The pond found Jack Shafer's arguments in support of Fox News at Politico here compelling ...
... Newsmax and OANN may have temporarily outflanked Fox by more perfectly echoing Trump’s contention that the election was stolen from him for days after Fox largely abandoned that line, but what special ingredient do they have now? The downside of news organization embracing disinformation, such as the stolen election story, is that reality has a way of interceding and eventually nullifying it. The easiest path is to devise or adopt another disinformation scramble, a technique Fox has already perfected. You may recall the heavy breathing Fox gave the Benghazi scandal, the Seth Rich murder conspiracy, Obama birtherism, and the hydroxychloroquine hype, just to name a few of its grand scoops that went pfft. If Newsmax and OANN think they can maneuver around the Murdoch empire by promoting grander crackpot stories than Fox, they can expect a surprise. Fox is the master of this type of coverage, and unlike Newsmax and OANN, it knows when to discard a news angle and find a new one.
Yes, nobody does crackpot stories better than the Murdochians, and nobody knows better the right time to move on to the next crackpot, ensuring the mad uncles and aunts in the attic always have something crackers to chew on …
And let's be fair, let's have some parochial pride. The local reptiles also know how to do crackpot.
What to do when your war on the ABC is feeling a little tired and run down, when every reptile has taken a potshot, and then rinsed and repeated, until the spin cycle on the washing machine is always flashing a red light?
Release the Kroger, which is always better than doing a Sidney Powell and releasing a kraken on steroids ...
Even by reptile standards that unleashed Kroger editorial guidelines effort is remarkably stupid, though there's no doubt that Uncle Joe Stalin would love his attempt to produce a new hive mind ...
Such a stupid man, and rounding it off with a reference to our hole in the bucket Henry confirmed his ongoing stupidity ... all that was missing from the column was a decent bucket of hair dye dripping down through the words ...
And now the pond will not be denied. It's done its duty by loonish reptile krakens and has earned a break.
Today is savvy Savva day, one of the reptiles who tries to avoid being part of the hive mind, often by slagging off SloMo, and the reptiles today recognised the importance of her mission by awarding her a cult master illustration ...
And so to a little more frothing and fuming ...
And so the infallible Pope of the day, and such is the pond's remorse at running a truncated Pope, because it was all it had to hand, the pond felt the need to run the full version below the latest outing ...
And so to a small bonus, which features nattering "Ned", and for once the portentous, prolix, bloviator is short and can serve as a reptile treat sounding the usual alarums ...
What a shocking, terrifying vision. A conga line of climate scientists. No wonder "Ned" is quivering in fear ...
And yet what was it that the Chairman said? "We do not deny climate change, we're not deniers" and "there are no climate change deniers around here, I can assure you." (here)
So why is "Ned" doing his usual Chicken Little routine, quivering like a blob of jelly at the thought that Joe has released the Kerry ...?
Well because actually doing anything about climate science is anathema to the reptiles and especially to "Ned" and so naturally he recoils in horror at the Kerry surging up from the ocean depths to haunt him and SloMo ...
Oh the tormenting of the reptiles, will it never end? Climate science denialism was so much easier under the Donald ... but the pond has an even bigger fear.
What on earth will cartoonists do when the Donald returns to private life? Whither the immortal Rowe? How many more days of celebration before the turkey is cooked, eaten, and expelled to join the great manure farms which suggest brave attempts at climate-change action? (Meanwhile, more withering Rowe here).
Again, these comments in no way reflect on your choice of subject, Dorothy. On which, it was remiss of me not to have thanked you for sparing us the massively unconscious irony of Dame Groan’s space filler earlier in the week.
ReplyDeleteHowever, this day, My Source did send me some words from Miranda Devine. I am not sure if they appeared in the Flagship, and they do not try to grapple with matters economic.
The Source sent them because she is aware of my high regard for the writings of George Orwell.
Ms Miranda writes -
‘Cancelling Trumpism is a very deliberate, targeted campaign, familiar to anyone who has read 1984, - George Orwell’s dystopian novel.
. . . . Winston Smith is a clerk in the Ministry of Truth, where his job is to delete any trace of people who threaten the - absolute rule of The Party with their forbidden free thinking.’
So just how familiar with ‘1984’ is Ms Miranda? The parallel with how the Records Department of ‘Minitrue’ functioned would be with the endless rewriting of history, and outright denialism, of Fox and Friends, and Sky Australia, while Trump made up ‘statistics’ every time he spoke, or committed a message to the ‘telescreen’, often in his own emerging version of ‘Newspeak.’
Oh, and most people were eliminated from all records not for free thinking, but for being associated with what had been the accepted opinion of a previous time - and the Party had subsequently changed its mind. ‘Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.’
We might suppose that Ms Miranda had to dip into ‘1984’ during her school days (accounts of her education vary widely) or simply memorised enough from one of those tatty little ‘guides to . ‘ to put the necessary quote into the exam paper. She has, otherwise, missed almost all of its real message, but, then - these reptiles don’t ‘do’ irony, do they?
Hmm, well for mine, 'cancelling Trump' would be a consummation devoutly to be desired. Can't be done, of course - too many 'believers' expressing their own inalienable human right to be ignorant wuckfits.
DeleteReminds me of both the scene from Life of Brian' about who is, and who isn't, the 'People's Front of Judea' and also the Catholic Church objection to vernacular bibles - the more options there are, the more conflict between tribes and tribelets there will be. And the Catholic Church was spot on: vernacular bibles led to the great crescendo of factions and fictions that we have today.
And what did Eric Blair ever do for the reptiles and wingnuts anyway ?
‘What did Eric Blair ever do for the reptiles …anyway?’ Well, back in 1994, the Chairman gave his own interpretation of ‘1984’ to a dinner for the Centre for Independent Studies. He probably assumed (safely) that much of his audience put ‘1984’ into that common category of ‘widely quoted, never read’, so he could proclaim whatever he wished. Mr Murdoch is quoted as saying that Orwell had ‘no real concept of the price mechanism. He assumed capitalists would always suppress innovation to keep profits hight’ - an assumption that is difficult to find in my copy of the book, but Rupert continued ‘Because capitalists are always trying to stab each other in the back, free markets do not lead to monopolies’.
DeleteSo Blair’s service to the reptiles, starting with the Chairman, was to create the ‘1984’ meme, which they could all twist to their own purposes. Oh - the Chairman also observed, in that same speech, that ‘Technology will not lead to tyranny . . . . Big Brother will not be watching, but serving.’
That’s right - hacking the ‘phone of a murdered schoolgirl - and deleting some messages - was a service. No doubt that was the term the Dowler family used in the documents served on ‘News of the World’.
Hi C,
DeleteI’m sure I read a piece a few years back by one of Rupert’s cronies (I can’t remember who and google ain’t helping) where back in the early Sixties he and Murdoch were constantly travelling up and down the East Coast trying to set up The Australian.
The correspondent reckoned Rupert always had books about either in the car or on the plane but never really read any of them. He just skimmed and then discarded them. So much so that the correspondent reckoned he had acquired a pretty good library by just picking up Murdoch’s leavings.
I therefore wouldn’t be surprised that The Chairman’s understanding of Orwell and 1984 are based on a 10 minute perusal which was later on mixed into his innate bias for free market economics.
DW
Well DW, Roopie doesn't have to really read or remember anything much, he's got Holely Henry Ergas for that, who reads everything and remembers everything - except for those bits (basically everything) that he doesn't really understand.
DeleteOtherwise yes, 1984 is the 'perpetual coffee table book': displayed to show that one is "woken" without making any commitment to actually 'waking'. Later succeeded by 'A Brief History Of Time'.
But then that puts 1984 (much more so than a pigromp) in the same category as a principal screed of a religion (of which there have been, and are, many) - something that is much too holy to actually be read in its own context, but can only be grandly 'spoken of'.
In which case it seems to have done better than Brave New World. And much better than Fahrenheit 451 and The Machine Stops (all of which I read "religiously" OUAT) which were once presented as a very important quartet of serious 'behold the future' works.
Thank you DW and GB - quite believable hypotheses. We see so little of what the Chairman actually claims to think, that there is no evidence for any spirit of inquiry within him, and his 'media' do little to foster real inquiry or debate, on anything. When he shuffles off the mortal coil, there will be no 'Thoughts of Chairman Rupert' to tell the world who he really was, and he will be forgotten in remarkably short time. Given that the sons are very likely to start selling off the losing businesses just as soon as a trusted medical person has signed the certificate - there will be little else to show for his existence.
DeleteThe pond appreciates news of the Devine, but she is now a furriner, and in the Devine way, the pond disapproves of furriners interfering in domestic matters ...besides, the pond didn't think she could ever get even more barking mad than she was at the Terror, and yet, and yet ... now she's crazier than a Rudy, and it's surely past time for her make up to begin to drip like sump oil ...
DeleteKroger quoting Kroger (a hobby of his): "Bob Hawke was not criticising you [ie the ABC] because you were too right wing but because you were too left wing."
ReplyDeleteAnd that says all that needs to be said about Australia's "larrikin genius", doesn't it. Mind, as American 'wars' go, the 1991 Gulf War was one of the best: all 35 nations (including us Aussies) went in fast and furious, rapidly achieved the very clear objective - kicking Saddam out of Kuwait - then packed up and left before sinking into the local mess. Compare that with Bush Junior's appalling stuffup.
And here comes some wingnut Kroger cant: "...promoting the view that the more enlightened leadership of the 21st century somehow has ongoing culpability for events of the past." Ok, then: what is the 'statute of limitations' on deliberate massacre and centuries of repression and oppression and prejudice and racist tokenism ? Sure, I wasn't here when most of that happened, so I'm not personally "culpable", but if I refuse to admit and acknowledge the crimes and misdemeanors of the past - and many of them still ongoing - and I don't at least seek to convey a need for humane reparation to my politcial representatives, then what ? Like Kroger, I am just the 'driven snow' ?
Oh wau, DP: "ever since the days it endured Blue Hills and Bellbird". Oh, "for all those who can remember." Well, we did have an Aussie version of Portia - broadcast on 3UZ rather than ABC it's true - so I can steal that line. But yeah, 'Blue Hills' by Gwen Meredith - all 27 years of it (1949 - 1976). And hear here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcqcyAtxH84
But now, some genuine Krogerese: "Impartiality requires the appointment of presenters and producers by the ABC to reflect the totality of all mainstream political views and values." Fortunately, I can translate: just push the tribalist virtue signalling that I approve of, and don't ever employ anybody even remotely like Yassmin Abdel-Magied ever again because there never was a 'One Day Of The Year' viewpoint, ever.
[Psst: "The play was inspired by an article in the University of Sydney newspaper Honi Soit criticising Anzac Day and Seymour's own observations of how ex-servicemen behaved on that day. The character of Alf was based on Seymour's brother in law." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_Day_of_the_Year]
The Savvy Sav had one of her days verbally assassinating the 'Little Daddy' who fancies himself as an Aussie 'institution'. And she so obviously enjoys doing it, and I enjoy watching her do it. A Katrina Grace she isn't but ... And anyway, web based voyeurism isn't a crime in these liberally enlightened days, is it ?
ReplyDeleteBut the on to the notoriously nullified Ned: "It will be Kerry's rhetoric, his symbolism and his close ties with Europe on climate change that will put inevitable pressures on the Morrison government."
Oh doG forbid that it might actually be the climate and its current and future state that might "put inevitable pressures on the Morrison government." Nope, just a bit of rhetoric, symbolism and some 'close ties' that matter.
As to the Rowe, well, no pardon for all those turkeys is there. Can anybody identify them all ? Just curious.
The Murdoch Maggots are in full on attack mode against the ABC for giving Turnbull to call out what a silly old fool "Ned" is.
ReplyDeleteJust imagine the outrage about wasted salaries if Cadaver Kroger had found ABC staff at work, just sitting around listening to the man who has done so much for the London Cottaging Industry, Alan Jones on the wireless.
They hate so well.
I am sure it is just an oversight that Joe Biden forgot to consult with "Ned" before announcing war hero John Kerry's appointment.
I have been assured that no more appointments will be made by President Elect Biden before consulting with "Ned" and the unshaven bromancer, Sheridan.
Hi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteThere was an interesting piece in The Grauniad yesterday from George Monbiot arguing that a bunch of ‘Disaster Capitalists’ have fed and nurtured Brexit and expect to make a killing in the deregulated chaos that will engulf the UK next year.
As part of his explanation Monbiot brought in his theory of the Pollution Paradox.
“What this means is that the dirtier or more damaging an enterprise is, the more money it must spend on politics to ensure it’s not regulated out of existence. As a result, political funding comes to be dominated by the most harmful companies and oligarchs, which then wield the greatest political influence. They crowd out their more accommodating rivals.”
Which I think fits current Australian politics to a T.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/24/brexit-capitalism
By the way are Kroger and Dame Slap still ‘bumping uglies’?
I suspect so because after reading todays piece you would imagine that the two could easily finish each others sentences.
DiddyWrote
Thanks DW, the pond caught that piece ... and as usual the dirty digger scored a mention ...
DeleteUnderstood in this light, Brexit is scarcely about the UK at all. Oligarchs who have shown great interest in the subject tend to have weak or incomplete ties to this country. According to Andy Wigmore of Leave.EU, the campaign was assisted by the US billionaire Robert Mercer. By far the biggest individual donors to the Brexit party are Christopher Harborne, who is based in Thailand, and Jeremy Hosking, who has businesses listed in Dublin and Delaware. The newspaper owners who went to such lengths to make Brexit happen are domiciled offshore. For people like Rupert Murdoch, I believe, the UK is a beachhead among the richest and most powerful nations. Turning Chile or Indonesia into a giant free port is one thing. The UK is a much bigger prize.
None of this is what we were told we were voting for. I see Nigel Farage and similar blowhards as little more than smoke bombs, creating a camouflaging cloud of xenophobia and culture wars. The persistent trick of modern politics – that appears to fool us repeatedly – is to disguise economic and political interests as cultural movements. Throughout this saga, the media has reported the smokescreen, not the manoeuvres.
The pond of course only deals with the smokescreen, though it's comforting to think of all the reptiles as useful idiots, machines designed to emit fog and smoke ...
That's because the 'economic and political' questions have been essentially decided for yonks now, DP. It's neither (true) capitalism nor is it any form of socialism/communism; it's mixed; yes even in China. So the only 'discretionary' matters left for us wee folk is the shape and recipe of the mix. And that is just a 'cultural matter'.
DeleteIt's all displayed in various well-polled questions; like a poll I first encountered a few decades ago. It consisted of many questions of the general form 'do you want pensions', 'do you want universal health care' and so on. In toto, it amounted to asking whether people really wanted a largely 'socialist' state and of course the 'yes' responses were just about unanimous. Except for the last question which was: 'do you want socialism' to which the answer was an overwhelming no.
So, people are captives of the 'cultural' association of words, and the 'do you want socialism' question was a part of Trump's campaign. Will we ever get past that ? I seriously doubt it - just look what the "everybody's daggy dad" nonsense is doing for a very self interested and dishonest politician in Australia.