Friday 29th of March 2024

from the bile master...

bobellis
"Gillard leading Labor off a cliff"


She has become through a bungled campaign, the worst since 1966 (when Arthur Calwell running against the Birthday Ballot and the Vietnam War lost 22 seats), that very strange thing, a powerless, genderless Prime Minister without influence or friends who is promising to 'open the curtains and let in the sunlight' after a lifetime of secrecy, flannel and backroom intrigue. So secretive that she wouldn't tell Rudd his fate, or the nation who her Finance, Defence or Foreign Ministers would be (why not?) or if she planned to marry Tim or when she would occupy The Lodge (why not?), or how she differed in significant policy from the man who had lost his way and why, if he had lost his way, she wanted the wandering drongo back, and why Cabinet discussions would 'go with me to my grave', she is now on a promise to let the sunlight in and be frank and open about everything. She is just So-o-o-o 2007' as a female friend just said to me and dizzyingly unsuited to the modern age.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s3006950.htm

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Gus: From the onset, one has to consider the events that led to this "early" election. It was only early by about six months. Rudd was not assassinated contrary to what Bob Ellis keeps trying to tell us. There were problems in the Labor camp, way before, with Rudd's style of dealing with things, including his "temper" and "coarse" language. But these were "manageable" until...

When Tony replaced Malcolm at the head of the rabid-right, Rudd was unable to contain the bullshit coming from that quarter — even to the point of acknowledging "Labor deserved to be flogged", something one should NEVER EVER do —, especially after abandoning the ETS and with the mining tax shoddy delivery. Had the election been held six months from now, Labor would have taken a bloodbath.

An opportunity for Australia's opportunities would have been lost to rabid right-wing opportunism.

Julia had to do some quick smart thinking.

There was no time to loose: sort out the mess with the miners in a blitz and call an election to hold the tide of the TonyPorkie factor. Rudd wanted to keep his promise of a full-term government. This was going to destroy Labor which  — despite great accolade from overseas economists — according to Tony "was incompetent...". If you say this crap often enough and if the mass media works with you on this line, the news gets filled with this premise, contrary to the reality which does not get a look in. Donwer used the same method: repeating "Saddam has weapons of mass destruction" a zillion times, with no real media investigation — especially when Wilkie left the ONA, something which should have alerted the press. But Murdoch and the media in general are often uncaring of the truth or have an agenda. They want blood. They sell blood and scandals. Bob Ellis again:

Yet it is true to say this, I think. Rupert Murdoch loves to cheat. He does it all the time. It's meat and drink to him. And as with Bigotgate, and as with election night in the US in 2001, when his commentator John Ellis, George Bush's cousin, called it for Bush while a million Florida votes were still to come in, he changes the course of world history sometimes with his intricate, skilful cheating of public events like last night's debate, and the second Brown debate, the Sky News one.

...

And anyone who has been to a film school knows, as a rudimentary fact of film grammar, that head size confers authority, and far-off wide shots showing Gillard waving her feelers like a stick insect made her unauthoritative indeed.

A further act of genius was the timing. She came on at 6.15 when her chosen, western suburbs audience was still driving home. By the time they were in front of their big-screen televisions Malcolm Farr (peace be upon him) was telling them how tired she looked, how worn out, how below form. And then Abbott came on, in a closer shot, grinning, and saying, 'Let's break the rules, I'm coming down off the stage', and Speers not saying, 'Mr Abbott, keep to the agreed rules'.

The wonder of it was how the Labor backroomers fell for it. The Murdoch channel? The Murdoch channel exclusively? The Tory tapeworm David Speers? Bronwyn Bishop? Philip Ruddock? No agreement on head sizes? Letting the commentators assess Gillard before Abbott came on? Putting her on the highest stool ever made and letting him walk about, in breach of the rules? Can Mark Arbib be as stupid as I've claimed?

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2980690.htm

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Sure the Labor media massaging machine was outflanked on all side by the general media willingness to give Tony far more cuedos than he deserved... The Labor message was swamped by Tony's bullshit and the media lapping it up, salivating at Labor's defeat. Anything worthwile presented by Julia was going to be placed down the toilet by the scribes who loved Tony — a Tony who could say any crap — which he was — and be lauded as god... Some people say that Labor was weak in telling its message. Try to shout "fire" when a 747 is flying above your head...

Julia, so-o-o-o-o-o-o 2007? Crap. Tony is so-o-o-o-o-o-o 1957, with a dash of larrikin from the Sydney Rock push times, making him endearing to the Howard nostalgics, while his lies were swaying the swingers who didn't know nor cared where their bread was buttered or margarined from...

And to some extent, the fact that Julia is an atheist went against her too... Too many people still craddle the idea of god almighty.

Julia has a difficult time ahead. But she's far more competent at dealing with government that bilious Tony ever will be. Now will the media ease off or will it try to still go for the kill? Will Julia be pushed off the cliff by a media complicit with the rabid right?

Julia does not have to play their games... She's cleverer than that...

a plague of journos...

This was an election principally driven not by politicians, minders or party tacticians but working journalists.

David Marr brought Rudd down (with an opening sentence some lawyers argue was treason), Phillip Adams partly resurrected him with his broadcast confessional, Bryce Corbett (of the Women's Weekly) by raising her private life did great harm to Gillard from which Mark Latham, another journalist, bizarrely rescued her with a handshake; and then came Laurie Oakes, who all but finished off Gillard with the shocking news that negotiations preceded Rudd's exit and Cabinets often robustly disagree, and Kerry O'Brien who with his weekly skewering inquisitions reduced both candidates to gibbering wrecks.

No move by any campaign strategist or mining giant was as decisive as these journalists' interventions which were in their way as history-changing as Woodward and Bernstein.

And they changed history almost inadvertently, for none, I believe, were ideologically driven, merely sniffing blood. They raised some ordinary questions of ordinary behaviour and pretended they were important, beating them up, as they were trained to do, into livid, suppurating scandals.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s3006950.htm

If Only Gus - If Only.....

I am still convinced that the return to the extreme "rights of the privileged" is being enforced by the media - in particular the Murdochracy. The results of this sham of election is beyond belief and while people are advised by the media to "wonder" why the mighty have fallen so ignominiously, no one really asks the serious question - WHY?

IF ONLY the logic and reasoning of your post could be fairly promulgated to the voters of this once lucky country. IF ONLY?

There may appear to be a sense of disaster in my posts lately but it is as much frustration with the "democracy protected" and uncontrolled media as it is with the gullibility of voters.  Those who are so "back pocketed" in their thinking that Labor must be feeling betrayed by the very people that they have tried to assist.

The excuses that the Murdochracy use for their unrelenting and vicious attacks on the most popular government of any colour in our history, is only superseded by the criticism of the PM's ear lobes - the PM's dress sense - the PM's grasp of communication - the Governor-General's honesty - all of which and more, are a disgrace to this nation - of whatever race religion or otherwise and every one an indication of what the government of this country will be forced to endure unless we wake up. 

I wondered and applauded the courage and fortitude of Kevin Rudd while he was so badly abused by the third world tactics of the Murdoch/Abbott alliance.

I felt instability of our politics when the Labor caucus asked Kevin Rudd to stand down and the media choice of Julia Gillard was to be the turnaround. This was a capitulation to the Murdoch lies and misinformation which permeated the very air we breathe.

But Murdoch and his cronies called journalists, were not satisfied with that sacrifice of their personal assassination and used the conciliatory attitude of the Labor party as weakness.

My feeling of the current fiasco is that the voters have “knee jerked” at the over-exaggerated removal of Kevin Rudd.  But let’s go back to the start of the Murdoch campaign against that expert politician and realise that the target was Labor itself – Labor’s popularity – Labor’s financial expertise – Labor’s world wide commendations and Kevin was merely the “head of the snake”.

IF ONLY a crystal ball could show the “ordinary people” as Abbott calls us, the stark reality of what exists now and what the Corporation’s government will introduce by force, would shake our very foundations.

IF ONLY we would all be able to find out what has happened to the two conservatives who have breached the Constitutional laws and their excuses in the High Court of Australia.  IF ONLY.  NE OUBLIE.

 

 

Murdoch and Abbott are a dangerous partnership.

Consider this.

We Australians have just been exposed to the most illegitimate lies and misinformation that surely no other country has had to endure - among the "democracies".

Just Imagine - that the people under the flexible rules of democracy, genuinely elect a government, say like the Murdoch/Abbott alliance, and the mandate of that election is to have the "peoples choice" and is entitled to expect their choice of government to inform them of the pros and cons of how the nation is fairing.

However, the "freedom of the press" takes over and either does not print the truth or challenges the elected government.

This is a brief example of the situation that is sucking the life out of Australia.

Make your choice.  Would you rather be the beneficiary of a so-called democracy or would you rather be subject to the UNELECTED media and
who control the information fed to our citizens.

Control the information and you control the people.  NE OUBLIE.

 

of myths and media...

Gus: it's not often that I agree with bile master Gerard Henderson who often indulge in anti-Labor rhetoric... But one has to give dues where they belong — except for his cooked-up myth on the media:

From Gerard Henderson:

But for the rest of us, it is useful to puncture myths before they become lore. Here is a contribution to myth-busting:


Myth 1. Kevin Rudd's replacement by Julia Gillard in June was a coup enacted by faceless men. In fact, coups do not happen in Western-style democracies. They either initiate or reflect an autocratic form of government. In Australia, incumbent prime ministers - on both sides of politics - have been replaced in the past. A similar fate was suffered by Billy Hughes in 1923, Robert Menzies in 1941, John Gorton in 1971 and Bob Hawke in 1991.

What's more, none of those who moved against Rudd were faceless. This is a term which comes from a time when virtually unknown delegates to the ALP's national conference determined Labor's policy. Most of those who decided that Rudd had to go were elected politicians - Bill Shorten, Gary Gray, Don Farrell and David Feeney. The best known of the trade union officials who moved against Rudd was the high-profile Paul Howes.

Myth 2. The Gillard government is illegitimate. Not so. Labor has a working majority of two in the House of Representatives, even if only 72 out of 76 MPs are ALP members. The United Australia Party government led by Robert Menzies after the 1940 election was legitimate, even though it had to rely on the support of two conservative independents.

Myth 3. Julia Gillard does not have a mandate. She does - if she can get the one Greens MP and the three independents to support her. What's different about this election is that the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, can properly claim some kind of mandate for the opposition. After all, the Coalition won many more primary votes than Labor and the two-party preferred vote is still about line-ball.

Menzies was dependent on two conservative independents, and Gillard is dependent on the support of two rural independents whose electorates, judged on the Senate vote, clearly prefer the Coalition to the ALP.

Myth 4. Labor's defeat was due to the fact that, in the words of Rod Cameron on Lateline last week, it ran the "worst federal campaign" he has ever seen. This self-serving mythology overlooks the fact Abbott ran a very effective campaign from the time he became Liberal leader in December.

A number of ALP operatives - including Rodney Cavalier and Graham Richardson - warned their colleagues Abbott posed a serious threat to Labor's apparent ascendancy. The advice was dismissed. Who were the complacent lot? Step forward Cameron, who told a sympathetic Laura Tingle in December that Abbott was "unelectable".

Myth 5. The News Limited publications played a key role in Labor's near defeat. In fact, the key journalists in the campaign were Laurie Oakes, Peter Hartcher and Kerry O'Brien. Oakes and Hartcher were recipients of the leaks highly damaging to Gillard and neither works for News Limited.

The Australian was critical of Labor but does not have a big distribution on weekdays. In Sydney, The Daily Telegraph was critical of Labor but the ALP saved government by holding Lindsay and Greenway in western Sydney.

Myth 6. The independent and Greens parliamentarians represent a brand new kind of politics. Not so. Rob Oakeshott is garrulous, indecisive and cannot remember inconvenient facts. Tony Windsor is so insensitive as to compare membership of the National Party with malignant cancer. And Adam Bandt and Senator Lee Rhiannon either do not want to discuss, or are in denial about, their one-time infantile communism.

Myth 7. The Greens will control the Senate after July 1, 2011. They won't. From the middle of next year there will be nine Greens among a total of 64 senators. If the opposition chooses to support the Gillard government on, say, uranium exports - then any such Labor legislation will pass both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Myth 8. The Gillard government will be short-lived. It ain't necessarily so. Bandt and Denison independent Andrew Wilkie are leftists who are most unlikely to bring down Gillard in favour of Abbott. Bob Katter is a genuine independent, who almost certainly would retain Kennedy in another election.

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There... you have it from the anti-Labor master.

But I would point out that the media did help Tony's campaign and hindered Julia's efforts — apart from revelling in unimportant juicy titbits of this or that — by mostly using the headlines, the TV grabs, the editorials and their commentators to promote Abbott without serious analysis of his contention and his team of has-beens. That was unforgiveable. Tony ran a big-mouth, punny, belligerent campaign without substance — using slogans like "government for grown-ups" or "incompetence of Labor" "the australian voters owe nothing to Labor" repeated ad infinitum and promoted as gospel by the media when the contrary was (is) true...

Yes the Labor people had to be weary of Abbott's skill at wrapping porkies for the scribes to gobble up — like always hungry overweight dogs with left-overs fallen on a kitchen floor. B-lap-blap-b-lap... gobbbbble.

Thus myths 4 and 5 are mythical Henderson's media excuses...

Lucky that some voters saw through the bog of media: "The Australian was critical of Labor but does not have a big distribution on weekdays"... Big deal! LIKE HELL! ITS SATURDAY SATURDAY EDITION WAS ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU BELIEVE TONY WAS GOD!... "In Sydney, The Daily Telegraph was critical of Labor but the ALP saved government by holding Lindsay and Greenway in western Sydney." NO THANKS TO THE TERRORGRAPH though...

That's a terrible analysis of media, Mr Henderson.

And not discounting the SMH who ran a very very very late pissweak editorial in favour of Julia — after having bashed her efforts and praised Tony's since the beginning of the campaign, apart from a couple of journos — you know who they are...

I stick with my own analysis of media: by and large the private media was 80/20 in favour of Tony and the ABC 60/40 against Julia... And even this morning (15/09/10) on ABC Radio National, it looked like Fran Kelly was in salivating rapture just pronouncing the name "Tony Abbott" — who was coming (or talking to) on "her" show... Huggggrrr...

of rudd and others...

When Kevin Rudd's opponents finally moved in favour of Julia Gillard, they succeeded so shockingly and so quickly because they exposed a rot that had been eating away behind the government's facade for a very long time.

Labor has assigned the former Victorian premier Steve Bracks, the veteran senator John Faulkner and the former NSW premier Bob Carr to conduct a formal review into what went wrong with a government that had kept the Australian economy growing while the rest of the world crumbled and had done its best to keep the rest of its election promises as well.

Interviews done by the Herald since the election with many central players in the Rudd and Gillard governments reveal a prime minister reluctant to adjust his ambition or ditch any promises despite having spent almost 18 months of a fleeting three-year term fighting the global financial crisis and despite an increasingly desperate ministry that was slow to actually voice its concerns.

The problems had been building.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/how-rudd-experiment-hit-the-wall-20101001-16106.html

Such is the arrogance of the media

From Unleashed — Mungo Maccalum

...

But the politicians, sensitive plants as they are, react - indeed, usually overreact - to every nuance of the media’s pontificating and to every twitch of the polls. It was not always thus: Tanner notes that while Kevin Rudd was dumped as leader largely as a result of poor polling and an abrasive personal manner, 12 years earlier Paul Keating, who had the same problems, was never at risk. Such has been the steady drift away from substance towards spin.

Modern journalism is all about the search for the “Gotcha” moment; the gaffe, the slip of the tongue, the contradiction which can be seized upon and endlessly replayed as a clear demonstration that the reporters and commentators are not merely the judge and jury, but the real controllers of the process. Such is their arrogance that they now feel qualified to set tests: If the prime minister does not instantly do what I say, it will be an admission of failure and probably of gross moral turpitude as well.

Okay, here is a test for the media: read Tanner’s book, acknowledge the truth of it, report it seriously and at least try to learn from it. And if you don’t, then... then ... well, you won’t, will you? It would be much too hard. It’s so much easier to dismiss the whole argument by finding one tiny slip where Tanner breaks his own rules. Like he admits once having agreed to give a one word description of a politician. Gotcha.

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see toon at top

 

the media tells lies...

In Tanner's view, the media controls access to the electorate and "politicians are now so desperate to get media coverage at almost any cost that they willingly participate in entertainment formats that have little connection with any political issue". The point is referenced to Peter Costello's decision to dance the macarena on Kerri-Anne Kennerley's show and the author's own appearance on the AFL Footy Show in Melbourne.

Tanner maintains the electorate is so fed up with such policy-lite trivia that last year's election campaign "produced a result in which Australians effectively voted for 'none of the above'".

This is a clever point, but a trivial one nevertheless.

...

Sideshow makes a lot of valid criticisms of the impact of the cult of celebrity on modern politics. But Tanner has not discovered a new iron law of politics. The O'Farrell experience demonstrates politics can still be essentially about good government.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/tanners-lack-of-selfawareness-clear-in-tale-of-media-pandering-20110502-1e52e.html#ixzz1LFK5NmnJ

 

Gus: of course as a media commentator, Gerard would dismiss Tanner's view as "trivial". Gerard, it's a bit early to say the O'Farrell experience demonstrate good government... In fact Kristina Keneally's government was better than the O'Farrell lack of understanding in "general" matters of environment and other issues.

Tanner's view is clear that we live in a media massaged (controlled) environment and we have exposed this for a long time on this site... Of course governments feed the media titbits of news to froth at the mouth with. Most media are leaning to the right and gung-ho weapon totting leaders will get a good run with a well-designed food for the chooks. The lies of Bush Blair and Howard still get accepted as "truth" by most mass-media outlets. Or the lies are explained as necessary for the result...

A "lefty" government will always get a hard time from the media. Even from the ABC that, these days. is forced to pander to the porkies, of say an Abbott, by a massive 50 per cent in order to achieve "balance"... It is a tragedy of great proportion. For example, at the ABC no one can make a TV programme that tells that more than 99 per cent of the home insulation was successful, without bagging the government at least 50 per cent for the failure in about 300 homes. Failure which was the fault of a few contractors — with a Liberal (conservative) spirit of money grab — who rorted the system. In general the media is not there to help society's progress, but to make sure the rich stay rich and the poor lap their soup-bowls, and are entertained with the reflection of a happy royal couple on the surface of the gruel...

The media is in general a rotten tart...

see toon  at top.

dumbing down democracy...

from Tim Dunlop at Unleached

...

That journalists, in attacking such people, were attacking their own readers - the very people they now want to help them defend quality journalism - never seemed to occur to them.  Or at least, worry them.  The mood has changed somewhat over the years, as journalists have begrudgingly realised that social media ain’t going away and that it even has it uses.  But this sort of frustrated tolerance hasn’t translated into genuine engagement.  

Journalists are still inclined to get defensive - if not outright narky - when people criticise them, and there is very little evidence that they have seriously addressed the concerns of their most engaged readers.

This point has been illustrated with head-thumping clarity in the way the media has responded to Lindsay Tanner’s book, Sideshow: dumbing down democracy.

The almost universal reaction from journalists to Tanner’s book has been one of defensiveness and blame shifting.  The resentment at what he had to say was palpable.  Journalist Samantha Maiden showed her contempt - and lack of understanding - when she tweeted: "Weird thing about Lindsay Tanner whining as any Gillard minister will attest is he was a real media darling. Everyone sung his praises."

Yes: Tanner was ‘whining’ even though we used to be nice to him!

Fran Kelly was instantly defensive: "The book is really blaming the media for this descent into trivia and spin and gotcha politics...But why is it the media's fault? Journalists are reporting on politics, not controlling it."

David Speers from Sky News seemed determined to prove Tanner’s point, several times trying to get him to dump on his former colleagues, precisely the sort of ‘gotcha’ stuff that Tanner was trying highlight as what is wrong with the profession.

Other responses were just as counterproductive.  

Peter Van Onselen from The Australian and Peter Hartcher from Fairfax both made the rookie reviewer’s error of outlining the book they thought Tanner should’ve written instead of reviewing the one he did write, while Marius Benson

And on it went.  

Now look, Tanner’s book is not without its shortcomings, and it certainly isn’t above criticism, but you have to ask: if journalists aren’t willing to engage with a serious piece of work from a serious person like Tanner, who exactly will they listen to?

The further point is obvious: what is it that we are being asked to do when journalists ask us to support quality journalism?
from the ABC declared that most of the blame lay with us, his audience.  "The real problem," he wrote, "is not the media, not the politicians; it is you - you the voter. The level of knowledge that lies behind the average vote is distressingly slight."

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2718976.html

 

see toon an comment at top... See also "democracy in peril"

not feminism though...

from Bob Ellis

...

Winston Churchill, a promising Liberal Minister, is accused of sodomy by Lord Alfred Douglas and has to sue to save his career. George Gordon Lord Byron, a revolutionary poet, is accused, correctly, of incest, pederasty and anal sex with his wife and driven out of England, dying at war in Greece at age 36. Is there a pattern here? Is sexual complaint being used to bring down left-leaning and Liberal-reformist artists and politicians?

Looks like it. For the tactic works very well. Mike Rann survived, barely, but it broke his hitherto buoyant spirit. Strauss-Kahn will be president now, but only because his accuser was so dim-witted, and the red flag will fly again about the Elysee. Brogden may just come back. Buswell has. But Brown, Brown, Stewart, Campbell, McLeay, Della and Arnie are finished.

It is all very unjust; and a question arises from it: Is feminism killing the Left, and why does it seem so keen to do so?

Why are deeds long common at office Christmas parties used by women to ruin good men's careers? Why are left-wing harassers like Bartlett smashed, and right-wing harassers like Bill O'Reilly unharmed by it?

The Strauss-Kahn Moment has arrived, and the question must be asked: has wowser-feminism gone too far?  

For, if we look back a bit, we will see I think that the Socialist Oscar Wilde, accused of pederasty, rightly, wrote no more plays, and the pro-Communist Charles Chaplin, accused of engendering a bastard child, wrongly, made only three more films in 36 years; and the Jewish ex-Communist Roman Polanski, accused of pederasty, correctly, made no more Hollywood films, and despite his evident genius was blocked, harassed and menaced for 35 years and faces jail in his 80s.

And we imagine Charles Dickens, a pederast also, not writing most of his books (Copperfield, Great Expectations) after impregnating his teenage sister-in-law, whose botched abortion killed her. And we imagine Will Shakespeare, a probable pederast, with boy-lovers in his troupe, and Michael Angelo Buonarotti, a certain pederast, hanged, drawn and quartered before Hamlet and The Last Judgement arrived in history. And Leonardo Da Vinci, a certain pederast, dead before The LastSupper or his first draft of the submarine. Socrates was a pederast; Errol Flynn; Frank Thring; Arthur C Clarke; Donald Friend; Tiny Tim; Elvis Presley.

Would it have been good for them to have gone to jail, or the block, or the gibbet, and have never have done the work they did, or would it have been a pity?

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2780992.html

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Dear Bob... It's not feminism that is killing the left... It's far more complicated than this. You tells us of many good men with weak trait in their character that either led to their fall from grace or even death. And that these "good" men were mostly of liberal (left progressive socialist centrist creative) tendencies as against Liberals (conservatives).

As you know, I mention this here for our American friends, the word liberal has been highjacked by the conservatives in Australia by a "liberal" right wing Menzies, whose party has been infiltrated more and more by rabid conservatives... But this aside, why is the "left" more vulnerable to attacks for having perpetrated sexual assault?

Are the "liberal-left leaning" men more inclined to sex degradation than the "righteous" right-wing men.

Hell no...

But the liberal-left leaning "men" are more vulnerable to exposure in such cases, including to well-orchestrated "framing"...

"Righteous" right-wing men have many ways to deal with these cases... "Victims" don't talk.

The "liberal-left leaning" men are more like an open intellectual book and their liberal "equality" tendencies place them in line with hippies and communes, which of course does not cut it in the real world of cut throat...

The "righteous" right-wing bastards will do the deed in utmost secret with power as a full-on tool — and in general the deed might be less "casual" — but definitely unequal. The wrath of the "righteous" right-wing man is to be feared like that of a demon and his pecuniary reward to be cherished like a way to make a living... Yes, silence can be handsomely rewarded as long as it is not used for blackmail. The blackmailer ends up dead and knows this well.

And the vicarious pleasure of being forcefully ravished by the powerful is more "effective" than the pain of being forcefully ravished by a supposedly equal... The forceful seduction from the "righteous" right-wing man is animalistic strength... The forceful seduction from the "liberal-left leaning" men is intellectually corrupt...

The same applies in politics... Presently the Australian people according to polls prefer to be done by a little liar and his powerful friends, than being wooed by a party who tries to make everyone as equal as possible...

Yes, equality is a dirty word. Knowledge is unimportant. Power from the powerful f..ks the world. We know that. Sociopaths win again...

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p.s.: And of course religions work in the same sphere as the powerful and the sociopath, using the power of the arcane as a weapon. See toon at top.

 

p.p.s. : ... and there are revolutions from time to time to "equalise" power somewhat... During these times atrocities of all kind are committed... Eventually some mighty and powerful individuals emerge again, some traitors from the rank of their revolutionary conspirators, some from the old guard, to conquer the world once more...

please note that this comment above was the first to be made to Bob Ellis article... So far it has not appeared on the ABC site.

the currency wars of value...

From Bob Ellis

Wirraway economics in a world of Messerschmidts

 

...

Austerity for Greece was therefore recommended. Government spending on social services, pensions and superannuation, it was proposed, should be slashed by half, to make Greece more able to pay its debts to the banks that had swindled it with dud securities. Austerity, yes; that was it. That would do it.

But austerity meant putting people out of their jobs, and depriving old people of their spending money. This meant less money was earned, and less money spent, and less tax paid (more tax, in fact evaded), so less and less money was available to pay Greece's debts.

And the experts couldn't see that. They couldn't see what even I, in two books, have argued well and not been thus far contradicted on: that sacking thousands of people is never worth doing because it increases drunkenness, wife-beating, petty crime, disrupted educations, dysfunctional families, hysteria, divorce, road accidents and suicide. And keeping young men in gaol costs more, each year, than keeping them in work, as bus conductors, trainee soldiers, teachers of skateboarding, guitarists in subsidised provincial big bands or whatever.

In similar fashion we stay at war in Afghanistan. It's the religious thing to do. It costs us tens of billions, it makes us nothing but pious poppy-growing enemies, it makes all Asia think us furious racist dunderheads, but we stay on in Afghanistan, killing our fine young men, and encouraging suicide bombers to come after us in tourist hotels and cafes across the world.

...

read more at: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3300334.html

a bob ellis experience...

 

 

 

The Australian mockingly calls Bob Ellis ‘The Nostradamus of the northern beaches’, but Bob says he is much more trustworthy than their Newspoll.


I DIDN’T READ till last night what The Australian said of me on Friday.

It said I had denigrated Gillard, and I had. It did not say how on October 9, 2012, I changed my mind. It was during her misogyny speech, and I said in my blog:

Writing this as the motion to sack the Speaker is debated, I am astonished how good, and how authentic, Gillard was – off the cuff, and measured, and fierce, and unchallengeable in what she said, and said of Abbott, Abbott the brawling, nasty, cat-calling, dog-whistling misogynist, past and present, unrepentant, unhinged and unconfessed. It was the Prime Minister so many of the ministry like so much and are durably loyal to, even those who might replace her. Can I have been wrong? It’s possible.

The Australian furthermore alleged I predicted a Labor win in New South Wales in March, 2011. No, no, no, no. What I said, four days before the election, on the ABC website Unleashedwas:


Ah, whom am I kidding? Labor could have won and they will not. They could have cancelled the privatisation, paid the dental bills for a month of the over-78s, robbed the Big Four banks of half a billion each for a new catastrophe fund. Emphasised the Liberals’ connection to big Tobacco and lethal carcinoma, railed at their lazy, lump-witted inexperience, adopted the shipwrecked orphans, outlawed the small print in flood insurance policies. They could have changed the subject from transport once in a while. They could have emphasised the crazy Papist cross-burning Mel Gibsonites in charge of some preselections. And they did not. I can’t imagine why they did not.

And do they deserve to lose? No, no, no, old friend. Not to this bunch. Not to this hive of snoring drones in a time of global apocalypse. Never to them.

And it’s a pity.

The Australian also implies I get elections wrong.Well, I predicted 2007 within one seat; 2010 within one seat, foreseeing a hung parliament; 2010 in South Australia within one seat, when it was thought the Rann government would suffer a wipe-out. I predicted the loss of Victoria. I predicted Tony Abbott would be leader of the Liberal Party not Joe Hockey ‒ whom everyone thought a shoo-in ‒ and got his margin right too. ‘By two votes,’ I said, ‘one of which would be disputed.’

 

 

I have got, by my count, thirty-four elections right within three seats, and nine dead wrong. I got the Obama election last year right when nearly everyone had given up on him. I got the Malaysian election, gloomily, right too. And so on.

And I ask the doddering cuckold Murdoch to stop telling lies about me.

I ask him as well if the landline respondents to Newspoll are, on average, as old as he is. His body servant O’Shannessy refuses to answer this — has done so for three days now and I suspect it is not 82, and more like 72, or 69.

This means, of course ‒ how could it not ‒ that the Labor-Green vote is underestimated by 2.5 or 3 per cent by this methodology – of ringing only crocks and oldies, plus 1.5 or 2 per cent through misallocated Katter and Palmer preferences (few will go to the party of Newman, who is comprehensively hated by these rebel provincials) – puts the non-Coalition vote, two-party preferred, at about 52.5, where it has been for a year or so.

This is a tremendous Murdoch fraud, augmented month after month as landlines are progressively discarded by the young, or progressively not used, and more and more young people come onto the rolls, and more and more codgers Rupert’s age die.

What has happened – the suppression of actual figures and their replacement with false figures – is almost certainly criminal and arrests should follow.

Will Gillard be overthrown this week? No. Will Rudd move? I don’t think so. I will be down there, doing hourly bulletins anyway.

And we will see what we shall see.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/the-australian-and-its-dodgy-skewpoll/

 

wishing bob the best...

Bob Ellis continues his battle with cancer, his daily diary, Table Talk, continues to reflect Bob's legendary acute observations of modern Australia politics. IA presents this week's highlights and talks to his wife, Anne.

IA READERS would be aware that Bob Ellis, best described by Andrew Clark at the Australian Financial Review as a '73-year-old blogger, playwright, scriptwriter, speechwriter, novelist, book and film reviewer, libel writ magnet, serial book pulper, political candidate, Labor stalwart and all-round troublemaker' continues to defy the odds after being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer eight months ago. 

Bob’s wife, Anne, gave Independent Australia the following update yesterday: 

It became clear towards the end of last week that Bob was just getting weaker and weaker to the point where he could hardly write or move around. A blood test on Friday and then a CT scan on Tuesday and other symptoms made it that the liver cancer was resurgent, and also in the affected lymph nodes. Within an hour or so of the CT scan, it was decided that we would go for the new immunology treatment called Keytruda and do it before Easter. Because Bob’s cancer is quite rare, there are no trials relating to it, but we can buy it treatment by treatment, aiming for four to start with.

 He had the first one yesterday, and strangely began to seem a little better. He asked for a pillow to write on and sushi and Easter eggs and felt really hungry for the first time for a while. He is in bed, and I just asked how he was feeling and he said ‘Pretty good’. We don’t know if this will work and we don’t know if it will be deceptive, like the first series of the chemo, and seem to be working and then will fail. But it is really the last option. Had he gone on as he was, it seems likely it would have been a matter of weeks or perhaps a month or two. 

Anne also mentioned that the cost of the Keytruda treatment was very expensive ($4,479 per treatment) and that she was taking on additional work to pay for it. 

 

If you'd like to help, you might like to consider making a contribution by subscribing to his blog, Table Talk, here. 

During his long battle with cancer, Ellis's Table Talk (republished as a regular column in Independent Australia) has continued to diarise Bob's observations of modern Australian politics. We've selected a couple of of the highlights this week: 

Turnbull getting too clever by half? (posted 22 March 2016)

I'M HAVING more tests today. My blood count has gone has gone up and my liver count may be getting dangerous. If it can’t be turned around I may have weeks to live.

It’s probably worthwhile assessing where things are at politically.

Morgan, the accurate one, has Labor on 50.5 and either tied or winning narrowly. Turnbull’s contempt for Morrison and his repudiation of the need for a surplus, ever, and his retention of Abbott’s worst policies, and Abbott taking credit for them, show how poor a politician he is and how little control he has of the rabble underneath him. There has to be scandal of sorts, or a stuff-up, three times a week. Is this enough to put Shorten over the line? Perhaps. Perhaps.

It were good if there were a Nauru scandal that engulfed Dutton, or Morrison. Or Brandis’s office for letting Man Monis through the wire.

There is a "mad dog" thing about Turnbull. His need to be too clever by half.

If I live till July 2 I may see the end of him.

Time will tell.

After Sinodinos (posted 24 March 2016)

SINODINOS HAS devastated – again – some Central Coast MPs and Baird – again – has declared the NSW Liberal Party must ‘take its medicine’.

This is at the same time as the Man Monis enquiry has shown the police in that State are a pack of wackers, and they could have been killed while they bickered and misremembered history.

It shows that Baird, the smartest operator among them, is not in his perfect mind and leaves us wondering is any intelligence left in that party room now Robb and Macfarlane are gone. And where the intelligence, in numbers over fifty, has gone.

Is Sinodinos smart enough? Turnbull seems not to be. Morrison certainly isn’t. You wouldn’t ask Dutton to coax a cat out of a tree.

Or if Turnbull knows what he is doing through April. I would have thought so. But he seems to have lost the thread.

It was perhaps forever thus, and exactly like this in the Turnbull Reich and the Republican movement, like this when he was first Opposition Leader.

Day by day he seems sillier and sillier.

And we will see what we shall see.

Again, if you'd like to help defray some of the costs for Bob's cancer treatment, you could help by subscribing to his blog, Table Talk, here. 

Turnbull's losing the plot https://t.co/LaJY2D20WQ

— Paula Matthewson (@Drag0nista) February 24, 2016