(Above: Marvin Ryan Vista at Google+ setting the surreal tone for proceedings, with more images here, under the header 3D street art. Sob, yes, we sometimes + the +).
Was it a simple Freudian slip?
Meaning?
Perhaps this? In the contest of ideas, the strong, who have access to platforms such as the Murdoch rags and Murdoch television networks and Murdoch web sites and Murdoch radio stations across the globe, will naturally defeat the weak, who only have access to blogs, letters to the editors, the comments section below the fold, and other platforms of a minor kind, without the censoring hand of the self-appointed thought police who monitor these forums, who it should be noted, are not necessarily always the same as the smug, self-serving, self-appointed thought police who work for News Corp.
Or some such thing.
I think the original text was meant to suggest that strong ideas will defeat weak ideas, but the pond much prefers the Nietzschean notion that the strong will defeat the weak and so ensure the triumph of the will, whatever the useless ideas that might oppose the triumph of Murdochianism across the universe.
The ostensible subject of The Australian's anonymous editorialist's Sound of one-sided debates a disturbing trend is the Monckton follies, currently on its grand tour of the antipodes, in much the same way as English lords once were sent out as black sheep to the colonies.
Of course the anon edit is grandly even-handed and wildly balanced:
Monckton is a strident climate change sceptic who has been prone to hyperbole. This newspaper once criticised him for offensive remarks but he is entitled to express his views.
La di dah and lordy lordy, the paper 'once' criticised him. Not twice or thrice, but once. How astonishing, how remarkable, how balanced, and the good Lord's splendid antics much the same as Al Gore climbing a ladder.
Along the way, the anon edit takes umbrage at Adam Spencer hanging up on "Lord" Monckton, whom the anon edit confirms has a Lordship and is an actual Lord, because let's face it, anyone who calls themselves a lord is a lord, just as Jack Lord once graced and lorded over Hawaii Five-O.
Spencer's antics are of course in complete contrast to the rag's commentariat columnists, and their balanced, rational, even-handed views of the world, even when they routinely hang up on greenies, leftists, progressives, and the activists at GetUp!
Sadly, this intellectual intolerance is more widespread. Leftist advocacy group GetUp! has launched action against broadcaster Alan Jones because it dislikes his views; threatened commercial boycotts of companies that speak out against the carbon tax; and now has led a successful campaign to prevent Monckton speaking at a function in Brisbane.
Uh huh. But what on earth was his esteemed lordship doing, planning to debate the merits of the carbon tax at the Brisbane Broncos Leagues club, surrounded by the din of boofhead footballers and supporters playing poker machines into the early morning hours, as is their right and due, without limit or unseemly government regulation?
Why not simply take to the banks of the Brisbane river, mount a people's rally, and let the Murdoch empire report fully on the splendid hi jinks of the Monckton follies, as sponsored by Menzies House. Or is it simpler to go rabid about a loss of freedom of speech (Media Release: Brisbane Broncos Club Gives In To Extremist Pressure To Stifle Free Speech), as if somehow a room might be confused with a room with a view, as if somehow the owner of a venue doesn't have the right so nobly enunciated by John Howard: We decide who speaks at the Brisbane Broncos Leagues Club and the circumstances in which they speak.
Is it not remotely possible, in a free economy given to the free application of market forces, that people might apply what free economic muscle they might have, and see where it gets them, and if leagues clubs are wilting mamby pamby shy violets, why who's to care or to worry, especially as the Masonic hall down the road might be for hire instead? And if people object to the deal-breaking antics of the club, why let the full force of an economic boycott descend on them and their footballers and their poker machines ...
Is it irresponsible to suggest to someone that if they don't like the style of The Australian, then why not stop buying said Murdoch rag?
Well no, it turns out that this sort of thing is bully boy tactics:
No organisation, least of all a so-called progressive group, should stoop to these bully-boy tactics. They betray either a lack of faith in their arguments or the ability of the public to understand. GetUp! claims not to shut down debate but to silence "scare" campaigns. But GetUp! runs campaigns and makes itself the sole arbiter of what constitutes a "scare".
Uh huh. Would that be roughly equivalent to an organisation which makes itself the sole arbiter of what content to write, what shows to run, and which phones might be worth tapping in the interests of a juicy story?
There are many risible things that have emerged in the past few days.
There's the bizarre sight of Tony Blair having a go at Gordon Brown in Tony Blair: New Labour died when I handed over to Gordon Brown, when in fact Blair had killed the body of New Labour long before that, and for all we know, after cremating the corpse, buried the ashes in Iraq.
There's the even more extraordinary sight of Alastair Campbell being offered space in The Daily Beast to ponder David Cameron's Credibility Problem, which is a bit like an elephant contemplating the hide of a rhinoceros for its thickness, durability and imperviousness.
There's the astonishing sight of the NSW Labor party at its conference, wondering why it got a hiding at the polls, right at the time the extraordinary behaviour of Tony Kelly and assorted bureaucrats wends its way through the media (Former NSW minister admits no costings on $12m property deal), and the conference still seemingly can't manage to bring itself into line with every other state branch on the matter of gay marriage (NSW Labor struggles on gay marriage). Talk about a flock of magpies in search of a kookaburra cry.
There's the bizarre spectacle of a mandatory internet filter being slipped in to place in Australia, with no one being told about the whys and wherefores of the enterprise (Five disturbing things about the Interpol filter). Speak no evil, and damn sure, the government will make sure you hear and see no evil, sayeth the wise Conroy monkeys ...
Yet all that said, done and dusted, is there any more grand a sight than a five hundred pound ape complaining about bully boy tactics, when said ape is frequently observed doing the rounds bashing up anyone within eyesight or earshot?
For a Murdoch rag to complain about bully boy tactics when, as a bully boy par excellence, it controls a giant slab of the Australian media market (and always angling for more), is the height of hubris ...
Yep, even if the figures are old, the empire controlled 68% of the capital city and national newspaper market, 77% of the Sunday newspaper market, 62% of the suburban newspaper market and 18% of the regional newspaper market five years ago, and let's not get into radio or TV (here). And it isn't afraid to use the power that market share delivers, whether running Melbourne Storm as it descended into a salary mess, or targeting certain individuals in the Victorian police force for payback.
When contemplating some of these hi jinks, perhaps showing a profound intellectual intolerance of dissenting views, and delivering a kind of routine hate speech, most usually reserved for leftists, inner city elites, cardigan wearers, the ABC, Fairfax media, latte sippers, progressives, greenies, watermelons, socialists and all the other random cliches available to dull tortured Murdoch group think minds, is perhaps the least of the ape's bullying ways ...
If the anon edit's thoughts weren't so weirdly disconnected from the reality of a 500 pound ape, it would be the funniest thing going around this weekend, even if it conjures up surreal images of alternate worlds ...
(Below: yep, it's time for another Macbethian 'nothing is but what is not' moment).
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