Paul Sheehan, and yet another bout of fuck bugger bum titty poo ...

(Above: click to enlarge and see astonishing evidence that "Jughead" Jones is gay. More convincing evidence here, and a convincing argument here).

It's just as well to start on a light note, messing with the conservative mind set so mind numbingly on view in Warner Todd Huston's outrage about a gay character in an Archie comic (here).

That's because the alternative is the mind numbing prejudice and bile of Paul Sheehan, on view yet again in Cast adrift from reality, the slick spruikers of 'our' shame.

Sheehan has of course been a slick spruiker of hatred for a long time - who can forget his epic Among the Barbarians, which happened to arrive in the world at the same time as rampant Hansonism, and who can forget Anne Henderson's rather prickly encounter with the chief prickle, in Crawlies in the crannies?

My first remembered encounter with Paul Sheehan was at a function in Sydney. Without introduction he approached and criticised my short haircut. The longer version was more flattering. His comments were dogmatic and overly familiar, but when I observed that my hair was my business and his taste somewhat old fashioned, Sheehan seemed affronted. Understanding the prickly Sheehan helps when reading Among The Barbarians.

What's remarkable about this is Henderson of the Sydney Institute, home of conservative prattling Polonius Gerard Henderson, and she casts her net back even further to catch a piece by Sheehan in 1996 entitled The Multicultural Myth, in which Sheehan ranted how multiculturalism was threatening Australia's egalitarian culture "built through trial and error, and fought for and protected with blood and suffering of millions of Australians."

Then came this classic: “Nation building is invariably bloody. Australia was going to be colonised. And if it had been occupied by one of the imperial cultures of Asia (with their long record of fratricide, liquidation of dissent and ethnic chauvinism), there would probably be no revival of Aboriginal culture today owing to a shortage of Aborigines.” No mention of the mid 1800s “dispersal” practices that culled Aboriginal numbers.

Reactions to the piece were heated. The most extreme form the introduction to Among The Barbarians. Sheehan is dismayed by the comments, even wounded, displaying all the disingenuousness of the child who writes “fuck” on the dining room wall and can’t understand why he’s in trouble.

Sheehan has of course for many years scribbled fuck on the dining room wall, the table and any other convenient space, rather like a king of England trying to fix a speech impediment by shouting fuck bugger tit bum poo. About the only sensible response Among the Barbarians was a bout of humour, as performed by Possum at the time when he evoked the effect of Mad Columnists Disease, here.

Sheehan managed the same fuck bugger tit bum poo response by subsequently publishing The Electronic Whorehouse, proving that shock horror sensationalism that drove sales was a key part of the game, as outlined in Opinion at 10 paces. Sheehan's flirtation with magic water even led him to a place in Gerard Henderson's year end summary for 2002, Hyperbole goes over the top, with this mention in despatches:

April. Sydney Morning Herald columnist Paul Sheehan announces his acquired taste for what is called "the magic water". Apparently, it cures many conditions. But not, alas, gullibility. Let's drink to that.

Yep, as well as a dedicated controversialist, fuck bum titty poo, Sheehan earned his stripes as a gullible fool.

Which brings us at last to his most recent excrescence, featuring a robust bout of paranoia - millions upon millions want to flood Australia's shores and reduce the citizenry to penury and poverty, and it's all the fault of human rights lawyers - and what for Sheehan has now become a standard bit of four be two black bashing:

What about some collective remorse and self-criticism from the Aboriginal community? What about the gangs of young Aboriginal men who roam the streets of Sydney and country towns stealing and belting white kids, a problem my extended family has experienced first-hand multiple times? What about an apology from the Aboriginal people (a concept which itself is a white fiction) for the endemic child abuse inside Aboriginal families and communities?

Well there you have it in one as to why Sheehan is much loved by white power and white supremacist organisations, and if you feel the need for more, you can always head over to The Race War of Black Against White, originally published in May 1995, and now preserved on the ethernet here, wherein Sheehan ends thus:

All these are facts, yet by simply writing this story, by assembling the facts in this way, I would be deemed a racist by the American news media. It prefers to maintain a paternalistic double-standard in its coverage of black America, a lower standard.

The man considers he would be deemed a racist in America for his scribbles? Who can argue with that?

I don't believe most Australians feel ''shame'' that Aborigines are 15-times over-represented in the criminal justice system. I believe they feel anger, as the victims of crime. Australians are sick of the chasm between rhetoric and reality, and the idea that the only acceptable public narratives for Aboriginal people are that of victim or artist or noble custodian. The percentage of incarcerated Aboriginals would be even higher if so many were not given a free pass by the justice system, which in turn has led to a self-perpetuating culture of violence.

And an incoherent one at that. From the notion that Aboriginal is a white fiction to white hot anger about how whites are the real victims, it's the sort of lazy rhetoric that appeals to readers of Stormfront. Yep, there's 'The Race War of Black Against White' published in Stormfront's forums, here, with this kind of commentary attached:

Evening the score will not happen until white people become pack animals like the blacks have been since the 60s! Most white people are decent human beings and don't wake up thinking how can I make life miserable for the Black race today.

In contrast, blacks spend most of their time, since they don't work, making life difficult for every white person who crosses their path. Why do you think they drive in the passing lane forcing everyone to pass them on the inside? Just one of their ways of pissing off white people.

But can you tar Sheehan with the same paintbrush - we believe it's handy for any kind of tar and feathering party - as his devoted Stormfront readers, who hearken to this truth?

Well yes you can, because Sheehan liberally applies the tar to all and sundry, including "the human rights industry":

The human rights industry, and lawyers from the High Court down, have created a system of moral and legal apartheid in this country in which Aboriginal communities are guaranteed to fail. And they want more of the same failed policies.

Because that's just a more sophisticated version of the same kind of prejudice writ larger in Stormfront:

It's a catch 22 with blacks.. You don't want to hire them cause they are incompetent and lazy. So, they roam the streets blaming every white person because they can't get a job.

Who's gonna hire a kid that walks in with his hat on sideways, pants halfway down his ass, and dumb as bricks? Blacks are the untreated cancer that has been spreading for 50 years in this country and will continue until this country is dead!!!

But of course it wouldn't be Sheehan, if having started his fuck bum titty poo rant, at some point in his column he didn't realise that he might have gone a little to far and so it's time to pull in his horns, retreat into his specially hardened shell:

Judge Norrish does not treat Aborigines as human beings. Instead they are to be treated as something outside Australian law and culture, as victims, mendicants, piccaninnies, avatars of white guilt, incapable of knowing right from wrong. His comments are profoundly insulting to the majority of Aboriginal and part-Aboriginal people who function well within the norms of society.

Yep, after railing about blacks roaming the streets stealing and belting and abusing children, and being locked up, and foaming about how even more could and should be locked up if the justice system was working properly, Sheehan suddenly finds comments by others profoundly insulting to blacks, and to the majority functioning well within the norms of society.'

Go figure that half assed logic.

And after conjuring up a world where 60 million refugees are floating about in the world, and beguiled to Australia by human rights lawyers, Sheehan proposes that he's talking rationally on the subject:

At least he does not extend his ''shame'', like Commissioner Innes, who returned to Australia and complained about the ''race to the bottom'' by the major political parties in their policies for the handling of illegal boat arrivals. This is a deeply contemptuous phrase. It strips all principle from the debate for those who support strong border protection. It supports the false premise that the relatively small number of people who arrive by illegal boats makes this a minor matter than can be dealt with by compassion, not hysteria, exaggeration or xenophobia.

I read and re-read that last sentence, and for the life of me, the only sense it made was to conclude that instead of compassion, a false premise, what is needed is hysteria, exaggeration and xenophobia.

Well if you want hysteria, exaggeration and xenophobia, look no further than poo bum fuck titty poo Sheehan:

But this argument is about principle. Not numbers. The principle applies whether there are two boats or two hundred. The heart of the current debacle is a failure of law, an absence of legal certainty. If an election were to be fought today over whether those who arrive by illegal means, or without proper papers, should be guaranteed of failure, Julia Gillard and her government would be gone.

Uh huh. The argument isn't about numbers - which makes the hand wringing mention up the front of the column of 60 million refugees storming the battlements rather curious - it's about principle.

And curiously it was the treatment of refugees by the Howard government which, in part, along with Work Choices and other irrational activities, like participation in a couple of post-colonial adventurist wars, saw them gone ...

In the end however there's not much point attempting a debate with Sheehan, because confrontation, abuse, and the personal suffering of the white citizenry is always his first port of call. So it's been for the fifteen or so years since he returned from the United States to take up his poison pen for the Herald, and so it will be for the foreseeable future.

Fuck bum titty poo sells and generates hits, and in the end that's all that matters. What a pity there's no television show with a dedicated "Worst Person in the World" segment. Second thoughts, not to worry, because each Monday Sheehan would win it hands down, and it would become as tedious and as predictable as reading a Sheehan rant.

Meanwhile, if you want to read another column hailed by readers of Stormfront as a fantastic article, the truth ... just plain unvarnished truth, (Paul Sheehan Tells the truth again), you can always romp off to read Community is paying for inaction, Sheehan's take on the events in Cronulla.

Actually the community is paying for inaction.

The inaction which continues to see Sheehan's bile given a prominent place in the Herald. Fuck bum titty poo ...