(Above: will the real Gerard Henderson stand up? More clues here).Truly Gerard Henderson can sometime astonish.
Here's his bold first par for Greens are draining the nation's grassroots:
The American journalist Lincoln Steffens once naively said of the Soviet Union in the time of Lenin and Stalin: "I have seen the future and it works." After a few days in Tasmania, I have seen the future and it doesn't work.
There, that's better, and what better way to start off a column than to link cardigan-wearing greenies in Tasmania with Lenin, Stalin and the Soviet Union. It feels so ... apposite and relevant.
The purchase of the Triabunna pulp mill underlines the developing divide in society. It is essentially between wealthy or well-off people with solid educational qualifications and secure incomes, and less well-off, less well-educated people whose incomes are insecure or relatively low. The former tend to reside in the inner suburbs of the major capital cities, the latter in the outer suburbs and regional centres.
If the pond had a humble dollar for each time Henderson - a well-off worker in the inner suburbs of Sydney - led with this blather, why we'd have enough money to retire to Tasmania, and buy up a timber logging business.
The American journalist Lincoln Steffens once naively said of the newspaper game in the time of Rebekah Brooks and Rupert Murdoch: "I have seen the future and it works." After a few days contemplating the state of journalism in the UK , I have see the future and it doesn't work.
Oh damn you, former NOTW unemployed subbie, you've got that entirely wrong. Get it right:
There, that's better, and what better way to start off a column than to link cardigan-wearing greenies in Tasmania with Lenin, Stalin and the Soviet Union. It feels so ... apposite and relevant.
Oh dear, it must be time for our weekly eye-glazing history lesson, and sure enough the history lesson begins apace, together with a celebration of all that Gunns has offered Tasmania, along the lines of chop it down, chip it up, pulp it hard and good, and ship it out.
And it all leads to the standard Henderson mantra:
If the pond had a humble dollar for each time Henderson - a well-off worker in the inner suburbs of Sydney - led with this blather, why we'd have enough money to retire to Tasmania, and buy up a timber logging business.
As if Henderson deeply, truly gives a stuff about the life experiences of the less well-off and the less well-educated, except that they turn into nice sheeple and serve their capitalist masters.
The Triabunna debate is but a microcosm of the wider argument about environment policies. The likes of Woods know that the saving of a native tree in Hobart may lead to the destruction of more native trees elsewhere in countries which do not take as much care of the environment as Australia. In other words, the green agenda is about politics rather than the global environment.
As far as I can work it out, if you flip the logic, Henderson is proposing that Tasmania be trashed so that the Amazon or the jungles of Burma can be saved, which is perhaps one of the most peculiar arguments in favour of the destruction of old-growth forests, as opposed to sustainable plantation timber, that can be found doing the rounds.
Yep, that's what reading Henderson on the greens and Tasmanians and bleating about well-heeled environmentalists can do for you - revive the class struggle, when you thought it was long dead.
It's the sort of cheap-ass rhetoric often led by Republicans and Tea Partiers, and entirely ignores the way income inequality has grown in recent times.
As always the United States is a trend setter (As Income Gap Balloons, Is It Holding Back Growth?)
The numbers are startling: Top CEO salaries were up 23 percent last year, according to the New York Times; the average worker's pay was up only .5 percent. Meanwhile, the top 0.1 percent of American earners now take in more than 10 percent of the nation's collective income. That puts the U.S. in the same inequality ballpark as developing countries like Cameroon and Ivory Coast.
Uh huh. Couldn't happen in Australia? Why not have a read of Gap widens for mega rich, and see how the 1% of high end earners and the .1% of super rich are doing their best to return income inequality to the good old days of the nineteen fifties and the nineteen twenties. (or try Income inequality is increasing, so let's stick it on the agenda).
Uh huh. Couldn't happen in Australia? Why not have a read of Gap widens for mega rich, and see how the 1% of high end earners and the .1% of super rich are doing their best to return income inequality to the good old days of the nineteen fifties and the nineteen twenties. (or try Income inequality is increasing, so let's stick it on the agenda).
Well we know that income inequality really got going during the Bush years in America.
Makes you wonder where the less well-off and less well educated come from in Australia, after a decade of John Howard's transformative rule, in which income inequality was firmly on the agenda (but sadly Mr. Howard was relieved of duty before he could really get that income inequality working for mining billionaires).
Perhaps while touring Tasmania, Henderson could have led the way with an incisive study of the amount of money collared by Gunns' owners and upper management, as opposed to the average Joe Blow ... but then Gunns is the elephant in the room, and a disruptive, discordant elephant it's been, and so it earns a free pass while the greenies cop all the kicks.
Instead Henderson gets upset when a greenie hops on a plane and goes on an international holiday - how shocking, how hypocritical - as if him hopping on a plane and heading to Tasmania is somehow different and virtuous.
But for full blown cant, perhaps this is the most tasty:
The Triabunna debate is but a microcosm of the wider argument about environment policies. The likes of Woods know that the saving of a native tree in Hobart may lead to the destruction of more native trees elsewhere in countries which do not take as much care of the environment as Australia. In other words, the green agenda is about politics rather than the global environment.
As far as I can work it out, if you flip the logic, Henderson is proposing that Tasmania be trashed so that the Amazon or the jungles of Burma can be saved, which is perhaps one of the most peculiar arguments in favour of the destruction of old-growth forests, as opposed to sustainable plantation timber, that can be found doing the rounds.
Why that could become a potent campaign slogan. Help save the Amazon. Kill an old growth forest today.
Ah, but I see that ugly word 'sustainable' has reared its ugly head, when really there's nothing like the one-off destruction of one-off forests that will satiate the timber lust of Japanese folk intent on using only the best Tasmanian timber in their gift wrapping paper.
Meanwhile, remember you read it here first.
Henderson's agenda isn't about politics, it's rather about the global environment. And his deepest concern is for poor folk, which is to say the owners of Gunns.
And if you believe that, no doubt you'll believe Santa has an exceptional treat for you this year.
And now to a few honourable mentions, with the punch-soused Punch leading the way. We almost overlooked Nigel Bowen's amazing, incredible, astonishing, remarkable conflation of Nostradamus and science in Warmist or denier, ye shall pay for your beliefs.
Only an addle-headed wombat could smugly ponder on Paul Ehrlich and the battle to feed humanity at a time when millions are starving in Africa, food shortages and pricing helped create tumult in Arab states, millions are in slavery, and millions are suffering from 'minor' wars around the globe.
Bowen's piece is a reminder of why GQ is an intelligent content free zone, but there should surely be a prize for someone who can conflate contestable science with expert predictions and Nostradamus ...
But that's nothing up against Roy Williams' sterling effort The best arguments for God are purely scientific, which concludes with a totally unscientific bit of blather:
That brings me to the other possible explanation for the organised complexity of the Universe. It’s the one which has been instinctively favoured by billions of people down the centuries: the Universe must have been created, with Mankind in view, by a supernatural being of unfathomable wisdom and power. To wit: God.
In the words of the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah:
He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heaven by his understanding.
In the words of the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah:
He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heaven by his understanding.
Completely, utterly, purely scientific. A gem.
And just to make sure we all know it's wombat season, today sees John Mikkelsen offer up Verbal battle lines drawn on carbon tax:
I’ll probably cop flak for comparing Britain’s darkest hour with the carbon tax debate ...
No, no, no, just go in the draw for the "Wombat Columnist of the Year" Award ...
But you know what, The Punch is under threat.
The heavyweight contender this day is actually the anonymous editorialist at The Australian, who offers this sage advice to Julia Gillard in PM's campaign is taxing the patience of the public:
Ms Gillard would do better to eschew this spin and tackle more pressing policy challenges, such as lifting productivity and resolving the asylum-seeker crisis.
Dear sweet absent lord, with the Murdoch press gone feral over climate change and the carbon tax and Tony Abbott taxing patience by turning up at every fish market in the country demanding an election, right here, right now, and egged on by the likes of the Daily Terror and various other Murdoch rags (as faithfully noted in last night's Media Watch in When the news doesn't fit the agenda), and the anon edit wants Julia Gillard to up anchor, forget the carbon tax debate, forget a rampaging Tony Abbott, forget the Murdoch elephant smashing everything in the room, and instead focus on other things, like lift the country's productivity and sort out the asylum-seeker crisis, and today it seems sort out the mess that the western world has made in Afghanistan? (Time running out to fix strategy for Afghanistan).
Who knows what planet the anon edit resides on, but it sure ain't planet earth, antipodean division.
Never mind.
On the upside, News Corps credit rating is in trouble, share prices are in free fall, and on the downside, the hacking scandal gets even more sordid and unhappy, with an actual body count, and The Sun's website has now been hacked, which means that The Guardian's live coverage is now the place to be ...
Yes, it's a bit like what the Vandals and the Visigoths must have felt as they contemplated the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, to see now the Murdochs suffer what they have casually done unto others these many years ...
Almost worthy of Citizen Kane. All we need is a rosebud ...
(Below: the hacked page of The Sun as screen capped by The Guardian).
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