Assessment of Current Australian Politics

Sep 18, 2011 | Australian Values, Democracy, Immigration, OzPol Values, Racism, Religious Values, Terrorism, Values

Assessment of Current Australian Politics

 

Executive Summary 

  

Sir Roger has been absent from his adoring public. He has been busy, of course, and apologises from the bottom of what is left of his heart; from what is left of Australian politics by the Australian politicians who have mercilessly and inexorably broken it.

Sir Roger has made a deep study of the state of Australian politics over the last few weeks and the Executive Summary of his report is one line:

Bastards, cunts and ferals.

All of the politicians making public statements in Australia now are liars and dissemblers, desperately competing to be the first to dig Australian politics to the bottom of the political sewer.

They are weak, gutless, fear-driven cowards.

And they all seem to be trembling with terror in front of the toxic opinions of the deranged, ignorant, selfish, self-loathing, self-soul-saving, racist, hate-mongering, xenophobic Christians of Sydney’s west and Melbourne’s army of lip-service christian bogans.

Perhaps Judy Davis said much better (and more kindly) on the 7.30 Report on Thursday night:

“ I just wish that the politicians would have the courage to say what they believed was right, and if necessary walk away, just walk away from all the glory of office for the sake of what they believe is true. And I think that’s what the public wants.

Yes of course it’s exactly what the public wants. But they’re not going to get it.

Are our politicians really the best we can get? Do we really deserve this bunch of cheats and liars, dick measurers and gutless wonders? Are these bastards, cunts and ferals really a true reflection of who we are as a nation? Is this today’s high point of Australian politics?

And now Sir Roger needs to lie down with Johnny, or Jim and try to forget.

 

 

END OF: Assessment of Current Australian Politics

 

If Thy News of the World Offend Thee…

Jul 9, 2011 | Australian Values, Corruption, Cultural Values, Democracy, Economic Values, Legal, Media Values, Values

If Thy News of the World Offend Thee…

…Pluck it out, and cast it from thee.

– Mark 9, 47

News of the World

You know … everyone knows … Rupert Murdoch is an evil genius. And this latest move is certainly worthy of his deep-seated amorality. If Murdoch believes in anything he believes in two things: nothing and money.

His latest move is pure evil genius at his best, perfectly amoral and perfectly greedy.

The “red-top” News of the World was a lightning rod for all that is awful about Murdoch’s evil empire, his willingness not simply to condone – even apparently (at least to Sir Roger) to encourage – unethical journalism (as long as there is money in it) and unethical business practice (if there is money in it), but also to ignore the certainty of the toxic and socially destructive effects his work brings to the world. If there is money in it (see, for example, Fox News and Roger Ailes).

Is Murdoch personally responsible for the harm and hurt he brings to the world? After all, he’s just a businessman and not personally involved in the day to day journalistic decisions of his staff.

If there is one thing Sir Roger has learned in his long years it is this: the nature of an organisation, the culture, the ethical sense, the attitudes, the mood, that pervade and really influence and direct the behaviour of all the people who work within it, spring from just one source and that is its leader.

Everything in an organisation is a reflection of who – and what – the leader is. In a school, that’s the Principal. In a company, it’s the boss. And the News of the World with all its foulness, dishonesty, greed, inhumanity and deceit is a direct reflection of Murdoch. It’s inescapable because who he is as a man influences every part of what and whom he leads.

News of the World had become a huge and easy target for attacking the Murdoch empire generally. So what Murdoch has done is to remove the target. Now there is nothing to shoot at. News of the World had become a floodlit monument to all the real reasons why Murdoch and his megacorp would not be fit and proper controllers of a huge and influential satellite television company.

“What do you mean? What newspaper? I don’t see any so-called ‘News of the World‘.

No NoW, no NoW staff. Do they keep the documents? Or shred them (you know, for commercial-in-confidence reasons)? Can they be sued? For example, by Milly Dowler’s parents or any number of celebrities and politicians?

Murdoch has sacked hundreds (presumably) of staff at NoW. Not too much sympathy there for people who were willing to sell their souls for a shiny penny and the privilege of shitting into the same sewer as the Great Hero.

But he hasn’t sacked the one person he ought to have: the ex-Editor – in the big seat when much of the worst phone-tapping was going on – who is now Chief Executive of News International, Rebekah Brooks.

He can’t fire her, of course, or release her to the wolves (unless there’s money in it) because she is, like the now arrested and out-on-bail Coulson, another magnificent product of the Murdoch School of Business and Journalistic Ethics, the arsepaper-previously-known-as-News-of-the-World.

Murdoch has done all this not out of ethics or integrity or even shame, or even to protect the “good name” of his companies. It is to try to protect his attempt to obtain control of BSkyB and if people get hurt? Too bad.

As we know, but just to remind ourselves, the row over the News of the World was re-ignited this week when it was revealed that it had paid people to hack into the voicemail of 13-year-old Milly Dowler, who was murdered in 2002.

How must Louise Casey, Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses, feel?

Last Sunday, 3 July, under a bellowing, finger-wagging News of the World article [IN DEFENCE OF DIGNITY – opposite a picture of a sexy girl showing not quite so much dignity as breast] moralistically slamming “ruthless lawyers” for berating murder victims’ families “in the wake of the Milly Dowler trial”, “the nightmare ordeal faced by thousands of witnesses and innocent victims of crime” and “the shameful treatment of Bob and Sally Dowler”, she wrote in NoW:

“ Many of us felt such compassion for the brave family of Milly Dowler and anger at the way they were treated in court.
Sadly for me, although I was shocked and appalled, I wasn’t surprised.
When I started working for the rights of victims I thought I was unshockable. But what I have found over the last year has made my jaw drop.
Like most people I assumed that families who, like the Dowlers, have had their lives ripped apart by criminals, would get all the help they need….
What I discovered is they are often not given the support, care or consideration they deserve. Many are still treated as if they are an “inconvenience”, and this can make their grief worse…..
…They deserve to be treated with humanity, dignity and most of all a bit of respect.
So when my report comes out about the treatment of families like these, I ask that you be shocked too…

The next day, 4 July, the story broke in the Guardian that Scotland Yard had discovered Milly Dowler’s voicemail had been hacked by journalists and private investigators of the newspaper Louise Casey had so helpfully and passionately contributed to. They had deleted messages – potential evidence – to free up space for more juicy messages. The deletions misled family and friends into thinking that Milly was still alive.

We bet Louise Casey’s jaw really did drop when she saw that. They probably had to give her smelling salts to bring her round. And a bucket for her shame.

The worst that can happen to Murdoch is probably much too little and now almost too late, for the wrinkled old caricature of (or perhaps inspiration for) Emperor Palpatine, as retribution for the global damage he has done to civil society, let alone the personal grief he has caused during his foul, oh-so-long (and, to an Australian, deeply embarrassing) career. It would be easy to wish there really were a hell for him to be consigned to, “into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched”. Wikipedia says he’s Catholic, but he probably thinks god works for him.

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Oh, I dunno, about $US8 Billion?

Late Breaking:

The Guardian newspaper is now also reporting an executive from News International – News Corp’s UK wing – has deleted four or five years worth of emails between staff and their bosses. Might that be illegal? Given the police investigation? Perverting the course of justice (well, British law, anyway, which increasingly is an ass)?

And Brooks told angry staff on Friday, “Yes, we’re in a very bad moment but we will continue to invest in journalism.”

Her logical error is that to “continue” to do something you must already have been doing it.

 

STOP PRESS:

Alison Frankel on the Reuters website says,

“ …Rupert Murdoch’s soon-to-be shuttered tabloid may not be obliged to retain documents that could be relevant to civil and criminal claims against the newspaper — even in cases that are already underway. That could mean that dozens of sports, media, and political celebrities who claim News of the World hacked into their telephone accounts won’t be able to find out exactly what the tabloid knew and how it got the information.

If News of the World is to be liquidated, [British media law star Mark] Stephens told Reuters, it

“ is a stroke of genius — perhaps evil genius.”

Ah, validation is so satisfying…

 

Denying Gay Marriage for Power’s Sake

Jun 29, 2011 | Australian Values, Cultural Values, Democracy, Legal, Lifestyle & Life, Love, OzPol Values, Religious Values, Values

Denying Gay Marriage for Power’s Sake

Sir Roger does not wish to marry a man but . . .

 

To put it another way, while Sir Roger and Dorothy have many good friends in common, Dorothy and Sir Roger are not Facebook buddies. And Sir Roger does not think that his personal preference for his own life is of any moment or interest whatever in what another human “should” or should not do or be permitted to do, particularly in the area of human personal relationships. It is quite simply none of Sir Roger’s bloody business. Sir Roger’s opinion is irrelevant. So, very much, is Julia Gillard’s. Even more so is Tony Abbott’s.

Sir Roger was shocked this evening, however, to hear a Labor Party heavy claiming on the 7.30 Report that Labor shouldn’t approve gay marriage because if it did Labor would lose 10-15 seats in Queensland.

So stuff doing what’s right. It’s all about staying in power.

Now, Sir Roger can understand that a political party would argue that you have to win seats to form government.

The question is, to form government to do what exactly?

The answer can’t be to form government in order to stay in government. Nor can it be simply to keep the other mob out. There is no vision, leadership, or social progress in that. It is morally bankrupt.

The point of winning the privilege of forming a government is so that you can do good things, so that you can do what’s right, not just so that you can be in power. You don’t sacrifice what’s right on the altar of Power.

This Labor backroom zombie has, like almost the entirety of the Labor machine, lost sight of what it’s all really about and what really matters. It’s people like him — once again, basically the entire Labor machine — who are responsible for the decline of the party. They’re not going anywhere. They’re just clinging to power.

The other question is, why a gay or lesbian person would want to be “Married”, other than the financial/legal benefits? If they want to publicly affirm their love for each other in front of their friends they can do that already and more cheaply than a full-on wedding. Why would they want to ape the straight community’s rituals? Why would they want to be just like stuffy old straight people, or like Mum and Dad? It would surely be easier to pass legislation that confers non-discriminatory economic/legal rights on all people. If the big problem for straight people is just calling it “marriage”, why not just call it something else?

Of course, legislation that confers equal, non-gender-specific economic/legal rights on all people in whatever combination of relationship, where it is not in law now ought to be.

But as Sir Roger says, it’s none of his bloody business and the government(s) should stand away and get out of our bedrooms. Their job is to manage infrastructure like education, police, power and health and not to legislate morals. After all, being politicians they can hardly claim the high moral ground. In most cases in every party they are among the least moral and most dishonest (let’s just say “sleazy”) members of the community they are supposed to serve.

Just look at Tony Abbott.

 

 

David Hume

May 7, 2011 | Australian Values, Cultural Values, Democracy, Education, Freedom of Speech, Media Values, OzPol Values, Religious Values, Science Values, Values

David Hume

. . . and so to the democracy that we enjoy today

David Hume, hero of the Enlightenment, father of skepticism, linchpin of democracy and human rights and freedoms,

Happy 300th Birthday! 

 

Sir Roger has some slight understanding of how Hume felt when he said this:

“ Here am I who have written on all sorts of subjects calculated to excite hostility, moral, political, and religious, and yet I have no enemies — except, indeed, all the Whigs, all the Tories, and all the Christians.”

Although the great Hume had many antecessors and successors his work in its clarity, rigour and accessibility was crucial to the flourishing of the Scottish Enlightenment and therefore to the rights and freedoms, to the political and social foundations – and so to the democracy – that we enjoy today.

Our system is not obvious and it is not “natural”. It is better than any other so far tested but it could disappear in a moment if we take our eye off it, if we do not cherish it and care for it and fight for it. As they say in another context, “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance”.

“ Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.

In fact, the price of freedom is internal vigilance.

There are those who dream of its collapse – not only those who want a caliphate but also those who wish to arrogate power to themselves, those who arrogantly believe they have greater wisdom and greater value than others, those who feel entitled to rule . . .

“ It is seldom, that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Slavery has so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom, that it must steal upon them by degrees, and must disguise itself in a thousand shapes, in order to be received. But, if the liberty of the press ever be lost, it must be lost at once. The general laws against sedition and libelling are at present as strong as they possibly can be made. Nothing can impose a farther restraint, but either the clapping an Imprimatur upon the press, or the giving to the court very large discretionary powers to punish whatever displeases them. But these concessions would be such a bare-faced violation of liberty, that they will probably be the last efforts of a despotic government.

. . . and those (some in one of our mainstream political parties) who dream of a latterday christian theocracy. It is these people, invariably committed christians and most often “practising catholics”, whom you will hear increasingly – and chillingly – talking about the “failure of the Enlightenment” and the “failed ‘experiment’ of democracy”.

Hume, prophetically, has something to say about them as well.

“ In all ages of the world, priests have been enemies to liberty; and it is certain, that this steady conduct of theirs must have been founded on fixed reasons of interest and ambition. Liberty of thinking, and of expressing our thoughts, is always fatal to priestly power, and to those pious frauds, on which it is commonly founded; and, by an infallible connexion, which prevails among all kinds of liberty, this privilege can never be enjoyed, at least has never yet been enjoyed, but in a free government.
…

Survey most nations and most ages. Examine the religious principles, which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded, that they are any thing but sick men’s dreams: Or perhaps will regard them more as the playsome whimsies of monkies in human shape, than the serious, positive, dogmatical asseverations of a being, who dignifies himself with the name of rational.
…

Hear the verbal protestations of all men: Nothing so certain as their religious tenets. Examine their lives: You will scarcely think that they repose the smallest confidence in them.

And so Sir Roger recommends the following on David Hume’s 300th birthday:

“ Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous…A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.
…

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

Happy Birthday, and thank you, David Hume!

 

Anzac Day 2011

Apr 25, 2011 | Arts, Australian Values, Corruption, Cultural Values, Democracy, OzPol Values, Values, War

Anzac Day 2011

 

Carnage incomparable, and human squander

  

On this Anzac Day:

If there is one thing that can be said of war it is that it is a massive betrayal of Humanity. 
It is a monstrous failure of human imagination, vision, ingenuity and intelligence.

It is an unconscionably, and intentionally, blind refusal to allow any other possibility.

It is a willingness of the old and corrupt to inflict permanent damage on the young and innocent for the sake of what?

Impermanent, pathological and ugly ideology.

Whatever justifications and rationalisations may be made, war is the coward’s way.

War is the easy choice of the cheat, the sneak, the corrupt and the fake.

Or the delectable first choice of the bloodthirsty and the brutally mad.

All this can be said of the political “leaders” who lead their regiments from behind, who conduct their precious wars safely from behind a desk (under which they are probably fondling a small but hopeful erection) in a place far away from flying bullets.

It cannot be said of those whom we honour on this Anzac Day. For whatever other reasons they went to fight, they have also gone to fight to protect us and we are grateful. And we are sorry for the pain, the damage and the horror that they became because they could not forget. As we should not.

Peter Cundall has a new CD out and it’s not about gardening.

An iconic Australian unleashes the raw emotion of the world’s greatest war poetry. Australia’s beloved gardener shows a very different side as he reads anti-war poetry. With orchestral music accompanying the readings, this is a rare insight into ex-Gunner Peter Cundall’s life in war.

Here’s a taste. You can buy the CD anywhere, including ABC Shops. [Update: availability uncertain]

 

 

And here is the full Sassoon poem:

 

Aftermath – Siegfried Sassoon

 

 

 

Have you forgotten yet?…

For the world’s events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked a while at the crossing of city ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you’re a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same,—and War’s a bloody game….
Have you forgotten yet?…
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you’ll never forget.

Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz,—
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench,—
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, “Is it all going to happen again?”

Do you remember that hour of din before the attack,—
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads, those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

Have you forgotten yet?…
Look up, and swear by the green of the Spring that you’ll never forget.

 

 

Here is Dylan Thomas reading of one of our favourite anti-war poems (if there could be such a thing):

Naming of Parts

 

Naming of Parts – Henry Reed

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,

We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And to-day we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For to-day we have naming of parts.

 

 

And this is perhaps the great Wilfred Owen’s most harrowing poem:

 

Mental Cases

 

 

Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
 Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish,
Baring teeth that leer like skulls’ tongues wicked?
Stroke on stroke of pain, – but what slow panic,
Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
Ever from their hair and through their hand palms
Misery swelters. Surely we have perished
Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?

– These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished.
Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter.
Always they must see these things and hear them,
Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
Carnage incomparable, and human squander
Rucked too thick for these men’s extrication.

Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented
Back into their brains, because on their sense
Sunlight seems a bloodsmear; night comes blood-black;
Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh.
– Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous,
Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses.
– Thus their hands are plucking at each other;
Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging;
Snatching after us who smote them, brother,
Pawing us who dealt them war and madness.

 

  

 Lest we forget fail to get the lessons of the pointlessness, the tragedy and the inhumanity of war.

 

Especially on Anzac Day.

Women in Uniform

Apr 17, 2011 | Australian Values, Cultural Values, Democracy, Legal, Lifestyle & Life, OzPol Values, Values, War

Women in Uniform

“Women Are Too Emotional”

P oor old dill-brain Barnaby Rubble comically suggested today on Insiders that perhaps he was a bit old-fashioned about women in uniform. 

“  I just couldn’t get my head around shooting a woman. Maybe that makes me a bit old-fashioned and I imagine other people get themselves in the same position. Nor would I like to see a lady shot.

It’s not a joke, Joyce. Leopold Bloom’s Day is over, gone. You are a dinosaur.

What these men – politicians and brass – just don’t get is that they don’t own women. Women are not “their” women. They do not own them.

Their personal opinions and sensitivities simply don’t enter the equation. They are irrelevant. It is not up to them to decide for women what women in uniform (or not) may or may not do, or whether they should be “permitted” to serve in the front line.

Men never did own women.

They just got away with pretending to — for a long, long time. Some men, sadly, in many cultures still get away with it by intimidation. As do almost all men in some cultures. 

Why are women supposedly [they’re not, actually] so bad at maths? Because Barney keeps telling them that “this is six inches”.

Of course any person who wants to be in the front line has to be competent.

But some pundits are saying they need to be “psychologically capable” as well. (Ah, the old, “women are too emotional” ploy.)

Which apparently means that at the officer level  – as allegedly demonstrated by several young officer trainees – they have to be emotionally mature enough to think it’s a real hoot to broadcast their sexual conquests on Skype at whatever cost to the victim.

Sadly, of all the (voluntarily) military people Sir Roger has met many seem to be immature, ignorant, reckless dickheads who clearly fail to understand that they really are being readied to put themselves in the way of a bullet or an IED.

Get over it Joyce.

If anyone – woman or man or anywhere in between – chooses to travel to distant, exotic lands, meet interesting and different people, and kill them, then that is their choice, whatever your difficulty ‘getting your head around shooting a woman’ (I can’t believe he actually said that).

Sir Roger asked himself:

“Am I really willing to call Joyce “a total, ignorant fuckwit and neanderthal sexist” concerning just about anything but particularly about women in uniform, you know, directly, to his face, as it were?”

“And yes I said yes I will Yes.”