Saturday, August 22, 2015

Quality weekend time with the completely clueless prattling Polonius, thanks to the reptiles of Oz ...


Oh dear, the HUNsters are on the march:


Shameless HUNsters, please, pay attention:

Ah, the Captain, always willing to go the last yard with his team, even as he hears the remorseless sound of the slow tattoo of the drums of Canning:


Could that swan be the sound of one hand clapping?

But enough of good humour, because the weekend is a time of reflection, and who better to reflect with than prattling Polonius?

Now we have to acknowledge the superior insights of Polonius, especially when he admits he's completely clueless ... devoting an entire column to pure guesswork.


He doesn't have the first clue, no matter how hard he fossicks through the entrails and contemplates the chicken giblets.


So it's all entirely consistent with the Menzies tradition, yet apparently we don't have a clue how Menzies would handle a conscience vote.

Time to introduce some obfuscation and distraction and confusion...


Uh huh. But discovering Ming the Merciless was indeed Merciless apparently doesn't give our historical guide - or should that be historic? - the first clue about Ming the merciless's capacity to be relentlessly conservative and dismissive, while fawning all over the British.

Yet Ming's position seems clear enough ...


Why, if he'd had the bright idea of knighting Prince Phillip, he would have done so, but instead he settled for the Cinque Ports.

But do go on with the humbug notion of Menzies own cheap rhetoric about being progressive, an experimenter, in so sense reactionary, when he was out of the game and could attempt to burnish his image, as if such humbug actually meant anything.

So there you have it. Polonius actually does have a fair idea of what Menzies was like. Not in his humbug, but in his deeds, and in sending off innocent young conscripts to war, while many who favoured the war - fit for military service - stayed at work in government or politics or did service as a bureaucrat.

But now Polonius purports not a to have a clue.

He's completely and utterly clueless.

Not the foggiest idea. Not the faintest notion.

Really.



Not the faintest awareness that Ming the merciless would talk the talk about small 'l' liberal, but when it came to walking the walk, he'd send his opposition, like a Sir Garfield Barwick off to other work, and so denude his government of talent, that it would end up with Harold Holt being kidnapped by a Chinese submarine because even the Chinese were appalled at the way Holt governed ...

And not the faintest clue that Dr No would have likely tackled the Commie crisis in the 1950s in a way that would have made Ming proud.

Instead Polonius protests that he doesn't have a single, solitary idea that Abbott, follower of Santa, lover of Franco, would have been there at the barricades, offering an abundance of nattering negativity, shouting from the rooftops for a referendum ... like the one he's calling about the threat teh gays pose to marriage and civilisation ...

Ming the merciless would be proud ...

... the Cold War atmosphere of the 1950s ushered in a new climate of intolerance towards any signs of non-conformism or radicalism. All things perceived to be morally or politically 'deviant' were a target of sanction. Communism and homosexuality were considered close associates - 'Reds
 and 'Pinks' equally suspect and both a threat to the nation. This suspicion played out within government bureaucracy, particularly those agencies concerned with national security. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) put requests to the Federal Cabinet on more than one occasion to disallow homosexuals from employment in the Federal Public Service ... While homosexuals were never banned from Australian Government jobs, in the early 1960s, Prime Minister Robert Menzies issued a directive that no homosexual would be allowed access to classified information. Further, heads of departments were directed to observe staff to detect character defects such as homosexuality, drug addiction or serious financial irresponsibility. (You can Greg Hunt the source if you like here)

Seems clear enough, seems like a couple of PMs were threatened by the sight of gays, but Polonius doesn't have a clue, and so the ponderous, pontificating, prattling prat walks away with the perpetual Alicia Silverstone trophy for clueless reptiles ...

And that's as classy a prize as the current exhibition of sculptures being held in Canberra ...


16 comments:

  1. From AWM records When Whitlam was elected to parliament he was one of only two Labor members with Second World War active service. Gough Whitlam applied to join the RAAF in December 1941. In the following May he was called up and underwent training as a navigator bomb-aimer. DP, I'm riffing right off that, and my dad's 13 Squadron badge to suggest that an MP who had been on bombing missions over Hamburg or Dresden would have had an easier run in Parliament than one who was associated with mutilation of corpses.
    Of course, Andrew Hastie is halfway to official hero status under Abbott's shroud, and any questions will be shrugged off as "operational matters".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, UC, once upon a time the mutilation of corpses was viewed as a war crime, these days it's just an operational matter, while people wonder what's the difference between the crazed fundies and the crusaders ...

      Delete
  2. Polonius, such a crackpot proffering reptile readers loony historic remedies for whatever ails him. Probably on some quack remedy himself - a cure for the times, I suppose - yes, all times, an old time cure...

    DP, I noticed an ad adjacent to your linked 1933 review of "Drums of Mer" by ion L. Idriess in The Mail:

    Nerves Shattered

    CASSELL'S Tablets


    THE TONIC RESTORATIVE FOR
    Nerve Weakness Stomach Troubles
    Bodily weakness Indigestion
    Nerve Paralysis Kidney complaint
    Nervous Debility Palpitation

    19 Special Health Ingredients. They supply Hypophosphites for the Nerves, Special nutrients for the Blood, Valuable Stomachics for the Digestion, etc., etc.

    Prices 1/9 & 4/- per Box


    Could Polonius still be on those?

    Ming would so approve:

    5. Last of all Dr. Cassell's Tablets are a British remedy, made in Britain, by British pharmicists, financed by British capital, and sold throughout the British Empire.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Polonius' is taking Cassell's for his Brain Fag? With all the weird crap he comes out with, he'd surely swallow anything.

      Delete
    2. The pond does so love its patent medicine Anon, so Tamworth cod liver oil, and those were some great ads ... thanks ...

      Delete
  3. From Mark Latham brings his bite to Melbourne Writers Festival event
    After the event the official Twitter account of the Melbourne Writers Festival said: "We're disappointed in Mark Latham's #MWF15 appearance today. Not the respectful conversation we value."
    Respectful conversation! Lovely.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "the anal erotic imagery of the attack from behind"
    I particularly enjoyed Henderson's correlation of Menzie's opinion on same sex marriage and anal sex which has been legalised in Queensland recently for 126 year olds...
    And Abbott did say he'd almost sell his arse too.
    Eldred

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Do you realise that in traditional Scots dialect, Menzies is pronounced minge?

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4595228.stm

      Delete
    2. Minge the merciless would do, and can we also allow Mange the merciless?

      Delete
    3. Abbott's arse is obviously his most precious possession. Or perhaps his most protected. I don't imagine much other than toilet paper gets very close to it.

      Delete
  5. Ice epidemic! We're all doomed! cries Abbott in increasingly desperate attempts to divert attention. (He'd be no good as a magician.) In fact deaths caused by Ice are a mere fraction of those caused by alcohol or smoking.

    For the definitive take on how drug scares are ramped up for political gain, I recommend looking again at Chris Morris' excellent documentary "Drugs" one of the acclaimed Brass Eye series of exposes of major political and media scandals.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4f4oy2M_Og

    Only to be matched by Brooklyn Nine Nine's relentless search for that deadly scourge, Gigglepig.

    :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Seriously, you might not believe this but Amanda Vanstone did a program on her Counterpoint program about Ice not beng an epidemic - is this a sign that she doesn't like him anymore - and the old dear actually had somebody on to talk about the issue who was not one of the Timmies or another IPA numpty and who knew something sciency rather than ideological about the problem.

      http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/counterpoint/no-ice-epidemic/6678674

      Only worth listening to if you are interested in hearing for yourself and perhaps keeping track of this change in attitude and the new guests.

      Delete
    2. The Murdochians are this very day intending to spread the fear and loathing even further in tabloid land ...

      Delete
  6. Love how Polonius can't resist adding birth and death dates to Menzies, just to preen his access to that exclusive set of leatherbound Britannicas that he bought last year...

    ReplyDelete
  7. That mention of Bury reminded me of the "Lynch Bury Bury Lynch" button. One of a number of "protest" buttons one wore upon one's duffel coat at the time.

    ReplyDelete

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