Monday, February 14, 2011

Paul Sheehan, and just another dose of fear mongering curmudgeonly grumpy bile from the Herald's leading bilious columnist ...


(Above: indeed).

In a week when Phillip Coorey of the Herald chooses to run a story When Coalition should be thriving, Abbott happens, what kind of story does Paul Sheehan, malignant columnist for the Herald, choose to run?

Why the thunderer from down under, full of his standard righteous scorn leads with Why Gillard is unfit to govern country.

When you need that righteous indignant pompous tone, Sheehan happens ...

Drawing himself up to his full height - let's hope he's not too short - he gives border security and the compromising of Australia's territorial sovereignty another run:

On this fundamental moral and political issue, the Gillard government is unfit to govern.

It takes a canny kind of paranoia to shift the debate from the matter of Indonesia, or the major sources of boat people in recent times - the west's handy contribution of Iraqis and Afghanis seeking refuge in other parts of the world - to events in Tunisia and Egypt, but Sheehan manages it:

None of us know whether we are witnessing a political spring or autumn in the streets of Cairo and Tunis. While the euphoria of people power in Egypt and Tunisia allows for hope, the Middle East has been utterly consistent in delivering political dislocations that eventually wash up on Australia's shores.

Literally.

Actually and literally, most of the refugees in recent times hail from Afghanistan and Iraq, thanks to the west's noble desire to bring them democracy by bombing the "stuff happens" out of them, following much down the scale by Somalis, Sudanese and citizens of other failed states.

It takes an extraordinary Chicken Little, fear mongering, maddened kind of paranoia to hint that somehow the recent events in the middle east will wash up on Australia's shores in due course, without a shred of evidence, or any sign of previous prophetic visions coming to pass. Though it is a pity that Sheehan's hoped for 'cure all' magic water turned out to be a bit of a dud ...

Who doesn't yearn for the fountain of youth?

It takes monumental cheek to predict we should all run around knocked kneed and trembling because in due course Egyptians will turn up on Australian shores in boats.

But give Sheehan his due, he has heaps of monumental cheek.

Right after evoking the streets of Cairo and Tunis, and the uncertainty, doubts and fears concerning events thereon, Sheehan makes another leap, to bodies in a morgue:

Even as arrangements are made for their burial in Rookwood cemetery this week, the bodies, mostly Iraqi nationals, are the subject of legal wrangling.

Iraqi nationals? What, the great outpouring from Tunisia and Egypt has yet to land, but is already in progress across the seas, and soon enough there will be Egyptian and Tunisian bodies in a Lidcombe morgue and Rookwood cemetery?

It's usual in this kind of argument to attempt some statistical notations, to suggest that Australia isn't doing so badly, and that the issue of refugees is a worldwide problem, and if that's your inclination, feel free to consult the kind of data to hand in Push vs. Pull - Asylum Seeker Numbers and Statistics, or Boat arrivals in Australia since 1976, or the brief note of the implications in Population Growth: Past, Present and Future.

But there's no point in having a debate with Sheehan, not when sabre rattling, kicking the can, stirring the pot, muddying the waters, and quoting Scott Morrison - the man who helped the coalition formulate its dire Indonesian "Islamic" schools policy - to help bang the drum loudly is the name of the game.

Ostensibly Sheehan is concerned for the fate of the refugees, and sheds a number of crocodile tears while quoting Professor Pat McGorry on the effects of detention centres:

They are mental illness factories, because the vetting process is painfully slow, legal appeals are also ponderous, families are separated, violent disruptions are routine, and self-harm is common.

Perhaps Sheehan missed that other McGorry quote:

There are very small number of people coming here on boats. When you look at even the proportions of people who come as migrants to Australia each year, certainly in terms of the world wide refugee problem - it's many many... tens of millions, and we're getting a few hundreds, maybe a few thousands. I think it's an issue that's been bitten up for the last 12 years to be quite honest, and I've seen many casualties of that. I think it would be really good... there's a phrase in Irish politics: lets take the gun out of Irish politics. I say lets take this kind of discussion out of Australian politics. (here)

Take the fear mongering out of Australian columnists? What, and ruin a perfectly good piece of fear mongering?

McGorry was of course arguing for quicker processing, and while this was happening, for people to be allowed to live in the community (here).

You can imagine the shrieks and howls of the Sheehans of the world if these dreadful, dreaded people were to be allowed out into the community.

But what, in the end, is the point of the standard frothing and foaming by Sheehan?

Well it's to maintain the rage about the hapless, now bearded Rob Oakeshott, as first outlined by Paul Sheehan's sundry vicious pot shots in Far from an outsider or innocent.

Why Oakeshott? Why not Tony Windsor or Bob Katter? Who knows. When the demented form a fixation, the fixation is inclined to stick.

With the glow comes the heat, scribbled Sheehan back then, and here's his latest version of the heat:

The federal opposition might want to ask why should Australians would want to accept this expensive debacle? A no-confidence motion would also oblige the man who made all this possible, the independent MP Robert Oakeshott, to stand up and defend the indefensible if he voted with the government on this issue.

Yep, once again, it's all Rob Oakeshott's fault. Personally I blame the beard ...

Still, Sheehan has gone a long way to keep faith with his readership, and his loyal fans at White Nation, Stormfront and other extremist groups (Paul Sheehan's Dirty War will get you started, and google from there).

One wag proposed a simple solution:

Could the Herald just save us all time and just print the words "I hate the ALP" or "I hate the Greens" on alternate weeks in place of Paul Sheehan's column?

Simple and sweet, but how could you poke a stick at the grumpy Sheehan, wheeled out his cage each Monday to do his Neanderthal thing?

Really it's tremendous fun to read the troll under the bridge, the grumpy curmudgeon, the hate-filled scribbles. Like lashing yourself with stinging nettles.

You see, the commentariat has read the poll numbers, and think that if someone can be made to buckle or to break, then Abbott is a shoo in.

Hence Pearson on the weekend yearning for the immediate departure of former Chairman Rudd - not on a plane for his latest international junket but from his seat, perhaps to run the black helicopter program at the United Nations - so that Abbott wins the by-election, and perhaps within the month we're all saved ...

Sheehan seems to think that ranting at Oakeshott and boat people will do the trick, and leaves no stone unturned in his fear mongering. Why he's even writing to the secretary of the immigration department, he's such a bold, brave crusading journalist, with a list of questions!

And what can we expect from the crusade?

He will probably fob off the questions but the process will be public.

Sob. More Sheehan rhetoric in the future. Can't we just allow the Egyptians to come and settle down?

I suppose it's all just vicious biting bed bugs off a duck's back. And I suppose there's always a laugh to be found:

... the Gillard government does not even forcibly return people it has ordered to be deported.

It does not automatically reject anyone who arrives without identity papers. Instead, it follows policies laid down by the United Nations Convention on Refugees and other UN protocols.

The despicable, inhumane fiends. Next thing you know they'll be supporting the Geneva Convention ...

Pardon me a moment, I hear something at my window. Eek, it's the black helicopters ...

Of course it's no laughing matter if you happen to be a refugee caught up in the "stuff happens" monstrosities of Iraq and Afghanistan, as aided and abetted by the Howard government, of which Tony Abbott was a comfortable member ...

But then there's genuine moral indignation, and then there's Paul Sheehan, and what a pathetic, tragic, wretched, peddler of humbugging, fear mongering exaggerations and distortions he is ... making the Herald a dead set no buy proposition every Monday.

Except hang on, I don't buy it any day of the week. Suck up those clicks, Fairfax Media, because that's all you're getting from the pond ...

(Below: mushrooms grow in the dark, Paul Sheehan grows in Fairfax).

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