to into radical right wingers or simply plain crazy.
In the Australian context the true conservatives are the Greens even though a lot of what they are saying seems radical. So it is hardly surprising that the Greens are attracting both the young radicals and the old conservatives.
What a difference in the approach of a genuine Christian and good mind, in Frank Brennan, as against “whited sepulchres” like Andrews and Xtian fundies like Wallace; morons and obscurantists both.
Oh God Kev Andrews is loathsome. The mangling of metaphors and analogies is par for the Liberal course PC@6. I recall John Howard lamenting years ago that a structured narrative of Australian history had been displaced by a ‘fragmented stew’. Surely if it’s fragmented it’s not a stew. And if it’s a stew it’s not fragmented. Sheesh. Again, get into the kitchen and learn what it’s all about people
In the Australian context the true conservatives are the Greens even though a lot of what they are saying seems radical.
So Greens policies like euthanasia and gay marriage are just attempts to drag our liberal, progressive society back into the enlightened 1950s?
The Greens are true conservationists, but the idea that we should care for nature first is absolutely not a conservative view in Australian society. The conservative view was that we a British outpost and our needs are served by serving theirs. Traditional Australian conservativism no longer has any place in our society, which is why so-called conservative politicians are so confused and copy American conservativism so frequently. But that doesn’t mean anyone can lay claim to it, because you need to look to the past and see what was accepted, before you can claim to be conserving anything.
Anthony at #35 re ‘fragmented stew’, indeed. In fact I had a few words to say about it at the time.
and Xtian fundies like Wallace
I think Jim would wipe the floor with you Paul
Doug: and the anti-imperial social movement kicked of by Jesus of Nazareth
Huh?
Oh God PC, I probably took that whole point from you at the time. My apologies. This is entirely the unintentional plagiarism I warn my students against. And also how I wonder any writer of popular songs can be sure that the riff in their head is truly original
Kim: “and implies that Adam Bandt is an ex-Communist”. SO KA specifically implies that Bandt is an ex-Communist?
Well is he or isn’t he Kim? I genuinely don’t know, but Wiki says that “His PhD thesis was “Work to Rule: Rethinking Marx, Pashukanis and Law”. At Murdoch University, Bandt was a student activist and member of the Left Alliance. Help me out here.
Yes, the PC link was worth the four year trip. Sadly, we know more certainly that winding back and dumbing down of civil society was indeed well underway and not so accidental as our better natures would have hoped, mid decade.
Why is this Peter TB?
Is it a dose of TB?
Anthony, if you are Foodie Anthony, and I’m guessing you are, you probably noticed it with no help from me. It was a fairly egregiously ridiculously wrongity-wrong-from-Wrongtown thing to say, after all, and whoever dreamed it up had clearly never made a stew of any kind.
Stoopid Howard?
Felix @36: The environmental/climate action thread in the Green narrative is conservative and is an important reason why they are attracting growing support from some of us oldies. Ditto the ideas about treating people decently and quality of life. However, you are right – some of the solutions are radical enough to attract the young – so they win both ways.
Dr Cat and Anthony, Howard is clearly the kind of bloke who’d be lost if he accidentally wandered into a kitchen. He clearly hasn’t mastered the manly art of looking after himself.
@41: Touche; normally the topic of Marx never, ever comes up at university.
It gets worse, PeterTB. Are you sitting down? Clutching your pearls tightly enough? Ready for this one? OK, big breath now…
Bandt is also an EX-CHILD!
That’s right, these insidious Greens are asking us to trust them with the balance of the power, when their entire membership is made up of people who once had absolutely no bladder or bowel control!
It’s time they were exposed!!!11!!
Andrews’ place in history, such as it is, is entirely as a Howard lackey bereft of any original thought.
He will remembered, if at all, for his dubious attempts at race politics such as defying the courts to detain Haneef, and moaning about African youth migrants leading to a crime wave in Melbourne. Even for Howard he was too much, and had to be removed from Employment for making Workchoices sound a bigger lemon than it already was.
Since Howard’s defeat he has lost even that slender thread of relevance.
Which brings us back to the ABC. Why are they giving airtime to dunderheads like Andrews and propagandists like Milne, Bolt and Ackermann when there are bound to be credible intelligent sources of right wing views?
Don, maybe, they believe the other panel members to be “credible intelligent sources of right wing views”.
I have never seen a leftish view properly represented on the show, about anything, except when Toohey and Marr very rarely leave the pack for one or two rogue thoughts of their own.
Very amusing mercurius. So I take it then that Bandt is indeed an ex-Communist, but he has moved on, and put those ideas behind him?
Self evidently, Bandt doesn’t represent the Communist Party in the parliament. He represents the Green Party.
Or do you have any additional information on this matter, PeterTB?
If you don’t then I suggest you desist from smearing innocent people.
BTW, I’d like to contrast the blameless Adam Bandt with Kevin Andrews. Kevin Andrews is an adherent of a religious organisation ruled by a foreign head of state. Some of the money that Kevin Andrews places in the collection plate each Sunday funds the activities of a foreign government.
How much of Bandt’s money is going to Beijing, Havana, or Pyongyang?
Don, it is for special occasions such as this, that I like to break out the Hazlitt, who provided us a perfectly prescient portrait of Kevin Andrews in his 1819 letter to William Gifford:
“You are a little person, but a considerable cat’s-paw; and so far worthy of notice. Your clandestine connection with persons high in office constantly influences your opinions, and alone gives importance to them. You are the Government Critic, a character nicely different from that of a government spy – the invisible link, that connects literature with the Police. It is your business to keep a strict eye over all writers who differ in opinion with his Majesty’s ministers, and to measure their talents and attainments by the standard of their servility and meanness. For this office you are well qualified…”
“…The distinction between truth and falsehood you make no account of; you mind only the distinction between Whig and Tory. Accustomed to the indulgence of your mercenary virulence and party spite, you have lost all relish as well as capacity for the unperverted exercises of the understanding, and make up for the obvious want of ability by a barefaced want of principle…”
“…There is something in your nature and habits that fits you for the situation into which your good fortune has thrown you. In the first place, you are in no danger of exciting the jealousy of your patrons by a mortifying display of extraordinary talents, while your sordid devotion to their will and to your own interest at once ensures their gratitude and contempt. To crawl and lick the dust is all they expect of you, and all you can do. Otherwise they might fear your power, for they could have no dependence on your fidelity; but they take you with safety and fondness to their bosoms, for they know that if you cease to be a tool you cease to be anything…”
“…your slowness to understand makes you quick to misrepresent; and you infallibly make nonsense of what you cannot possibly conceive…”
Thank you, William Hazlitt!
Indeed, Katz! The question is out there. Why won’t Bandt answer it?
What is Bandt hiding?
Eleventy!!!?!?!?11!!
PeterTB, you really shouldn’t take your cues from Kevin Andrews. After all, Andrew practices the same religion as Hitler…
…Wait! So does Mark Bahnisch! It’s wheels within wheels, people! We’re through the looking-glass now!
Kevin is also member of a secretive organisation dedicated to mummy worship where dishwashing, vacuuming and ironing are valued above all else.
Their main slogan is below. So beware, members will be visiting your house today for a dust test.
http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/lyons.html
Connections of Kevin Andrews:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Andrews_(Australian_politician)
(Citation 38 Pdf)
Wow, I didn’t realise he was so poisonous. (Sort of a cross between Lucretia Borgia and Torquemada?)
Reminds me of the right in student politics in the late 60s at Sydney Uni, standard lefty lampooning thereof: “Filthy disgusting communist homosexual louts”
Not much has changed, just added the Greens to it.
Merc Said:
The past is … well in the past. The real problem is that in the future, they will certainly be dead, and possibly senile before they die. There’s the real worry.
We should insist that The Greens only put forward people who will be consistently alive and in optimal health in the future.
On Thursday I made my usual fortnightly trip into town. In the Armidale Mall I was suddenly attacked by 50 to 100 atheists and agnostics, all of them carrying pieces of 4×2, all of them academics, and beaten to a pulp and left dying in front of a working class coffee shop.
This guy Andrews is stark raving bonkers. One reads a lot of tripe on teh Internet, but this piece really takes the cake.
Personally, I’ve always believed the Greens were aliens from outer space. So I know Andrews has got it wrong.
And then there’s this, which the ABC seems to write up with an inference that it didn’t happen.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/08/3059868.htm?site=idx-nsw
There are some very nasty people out there and Andrews and the Australian are definitely egging them on.
Socialist Alliance are spot on when they say this incident is an attack on the fabric of our democracy.
I despise the Libs and other far right wing parties, but I vote against them, I don’t go up to their local or state offices and smear shit all over the place.
Well-spotted, PB.
What is it with anti-Greens and vandalism?
Obviously Kevin Andrews and PeterTB must now answer for this despicable act unless they too wish to be implicated as anti-Democratic Hitler-lovers
Just browsing the latest comments at the Drum and followed this link to the Catholic Church’s view on Climate Change and the environment.
http://www.catholicsandclimatechange.org/church_teaching/vatican_messages.html
I’m no fan of the Catholic church but that old Pope fella has some very wise things to say if you care to read them. What does this quote of his sound like?
” The concerns for non-violence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity.”
“What does this quote of his sound like?”
Pagan, environment worship lingo, I would say S.G.
On orders to go out and organise a green smear and what do the morons do? see @61.
‘Cept it was more of a brown smear, joe2. They can’t even get that right.
@ 64, watch out Benedict, Kevin Andrews has you marked as a heretic.
The very strange Vex news (not going to dignify that sewer with a link – you’ll have to google it) also reprinted the article in the Drum, as well as publishing some unfounded accusations that “Greens” have been breaking windows of Labor and Liberal offices in the CBD, which they refer to as the “night of broken glass” (as one commenter says, is it possible for an entire site to be Godwinned?) Police had no idea of the actual culprits, the “writer” simply associated it with the Greens knowing it’ll appeal to the kind of person who reads VN un-ironically.
Perhaps it’s more a question of timing David, however I think this is a symbolic representation of the political phenomena of smears:
Thanks for that brilliant bit of Hazlitt, Mercurius. Makes you wonder about William Gifford, but having had the living Kevin Andrews example, not enough to look him up.
You’ve got to say that Hazlitt does a very nice line in vitriol. Maybe Gillard or Swan could do with someone like that as a speech-writer to put down their opponents.
Well, the thread has gone berserk!
Greens becoming senile before they die, roaming packs of Greens, on a “night of broken glass”, Communists with old valve radios tuned to Moscow hidden under their double breasters and trilbys, the Pope in Rome as putative agent for A Foreign Power and Peter TB as a Mad Hutterite.
Pandemonium reigns, all hell’s broken loose, all just boiled over, here at Larvatus Prodeo.
Worst of all dark hints of Paganism and the unmasking of Mark Bahnisch as agent of the Devil, as Hazlitt, Hogarth and Blake look on..
There are some old communists in the Greens but should that matter?
Lee Rhiannon used to be a communist and her parents were prominent members of the CPA.
Both she and her parents supported the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia – she denies that now but it’s a verifible fact if you do some research in the National Library of Australia.
I understand they keep that old valve wireless under the bed, as a sort of sentimental keepsake, OB?
Petre Kemp @ 69, the monkey (or, more correctly, ape) had an excuse, as the people were laughing at him. Oh, wait. Never mind.
You wouldn’t be relying on those ASIO records that claim that she studied motor mechanics at UNSW, would you? A course that has never been offered there?
http://www.leerhiannon.org.au/blog/responding-to-attacks-on-my-family-and-political-background
There are actually loads of old Commos in the Greens – a minority of membership, yes , but there’s plenty. So what? Its a free country. Get stuffed!
There are loads of various ex- and even current Trots (weirdo ‘entrists’) in the ALP too, by the way.
Oh and while we’re on the topic, there are plenty of former Ustashi fascists (and I mean *literally* former fascists, and some actual war criminals) in NSW Liberal party.
I know what I think is worse.
Whats the point of this again?
Returning to the original topic, given Christian Kerr’s rusted-on conservatism, it’s always interesting to hear his fortnightly chats with Phillip Adams on LNL. I don’t know whether the phrase ‘eliptical dance’ makes any sense at all but that’s what comes to mind.
But here in Melbourne the Greens, to me, seem to be either power-hungry or too fey for words. After a candidates debate in Melbourne POrts smart people who stayed to the end (not me) declared that Labor’s Martin Foley, the incumbent, swept the floor as he was across all issues with conviction and Greens candidate didn’t know her stuff.
Agree Vex news is a pathetic sewer.
Perhaps it was quantum motor mechanics?
Costa, a Trot?
Give me strength!
OB @ 72, there are also a bunch of ex-ALP members, ex-Democrats and ex-Psychedelic Lefties in the Greens, and even a few ex-Liberals.
I’m not sure I see your point, except as an indication that peoples’ political views can mature over time.
Interesting link, Tigtog. Especially the conclusion, where Rhiannon’s refusal to answer questions put to her by Brian Aarons is taken as evidence of her approval of the invasion. Shades of Thomas More, oui?
Obviously, she’s a witch, and the fact that she denies she’s a witch just proves she’s a really witchy witch.
And, it is so interesting to read about what Paul Howes (ALP) has to say now about the watermelon Greens. Yes, that Paul Howes, the one I occasionally used to hang out with at Resistance in Chippendale, and heard giving fiery speeches to rouse the young socialists. Still, we had fun at Manly Corso one fine weekend when One Nation had just opened their offices there.
Shock! The ALP is infiltrated by Reds! Run fer yer lives!
(PS – I thought the 80′s revival had been and gone, already. Why are some people still trying to re-live the Cold War?)
So very easy to misrepresent a refusal to answer questions like that to anybody who’s never been to one of these contentious political activist meetings. I’ve been to several where a concerted strategy of shouted questions from the floor was used to drown out speaker after speaker, and then the fact that these tactical shouted questions were treated with the disdain they deserved was later used as “evidence” that the speakers didn’t know the answers.
Andrews says:
“What the Greens present is the cutting edge of a clash within western civilization itself.”
Let’s not overlook the synergy between Andrews’ world view and that of his ideological fellow traveller, Tony Abbott. Andrews is only saying things his boss dog whistles. What Andrews would love to blurt out but has so far restrained himself from doing so, is his firm belief that the Greens are a real and present danger to western civilisation because, and here’s the nub, they are aligned with the anti-west goals of Islamic terrorists. In short, a Green vote is a vote for bin Laden. I expect this kind of language to creep into public discourse prior to the next federal election.
The Greens will come under increasing attacks from both sides of politics. Richo’s intervention in The Australian is significant because it signals blowback from the NSW Right. Richardson’s influence extends to the highest levels of corporate Australia, the unions and, as his colourful history suggests, some other sections of society we could call, well, ‘whiffy’. When Murdoch and Richo start calling for the death of the Greens you know things are heating up.
There’s a palpable sense of desperation in some of these outbursts.
IMO, it will be extremely difficult for the Greens to defend themselves against sustained smear campaigns and intimidation. As the party’s influence grows it becomes increasingly important for candidates to show rigour and discipline. Unfortunately, the quality of Greens representatives, especially at the local level, is inconsistent. Random loopiness will be food for the behemoth who, it seems, has no appetite for the likes of Andrews.
@80
On the subject of Howes: Did anyone else think it passing strange that his book was launched by…(Dr Evil pause)….Michael Kroger? What’s with that pairing? I can already hear the sniggers at the next meeting of the HR Nicholls Society. World upside down.
Quite a suitable pairing, Boris. After all, they’re both prize prats.
Yes! And just to make absolutely sure, you throw her in the pond, and if she drowns, then she wasn’t a witch after all, but if she doesn’t drown, then she is indeed a witch, so you burn her at the stake.
“Walks like a duck, talks like a duck, must be a …”
So academics whowill not dignify false and paranoid accusations in student newspapers from students they’ve given a fail or a bare pass to with a reply are -what? This trope about not answering stupid questions proving Rhiannon is guilty of something is nonsense. The worst she can be accused of, on her ownadmission, is, once, long ago, possibly having chosen an ill-mannered boyfriend, if I’ve read her blog correctly. Well, everybody picks a lousy partner at some time or other.
Besides, at least one of her accusers presumably grew up in a DLP family, so he And all should know not to throw stones. All this whole shabby episode proves is that Henderson is in danger of losing his marbles. Howes and Aaarons and Richo are simply reflecting Labor desperation. They would be much more fruitfully employed trying to work out how and why the ALP has lost its left wing base and how they can get it back.
Just a brief historical note.
If suspected witches did sink when ducked, they were fished out and other methods may then have been used to determine demonic possession.
The rationale is quite simple. Demons were thought to have been lighter than air. A possessed person would therefore not sink.
This was an application of Archimedes’ principle.
I imagine that Archimedes may have been surprised.
If Labor is “infiltrated” by anyone, it would be the Benedict Arnolds who’s actually loyalties rest with a “a foreign power” of a different species altogether to the one preoccupies the red-bashers that became defunct twnety years ago.
it would be the sort of people the former Victorian Labor rep Joan Coxsedge railled against back in the nineties- right wing, often catholic, union officials and party hacks recruited by the US, white-anting Australian Labor for thebenfit of interests inamicable to the welfare of Australians and the global masses in general.
Katz, more evidence that ducks are witches. This is a red letter day!
True. I’ve never seen a drowned duck. And I imagine that very few suspected witches drowned either.
If they did, it was a sad case of operator error of the ducking stool.
Yea, can you imagine the feathers everywhere (from the witches!!).
I cannot help but lose faith in the ABC when they run rubbish like this. Must they run any old shit the Coalition pushes under their noses? Aren’t they allowed to be selective? Are they so browbeaten by the right-wingers for allegedly being “unbalanced” that they feel compelled to publish totally one-sided ranting smears from the right?
#80 Its wonderful what the lure of a daily tweet or oped in Rupe’s columns can do for the veracity of one’s most banal thoughts from the morning shower.
Lefty E, I doubt that there’s any Ustashi war criminals still in the Liberal Party. The war has been over for 65 years, after all.
Witches = ducks
Andrewses = geese
Or turkeys.
I think you’d be hard pressed to truss Kev A up as any particular bird.
Stuff a turkey with a goose stuffed with a duck stuffed with a mutton-bird stuffed with a pigeon stuffed with a starling stuffed with a sparrow, and then we’re approaching how stuffed this dude is.
Only it sounds too delicious.
Perhaps it’s that I was eating at La Luna tonight, and no combination of meats can overdo it.
Sam, sure ,the Ustashi Libs are getting on, but NSW Libs are home to several Croat war crims from the 1990s. This is an extensively documented fact.
FDB, a Turducken, then.
*resists making further comment*
No further comment required for me PC – there is no multi-animal roasted chimera too ghastly for me, I’m sure of it.
What I found interesting about Andrew’s article was what it revealed about his attitude to science. Not only did he embrace denialism and conspiracy theories about the IPCC, he also seemed very uncomfortable with the fact that human beings are in fact a type of animal.
@102 In that case, if Mr Andrews does have problems acknowledging the probability that human beings could be animals, the other options are either vegetable or mineral.
Since his article is obviously anti-Greens, that rules out vegetable. This leads my hung-over head to conclude that Mr Andrews is a mineral specimen … Possibly iron pyrites?
I think I need more coffee, and possibly a hang-over cure.
Curi-Oz
It could simply indicate that Andrews has rocks in his head, or is perhaps some non-carbon-based lifeform.
“lifeform” is probably overstating things, Fran.
@ 102, Kevin Andrews must be a creationist then, and believe that Humans were created, in God’s image, separately from creation of animals.
This delusion would be at the very core, the engine of his other delusions. I know someone very similar to Andrews in every way and the delusions extend to Abiotic oil and End of the World predictions. This bloke has been predicting a 1956 level flood every year for the past 4yrs, unfazed when it doesn’t eventuate (the Sunspots you see, haven’t got going yet).
Some brains must be suseptible to permanent change when indoctrinated from a young age with fantasy material.
#100, sounds “you beaut”, wonder if bacon and onion added to the seasoning should go well. The obvious bonus at the Wiki relates, of course, to the stuffed camel recipe also included.
Does anyone know if Kevin Andrews use Restoria Express or Just For Men? A 55 yr old man without a grey hair is not normal. Not normal? Sorry, I’ve indirectly answered my question.
Diogenes @108: surely Grecian 2000?
“Vanity of vanities and all is vanity.”
Thomas a Kempis. Imitation of Christ.
(Think I’ve got the quote right. I haven’t read it for 52 years.) But you’d think Kev would have it on his bedside table, along with the Douai Bible and a silver crucifix. And would read a chapter of it every night before going to sleep. (Most of them are quite short.)
Katz:“Or do you have any additional information on this matter, PeterTB?
If you don’t then I suggest you desist from smearing innocent people.”
I have made no assertions or smears about anyone Katz. I’m just trying to get a straight answer. And why would you consider the suggestion of a Communist past a smear anyway?
mercurius: “After all, Andrew practices the same religion as Hitler…”
Andrews is into the occult?
Lefty E: “Oh and while we’re on the topic, there are plenty of former Ustashi fascists (and I mean *literally* former fascists, and some actual war criminals) in NSW Liberal party.”
Name them. I think it’s important that those who seek to represent us have the opportunity to explain their experience and political development. No smearing though, Katz will flog you with a wet lettuce!
Why are the Greens getting all this bile?
I’m a left-wing supporter of the ALP and most of my views are just as alarming to the likes of Kevin Andrews and the column-fillers at The Australian, so where’s my bile.
I demand a scare campaign!
No need to demand a scare campaign, Ginja. The Australian is already doing it.
Liberals have apparently preferenced Labor ahead of the Greens in every LH seat in Victoria.
So a Labor-Liberal-National Coalition government is actually a real possibility. It seems the Liberals they think their policies are closer to Labor compared to the Greens.
Their ideology seems to have comprised their political acumen.
We will now for sure on Friday when LH HTVs must be lodged.
Game on.
Yes indeed:
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/blue-erupts-over-preference-deals-20101114-17sm0.html
This will make life harder for the Greens, but it was always going to happen eventually, most likely after the first time the Greens actually won a seat on Liberal preferences (Adam Bandt’s win was a watershed). Now, time for the Greens to win the old fashioned way: by getting more votes than the conservative parties.
Labor thought it was the natural party of “the left”. It has continually trashed progressive ideals at both state and federal level. Now it’s squealing because it doesn’t get its Greens preferences as of right, because they’re the natural party of the left! while with the other hand writing gutless smears and lies about them. Too bad! I don’t think for a moment the Greens support any aspect of Liberal policies (which is what Reece and his cronies are probably frantically scribbling as we speak, for letterbox scuttlebutt) they’re doing this tactically to tip Victoria into a marginal status so that the rest of us get listened to for a change.
Although there can be no doubt that the challenge of winning a lower house seat just got harder, I see this as a step forward for The Greens — an acknowledgement that our party is the real opposition.
By backing the government as the lesser evil, the Liberals will now have to take responsibility for everything they do.
Oh, scrub what I said #116. Opening the paper today, I see the Libruls and Labor have ratf**ked the Greens. Can’t have a party having a say which might go against developers, loggers and freeway builders.
Well, Bird, maybe Victoria is a bridge too far at present, but it’s wide open for such a Greens rise in NSW, seeing Labor’s below the floor and Fatty O’Barrell is less than awesome.
Maybe they could arrange for Kevin Andrews to go on a speaking tour in NSW.
As the Communist Party of Australia ceased to be active as a political party, and ceased to recruit members, in 1989, whilst Adam Bandt didn’t commence study at Melbourne University until 1993, it’s a bit of a stretch to see how he could be an ex-communist.
Paul B #87, I think it’s drawing a long bow to suggest that Mark Aarons wrote about his disagreements with Lee Rhiannon (nee Brown) 40 years ago in The Family File with the 2010 Federal election in mind. Given the long-standing friendship which had existed between the Aarons and Brown families and the prominent role of both familes on different sides of the CPA/SPA split of 1968-71, I don’t think Mark could have avoided mentioning these issues in the book.
What colour is bile?
Don Wigan, I don’t think The Greens would stoop that low. But the Liberals are probably capable of doing it on their behalf.
Tigtog #81 and PB #87, according to The Family File the questions weren’t put to Lee Brown by Brian Aarons at an activist meeting of the kind you describe. They were put to her in the pages of the UNSW student newspaper Tharunka in 1972 as part of a response by Brian Aarons to an earlier letter by Lee which apparently criticised Brian’s position on some issues germane to the CPA/SPA split. At the time Brian was a postgraduate student at UNSW and Lee was an undergraduate at the same university.
The real issue in this discussion is the relevance (or lack thereof) of the flaky positions people might have held when they were young students to any judgement of their political positions and actions 30 or 40 years later, especially considering that virtually nobody in contemporary public life is beyond reproach on the score of teenage or undergraduate flakiness.
Except, of course Hendo …
Kevin Andrews isn’t alone. This from Uptown NYC:
Oh, moan it, brother. Green pagans are sully the temple. Compost worshippers pollute the House of the Lord!
And behind it all … Lucifer Gore!!
There’s at least one former Stalinist, apart from Rhiannon, who is a member of NSW Parliament.
But, so what? All that Soviet Union shit was a long time ago.
@Paul Norton,
Thanks for taking the trouble to look that up. I agree that the way in which those questions were asked and not answered is a side-issue.
Exactly. People are supposed to be passionately naive at that age, aren’t they? and shape their opinions differently upon mature reflection as they age?
I despise the Libs and other far right wing parties, but I vote against them, I don’t go up to their local or state offices and smear shit all over the place.
Well PB, perhaps you should direct your anger at groups that are far more likely to have vandalised the Green’s offices. Violence is generally of the right or the left – rather than of the conservatives. Describing the Liberals as “far right wing” is childish.
FB’s comment almost made me laugh, thinking back to the dirty deal done between the big parties in Tasmania in the late nineties, to effectively gerrymander Tasmania against the Greens.
Almost, that is.
As to Tigtog, 129, et al and youthful idealism and “flaky” politics, I always think :
A Tory at twenty- no brains, still one at fifty- no soul.
rupert’s propagandist
“adam bandt’s red!”
sees red beans
In green pods
& carries his
very heavy shroud
but a readership nods
& wants him buried in it
to be sculptured by
those crafty red hands
PeterTB,
Like the faeces left on the front porch of the local ALP Secretary’s house in an election some years ago in another rural town, where I lived, not Armidale – but no, that would’ve been the National Party, wouldn’t it, PeterTB?
You see, PeterTB, the far right in general does not realise how far right they are, because various people are always telling them their exreme right nostrums are mainstream. The problem with the loopy left is that its frequently called loopy, especially when its not and in fact becoming mainstream.
PEter TB:
Happily: no less a figure than Joe Hockey expresses concern about the matter here, and specifically the actions of one David Clarke. I spose you know better than him?
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2005/s1454635.htm