Friday, September 21, 2018

The pond continues its sabbatical, but ...

The pond is continuing its sabbatical, and thanks everyone for comments and thoughts, and as it tries to recover, is discovering the wonders and joys of a reptile-free life, but …


… the pond just had to call attention to this expert study of the herpetarium in the Graudian, and the way that News Corp has helped fuck Britain, Europe, the United States, and in Australia, state and federal politics, and along with that, the country and its policies and management.

It's a singular accomplishment, and the pond frequently wonders if its own interest in reptiles only encourages them to greater heights of destruction, marching as they do, at the whim of their despot owner …

Never mind, it's all in Inside the News Corp tribe …and what a depraved tribe it is too … with an owner who might, if circumstances allowed him, institute the sort of depraved, obscene Orwellian powers being rolled out by the Chinese government (ABC radio here).

Yes for once 'Orwellian' is a just, so and exact word, as noted in Matthew Carney's Leave no dark corner.

How pleasing it is to see others become diligent students of the reptile mindset …swarming onwards with a form of digital dictatorship in mind … with those who please sundry Chairmen rewarded, and those who upset them and their minions cast into the outer darkness.

The Graudian's piece should be read by anyone who pays a shekel to any News Corp publication or channel … and then if, after reading, they continue to pay up, why then let them enjoy their voyage of lost, damned souls, and let their children inherit a world the reptiles have helped shape ...

And two other pleasures the pond hasn't given up … the always engaging Rowe, with more good humour here




… and the pervasive Pope, with more papal pleasures here ...


19 comments:

  1. A finely pointed interjection DP, and lovely to have you drop in. Please come again as often as you are able. :-)

    However, I find it very hard to grasp just how much, or how little, influence a Murdoch and his menagerie actually have. I always come back to the basic apathy and indifference and just plain unconnectedness of the "common people".

    But maybe it's just that the reptiles make contact with the few who do have some kind of connection and influence, or even power and authority. Though I can't help but note that the Murdoch media in Aussieland have been attacking Turnbull just about since the day he rolled Abbott and it's taken quite a while - and quite an amount of unsought assistance from Malware himself - to finally get him rolled.

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    1. Not so long ago, GB, you couldn't resist Murdoch when you walked past a newsagent; the headlines of News Corp publications would be displayed on the sandwich boards. Even if you didn't buy a newspaper, you would still be affected by his thoughts.

      Not so common "these days" as we oldies say.

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    2. Well maybe, Merc, but fortunately I can walk past any number of Murdoch rags and totally fail to be affected by any of their headlines. Being exposed to isn't the same as being affected by. I read the Melbourne Herald-Sun almost every day (but only if I can grab a free copy at my preferred lieu de cafe) because, mainly, I like keeping up with the cartoons - no, not that dongbit cartoonist, I mean Calvin and Hobbes, Hagar the Horrible and Garfield (mainly, though they all, even the totally trivialised Ginger Meggs, have their moments.

      Then I read Andrew Blot (on Monday and Thursday anyway) just to see what the insane clown posse is raving about today. But being affected by any of them ? Nyet, with advancing age comes growing immunity.

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  2. I knew you wouldn't stay away from us. The news this week was too enticing. A special thanks to the gang in Surry Hills for their contribution. Well done chaps. DP is on the intertubes again.
    And as for the modest aside, " How pleasing it is to see others become diligent students of the reptile mindset" never mind them. You are THE one.

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  3. Hi Dorothy,

    In the Foundation Trilogy, Issac Asimov introduced us to the concept of ‘psychohistory’ which could predict the future, using the laws of mass action, but only a very large scale.

    In the books the mathematician Hari Seldon, using psychohistory, foresees an unavoidable collapse of the Galactic Empire but realises he can limit the duration of the coming dark age by creating the Foundation.

    The Foundation, a group of the most talented minds would preserve and expand humanity’s knowledge and thus hasten a renaissance of a new galactic empire.

    Things however go awry with the appearance of a character known as the Mule, who begins taking over Foundation controlled planets at a rapid pace. The Mule is discovered to be a mutant who can alter the emotions of others, firstly instilling fear into the inhabitants of his targeted planet and then making them devoutly loyal to him.

    An individual like the Mule couldn’t have been predicted by Hari Seldon and psychohistory, so it appears the Foundation is doomed and the dark ages will last for thousands of years longer than planned.

    I’ve often wondered if Rupert Murdoch isn’t so very different from the Mule. An individual whose influence over politics in the West is vastly out of proportion.

    The continued shift to the right in politics and the growing level of inequality between a tiny wealthy elite and the general population, which inexplicably keeps voting against it’s own best interests suggest something is seriously out of whack.

    Without Murdoch, would we have Trump, Brexit and a neo-liberal ‘trickle down’ world economy?

    Best wishes Dorothy, enjoy your sabbatical and I hope that your recovery is swift and complete.

    DiddyWrote

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    1. Well fancy that, DW: can we now assume you're a weensy bit of a scifi fan ? As to the Foundation series, well of course we all know they were based on the history of Rome, and in particular, of the Roman Empire.

      But Good ol' Roupie as The Mule ? Not even close, I reckon, The Mule was basically a very decent human being. Roupie is much more like Julius Caesar, I reckon. Complete with an empire.

      One of the things I remember from Asimov's version of Rome is a psychohistory graduate being interviewed by Sheldon and having to propose a plot to achieve some worthwhile objective. He comes up with a good plan, but Sheldon shows him a "better" one, to which the student remarks about a certain component: "But that is via a forbidden transform" to which Sheldon replies "Yes, but not in this particular context."

      Ok, so is ScoMo a transformation that is only permissible "in this particular context" ?

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    2. Apropos of nothing, but short story I read long ago (Vonnegut, Herbert or someone like that) was about the practice of reducing elections to a single person's opinion. That person was determined to be the absolute average voter, and his or her vote would determine the outcome of the election alone. I believe in this particular story, the weight of the decision became to much for the protagonist.

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    3. Actually Isaac Asimov's "Franchise" Anony, and the single elector selected by Multivac took pride at the end: "whatever else may be said or done, this was Norman Muller's election" (or words to that effect, I read that story maybe 55 years ago).

      But just to quote Wikipedia: "The idea of a computer predicting whom the electorate would vote for instead of actually holding an election was probably inspired by the UNIVAC I's correct prediction of the result of the U.S. presidential election in 1952."

      But if you'd like some really fine Asimov 'predictive fiction' try "Jokester" in which Asimov basically predicts the web as humankind's repository of all knowledge (and the 'search Grandmasters' who can best use it). And then you can appreciate how humour disappears from the Earth. :-)

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  4. Good to have you back DP. I hope your recovery is progressing well.

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  5. How lucky are we?

    David Pope at peak form.

    David Rowe at peak form.

    An DP stopping by on the way to peak form.

    Surely, there is some way we can bring Chris Kenny in here? Is there a Walkley for Shilling for Shameless Employers for decades? Can we lobby to have some kind of award acknowledging what he gives us each week?

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    1. Talking about "in peak form", vc, I was just today reading the current (until tomorrow) Saturday paper when I came upon Mike Seccombe and an ex-pollie named Max Washer in peak form.

      Quoting Washer, Seccombe writes "I saw this tribal behaviour where they bring their religious ideologies and come and talk a bunch of crap that doesn't stand up scientifically or logically."

      Oh wau. But then Seccombe goes on, writing about Washer, that "He says the Liberal party he believed in was a party of free enterprise and sound economics."

      Ok, so who exactly is spouting the least scientifically or logically valid ideology here ?

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    2. Grazias, Anony. One should always get names right just so that there's no doubt as to whom one is praising.

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  6. Great to hear from you again, DP. I did wonder during the week if your absence would be permanent; that would be a great loss to me, and almost as bad as finding out that Murdoch would never die, or could never be killed, even by a stake though the heart (if indeed he has one), but would live forever. What a nightmare!

    As I observed elsewhere, The Guardian seems to have woken from its decade-long slumber on the issue of Murdoch's perverse effects on Australian politics. Three articles in the last three days. Such a pity it’s taken them so long to wake up.

    Best wishes for a speedy return to normalcy - if that is your desire. I would be more than happy to receive posts from you just occasionally - I have often wondered how you keep up to speed with the reptiles on a twice- or thrice-daily basis; I do hope that effort has not contributed to your current malaise.

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  7. Hi DP. I think Mercurial is might be right there. A decent reply requires a fair bit of work as you tend to resort to facts, unlike the op-ed writers who just make it all up as they go along. No research, no logic, no ethics - just mimicking the master. Perhaps they just deserve the odd good slap for a particularly egregious piece.

    I've noticed a few other folk have taken up the cudgels of late. Crikey had the "Holy War" series and there have been some good deconstructs of Dog On Dog etc The Murdoch model relies on massive retaliation but it gets a bit hard when you have too many critics.

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    1. But do keep in mind, Bef, that "a decent reply" is only for us; the vast majority of Australians never see the Murdoch press original, much less any "decent replies".

      I've come to the conclusion that what we're dealing with here is Themes and Memes. Murdoch, Ailes and Fox did not influence or persuade people in the USA to believe in Trump, they already believed in the "Themes" that aligned them with him. So, for instance, many Americans will label themselves as "religious" though they hardly ever set foot in any kind of church. So Trump, who is exactly like that too, appeals to them: all the joy of being "religious" without ever having to do anything at all demanding to show it (just exactly like ScoMo, of course).

      However, what they do need is "memes": the "big little lies" that allow them to recognise that they are at one with Trump (or ScoMo). And that's what Fox News (and Breitbart and The Drudge Report and Rush Limbaugh and Ross Douthat etc etc) provide for them.

      And that's what we get, in a lesser way, here in Australia. After all, who actually reads or watches or listens to Andrew Bolt ? Honest truth-seekers looking to discover what are the real "themes" of their lives ? Or just a bunch of wingnuts looking for their day's "hit" of warm, hateful wingnuttery ?

      But the good old 'dead tree' press is surely dying. 30 years ago I used to catch a morning train into town to go to work. There was a small kiosk beside the station that sold daily newspapers, chewing gum, some cigarettes etc and got a good enough level of clientele to make a reasonable living. I bought the Melbourne Age at that kiosk for at least a decade. I actually caught a train once again the other day: the kiosk was all forlorn and locked up and clearly hadn't been in use for quite some time.

      The days when a newsagent was a "license to print money" are long gone, and the Melbourne Herald-Sun's sales are very largely predicated on its over the top sporting coverage (the home of AFL don't you know) and not on Murdochian themes or even wingnut memes.

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    2. The very question of why you would expect a daily hit of your favourite meme from a politician has me bemused, GB. Sure, I get my regular hit from Dot, as well as a good laugh, but I consider myself educated and informed enough to be able to assess what I read here myself, and not to expect it from anyone involved in politics.

      Are those people who seek affirmation of their opinions from politicians uneducated, misinformed, or just plain stupid?

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    3. Or perhaps miseducated, uninformed and incapable of critical analysis, Merc ? As indeed, the vast majority of humanity is for one reason or other(s).

      However I wasn't postulating them getting a daily hit from politicians as such, but from the general wingnut caste: the Kellys, Bromancers, Shanahans, Bolts, Credlins etc. People do like to get regular confirmation that they believe the right themes, don't they ? After all, seen one AFL match (or 20Twenty, Day/Night or Test cricket match) and you've seen 'em all haven't you ? No need to keep on going every week is there ?

      Well, there wasn't in my case: I saw precisely one AFL (then VFL) grand final (won by St Kilda) and precisely one Melbourne Cup (and I can't even remember which horse won, but it was probably one of Cummings'). However, as shown in 1984, people do need their daily "2 Minute Hate", don't they ? Otherwise, why would anybody read Bolt at all.

      But then for centuries, especially well before daily newspapers, people have gone to church on every Sunday just to get their weekly homily, yes ?

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