Thursday, December 31, 2015

Dave Noonan's mate Blind Freddy should really lay off the grog

After the conclusion of the Trade union royal commission, the CFMEU's Dave Noonan was interviewed. Not surprisingly he claimed it was all a witch hunt:

"Blind Freddie knows this royal commission was set up to smear Julia Gillard, to smear Bill Shorten and to smear the trade union movement," Mr Noonan said.

Struck me as a tad insensitive that Noonan should make such a discriminatory remark, given that lefties are all supposed to be caring, sharing, right-on types. Not sure what the PC term for mocking the optically challenged is ("sightism", perhaps?) but the above quote surely merits a serious counselling session or two for Mr Noonan.

Unless he was talking about an actual mate of his, that is... Which may well be the case. See, not only did Mr Noonan use this offensive moniker just recently without fear of a lawsuit from HREOC, he has spoken of this character before in the same terms, like back in 2014.

Outside court, the CFMEU branded the royal commission a political "distraction" from the Abbott government's unpopular budget.

"I think even blind Freddy knows this is all about politics," the national secretary of the CFMEU's construction division, Dave Noonan, said.

And this same guy is quoted as an expert in this pro-unionist article. Popular fellow, is Fred:

This whole Commission is starting to look like a giant sham. Here are six times even Blind Freddy could see that it was a politically motivated witch hunt.

Well, whoever this man actually is, it's pretty clear that his judgement isn't what it used to be. Sure, he's rarely referred to these days because everyone is so wary of causing offence. But back in the day, when he was the go-to guy for numerous issues he clearly had a reliable knack for seeing -- or rather, perceiving -- the bleedin' obvious.

Now? Now he's a fucken idiot. So what happened?

Well, here's my theory: With the advent of PC a coupla decades back his fame nosedived and he became very depressed. Shuffling aimlessly along the docks one day, he fell in with a crowd of big drinking wharfies. As we all know they're thick as thieves with other unionists, and that's how he got to know Dave. Noonan has sought his counsel occasionally, but Fred's been utterly munted the whole time.

So he should get off the grog ASAP. If he does that, and people shrug off their politically correct fears (which they seem to be doing), he could easily regain his worldwide fame and authority. He'd become the Blind Freddy of yore, a simple but straightforward bloke who would know without a doubt that far from being a witch hunt, the trade union royal commission was an undeniably worthwhile exercise that uncovered widespread corruption -- corruption that should be tolerated no longer, particularly by union heavies such as Dave Noonan.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

If feminists think Jamie Briggs is trash what do they think of Shorten?

Even though we're in the midst of the silly season, with Canberra battles far from most people's minds, a pretty big political story has broken. That's the removal of Mal Brough and Jamie Briggs from their current positions. This prompted more than one keen eyed observer to invoke Oscar Wilde:
In this vein these developments could be seen as the latest plot twist in the ongoing political farce that is the Impotence of Being Malcolm. (Though on second thoughts "impotence" might be the wrong word. Could actually be a sign of his power. Briggs was a supporter of Turnbull's nemesis Abbott, after all. So, losing his gig could have been as much to do with payback as anything else.)

Speaking of whom: It does seem way OTT for Briggs to have to fall on his sword because he said a female staffer had piercing eyes, put his arm around her and pecked her on the cheek. Inappropriate, sure, but did it deserve this result? Briggs' own wife reckons it's all a huge over-reaction. And from what I've read I'd have to agree.

Not surprisingly the handbag hit squad and their allies in the meeja (mainstream and social) are having a field day with this. But as is so often the case with such sex-scandal beat ups, their vindictive and opportunistic reaction reflects more on their collective character (or lack thereof) than on that of the so-called perpetrator.

Take that world class sob sister Tanya Plibersek. In between her trademark smug chuckles, exaggerated eye-rolls and exasperated sneers she has likened the removal of Briggs (and Brough) to "taking out the trash". In typical bullying social justice warrior fashion, barking bolshie bimbos (and bimbeaus) in Plibbers' Twitter trollective have piled on with great gusto.
Pretty clear that this characterization of Briggs as trash is motivated in major part by their "feminism". They're striking a brave blow against the patriarchy for their silenced sisters, natch. They're immediately siding with the alleged victim in this case, totally trusting her claims. I mean, that's what feminists are supposed to do, right?
Given this feature of their ideology, what of those rape allegations against her own party's leader? Plibersek, model feminist that she is, must've thought those claims true, right -- even while keeping mum (or is that "sis"?). Her private view of the Labor leader must be very dim indeed. Since she reckons Briggs is trash for what he was accused of, surely she secretly sees her own leader as a putrid sack of toxic muck. (Though you'd never guess it from the way she supports him publicly, of course.)

The alternative is that she does honestly believe Shorten is completely innocent. In that case Plibersek has no integrity as a feminist, and only uses it for personal and political advancement (the personal being political as we all know). And she just couldn't possibly be that cynical now could she?

Either way, it's not such a great look, to say the least.

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Kerri Sackville's road rage rant is car crash feminism

If you have any doubt that feminism has completely lost the plot, then you should read a recent gargle by Kerri Sackville. She is one of this nation's leading, er, "feminist thinkers"; a prolific columnist at Mama Mia and similar online publications where she, along with a bunch of other privileged white chicks, rails against imaginary oppression in the most petty and infantile way imaginable.

The piece I wanna talk about is funny, sad and a tad disturbing all at once. See, someone, who I'm certain isn't nearly as sexist as Ms Sackville describes, called her a slut in the heat of the moment after she tooted him from behind in heavy traffic. Our feisty feminist heroine saw dark -- or should that be, pale -- patriarchal forces in this momentary expression of anger, and penned a surreal screed in which she cast herself as some sort of omniscient representative of her entire gender.

This paragraph encapsulates her "argument":

When a woman is insulted by a man, he will frequently use sexual slurs. A man might be called an ‘a***hole’ or ‘d***head’, but a woman is called a slut or a whore. And this reflects a deep, ingrained sexism within our society.

Well, not really. It's just a swear word. The greater the frustration a person feels, the more offensive will be the word they, er, choose to vent it. When someone blows his top, he lifts the lid on his id. That's why the c-word is often used -- and far more frequently by feminists than any other group, it seems.

And to use her paragraph as a template for a reply: When a bloke is insulted by a feminist she will almost invariably use misandrist slurs. A woman might be called a slut or whore but a man is called sexist or misogynist. And this reflects a deep, ingrained stupidity within the feminist ideology.

Fair enough to feel insulted by being called a slut. But to be falsely accused of misogyny (that's hatred of women, not just lookin' at your watch when she's speaking, by the way) by many in the mainstream media (female and male) is far worse, particularly when it can result in the loss of your job. And this kind of nasty gender war is waged day in and day out by Ms Sackville's ilk (and to great effect, which is why they keep doing it of course). Blokes tread on egg shells the whole time, packin' death they might say anything that can be, er, msrepresented as misogyny.

Anyhoo, you gotta wonder why Kerri and her ilk are so fixated on this word. Readers will no doubt recall how her fellow trollumnist Clementine Ford (Joan of Snarc herself) got some bloke fired from his job for using it against her on Facebook. Seems entirely possible that the antipodean sob sisters, who spend every waking hour lookin' for spurious reasons to feel violated on behalf of all chickdom, have gotten together and agreed to demonize the s-word above all others now -- probably because so many of them have racked up way too many tweets and Facebook updates in which they'd used that other unmentionable the c-word to abuse others, conservative women most of all.

But back to Kerri's misandrist rant, in which she proves herself to be as car-hatin' as she is bloke-phobic:

I’m angry at you, Red Jag, and not for the reason you think. I truly don’t care if you believe I’m a slut or a whore, as bizarre as it would be to draw that conclusion from my driving habits. There is nothing wrong with having lots of sex with lots of people ... What makes me angry is that you reduced me to your perception of my sexual worth, something you would never dare to do to a man.

Sheesh, what a word-wank! Talk about auto-erratic ...

Firstly, if there's nothing wrong with having sex with lots of people, why does she insist on being offended by the word slut? And what's this thing with "Red Jag"? Bloke may love his car. But don't conflate him with it. That's commodification! As that famously eccentric Italian billionaire Giuseppe Merici once so memorably wailed in a press conference "I ama not a Fiat-a! I am-a not a Lamborghini! I am a humana beinga!"

And clearly, Kerri is not a slut-a -- not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. But there's certainly another epithet that springs to mind: princess. And one who should really toughen up in my humble opinion.

(She should count herself lucky, too. If I hadn't chosen Rufus for that sightseeing jaunt and selected one of my dozens of less valuable cars instead, she wouldn't have just copped that unfortunate and regrettable outburst. Would have been in for a real feminist fender bender, then.)

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

White knighting white males lift whitegoods to stop male violence. WTF?

Andrew Bolt often says that a major characteristic of the cultural Left is that they think that seeming to be good is more important than actually doing good. Boy is that ever true. One of the main reasons this is the case is because the former is piss easy and requires little or no thought. The latter, however, can require physical, emotional, and intellectual effort -- and sometimes sacrifice. Lefties -- being such lazy, gutless sods -- will naturally avoid that particular option like the plague.

Given that the Left are so dominant in our institutions and other stratas of society, being a seemer not a doer can be a very good career move. All manner of socialists practise this grotesque hypocrisy. But no group is more guilty of it (and shamelessly so!) than feminists. Take their current nationwide "anti-domestic violence" push to attitudinally reconstruct all of Oz blokedom.

The whole thing is a joke, based on an utterly false premise. Misogyny is definitely not the cultural norm (at least in the West) as the shameless sob sisters keep sayin'. The vast majority of men are appalled at any kind of violence -- particularly against women and children. The problem of blokes beating women does not come primarily from gender inequality. It's a very complex social scourge that will probably never be completely eradicated, least of all by a bunch of non-violent males mindlessly mouthing meaningless PC cant.

But still they keep doing it, and with gusto! Take this bunch of Melbourne removalists, who've decided to get their kits off for the cause. Forget the ribbons, it's a White Kniting White Underdacks campaign.

The whole thing is so unutterably stupid, you could write a comedy routine from just about every line in this this article about it. Aside from the proceeds going to domestic violence services the calendar's effect on the problem in this country will be one squillionth of sweet far call!

But one point before I go: While the calendar is balls-achingly (and, I suspect, balls-freezingly) right-on in its intention, it does ultimately seem to confirm, rather than subvert, one of the main patriarchal stereotypes alleged to be at the heart of the domestic violence problem. That is, it shows men lifting and moving heavy objects.

Shouldn't any feminist worth her (or his!) bolshie bile be outraged by these images? Aren't all the sisters doing this for themselves these days?

Just sayin' ...

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Stoner Sloth laugh-fest used as reason to legalize cannabis -- seriously!

Still on the subject of everyone's favourite aboreal hash hunter: Hardly surprising that pro-legalization lefties would seek to take advantage of the Stoner Sloth campaign's massive social media debacle. They'll use anything they can find to push their cause. And they always seem to do it in an intellectually dishonest way. (Though maybe they're not that smart. Perhaps what appears to be deceitfulness is actually stupidity caused by years of bonging on? Not totally sure.)

Anyhoo, take this dopey gargle on The Drum. It's as dodgy as all get out! The summary reads:

The Stoner Sloth campaign is a symptom of our poor drug conversation. If we legalised marijuana then we could discuss how it's used without euphemisms, hypocrisy and bizarre furry animals, writes Jeff Sparrow.

Typical leftist sophistry. It's like saying: "If you quit resisting and simply go along with my side of the debate, then we can have a real debate. The fact that you disagree with me is what is stopping us rationally discussing different points of view."

Sparrow then goes on to imply that because Barrack Obama was once a "big time herbsman" cannabis is clearly benign. If anything, that fun fact says more about Obama himself -- along with the culture of the Democrats, as well as the mainstream media for generally sweeping it under the carpet -- than it does about whether pot should be legalized in Australia.

He then drops this little nugget of comedy gold:

The teens targeted by Stoner Sloth are not stupid.

That's almost as funny as the campaign itself, and in the same unwitting way!

Of course they are stupid. And not just because they're off their faces on weed. As well as being emotionally and intellectually immature due to their young age, they mistakenly believe that smoking is entirely benign, and that they can keep indulging in it without a worry in the world. (And this stupidity has resulted in part due to the rosy picture of pot smoking painted by people like Sparrow himself.)

It's this ignorant nonchalance that the Stoner Sloth campaign seeks to disabuse teens of. Numerous studies have proven that marijuana can be addictive and that heavy long term use causes significant psychological damage. So you shouldn't let yourself sleepwalk into a habit, particularly at such a young age. That's what the campaign is trying to convey, albeit in a hilariously clumsy way.

This undeniable fact is inconvenient to Sparrow, which is why he pretty much avoids it throughout the article. Instead he focuses on demonizing the law and comes up with this hilariously revealing line:

As every stoner knows, most of the dangers about toking weed are a direct consequence of the legal prohibitions on its use and sale.

This knowledge he speaks of, is it possessed by said smokers while they're high as kites, or straight? Because there's a big difference in those two states of consciousness. And it's actually the main reason dope smokers do what they do ... with their doobies.

See, they don't like reality. So if they're stoned all the time they end up being completely detached from it. As a result, what they "know" doesn't really count for much now does it?

Monday, December 21, 2015

Stoner Sloth satires spell doom for star and similar campaigns

The "Stoner Sloth" campaign has been a rolled gold (or should that be joint?) disaster for the NSW Government. It's spawned several online parodies and since everyone's yucking it up over the surreal ads their anti-drugs message seems to have been well and truly lost.

Secret sources from deep inside Macquarie Street tell me that the Stoner Sloth social media yuckfest has resulted in the scotching of a whole series of planned spinoffs.

These included:

A "Keep Australia Beautiful" style promo starring a rubbish throwing feline called Litter Kitty.
A series of positive body image messages aimed at young men featuring Longer Langur the Penis Extension Monkey.
The self-destructive misadventures of a marsupial adrenaline junky called Thrillby Bilby.
Hard hitting anti-binge drinking ads showing a herbivore overdoing it at his local watering hole. His name: Will Da Beast (otherwise known as Spu Gnu). 
An STD awareness campaign based on the brazen bed-hopping of a randy rodent called Root Rat.

Sadly, none of these social awareness epics will see the light of day. But the advertising firms behind them will of course still be paid. Typical! More tax dollars down the drain ...

But back to the Stoner Sloth campaign: While the reputation of the creative team behind it has taken a battering, they're unlikely to suffer any long term consequences.

The same cannot be said of the poor sloth who starred in the series. Countless tales of celebrity meltdown are testament to the deleterious effects of instant, fleeting fame on the human psyche. But what if the subject is an animal (or "non-human person" as the more PC like to say)?

By jetting to the big smoke and taking on the challenging role the hirsute thespian was already out on a limb. And if he wasn't off his tree during filming (as any true method actor would have been) he almost certainly is now due to all the stress!

As we all know, dope is a gateway drug. He'll be Smacked Out Sloth eventually. Death by overdose is sure to be the final, tragic outcome. But it won't be over quickly like what happened to Knut. Given his species' characteristic slowness, his journey toward the final curtain is sure to be an excruciatingly drawn out one.

How terribly, awfully, horribly ... gradually ...eventually ... finally ... sad. Yet all the while we humans will be laughing at him online!

Man's inhumanity to man is appalling enough. But his inhumanity to sloth is far, far worse.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Reclaim Australia rally in Martin Place

Just shuffled up from Wynyard to the State Library of NSW, where I am now. Got some snaps of the Reclaim Australia rally being held in Martin Place.

Have just learned that there was some violence at the rally. That surprised me because when I was there only about 40 minutes ago it was all pretty sedate ... There was a very strong police presence, however.

Still, the crowd seemed very well behaved. There is definitely an aggro -- and it must be said, racist -- element at some Reclaim Australia rallies. But that seemed to be absent here.

Not sure who was addressing the rally when I walked through but he seemed to be of Middle Eastern descent. Maybe he'd suffered under Sharia Law himself? He was basically saying that Islam doesn't tolerate other religions, and is using our willingness to bend over backwards to accommodate it as a kind of Trojan Horse to attain the commanding heights of political power here.

He stood above a panoply of flags that was certainly at odds with the MSM line that this group is dominated by white supremacist neo-Nazis!

That said, I'm sure some die hard lefties would find it sinister that a huge Christmas tree loomed over him! But I suspect most people would think it benign at worst.

There were plenty of Aussie flags, which lefties deem to be racist in and of themselves, of course -- as well as the odd sign that nervous Nellies might find offensive. But there was nothing overtly racist about any that I could see.

Interestingly there seemed to be a couple of guys from Anonymous supporting the rally. Now that's an intriguing development! Well, they have launched a cyber war against ISIS, so maybe that was the reason? Or maybe they were just a coupla smartarses? Who knows ...

Anyhoo, it'll be interesting to learn more about that biffo. I'll have a gander as I go to catch the train to Bondi Junction.

I suspect it was provoked by the lefties who lobbed. They always do that, don't they? Pick a fight so they get thwocked and then starting crying that they've been bullied.

Saturday, September 12, 2015

David Leyonhjelm and Michael Moore debate nanny statism on Lateline

I've long been interested in the idea of freedom of speech. Without it, we don't really have true democracy, after all. But the whole concept is open to interpretation -- as well as being highly emotive -- so double standards often apply.

In past decades it was the conservative side of politics that was most censorious. Significant battles like the Oz obscenity trial come to mind. But these days it's clearly the Left who really want to control what we can say. Deceitful and sinister, political correctness is a truly poisonous form of censorship.

This idea that the government knows what's good for you better than you do yourself comes through in other ways such as bike helmet laws and plain packaging of cigarettes.

There was an interesting debate about the idea of this creeping "nanny state" last night on Lateline. In it, Senator David Leyonhjelm debated Michael Moore, CEO of The Public Health Association of Australia.

Leyonhjelm is clearly an intelligent and rational person. I can see why his prescriptions would infuriate many on the Left. They are primarily motivated by emotions, in particular an inflated sense of their own virtue. One of the ways they feed this is by "caring" for others. But that "caring" often morphs into control. Look at any communist state and you'll see just how far that can go!

Leyonhjelm's more detached view can be seen throughout the interchange, but particularly in this segment about health damage caused by smoking:

EMMA ALBERICI: Let's talk about a nanny state issue then, smoking, is that a nanny state issue? 


EMMA ALBERICI: But doesn't smoking have the ability to cause ill health to other people around you? 

DAVID LEYONHJELM: Yes. Secondary smoking, and I'm not denying that and nor does anybody on my side of the argument deny that. What we do argue is that it's a personal choice when you're not affecting somebody else and yet we have nanny state measures such as plain packaging, such as very, very high taxes that are intended to stop people from smoking, irrespective of whether they are harming somebody else. 

EMMA ALBERICI: But won't they harm the economy overall if they end up becoming sick and in fact, very sick because we know that smoking causes a lot of harm and kills

DAVID LEYONHJELM: It does. It makes people die earlier. And that actually saves the economy money.

Lefties watching that bit would have thought he was the devil incarnate! But he was just being rational. If you're going to talk about cost then you must look at things dispassionately, like an accountant. Can't have it both ways.

Speaking of detachment, and lack thereof: Michael Moore was brusque and borderline rude to his opponent. He was also dismissive of the whole idea of the nanny state, as if it was some sort of wacky conspiracy theory.

This is a favourite tactic of the Left. Keep saying that grounds for criticism just don't exist, that the arguments are so ridiculous as to be laughable. It's a way of implying that opposition is mad, bad or both and can be extremely effective if done in a concerted way.

He ended on a patronising note:

EMMA ALBERICI: Michael? A final view from you.

MICHAEL MOORE: Absolute nonsense of course. I think David is quite confused. One minute he says yes we should have it on this, we shouldn't have it on that. The reality is and I suppose this is almost where we agree, is that there is a balance between personal responsibility and good government stewardship as outlined by the Ethics Committee. So it's that good stewardship that we want inform ensure that we have an appropriate level of freedom as individuals as we should have and an appropriate level of government stewardship.

"Appropriate." Sounds reasonable. But just as one man's meat is another man's murder, appropriate for some is suffocating for another. Something tells me he'd support a much greater level of "government stewardship" than I'd be comfortable with, which is why I'm glad there are people like Leyonhjelm in positions of power to question it.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Laurie Penny and Tariq Ali on Q and A

For last night's Q and A I suspect that the team of sneering hipsters who monitor the tweets had been told to lay off the bongs so they didn't let any obscene handles through. And yes, there were no disasters there. So, well done kids!

Basically, they got it back to business as usual: A constant flow of PC cant and infantile abuse from quarter-witted pinkos without the spine to use their own names.

The guests, and their views, repeated the show's notoriously dreary right-on bias. The panel included three of the Left's most well known slebs. Renowned on the festival circuit as big thinkers, all they offered on the night was a barrage of bolshie bollocks. Most of it was funny. But some was kinda sinister. Can't cover it all but here's a bit of a roundup:

The show began with a discussion of the Ashley Madison hack and its social ramifications. Feisty feminist pixie-person Laurie Penny was the first to offer her wisdom:

BRIDGET DOMINIC: Hi. In a recent case in the US involving Tinder, a judge handed down what many considered to be an extreme punishment calling the use of the app totally inappropriate behaviour for which there is “no excuse whatsoever. Vanity Fair also published a scolding article criticising the hook up culture of the app. The moral outrage seems to mirror that which surrounds the Ashley Madison hack. Do you think technology breeds cheating and casual sex or merely facilitates inevitable human behaviours? 

TONY JONES: Laurie Penny, this question was made for you, I think.

LAURIE PENNY: Well, when people ask about hook up culture and is it good or bad, I think what people mean by hook up culture is casual sex and generally I'm for that. It’s not a political position per se but the idea being promulgated is that sex itself is bad for women and I think, as a feminist writer, this is kind of what I'm expected to say but actually it’s not sex that's bad for women. Sexism is bad for women. What is disturbing about the Ashley Madison hack is that we are using very new technology to, sort of, promulgate Victorian moral values which are around shame, around punishing people for private behaviour which is not abusive. I mean, cheating on your partner, lying to your partner, makes you a dick. It doesn't make you an abuser and let's be very clear on the distinction here. What I'm learning from this is that, really, monogamy isn't working for a great many people and people are using technology to get around that and I don't have a problem with that really.

She clearly has a very cynical attitude to relationships if she thinks that cheating does nothing more than make you "a dick". But while it couldn't be called abuse in a legal sense it's still very destructive. Infidelity breaks hearts, ruins relationships and makes it very difficult for those who've been so betrayed to trust again. If she thinks that such major deception of someone you're in a deep and intimate relationship with is no biggie, what does she think of using falsehoods in other contexts?

Penny's swipe at Victorian morality was echoed by Tariq Ali and Naomi Klein to some degree. They seemed to think that monogamy was too big an ask.

But this is one of the key tenets of marriage, as we all know. Given that, it seems odd they'd they be supportive of "marriage equality" (which I'm sure they all are). Do they think it's liberating for homosexuals to endure the same sexual, emotional and spiritual incarceration the straight Ashley Madison members found so unbearable?

Snowcone Tony Jones was clearly impressed by Penny's erudite elfin insights because he asked her: "Did you think the hack was some sort of backlash from moral conservatives?" 

You can understand why he'd think that. But it did seem a bit of an odd link to make even for him, given that the Left love to see themselves as sleek geeks and conservatives as mouldy ol' Luddites. Maybe Snowcone thought the hacker was from Tony Abbott's PR office?

Never know. Coulda been. Anything's possible, I s'pose ... Well, one thing's for sure. It wasn't Dyson Heydon.

In her answer, the sassy social media sprite was closer to the mark:

LAURIE PENNY: I think the hack was chancers trying get hold of people’s private information and that is the thing we should be worried about when it comes to services like this and instead of being outraged that people's private data is being stolen by criminals and that all of our data is increasingly insecure and could be used for all kinds of nefarious purposes, including by States, we are jumping on this band wagon, shaming people saying gleefully rubbing our hands trying to figure out who has been cheating on who. You know, three people have committed suicide after being exposed by the Ashley Madison hack and I'm sure, sadly, that there may be more and this is a serious matter and instead of, you know, asking ourselves, you know, are we sliding into some kind of moral decline because of technology, I think the real moral decline is that we are still prepared to shame each other in this way.

Hmmm. If suicides have resulted from a dating site being hacked, then you can only wonder at the collateral damage caused by Wikileaks. Wonder what her views on this issue are?

Penny supplied more clangers as the night went on, including a completely irrelevant, utterly cringeworthy nod to land rights. Her insincerity was obvious from the self-conscious manner in which she acknowledged the area's "traditional owners" and struggled to pronounce their tribal name correctly.

But she did make the effort. So Jones approved, natch.

When the discussion turned to Border Force, Veteran Tariq Ali beclowned himself with his predictable regurgitation of the local loony Left take on the exercize.

Interestingly he was much more ambivalent about bona fide tyranny. He even waxed lyrical about Iraq under Saddam Hussein:

TONY JONES: Tariq, would Iraq be better off with an authoritarian regime is the question the questioner asked? 

TARIQ ALI: Compared to now, without any doubt. I have no doubt about that at all, and ...

TONY JONES: So what about Syria under Assad? 

TARIQ ALI: Saddam was at his worst when he was an ally of the West. That's when the Kurds were attacked with poison gas, during the Iran Iraq War when the West was backing him. But of late, despite the sanctions and all that, he kept that country together and people have no idea now, because we live in a world where amnesia is more or less encouraged, but that effectively the social gains made in Iraq during Saddam's period, and others before him: education, health, women's rights, that in the 1980s, Baghdad University had more women teaching at every level than there are women teaching at Princeton today. These are the figures. So, there were lots of social gains made and these gains have all been lost by this crazy war. There is no rational logic for that war, except the maintenance of American power and probably Israeli pressure put on the United States to destroy larger countries who have independent armies. There was no other real reason for that war and we are now paying the price.

Gawd, he sounded like that Sean Penn puppet from Team America. (He'd been to Iraq, you know!)

The unshockable Ali went on to say ISIS should be left alone, too. Maybe he thinks that like Saddam they'll eventually be able to hold Iraq together? Given their propensity for separating individuals' heads from their bodies, I find it hard to get enthusiastic about their plans for uniting the nation.

There was another telling little interchange that showed where Ali's sympathies were. That was right at the end, when talk turned to the Virginia shooting after a questioner asked if extremely violent images should be shown on mainstream media:

TONY JONES: So there’s a case for actually suppressing press freedom in this instance, is there? 

MIROSLAV VOLF: I don't think suppressing press freedom, I don't think that’s going to happen, but there is a moral case for appealing to people not to show.

TARIQ ALI: I agree with that actually and I found it very repulsive, for instance, when Saddam Hussein was being hanged, all that footage was shown on the screens, when Gaddafi was being butchered, without any trial or any attempt even to have a serious trial.

He said more but I found that first bit most intriguing. The question related specifically to the horrific slaying of two completely innocent people. Yet the first thing that came to Ali's mind was the rough justice meted out to those two mass-murdering arseholes. Revealing, eh?

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Emotive, anti-democratic "marriage equality" barracking on Q and A

Last night's Q and A was a bit more balanced than usual. They had three sane adults on and a couple of mental infants. If you include Tony Jones and his obvious leftie bias it was sorta evenly balanced.

They covered several topics as usual. But of most interest to me was same sex marriage. The speed with which this issue has become a global revolution for the cutural Left is alarming. I don't think that many of its proponents believe in it to even half the extent that they claim. Seems to me that they've gotten behind it in major part because it's a good way to bash conservatives and Christians. And their emotive tactic of saying marriage is "all about love" (and what a crock that is!) has been very successful. So they'll keep banging that drum.

And the usual suspects on Q and A did just that. Greens Leader Richard Di Natale used the tired ol' tactic of saying "society has moved on. It's all down and dusted. Why are we even talking about this?"

RICHARD DI NATALE: The simple answer is that Parliament should deal with it. Tony Abbott had a chance to drag the country into the 21st century and end discrimination, to end prejudice and he used every tactic in the book to block it, to continue to support prejudice and discrimination in marriage, to not recognise that the love between two people is love, regardless of their gender or their sexuality. He stacked his party room with National MPs. He has now come up with this tortured position it might be a plebiscite. It might be a referendum. No, we just should have the Parliament deal with this. We could have this done so quickly. We could have this done this week. We could have a bill before the Parliament supported by a majority of parliamentarians. If Tony Abbott did what he espouses and that is to respect the freedom and liberty of his own backbenchers and allow them a free vote and he won't do it. He won't do it and it’s part of the reason that he is languishing in terms of public support because he is a man stuck in the past. He belongs to another century and the sooner the Liberal Party change the Prime Minister, I think the country will be better for it.

TONY JONES: Richard, aren't you, from your point of view, at all nervous in advocating that? At all nervous about the fact, given the numbers of the Coalition party room, just on the conscience vote issue, aren't you nervous that it wouldn't have gotten up in the Parliament anyway? 

RICHARD DI NATALE: No, I think it would - it will get up and I think there are a lot of MPs who do what they do in that place and that is sniff the breeze. There will be a lot of nervous backbenchers who will be worried about winning their seats back at this election under Tony Abbott and they'll go where the political breeze takes them and on this issue, the public are overwhelming in support of ending discrimination. Just move on and do it. I don't understand how we can be here in the 21st century arguing for a position that is based on prejudice but that’s what this is.

He has a very simplistic view of marriage. He also clearly doesn't like debate. The thought of the people getting to decide on this issue directly annoys him, obviously.

The same could be said for Sam Dastyari. He was extremely rude to the anti-gay marriage panellist Katy Faust. Again he used no actual argument, just emotive judgements that implied she was a bad, hateful person:

SAM DASTYARI: There is so much with what you have said just then that is so offensive, it’s hard to know where to start. The politician in me tells me that I should be saying that while I disagree with your views, I wholeheartedly respect them but I find that very hard. I find it very hard to respect a lot of your views on what you have said because I don't think it comes from a place of love. I think it comes from a place of hate and I think that there is so much I can't accept the fact that you believe that Gini's parents, who I have no doubt love each other, you know, that they’re hurting their child simply because of the love they have for one another. I can't accept that. I think so much - I worry that so much of your views stem, not really with an issue with just marriage. I think some of it stems from an issue with homosexuality and you’ve described homosexuality as a lifestyle. You have said that homosexuality drives us further away from God. These are your comments. You run a blog called Ask the Bigot. And I think that there are people in this country who have different views on same sex marriage. They’re entitled to have different views on same sex marriage. People are going to have the debate but I think we have to have that debate at a higher level and, I’m sorry, but I think this American evangelical claptrap is the last thing we need in the debate.

The sheer gall of this guy is stunning. He pretty much says she's a hateful person, and accuses her of homophobia simply because she doesn't toe the PC line.

Hell, she's the one with the lesbian parents! If anyone has the right to speak her mind about same sex relationships it's her. And she's not abusive. She makes criticisms that are not nearly as mean-spirited as those he makes of her.

And dropping the line in about the name of her blog was a nasty bit of dog whistling. It was as if he was saying: "You said it lady. You are a bigot!"

Careful not to seem anti-democratic, Dastyari talked about a "debate at a higher level". In other words: No debate at all, thanks. We'll just tell people what's good for them.

So funny that his union head kicker says Faust is the mean-spirited one! Were the machinations that he engaged in during Labor's disastrous reign, and that he was so chuffed to be divulging in The Killing Season, coming from a place of lerve? Hardly.

Thankfully, Brendan O'Neill cut through to the heart of the issue:

BRENDAN O’NEILL: Here is what freaks me out about gay marriage. It presents itself as this kind of liberal civil rightsy issue but it has this really ugly intolerant streak to it. Anyone who opposes gay marriage is demonised, harassed, we have seen people thrown out of their jobs because they criticised gay marriage. We have seen people ejected from polite society. You know, 200 years ago, if you didn't believe in God, you wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting ahead in public life. Today, if you don’t believe in gay marriage, you don’t have a hope in hell of getting ahead in public life. There’s a real, ugly element to this and I think, you know, you really see it with the whole cake shop phenomenon. This whole thing around the western world where people are going to Christian traditional cake shops and saying to them, "Hey, you stupid Christians, make this cake for me", and if they don't they call the police. There are equality cases. Shops have closed down. It’s like a 21st century form of religious persecution. It’s horrendous and I think, you know, of course some people support gay marriage, as we’ve heard. That's absolutely fine. But what's extraordinary and unacceptable is that they cannot tolerate the existence of people who do not support gay marriage and I think we sometimes fail to understand how extraordinary that is and I think the reason Tony Abbott is very defensive on this issue and is erming and ahing and shifting from the free vote to the not free vote and all this stuff, he clearly has a problem with gay marriage but he can't articulate it because we live in a climate in which it’s not acceptable, as we have just seen in Sam's attack on Katy, calling her hateful and saying she’s talking claptrap, it’s not acceptable to express this sentiment in public life.

SAM DASTYARI: Well, hang on, no, Brendan...

BRENDAN O'NEILL: And I think so Tony Abbott - Tony Abbott is now being described as someone from the dark ages for believing what humanity has believed for thousands of years. Within the space of a decade, something that humanity believed for thousands of years has suddenly become a form of bigotry, a form of hate, something you’re not allowed to express in public life. That extraordinary shift in intolerance is something I think all Liberals like me should be worried about. Gay marriage is not a Liberal issue. It has a deeply illiberal streak.

Spot on.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Thoughts on Jacqui Lambie's son's meth addiction

Jacqui Lambie is a pretty colourful character who has copped a lot of derision. This is understandable as she's clearly not the sharpest pencil in the box and can at times be quite alarmingly aggro. Then there's that voice of hers!

But you'd have to be a very cold person not to feel pity for her in her current predicament. The poor woman's son is a meth addict, and she's at a complete loss about how to solve the problem.

I don't know that opening up to the meeja about it in the way that she has was a wise decision. I'd imagine that most pollies in similar situations would do all they could to keep the details out of the public eye. Still, she's just trying to do the right thing. And given how destructive the drug is, I doubt her recent pronouncements could make things any worse than they are already.

The way she talks about ice's effect on her son is very sad and disturbing. She says the young man she knew is gone; that she may as well be talking to a drug.

The way that meth seems to completely possess the addict is truly frightening. I have seen this at close quarters. Several years back I lived in a small bock of units in Leichhardt in Sydney's inner west for a few months. A young couple living there were clearly addicted to ice. They were like manic zombies. They would walk past my window at all times of the day and night, muttering crazily.

Through that same window I once overheard the mother of the female addict talking to the landlord. It was a heartbreaking tale. She said her daughter was a sweet, stable girl who did well at school, had heaps of friends. Now it was like she was a completely different person, lost to her for good.

Not sure what happened to this young woman. But I hope she got some help eventually and has managed to find her way back to normality. Still, given the sheer ferocity of the drug, I doubt that this was the case.

Friday, July 31, 2015

Andrew Bolt, Charlie King debate booing of Goodes on The 7.30 Report

So Andrew Bolt was on The 7.30 Report last night in a debate about the Adam Goodes furore. Pretty unusual thing to see. And I suspect it had something to do with the Government's recent attempts to have the organization obey its own charter and be a bit more balanced.

You'd think that this appearance might prompt lefties on social media to say, there you go, not so biased after all! I think a few did that. But the overwhelming reaction on Twitter at least was one of white hot rage that Bolta was even allowed in the ABC studio!

Funny that many self-described supporters of free speech were okay with an odious misogynist with terrorist sympathies being given a platform on Q and A. But when a prominent conservative puts forth a reasonable and thoughtful position on a huge story about race relations in this country they go into collective social media meltdown.

Much of this childish tantrum throwing was due to their belief that they own the ABC; that only views they deem acceptable can be aired on it. No doubt, many would have much preferred a "debate" between a couple of leftie quackademics, say, one of whom believed that all those booing Goodes were racist and should be pelted with eggs, and one who, er, "disagreed" by saying: "No, only 70% were racist! And compulsory counselling would be a better option."

The other reason they detest people like Bolt being allowed to put contrary views is that they know how stupid he will make theirs look to any reasonable person. If given a choice, people will eventually see how shallow, emotive, divisive and toxic the Left's agenda truly is -- especially on race relations. They can't afford to have that happen, and so will try to prevent it at all costs.

So good on the ABC for putting Bolt on. He certainly showed the politically correct view for the tosh that it is. Charlie King's arguments were very weak and sentimental. Look at the transcript you'll see. The number of times he invoked emotions was remarkable. Here's a sample:

CHARLIE KING, ABC SPORTS COMMENTATOR: Well I think - I mean, I see an undercurrent of racism here and I think it all stems from comments that were made to him at the MCG when a young girl made a racist comment. He was responding to rants, racist rants from the crowd. He didn't know the age of the young girl obviously and he pointed her out and I think that hurt him and it hurt him deeply. And I wonder whether racism has an age limit or not and I think it's more about what's said and the impact of what's said rather than anything else. I think he was offended by that. I think he was offended later on by comments that Eddie McGuire made comparing him to King Kong and then I think the booing has just gone on and on since then and then he did a dance to celebrate his Aboriginality and that wasn't liked by the crowd either and so he's just found it really difficult, really difficult.

CHARLIE KING: Well, look, Adam Goodes I think is a great hero of Aboriginal people. There's no doubt about that. I mean, what he has done has been magnificent. When you start attacking Adam Goodes with racial comments, as the young girl did and as the booing signifies yet again, then you're actually destroying a hero of Aboriginal people, so the racism actually spreads not just to Adam , and I feel for Adam Goodes tonight, but I feel for all Aboriginal people in Australia who are hurting, Sabra, just like I am tonight and have been since I've heard the booing levelled at Adam Goodes. I understand what he's going with - going through and I know how that feels. I've been there myself and I know other Aboriginal people who've been there as well.

So, it's all about feelings -- Adam's especially. Sooo leftist. They're always trying to turn politics into a sensitivity competition. Amazingly subjective. And if emotions are the prism you see everything through and they are your criteria for what you deem acceptable and what you think is not, well, you can basically demonize (or condone) anything.

Call me old fashioned but I believe it's much better to at least try and think things through. Doesn't mean you don't care. Just means you care enough to think.

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Quota crusader Sharman Stone is the Government's odd woman out

If you have even a modicum of common sense, you can see how silly gender quotas are. Hell, the whole concept is ridiculous.

We need more women in Parliament, the frightbats cry. "Give so and so a gig 'cause she's a woman!"

Then when so and so does get the gig and you point out that she didn't get there on merit but because she's a chick, the same frightbats cry "How dare you say that? She's eminently capable you vile misogynist!"


There's another silly argument used by quota apologists. Attempting to appear rational, they say, "Your argument about merit would be valid if there was a level playing field. But that's clearly not the case. That's why we must place gender over merit, so as to reward merit."

Yeah, sure. Kinda like that classic line "we had to destroy the village in order to save it".

Anyhoo, the very fact that feminists can demand quotas and get them proves there is a level playing field. You could even argue it is in women's favour. So, if they can get a gig by whining, why can't they get a gig by being good at what they do? (And if you say that women can only get a gig by carping then all you'll ever have is ghastly frightbats in positions of power -- 'cause, hey, that's all they do.)

So why not forget all this PC tosh and reward merit? Generally speaking this is what happens in the current Government. Love 'em or hate 'em, LNP women are generally competent and strong. They don't fall back on silly victimhood arguments because they've never had to use them to get where they are. (The same could not be said of the handbag hit squad and their ilk on the other side.)

But then there's Liberal Sharman Stone, who's been waging her own affirmative action, er, she-had. And she reckons those frightbats  are the bomb:

 LOUISE YAXLEY: She says Labor's system appears to be working.

SHARMAN STONE: So I look across the chamber at those Labor Party women. I can see them having merit equal to the men who are sitting beside them. It certainly hasn't produced for them two classes of parliamentarian at all.

Well, yes, that's because they're all mediocrities. Labor women get there by hiding behind their skirts and acting like damsels in distress, and the men gain power by sucking up to faceless union power-brokers and knifing each other in the back. Merit barely gets a look in.

So enamoured of child-brained PC feminism is Ms Stone that she thinks Parliament Question Time should be abolished.

Disturbingly dippy. So out there, in fact, it goes beyond Labor lunacy. It's more something you'd expect from the child-brained totalitarians in the Greens.

Gotta wonder how she got so far in the Liberal Party. Must be the exception that proves the rule.

Monday, July 13, 2015

Gary Johns's "cash cows" comment causes predictable twitstorm

It generally holds true that if you want to provoke a lefty all you need to do is say something eminently sensible. And if you wanna make 'em go howling at the moon mad, then make that point brutally clear in, er, colourful language.

The latest #Auspol related social media meltdown is a case in point. In it, former Labor MP Gary Johns said this on The Bolt Report:

"Look, a lot of poor women in this country, a large proportion of whom are Aboriginal, are used as cash cows, right?" Mr Johns said. "They are kept pregnant and producing children for the cash. Now, that has to stop."

Needles to say, the usual suspects went batshit insane with rage on Twitter. (And considering how batshit insane they are already, that's saying something!)

Now, you may disagree with his analysis and think that it's simply not true that Aboriginal women are being abused in this way (presumably by their menfolk). However, given the extremely high rates of welfare dependence and the truly sickening levels of sexual and physical abuse that plague these communities it seems like a reasonable point.

Now, if he'd made it in a less colourful way it would have attracted condemnation from the Left. And knowing how self-indulgent and mean-spirited socialists tend to be, some of it would surely have been vindictive and personal.

But the thing that really set the leftist trollective off like fireworks on the 4th of July was his use of the term "cash cows". As we all know these child-brained purveyors of political corectness live their entire lives in a perpetual state of hair-trigger sanctimony. They are just hangin' out for even the flimsiest excuse to chuck a massive tanty that shows the world how much they abhor sexism, racism, etc. It's always all about them, you see.

Since "cow" is often used as a derogatory term for a woman, they piled on with false accusations of sexism, as well as racism. Intoxicated with lefteous indignation, they were in a state of billious bolshie bliss:

And on and on it goes ...

The gruesome opportunists would rather fulminate over his use of a common figure of speech so as to advertise their own spurious moral virtue than actually engage with his argument. So childish, so petty, so leftist ... and so sad.

Friday, July 10, 2015

Aaron Patrick on Bill Shorten's ambitious character on Lateline

It's long been obvious that Bill Shorten is an extremely ambitious, egocentric character. Of course there are many of those in Canberra, on both sides of the political fence. But they're usually complicated, multi-faceted folk as well.

Look at Malcolm Fraser. He was ruthless and domineering, but also compassionate and deeply sensitive to criticism. And take Bob Hawke. Charismatic as all get out, with a real sense of entitlement to the top job. But he also had a genuine concern for working people and that made him an extremely effective PM as well as a popular one.

Basically these guys, along with others, didn't just seek power for its own sake. They wanted to do something good with it.

But I don't think that Shorten is like that. He appears to be driven almost entirely by his own ginormous ego. Seems to me that, not unlike Julia Gillard, he's been dreaming of being PM his whole life. But he hasn't given much thought to what he really wants to do for Australia if and when he snares the gig.

His very unimpressive performance in the witness box at the Trade Union Royal Commission certainly confirms that reading of his character. And this Lateline interview with Aaron Patrick, who wrote the book Downfall: How the Labor Party Ripped Itself Apart, constitutes evidence of this as well.

The interview reveals that Shorten certainly wasn't from Struggle Street. He was born into a world of privilege, actually. That would explain that conspicuous absence of fire in the belly (er, unless his belly contains something to fuel the fire, that is!).

TONY JONES: Now, his career, you're right - this is something you were just touching on there, but you're right it encapsulates many of the contradictions of modern Labor. A young, aspiring politician from the right side of the tracks, not the wrong side of the tracks, with an entire - an entree in fact to the world of mega rich people, business people like Richard Pratt, the billionaire.

AARON PATRICK: One of the things that I don't think people appreciate about Bill Shorten is that, sure, he has his union background and he presents this sort of blue-collar image, but he likes hanging out with rich people. He's always liked it. He'd always enjoyed socialising and mixing with business figures. Now you could argue that that's good. That's a legitimate thing and Bob Hawke used to do it too and Paul Keating as well. So I don't think we should think negatively of him for that. But it's still a bit incongruous. And I remember once in research for my book his relationship with Richard Pratt is very well known, but what isn't known is that him and Debbie Beale, his wife at the time, went and stayed in the apartment in Manhattan, which - you'd go there and you'd say to the doorman, "I want to go up to Mr Pratt's apartment and it's on the ..." - this floor, "Which door is it?" And the doorman'd say, "It's the whole floor." 

TONY JONES: (Laughs)

AARON PATRICK: OK! And then when they - when he went with the Pratts to visit Cuba, Communist Cuba, they did it in Pratt's private jet.

The young Shorten also tried to take over a union. But it was functioning very well. So it seems that personal ambition was the main, if not sole motivation there:

AARON PATRICK: Well, thank you, yes. The Young Labor Network, which Bill ran, tried to take over a union called the Theatricals Union. It employed - or, sorry, it had members of people working in the entertainment industry. Some may have even worked at the ABC. And it was seen as a far-left union. And what Bill Shorten and the other guys wanted to do was seize control of this union and use its votes within the Labor Party as their own power base and flip it from the left faction to the right faction. So, they all went and got jobs. And Bill Shorten got a job at Flemington Racecourse, which now abuts his present electorate, and also Victoria Park, where he became an ardent Collingwood fan. There was one problem with the plan, which was: it was quite a good union.

TONY JONES: Yeah. The leadership was actually well-liked and evidently doing a good job, so the whole thing failed. But it's kind of prophetic, isn't it? I mean, if the idea was simply to use the union as your toehold into Labor politics at a high level, was that also the motive for going into the AWU?

AARON PATRICK: Well, what I think Bill Shorten learnt through that experience was: you weren't going to obtain political power by going and taking over at the enemy's trade union. You were going to do it by going into a union that was already on your side which was weak, taking it over from the inside. And that's what he did at the AWU. And the AWU made Bill politically because he managed to grow the membership of it, increased his power base within the Victorian Labor Party and developed a national profile, partly through assiduous networking with journalists.

The guy clearly has big time tickets on himself. And that can lead him into situations in which he looks very foolish indeed, like recently in the RC witness box:

AARON PATRICK: I thought - in all honesty, I thought it was one of the more, if not most damaging moments in his career. The thing about Bill Shorten's psychology is that one of the reasons he's gone so far is that he has this unshakeable belief in himself. And he walks into a room and he's convinced that he's the smartest person in the room. And that's served him well throughout his career and his life. He was in that court - in that Royal commission today in the box and he was at the mercy of those - of that ex-High Court judge and that barrister. And he couldn't talk his way out of it. And he was held to account for what he was saying in a way that he can't be held to account in any other part of his career.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Zaky Mallah fanboi Jonathan Holmes beclowns himself on Lateline

So funny to watch ABC luvvies contort themselves into all manner of excruciating positions so as not to have to concede that planting Zaky Mallah in the Q and A audience was a stunningly stupid thing to do and a flagrant act of bias. There have been numerous examples of this including Mark Scott's weaseling and a debate between Jonathan Holmes and Gerard Henderson on Lateline.

Holmes was hilarious. He wasn't just trying to justify the decision to plant Mallah on the show so he could ambush Ciobo. He was almost speaking for him. It was like he was the convicted criminal's biggest fan. He was saying: "You've got it all wrong. This guy's just a pacifist. He's an ally in the fight against ISIS. Leave Zaky alone!"

So passionate was the former Media Watch presenter's defence of poor misunderstood Zacky that the man himself expressed his appreciation on Twitter. (And as Julie Bishop would no doubt attest, those emojis don't lie.)

Without a doubt there are many other wrong-headed bolshies in lockstep with Holmes. Sheesh, if Mallah keeps garnering their support he could wind being the only al Qaeda sympathizer to become a martyr without having to blow himself up.

That kind of laudatory attention may make Mallah himself less of a "loose cannon". Actually, could even snare him a nice cozy job as a Fairfax columnist. But it could well inspire some other, more hot-headed loon to go over the line and do something crazy for the Caliphate cause. If that's the case then Holmes and his ilk will have to share some of the blame. 

Hell, they say that the Govt publicly warning of the terror risk is adding fuel to the fire of Islamist anger. Then they claim that giving a platform to a terrorist sympathizer so he can implicitly endorse jihad (to crowd applause) is the opposite. Eh? To top it off they then cast Mallah as the victim in a violation of free speech! As usual the outrage is very selective and the leftist "logic" is so arse-about it's unbelievable.

Watch the Lateline debate and you'll see what happens to a lefty when confronted with facts, common sense and reason. They can't handle it at all. Vampires cope with garlic better.

You'll also see the well known primitive tribal allegiance of lefties kick in as Emma Alberici joins forces with her bolshie fellow traveller and rudely hectors Henderson. Yet more life imitating satire from their ABC.

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

The Killing Season reveals Labor's toxic cult of narcissism

Like pretty much every other political tragic in Oz I was glued to the teev the last three Tuesday nights watching The Killing Season. My eyes were agog and jaw was on the floor the whole time. Just couldn't believe the vindictive shenanigans these scheming, screaming, bloodthirsty backstabbers were engaging in for the entire duration of those six ghastly, traumatic years.

Sure, I experienced them at the time like the rest of you. But back then I was repeatedly recoiling in horror and struggling with a persistent feeling of defilement. Not privy to the internal machinations that produced such gruesome dysfunction I, like the other 23 million or so exasperated souls of this poor, afflicted nation, was simply trying to survive the ordeal day to day.

But now, with the adults back in charge and much of the bloody, toxic mess mopped up, we can look back at those events with only occasional surges of nausea. And The Killing Season certainly laid them out in compelling detail. Watching it was akin to being a survivor of a real train wreck being shown a documentary detailing every little mechanical and human error that led to your violent brush with death a couple of years after it occurred. Therapeutic is not too strong a word.

There were numerous serious cultural problems in Labor that the doco made clear. But one of the main ones was the stunning self-centredness of so many of the players.

Many have said that Kevin Rudd himself is a classic narcissist. And I think that's probably true. But almost every other Labor pollie seemed to be just as narcissistic as Rudd, of not more so. And if that man's affliction has shame at its root, theirs was driven by shamelessness.

Take Tony Burke detailing his coded telegraphing of support to Gillard pre-knifing. Then there was Sam Dastyari calling himself by his nickname, "Dasher". And they both actually played themselves in re-enactments!

These childish, self-indulgent arsehats seemed completely out of their league. But alarmingly they weren't at all. They were the league's undisputed champs. They'd done all the hard yards to reach positions of real power in Labor, and had exercized it.

Given how traumatic those events were -- and their respective roles in them -- you'd think they might be a bit reluctant to relive them, or at least be more guarded in interviews. But nup. These guys just lapped up the attention as if that excruciating period was some sort of wild, intoxicating adventure -- which it was for them, I suppose.

There's a saying that "politics is showbiz for ugly people". Of course that's meant to mean that it's a kind of theatre, and perceptions are important -- though not paramount.

But in the Australian Labor Party they seem to think that showbiz is all politics is. It has clearly lost its foundation of concern for workers, the marginalized, and the generally hard done by. It's now completely infested with young ambitious fools whose only goal is glory, power and adulation. No longer even the dregs of the middle class, they seem to be the castaways from Big Brother auditions.

That's very sad. And you really have to wonder how the hell it's gonna reform itself.

Monday, June 1, 2015

Adam Goodes' war dance and the Left's racism of low expectations

The Aussie Left's reaction to the Adam Goodes war dance controversy was so predictable, and revealing. Their prejudice against non-Anglos (Aborigines in particular) is just so entrenched they can never bring themselves to judge them according to standards they routinely hold whitey to.

Abbott winks during a radio interview and they go batshit insane with rage. Adam Goodes mimes chucking a spear at crowd and that's just a dance; a celebration of his culture.

Be great if there were some consistency. I'm all for seeing Goodes' contribution as benign. But then let's not get upset about people miming the slitting of throats or firing imaginary guns.

Truth is, little gestures can mean a lot. And why are some seen as okay when others not? The reasons are usually to do with highly emotive selective double standards defined and enforced by the bullying Left.

The quenelle is a symbol widely seen as anti-semitic. And at least one Pommy soccer player copped a bollocking for using it on-field, though he claimed it was not meant maliciously.

In these days of Islamic State even the holding up of an index finger can mean something sinister. Imagine if a Muslim footy player did that on field here. Lefties would be so torn, wouldn't they? Thankfully, most of them now concede that ISIS are a bunch of fascist barbarians. But given pinkos' gutless kowtowing to mindless PC dogmas, they'd be loathe to condemn it for fear of being labelled "racist".

But back to Goodes: Sadly, the man himself has decided to opt into the patronising racism of low expectations perpetuated by the overwhelmingly Anglo Left. He hides behind his race like so many feminists hide behind their skirts. How tragically piss-weak.

He goes out of his way to provoke and enrage. When he gets that reaction, he says, "Hey what's the problem? What I did was benign. You're being racist." Sooo childish; so passive aggressive.

While Goodes is crying victim, pundits, commentators and tweeps aplenty keep blurting feel-good tosh on this subject. Many have said that we (and I always wonder who they mean by "we") should embrace his war dance. This sentiment is typical:
Given the astonishingly divisive, vindictive and litigious nature of the captains of the Aboriginal Industry in Australia, you've gotta wonder how they'd react to such a development. Odds are they'd say that Anglo players performing it was act of cultural dispossession in itself and therefore racist.

The Welcome to Country ceremony is another Aboriginal ritual. Imagine if whiteys started performing it without authorization before major events. Outraged activists would unleash the dogs of law for sure!

That's why comparisons with the Kiwi Haka are meaningless. Firstly, it's a ritual that's performed by all players, Anglos included. Also, it's aimed mainly at the opposing team, not the crowd.

Goodes himself performed his war dance in a racially loaded way at the spectators, by his own admission (then backed away from this, the jellyback). Gawd does this guy have some issues when it comes to the crowd! When a 13 year old girl yells "ape" at him (in a way she says was not racist -- and why shouldn't we believe her?) he has her singled out by security, and slimes her as racist before the whole nation. The poor kid will be scarred for life.

But when he mimes waving a spear at the crowd we're all supposed to say how spiritual and wonderful he is; what a role model for his people, etc, etc, ad nauseam.

This guy can really dish it out, including to children. But he he sure as hell can't take it. What a coward. What a bully. And what a typical tool of the Left.

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Forget the poverty porn. Australia needs smuggery smut!

Haven't yet watched this controversial doco Struggle Street. But I've got a very good idea of what it's like already. Pretty clear it's one of those shows that purports to be an unflinching expose of capitalism-caused social dysfunction that was created solely out of compassionate concern for its poor, unfortunate subjects. But it's actually more about exploiting their misery to attract as many pairs of eyeballs as possible. That's why some have called it "poverty porn".

As well as this dishonest element, there's a strong undercurrent of superiority about it. The show is clearly meant to confirm the worst stereotypes associated with the area it's covering. Basically, you just know that it's been made by a bunch of ultra-smug, inner-city, latte-slurping, Greens-voting, bong-suckling, beret-wearing plonkers. They're presenting a simplistic take on a diverse bunch of people so that all their fellow travellers out in TV land can roll their eyes and think, "Ugh. Those westies are all such redneck, white trash losers. Just appalling!"

There have been heaps of shows like this. And it would be great if something truly new and innovative were attempted in this genre. Why not aim the cameras at the milieu that produces this kind of doco, and confirm all their worst stereotypes instead? Artsville, Orstraya is chockas with the most grotesque and ridiculous characters you could imagine. They're all just screaming for a gleefully exploitative televisual expose that's not so much "poverty porn" as "smuggery smut".

Take the primping, preening, smirking socialists who dominate Australia's theatre scene. Certainly not living on the bones of their, er, collective arts, these plump little poppets are still quite sad in their own way. Their tragedy is that they've never had to struggle. They constantly get thrown big wads of public money for work that just isn't very good, and that only a few people actually wanna see.

When not fearlessly pushing theatrical envelopes these writers, directors and producers spend much of their time pissing in each others' pockets, quacking on about how they're creative geniuses who can enrich society with their courageous and coruscating insights. But really they just sussed out who the cool cats were, became besties with 'em, cracked the arts funding code, and found a comfy little place of power in the inner sanctum. Positions are definitely limited, so if anyone else wants to receive similar privileges they have to go through the same arduous, soul-destroying process.

If anyone wanted to make a "smuggery smut" doco about these clowns -- some of whom are actual clowns -- it would be pretty easy to do. You'd just have to rock up to some state funded theatre, get access to the movers and shakers within and start filming.

If you have your doubts, then you should have a squizz at a little gem called The Talented Mr Stone, which was broadcast recently on their ABC. Even though it's po-faced and laudatory in tone, the subject of it is such a patently overrated and self-obsessed jerk that it kinda qualifies as smuggery smut already!

Now imagine if this guy and the grovelling, credulous enablers who surround him were filmed by someone who could see them for what they truly were and was intent on presenting that lurid, compelling truth to his audience in the most gruesome way possible. The resultant doco -- which could be titled something like Sneer Circuit or Luvvie Loop -- would not only be comedy gold, it would be a ratings winner too!

But sadly, considering the extent to which lefties rule Artsville, a doco like that would have close to Buckley's chance of being made ... 

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

I, Furkan Derya

Given all the media coverage related to "I furkan derya" over the last coupla days, it does look very likely to become an oft-used catchphrase -- certainly among the Twitterati.

Clearly, it's no longer just a former youth worker's name. It's also something else entirely. To me, and I think a lot of other people, it's an idiom to challenge "culturally sensitive" posturing. It says: "Garn, compassionista, prove you actually believe all the sanctimonious, hand-wringing shite you're spouting. Bet you can't!"

Others may have a different take on it. But I suspect it will usually be in that general ballpark of meaning. Lefties, fond of hijacking memes for their own petty purposes, might try to use it "ironically" to expose what they see as the right's appalling bigotry. But they'll still be stifling a laugh when they do. So, as is so often the case with the tragic shenanigans of these child-brained quarterwits, it will just be another own goal they're scoring.

And just on that accusation that its use belies a racist attitude: Utter bollocks! Names of people from all races and creeds can be used as joke fodder, as this list so hilariously attests. If anything qualifies as racist it's to demand that monikers common among certain cultural and ethnic groups should be deemed off limits for comedic or satirical usage.

Whatever your view on those aspects of the item of word-play in question, it's certainly worth considering what its, ahem, traditional owner might be thinking and feeling. This Turkish former youth centre worker would be a very good subject for an interview. And if no journo has tried to find and contact him for one I'd be very surprised. But until such a discussion appears it's worth conjecturing about how he might be feeling.

I certainly have some sympathy for the bloke. If he is the shy, retiring type then it would be quite upsetting to know that countless people are laughing out loud (or hypocritically stifling guffaws) whenever they say his name, which has been splashed all over the internet. And if he's politically of the Left and is being encouraged to take offence and be a victim, then he'd be mortified, of course.

Well, if that's the case that's unfortunate. But in defence of the gag I'd say this: It's not mocking Mr Derya himself. Using it is heaping scorn on the idea that some things should never be laughed at, right? Not so much mock heroic; more its exact inverse.

Not that you qualify as a genuine hero for repeating the phrase, mind. Anyone can do that. But there are serious issues at play -- namely freedom of speech. If you're gonna say #JeSuisCharlie then you can't get your knickers in a twist over #IFurkanDerya now can you?

This is why I think that if I were the original FD, I might be a bit miffed, but I'd also be chuffed that my name had became code for the right to make fun of whatever the hell you wanted to, even if it offends some people. That's an essential part of freedom of speech, itself integral to true democracy, after all.

Surely we want to have a society in which everyone is an individual first, regardless of which group, class or tribe he or she belongs too. And given that, we can all slag off, mock and deride each other. It's when this mockery escalates into violence that's the problem. And creating different standards and laws for different groups won't prevent this happening. On the contrary, it will increase its likelihood.

Now, I know a lot of mealy-mouthed jelly-backs on the Left have the opposite view. It gets in the way of their sinister, parasitic goal of controlling our minds and hearts from within. But as things stand in Oz most people don't want it to become the nanny nation these malignant creeps desperately want it to be. And frankly I'd like to keep it that way.

For this reason I hope that the bloke whose name was the inspiration for the phrase can see its significance and is at least a bit proud of it. That would suggest an alternative meaning for it, more along the lines of #JeSuisCharlie.

If we can say I furkan DERYA! in provocative mockery then we're kinda also saying -- in defiant solidarity -- I, Furkan Derya ... right?

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Furkan Derya gag an elegant jab at political correctness







Then there's the fact that it's uniquely Orstrayan ...




UPDATE: More thoughts on this subject here.

Monday, March 9, 2015

Howard haters helped the then PM. Will the same effect apply to Abbott?

Back in the days of John Howard there was a fascinating process at play. Quite often during his reign, the more the Howard haters whinged and wailed about him, the more he rose in the polls.

As many have said, Howard's ordinariness worked strongly in his favour. He was non-threatening to most, even if they weren't great admirers of him. So when the spiteful, infantile Left arced up about every little thing he did, the majority could see this for the massive ongoing tanty that it actually was. These people are waaay OTT, they thought. Howard doesn't deserve this hate.

And this happened so often often that the Left's infantile squawking became a reliable reverse indicator for many. The more his haters expressed their outrage, the more people suspected that Howard was on the right track. And so his support tended to rise with the volume of their Godawful shrieking -- or at least did not fall as a result of it.

Now, for some reason Abbott hasn't benefited from an equivalent process. I think it's due to several factors, the main one being his devout Catholicism. His love of the monarchy turns off a lot of people too as that Prince Philip knighthood train wreck so vividly illustrated.

Then there's his devotion to physical fitness and his love of boxing. He was also an extremely high achiever academically, having been a Rhodes Scholar. Abbott is a far more extreme character in many ways than Howard was.

The former PM was low-key when it came to religion. And while he was physically fit for his age he didn't swim, run and ride all over the joint like a man possessed. Just did some early morning power-walking in his daggy tracksuit. While obviously intelligent, he was not an academic star in his youth. Unlike Abbott, he wasn't a career high flyer before entering politics. Just ran a modest suburban law practice for many years.

So, there's widespread wariness about Abbott. Even though he craves acceptance and admiration from his countrymen and has clearly won it from those volunteer fire fighters and other ordinary Aussies that he spends to much time with, a high proportion of the population just don't quite trust him. He's a bit too full on and intense for their liking.

But now, after many months in the top job, I think this general mistrust is starting to thaw. They are increasingly willing to see him as a decent but flawed bloke who's competent and rational, and has our best interests at heart. He might make a few crazy calls. But when he does he quickly corrects his mistakes. And he has enough humility to listen to criticism and change his behaviour as a result.

That's why I think that from now on he might start to benefit from the insane rage of his infantile enemies in the same way Howard did. For this reason I think he's got a far better shot at retaining his gig as PM than most of the commentariat believe.

What do you reckon? Will the Abbott-haters win? Or will they win it for him?