My respondents have heated up as they do from time to time and are now yelling and fighting and calling each other cunts and saying boo sucks Labor is on the way out everywhere.
It’s an old right wing technique. You distract and busy the enemy with matters other than policy, with personal attack and fabricated scandals (Slipper, Strauss-Kahn, Edwards, Lewinski) and remove him/her from contention with a tsunami of graffiti, nudges and blithering.
In the Gillard Government’s case it is an attempt — and it may succeed — to ‘overshadow’ with a charge of sexual harassment a hundred and sixty good laws and the best economy in the world and the first significant hobbling of the tobacco industry and its murderous daily worldwide poisoning of children, and give an impression that a good and busily achieving government is incompetent and tottering from crisis to crisis and bring it down. The cry used to be ‘There will never be a Budget surplus from this government.’ Now it’s ‘Peter Slipper’s Cabcharges have brought it to its terminal crisis, resign, resign.’
The hysteria has been well managed and has fooled even Fran Kelly.
But in fact it has no numerical basis. Peter Slipper’s vote will stay with Labor, and the figures are 77-73 on significant legislation with or without him in the chair. If Andrew Wilkie changes his vote, they will be 76-74. If Peter Slipper is no longer Speaker, someone else will be.
And that Speaker has the power to remove, say, Bronwyn Bishop from the House for a week at a time repeatedly and frequently and thus improve Labor’s numbers if Abbott refuses a pair, as he is likely to do, to Bob Carr or Stephen Smith or a sick, miscarrying member.
Because this is what the Liberals are like. They do not build anything (except, in Baillieu’s case, prisons), they do not make anything (name a Liberal-funded Opera House or Snowy River scheme) and prefer to tear things down as a rule (O’Farrell the monorail, Newman Queensland’s literature and its Barrier Reef); they can only work on crisis, and will feverishly forge a crisis wherever they can. War refugees escaping tyranny and seeking a better life for their children is a crisis. Stephen Conroy saying ‘fucking fantastic’ is a crisis. Kevin Rudd saying ‘mate’ to Kerry O’Brien is a crisis, nay, a ‘meltdown’. Belinda Neal speaking sternly to a waiter is a crisis. David Campbell visiting a bath-house is a crisis. But a war for ten years on the wrong country in which a hundred thousand children die is not a crisis, it’s good policy.
Like Murdoch, the Liberals cheat. It’s what they do. And it’s all they do. In the end all they want is CEOs on two thousand dollars an hour to be earning instead three thousand dollars an hour for doing very little work, and this is their guiding theology. And everything else they rail against — the arts, the friends of the forests, Slipper’s Cabcharges, Broadband– are a smokescreen over that mindless greed for more and more money for fewer and fewer people and everybody else replaced by machines or in the servant class as they were in Edwardian times.
Let my smirching, harassing respondents know therefore from this time forward that I am on to them, and whenever they advert overweeningly to personality not policy I will delete their contributions. They will not scare away my intelligent readers with an impression of carnage, obscenity, rapine, panty-sniffing and mindless riot. It may work with Peter Slipper and ruin him. It will not work with me.
They have been warned.
Name:
Your mannerist polemicising has served as breeding culture for them Bob. They infest because you place no argument before them that is unpolluted by your dubious dialectics.
Forgo the pub brainstorming, eschew the conversational what-if’s, abstain from the open-ended questions, avoid the gesture, reject the argumentative, and spare us the hubris of your Jacobin fantasies.
Fire the single argument…..between the eyes.
Bury it.
I have a shovel and a bag of lime.
Apologise to Terrance, your political blood brother and jim the Poet, and ask for their return.
Do it quickly.
There is much in what you say. We should all think on these matters, JG.
To Untitled:
Say which eight of my opinions you disagree with.
If you cannot, I will ban you for life.
Bob, I will say this once only – listen carefully.
I made NO reference to disagreeing with your opinion…..I asked you to consider YOUR role in fueling the Right with your polemicising.
Stop verballing me!!
“Banning for life” is what Sinclair Davidson and the IPA boys do on Catallaxy Bob. Resist the charms of such absurd and puerile Hubris.
For your own sake.
If you have a question ask it sensibly….honestly, and don’t insult me with this farcical threat.
You are banned for life.
Your deceit, treachery, and capricious nature transforms you into a Grand Fool.
The interview you requested?
Gone.
Are you Tikki Fullerton?
Beautifully expressed Bob.
That is all too true, Bob.
For my part, I apologise to you for being part of the name calling; sometimes the aggravation offered tips one away from the purely rational and invective is all too easily answered with more invective.
Have any of you wondered where the concept usually expressed “If a tree falls in a forest and no-one hears, did it really happen?”
Sources for the concept are examined in Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_a_tree_falls_in_a_forest
I have turned up another rather similar idea :
“The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended . . .”
ie, if no-one hears it.
- from the play The Merchant of Venice Act V Sc1 (per Portia).
Written in the late 1500s, it pre-dates the sources quoted in the wiki article.
A philosophic musing only, dear reader.
I love it when you quote the Bard, DQ
At the risk of sounding like a mutual admiration society, MGP, I love your posts, both in substance and as literature.
Well I must admit after a few years of this wonderful Labor stewardship I am ready for two decades of conservative tyranny and fiscal oppression. Bring on the sweat shops, child slavery, Murdoch cackling and faking polls and Millionaires whipping poor orphans, driving them to be more productive and WorkChoices 2 resurrected by Tony Abbott who said if he didn’t right it down on a piece of paper, he didn’t mean it.
I also look forward to the chattering and the gnashing of teeth of the Labor luuvies shivering in a gulag somewhere with tattered rags over their bones, scratching their thoughts on their prison walls with a rusty nail “Luv U Julia 4 Eva”
It’s all good.
Say which of the 160 new Labor laws you would repeal. Which 80. Which 40. Which 20.
If you cannot I will ban you.
It’s just hysteria. It’s everyone else’s fault. The ABC are a disgrace because they aren’t giving us the inside run. How dare people expose the corrupt and the incompetent. The left have only themselves to blame. Come up to Qld and breathe the almost untainted air.
And drink the coal gas tainted water.
Hurry up Frank, you have six hours.
Four hours.
Two hours.
One hour.
Banned for life. If, in the next week, you answer the question, I will commute the sentence to a month in the sin bin.
Tiny, the problem with the likes of you is you never say anything.
You lap up the hate spewed by Bolt and co. as if it fact instead of bile and lies.
The whole Slipper thing is ridiculous simply because the cab charge vouchers are used because they cannot be rorted by MP’s – only the drivers.
But the media are too fucking stupid to know that and the press gallery are stuck in the taj without a fucking clue.
It must have been quite a shock to become aware that not everybody outside your little orbit of luvvy sycophants agree with everything you say and write, Bob… or think the ALP can do no wrong. Your personal state of chronic self-deception is a good illustration of the trouble the ALP finds itself in.
You’ll be OK though.
We criticise because we care.
While I didn’t agree with your assessment of this Govt as being incompetent, I do agree with you simon on the “chronic self-deception” of Labor as an organisation. As an ALP voter not from a union background, my greatest frustration is the illusion they keep up that they don’t need to change. There’s such a focus on short term political win rather than on the longer term sustainability of the organisation (or not perhaps). The life cycle of organisations says if they can’t adapt, they die. I don’t see Labor being able to change. It doesn’t seem to me that the Libs face the same challenge, because they aren’t dependent on one key constituency for power like Labor is on the unions. Too many people with too much invested in things being just the way they are and I just see the next wave coming up right behind the existing ones in just the same mould. Even the young Turks who claim to be part of the solution are actually part of the problem.
Putting Slipper into the Speakers chair was a bad decision by any judgement. Any risk assessment would have said that Slipper in that role was an accident waiting to happen. .
Thanks MGP. I think Robert McLelland leads them by a long way because he has been intellectually honest about their predicament. I know an ex NSW MP who retired at the last election who would have been a great premier – a thoroughly nice and modest fellow. What a waste.
Say which 20 laws this government has passed you oppose.
Based on what? He has never been charged with a single thing in his life.
How can you simply suck up the right wing crap.
Does anyone in this country understand the rule of law and presumption of innocence?
Slipper has been doing a good job in the chair, it’s just another Abbott dirty trick.
If you need reminding of how stupid it is look at the idiot reporting it.
The same one who brought us the great Godwin “Grech.
And all of it is to distract from the real scandal of Rupert Murdoch.
I swear most of the Australian public is too fucking dumb to get out of their own way.
This is not about whether Slipper was doing a good job as the Speaker. On that score, it is clear he takes the role very seriously. And the rule of law and due process must of course be observed in handling the situation that has arisen.
Rather, this is about whether or not Slipper was a wise choice in the first place. I do not believe that he was.
From the outset, by virtue of the unusual situation of negotiating a minority government at a national level, this Government has had a strategic risk to manage of having it’s policy agendas “overshadowed” (validly or otherwise) and undermined. From accusations for example that the cross benchers were having too much influence.
At the same time they had a very important but difficult policy reform agenda to pursue. High political stakes.
So, you would think that at a time like this Labor would want someone in the role of Speaker with a very strong reputation, well respected by all colleagues. Someone like Harry Jenkins. I accept at face value HJ when he says he wanted to step down because he wanted to participate in debate, because I respect him.
By all accounts, there were lots of clouds around Slipper. His own mob didn’t really want him anymore, and Labor knew that and they knew why.
Whether or not it’s right that this Slipper scenario is getting the attention it is – the fact is it is and I believe that this was something that could have been avoided – and without hindsight.
Read Natalie O’Briens story in the SMH today, the only time Slipper got in the poo was 10 years ago and she makes it clear that travel expenses are tracked closely.
And Abetz and Howard protected Slipper.
Now Abetz is my suggestion for feeding false information- again.
Yes, but as the article also describes his travel expenses were really just part of Slipper’s baggage. And what did Labor expect – that the Libs wouldn’t try and discredit Slipper so as to bring about just this kind of drama?
My argument still stands – they should not have chosen him for Speaker.
Please see my post below (9.50pm)
DQ
I am not a Labor supporter and I have no regard whatsoever for Peter Slipper but, that said, I have the inescapable feeling that he is being stitched up by somebody. Surely, after the Godwin Grech fiasco, they wouldn’t try it again.
Slipper was however a poor choice as Speaker and just as poor a choice as an endorsed Liberal candidate.
Say which 20 Gillard Labor laws you disagree with.
Or I will ban you, too, old friend, for life.
I do not need you. Nor does this democracy.
Ban me, Bob – but the pressing issue is how the ALP will attempt to rebuild from the disastrous results of their last two leaders.
The rest of the grownups will worry about how the country will recover.
No, Simon, I do think the Labor Party can do wrong and have written thirteen books to that effect. What a detestable thing to say.
Please name my ‘luvvy sycophants’ so they may sue you. To the best of my knowledge I have none. Who are they?
Who are they?
What a coward you are.
Who are they?
Wikipedia, (don’t anyone accuse me of quoting things, I couldn’t stand it).
“Heidegger gave an etymological analysis of aletheia, and drew out an understanding of the term as ‘unconcealedness’. Thus, aletheia is distinct from conceptions of truth understood as statements which accurately describe a state of affairs (correspondence), or statements which fit properly into a system taken as a whole (coherence). Instead, Heidegger focused on the elucidation of how an ontological “world” is disclosed, or opened up, in which things are made intelligible for human beings in the first place, as part of a holistically structured background of meaning.
Heidegger also wrote that “Aletheia, disclosure thought of as the opening of presence, is not yet truth. Is aletheia then less than truth? Or is it more because it first grants truth as adequatio and certitudo, because there can be no presence and presenting outside of the realm of the opening?”"
“He is washing his hands in other people’s blood. I would have remained loyal to him to the day I died but he showed not a shred of loyalty to any of us.”
talking about pernicious, this is another morsel from Guardian coverage of Murdoch
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/apr/27/rupert-murdoch-betrayed-us-say-staff
Pernicious anemia.
calf heart -B12
acidophilus- yogurt
neutral ph 7 is environment B12 is best absorbed in.
watch alcohol. occasional salvital.
rolled oats,grains, fresh fruit and veges blended.
Be heart concious.exercise mildly.
minimal coffee and acid conflictors.
Dicalcium phosphate DCP is the most easily absorbed form of calcium.
the US has the highest consumption of milk but the highest calcium deficiency.
heart damage, trouble and cancer does live here. Very easy to attend to with a smile.
Attending makes an even better mind.
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/anemia/page3_em.htm#Anemia Symptoms
go easy guys and girls.
Get fucked.
Go away.
Not a problem.
You leave little room for any one to stand anywhere.
Just go away.
I am not in the mood for gobbledigook. Nor is the nation.
Bob, your posts of late seem to be attracting commentators (of varying political viewpoints) who are writing wildly and with no seeming idea how to punctuate or paragraph.
Some of these posts are beyond human understanding. Often the comments consist of nothing but abuse of you, other posters, other people.
Could I suggest, with respect, that you consider banning or sin-binning frequent offenders?
I admit that, on occasions, I have made a sarcastic comment or two and this should apply to me too.
The sin-binning is occurring.
You are in no danger. You are not crazy, and you write good English.
WEll here is a yarn you might like. A friend of mine is currently on holidays in France because Andrew Bolt slandered him, he sued Bolt and won damages.
Fancy that.
Who?
A young man called Matt who Bolt allowed his trolls to call for his murder over a false charge of assault on an liberal party hack in Hindmarsh.
All charges were dropped but Bolt kept spewing out the hate.
He is the same lad who helped get publicity to get Aladin Sisalem off Manus Island and was a friend of the Bakhtiyari boys and took Merlin to see them.
Bob, if I may refer you back to the subject of Fred Hollows. I must admit that whilst I knew of him and his good works, I did not pay much attention to his life story.
He attended a seminary school before joining the Communist Party of NZ, probably a fairly strange progression!
The Chief Minister of the ACT, Rosemary Follett, is recorded in Hansard as saying “[Hollows was] an egalitarian and a self-named anarcho-syndicalist who wanted to see an end to the economic disparity which exists between the First and Third Worlds and who believed in no power higher than the best expressions of the human spirit found in personal and social relationships.”
If you can get Mel Gibson to play him, it would be a real triumph. This story should be told to the world.
Well, I’m working on it.
To My Girl Pearl : Let’s say that the figures are 75-74 and the opposition is being snarky about allowing pairs; one opposition MP is willing to jump ship if he can become Speaker. Now he isn’t jumping ship because he is a model of rectitude, but because he is quite likely to lose preselection to the “holier-than-thou-new-catholic/puritans”.
However, the said holier-than-thous cannot easily attack straight away because they selected him and were colleagues with him until a few weeks ago. So it seems safe enough for say 18 months or so.
So the holier than thous need new allegations, so as to be able to muck rake the old stuff. Guess what? Does anyone remember Godwin Grech, or do our goldfish-memoried media have no recall? Does nobody care that this staffer not only put himself in harms way but that he kept records of texts and all those hurtful emails to which he gave coy answers rather than rejection?
Certainly it was eminently predictable that this desperate opposition would throw everything at the deserting Slipper, and keep trying even though the case deserves to be laughed out of Court.
Yes, I remember Godwin Gretch. I’m not interested in conspiracy theories, I’m interested in Labor pursuing it’s policy agenda properly and sharing that story with people. And I can tell you now that the people Labor need to be hearing them are simply not listening. Every time Labor leaves themselves open to stuff like this, people just roll their eyes. Voters don’t care about the rights and wrongs of this. They care that they think this is all a bit dodgy.
I absolutely fail to see how the Labor tacticians can argue that it was not a forseeable risk that there would be some kind of situation like this if they put Slipper in as Speaker. Things are so tight in the numbers game they MUST have known the Libs would go after him. A risk that Labor simply could not afford to make with such a sigfnificant policy agenda they want to pursue.
Yes, our media can be petty. Yes, many folks aren’t getting beyond the headlines. Yes, Rupert will jump at any opportunity he can to discredit Labor. All factors that must be taken into account when you are making decisions like this.
Hung parliament is a total game changer, and the way we judge organisations (and individuals) is how they behave when you’re in this kind of scenario.
And on top of all this stuff, the handling (or lack thereof) of the HSU governance stuff (not Craig Thomson as an individual) has given Tony Abbott the chance to start casting himself as protector of the low paid worker.
Did anyone argue that Slipper as Speaker was risk free? Rather, that any attack on him could be turned back on the Liberal Party. Hence the appearance, the seeming, of new scandals.
So far as I can see there is nothing of substance in them.
Yet another beat-up, ‘storm in a teacup mark 145′ or so. One attempted ‘storm’ each week or so since late 2009.