The Punch, and the New World Order for dummies 101 ...

You know you're trolling for trade when you start publishing stories about pixies at the bottom of the garden, the truth about the relationship between Santa, Mrs. Claus and the elves (it's orgy time folks), and the sordid secrets of the easter bunny (he hates chocolate, but loves to snack on human flesh and blood, preferably in wafer form).

Well, as always, the eternally sozzled Punch is trolling away again - why do they allow the kids to spike it with Bundaberg 115.4 proof OP rum? - and what better way, a day after the official commemoration, to give legs to aluminium hats and conspiracy theories with Hereward Fenton's Why I became a September truther.

There's actually no point in reading Fenton's piece - it's all been said before - and others have done much better rebuttals, as we pointed out the other day by linking to Jeremy Stahl's Why Trutherism Lives On, who in turn linked to the Popular Mechanics piece Debunking the 9/11 Truths, which said more than needed to be said way back in 2005.

We've already been down the Fenton garden path before, because The Drum - which like The Punch will troll and trawl for trade in a most unseemly way - created space for Fenton's Unanswered 9/11 Questions back in 2008.

At that point, the editor felt the need to call a halt:

Moderator: In view of allegations that comments on this subject have become part of a campaign, no more postings on this article will be accepted. With over 500 comments, the issues have been well canvassed - Ed.

But not before the cardigan wearers decided to mine a little more gold by publishing Hugh Tobin's rebuttal to Fenton, in Conspiracy theory lunacy. Inevitably, Tobin also referenced the Popular Mechanics piece.

Yet three years later, Fenton bobs up like a bad penny on The Punch.

Why? Well because The Punch is perhaps the most wretched blog in Australia, conforming to John Hartigan's rule about blogs and blogging:

Like Keating’s famous “all tip and no iceberg”, it could be said that the blogosphere is all eyeballs and no insight. (Journalism, not the limited intellectual value of blogs is the future of the web).

Of course in those days Hartigan wasn't aware that the minions of Murdoch would begin publishing a blog that would be lower than the standards set by any decent blogger, and would in its day go even lower than the cardigan wearers of the ABC ... a full three years after the cardigan wearers had already fossicked through the rubbish dump of tired conspiracy theories for a little fresh trolling material ...

The solution? Well if The Chaser can declare a war on everything, surely it's time enough to declare a war on the sozzled editorial policies of The Punch, which will see them publish any old load of hay or corn, provided it's free and promises them a decent bundle of hits.

As Hartigan observed:

Blogs and a large number of comment sites specialise in political extremism and personal vilification.
Radical sweeping statements unsubstantiated with evidence are common ...

...Mainstream media understands, most of the time, that comment and opinion is legitimised by evidence.
Opinions, however strongly held, draw their legitimacy from the factual accuracy that underpins them.
Many of these sites and bloggers say their radical new approach is a modern form of participatory democracy.
But as Andrew Keen says, amateur journalism trivialises and corrupts serious debate – it degenerates democracy into mob rule and rumour milling.

Well you couldn't get a finer example of rumour milling and trivialising and corrupting of serious debates than the wretched offerings of The Punch. Thanks to Hartigan and chairperson Rupert.

Does the stench of hypocrisy ever waft up the nose of Hartigan? Does he ever read pieces like the offering by Hereward Fenton?

Spare me days, and strike me lucky, things might be crook in Tallarook, but they're not so half crook as the swill the Murdoch empire dishes up in the antipodes on a daily basis ...

Here's Fenton:

In short, there has been a power grab, using the fear of terrorism as its justification, and I would argue that this was the plan all along. The power structure which has asserted itself, often described as a “New World Order”, is global in scope, and treats national sovereignty with contempt. It is therefore crucial that upstanding citizens begin to realise the danger we are in and take action to reclaim our national sovereignty and reverse these trends.

Uh huh. A new world order. Quick, duck it's a UN black helicopter.

And no doubt the minions of Murdoch are involved, seeing as how they're part of the corporate media:

Ultimately, 9/11 truthers are average people who are willing to stand up and say that two plus two makes four and who will not be bamboozled by the corporate media or intimidated by Big Brother. Evil triumphs because good people do nothing.

Yep, and cliches triumph because there are no editorial standards exercised by the Big Brothers at The Punch.

Now how about a Jeanne d'Arc routine for a wrap-up?

We are trying to do something. Future generations will remember us.

Will that be at the going down of the sun?

Now I get it.

By publishing a certified member of the pond, ranting about the corporate media, the clever minions of Murdoch are doing a double down triple bluff.

It's such a silly rant that unsuspecting readers will immediately give corporate media a clean bill of health, and so the devious deviant corporate media can use the piece as a hide, a cover for their evil conspiratorial plans to corporatise the media and bamboozle the world.

Oh wait, they've already done it.

They've even corporatised the eccentric world of loony bloggers, and in the process devalued blogging even further, to the point where not only is there no eyeballs, and no insight, we're all eyeless in Gaza with lashings of baloney ...

Ask for this great Deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves,
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke. (Milton)

That'd be the philistian yoke of the minions of Murdoch ...

(Below: Pinky joins with another evil mastermind to produce a New World Order).