Friday 29th of March 2024

amanda is kidding herself...

 

smoking is bad for you...

If you think I am kidding myself, consider a reversal of the stereotyping on others. How about users of illegal drugs as an example. If someone were to stereotype them all as useless losers who sponge off society on welfare, break into our homes and steal from us, there would be an outcry. You see, apparently it is OK to engage in stereotyping of a senior conservative politician, but not of others.

There’s a free kick on offer, and plenty of the lazy journalists take it. Hollow infotainment tries to get away with looking like sensible media comment. Stereotyping and ridicule pass as substitutes for informed debate. It adds nothing to the substantive political discourse.

 

 

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/blame-the-media-not-joe-hockey-20140815-104ms8.html

 

Amanda is kidding herself...

Her neo-fascist capitalistic side of politics (CONservatives who call themselves "Liberals" in Australia) have always treated drug users as "useless losers who sponge off society on welfare, break into our homes and steal from us" ....

AND THE ISSUE IS NOT ABOUT CIGAR CHOMPERS... But about the callousness of a chauffeur driven, disabled parking spot-stealer who tells us that we do not use our car much or don't have cars because "we are poor"... As far as I am concerned, Joe can smoke as many cigars as he likes until he dies of smoking-induced cancer or not but he seems to treat people below his station with contempt. 

The substantive political discourse is that the right side of politics displays a neo-fascist extremist side in their view of capitalism in which those who don't have money are stupid and those who make money — and let's say here some of the methods are sometimes often dubious though "ahthorised by the neo-fascist system) are clever. Wrong on all count. There are thieves in all echelons of society, but the higher the echelons, the bigger the loot. 

they sure do offend but they are not the best of intentions....

 

Treasurer Joe Hockey made a meal of his first budget and is making an even bigger meal of settling and selling it.

He was clearly "best on field" in the run up to the budget but has been near to the worst since, with some now wanting his contract reviewed. They certainly don't see him as "foreman material".

Hockey (and Prime Minister Tony Abbott) seemed genuinely surprised that the budget was criticised and rejected so widely. Yet Hockey waited some 10 weeks before attempting to woo the essential crossbench senators and was AWOL in the media much of that time, except for the serious distraction created by the release of his ill-conceived biography, Hockey: Not Your Average Joe. This only served to further undermine the budget's integrity and to raise questions about his judgment.

This week, he again made himself the issue with his remarks that "the poorest people either don't have cars or actually don't drive very far in many cases", in some bizarre attempt to defend his fuel excise decision. Another dumb error of judgment, especially given the obvious inequity of his budget, whereby the disposable income of lower-income earners was cut by some 12 per cent to 15 per cent, while the income of those at the top was cut by less than 1 per cent.

Don't get me wrong, it is unnervingly easy to make dumb statements in politics. Often attempts to make points with the best of intentions fail to strike the desired chord – indeed, they can easily offend.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/tonedeaf-treasurer-joe-hockey-the-budgets-worst-enemy-20140814-1042pt.html#ixzz3AhXCA4zm


Yes-no, John (Hewson),... Dumb statements in politics sure do offend but from Joe Hockey lips, they are not pronounced with the best of intentions... Joe Hockey IS NOT AN ECONOMIST. He cannot read treasury figures without making a meal of it... And holding-on to his views for nearly four days without a flicker shows he is a pig-headed self-important zero-witted prat.
He should resign for showing total ignorance of stuffs...
And your own 1992 press secretary who stuff up your speeches then was no other than the gaffe-prone lying turd we call Abbott... Once a nasty dill, always....

 

a future-destroying budget...

 

It is neither the Treasurer's sales proficiency that is lacking, nor his energy or application. He simply has a dud product that no one wants to buy, writes Ian Verrender.

If there was any truth to the old maxim that any publicity is good publicity, then Smokin' Joe should be a happy man right now.

Instead, our hapless Treasurer, a man seemingly full of good intent on his arrival to office, has suffered what the Bard would have described as "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune".

Under attack from within his own ranks over his inability to "sell the budget", he's resorted to increasingly desperate arguments and even threats that have only served to undermine his position.

But therein lies the problem. It is neither the Treasurer's sales proficiency that is lacking, nor his energy or application. He simply has a dud product that no one wants to buy. And the sooner his colleagues wake up to that fact, the quicker they may be able to repair their standing within the electorate.

One thing the Treasurer has clearly and correctly articulated is that we face a long-term structural problem with our finances.

But there are two major flaws with the budget he handed down three months ago.

The first is that it is a bean-counter's, or even worse, a bookkeeper's quick fix response to a long-term dilemma.

And the second is that underlying the quick fix is an ideology that shifts the onus of budgetary repair from older, established and relatively wealthy Australians to younger, disenfranchised and those less well off.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-18/verrender-its-not-you-mr-hockey-its-the-budget/5677184

 

I agree with Ian Verrender to a point... But Joe is as much to be blamed as the budget itself. It is a quick fix through an ideology strongly subscribed by Joe Hockey who cannot see anything of value beyond his nose. HIS budget is designed to hammer science, education, health and a host of other issues such as the arts, but is propping up ideology such as chaplains in schools... and payola for energy polluters under the guise of polluting less... THIS IS AN ATROCIOUS BUDGET thought out by atrociously ignorant people — Joe Hockey being one of them.

Hammering science, education and arts is basically destroying the future this country should have. SAVING money in the bank DOES NOT CREATE JOBS... I know.

 

looking after themselves...

From Amanda — columnist at the age, radio star on the ABC and biased soul at large...

 

Last year I had occasion to point out how Michael Kirby manages toz (sic) demonstrate that civility, as President Kennedy said, is not a sign of weakness. To a not very Liberal audience, Kirby was giving recognition to the Abbott government for restoring some AIDS funding and making some long-sought changes to benefit those living with AIDS. He said it was important to give credit where it was due. In a way it is another form of showing gratitude. We can all learn something from Kirby and my Italian friend.

I wonder if some want to learn that lesson. We all know people who seem eternally happy when there is something to complain about. In our daily media we get what appears to be a constant diet of negativity. We just don't seem to "get it" that giving some time and attention to what is good in our lives is a good thing.

Equally in our parliaments we see less of the bipartisan spirit  needed to make things work effectively. This doesn't mean pretending to agree when you don't. It just means admitting it when you do. We say we want to see more of it but I wonder if we mean it.

In any event, this might be a hard lesson for all our politicians in the current political climate. Just before you kill yourself laughing at that, spare a moment to think about the last time you showed gratitude or gave credit across political allegiances, however privately, for something a government had done. As my Italian friend points out, if you want a better year, start looking at yourself.

Amanda Vanstone is a columnist with The Age and was a minister in the Howard government.

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Yes, Ma'am... But why did not you point out the extraordinary negative ruckus that your idiol (sorry about the Freudian slip here — I meant to write idol but my fingers started to write idiot) Tony Abbott use to make when he opposed EVERY SINGLE policies (many good ones) presented by Labor. Your hypocrisy leaves me breathless. His NEGATIVITY has been legendary. His restoring the AIDs funding was done with a stick while cutting ten times other necessary fundings! The policies presented by Abbott and his midgets to parliament are all strongly ANTI-SOCIAL. They should be rejected entirely. Yes, Tony Abbott and his cronies are looking after themselves as they salt their rich friends with more riches, kick the arse of the poor and ask the struggling middle class to carry the burden. Nothing new mind you.


Yes, like you say, start looking at yourself... and they are looking after themselves, the turds.

screaming and kicking...

I'm surprised how many in the media think it is unusual that the Liberal Party will be responsible for delivering one of the biggest social reforms of my lifetime. It's a slap-in-the-face reminder to me of three things.

First, how well Labor does in painting all Liberals as conservatives and how easily that message is swallowed by the gullible or complicit.

Read more of Amanda Vanstone:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/samesex-marriage-this-is-the-liberal-party...

 

Yes, I have made the mistake to believe the "Liberals" were full blown CONservatives. And will make this mistake over and over again.