Amazing, the further you move to the right, the more left bias you can see ...

(Above: more Nicholson here)

You can always rely on Chris Kenny for a weekend chortle, and sure enough, his desire to whip up the culture wars is a guaranteed delight, provided you step around the lizard Oz paywall to read Early volleys aimed at Coalition as the culture wars heat up again.

Ostensibly the subject is the (mean-spirited) way that George Brandis gave hapless Barrie Cassidy the boot from an unpaid gig on the Old Parliament House Advisory Council.

It turns out that there were "revelations" involving the "secret, last-gasp" appointment, and then comes the first dissembling bit of comedy:

These wars never actually end. Yet, strangely, they only seem to be called out when conservatives enter the fray. It is arguable the Left exists for culture wars; the heart of the progressive mission is to change society.

And the heart of the conservative mission is not to change society?  Not even to make sure that the 1% get an even bigger share of the 'entitlements'? (Country's rich have lion's share of income growth)

Pure, meaningless blather, and what's even more astonishing, suffused with deep self-pity at all the burdens the "born to rulers" suffer as they go about their business:

In government, the Labor Party has always paid attention to boosting its long-term stocks - stacking out boards with like-minded individuals, funding organisations that support its causes, and even creating institutions to nurture its agenda. 
Recently we've seen the Climate Commission established, not for science but for the advocacy, and extra funding for sympathetic organs such as The Conversation and an expanded ABC while areas such as defence have suffered budget cuts. 
 Coalition governments try similar tactics but aren't as successful. Conservatives tend to have less time for such machinations and it's harder to find the right personnel in cultural institutions such as universities, public broadcasters, bureaucracies, museums and the like.

Conservatives have less time for such machinations?

By this point, and we're only five pars into the piece, Kenny had the pond rolling jaffas down the aisles with delight.

It turns out that poor wretched innocent conservatives are singularly inept at the culture wars. Guaranteed born losers. Like that born loser John Howard:

John Howard famously appointed a number of conservatives to the boards of the public broadcasters but the structure and staff cultures of the ABC and SBS rendered the boards impotent. Still, at least progressives, conservatives and the indifferent can all agree oversight of our cultural institutions is important.

Significantly Kenny doesn't see cultural institutions as important because they can get to the truth. Or record the things that happened.

He sees them as vehicles for propaganda.

It is, if you'll pardon the Godwin's Law infringement (here's a little for the swear jar), pure Adolf Hitler meets monumental Albert Speer ... as noted by Robert Hughes:

Modern art has never had much political power, but modern architecture is a different matter. Architecture is the only art that moulds the world directly. Of all the arts, it is the supreme expression of politics and ideology. It marshals resources and organises substance in a way that music, painting and literature cannot. It is an art that lives from power. 
Nobody in the 20th century grasped this more firmly than Speer's patron and employer, Adolf Hitler. Hitler was a kitsch artist and an aspiring architect. But his aspirations for architecture were infinite. His vision of the world he wanted to make, to commemorate himself and his ideology, was complete, overwhelming and Pharaonic. (here)

Hitler had grand plans for a Führermuseum in his hometown of Linz that would be full of artworks testifying to the glory of him and Germany, and Europe was looted in best Napoleonic style to ensure it had a suitable range of treasures.

There was to be an opera house, a library, a monumental theatre, an Adolf Hitler hotel, and the museum, stacked with art and artefacts all confirming that the Third Reich was where it was at (more here).

But back to Kenny, who shares the dream because "cultural institutions are a window on societies", so you need a nicely clean, tidy and handsomely decorated window.

Like the National Museum of Saudi Arabia, forsaking the scientific rendition of the history of the Arabian peninsula to celebrate the glories of the Prophet and Islam, or the Smithsonian, which isn't just about history, it's about aspirations, and shows off the United States in all its glory.

In short, museums are vehicles for propaganda, and unlike the Chinese and their National Museum, Australians fail dismally at propaganda:

On my last visit to the National Museum of Australia I made a mental note never to take overseas visitors - it seemed more interested in our failures than our unequalled story of democratic and multicultural success. This is where political or ideological perspectives are important; where culture wars matter. No ideological or political views should own our history.

Except, pace Hitler, those ideological or political views which show our glorious leaders and their glorious country in the glorious strong sunlight which suffuses its glorious art ... with their glorious Hills hoists and FJ Holdens and ...

Of course, for this vision to apply, you have to forget actual history, and who did the most to fuck up the National Museum.

Back when Howard was setting up the culture wars, he appointed hagiographer David Barnett to the museum, along with speechwriter Christopher Pearson, and the board's chair was Tony Staley, former federal president of the Liberal party. None of them had direct experience of museums but all were onside with the Howard vision.

The problem with that vision was that Howard was a penny pinching cheapskate, and he chose the least expensive option, which materially affected the form and size of the building and what could be displayed.

Kenny, it turns out, is just the most recent in a long line of ideological warriors who can't stand the NMA, or pluralism or the mention of certain aspects of Australian history (and for more details head off to McCarthy, here, in pdf form), yet the irony is that Howard himself, with his desire to pay back Keating and his own museum dreams, is chiefly responsible for the form the NMA took ...

But in the usual way, Kenny doesn't do Irony. Or even irony ...

And so it's on to the Old Parliament House Advisory Council, and a thorough Kenny vetting of all those who are on the current council, and sure enough, they all fail his rigorous ideological test.

Why it's a veritable conspiracy:

If we take the academic appointments as neutral, the council lines up with five left-of-centre members and a solitary right-of-centre representative. It is nonsense to suggest this couldn't influence how political history - particularly recent political events - might be interpreted. And anyone who cares about history, politics and public education ought to care. It is little wonder Arts Minister George Brandis sought a briefing.

Yes, because it isn't about how things were, it's about influence and propaganda and control, and amazingly - considering how inept conservatives are at this sort of thing - it was time for truth and justice to be implemented by the righteous George Brandis, ready to snuff out scheming leftists seeking to distort and warp interpretations ...

Yep, never mind that Cassidy, who'd hung around old parliament house way back when, and knew most of the bodies, buried or still kicking, and was replacing - of all people, actor William McInnes - and who was doing it for free, would be seen by most as harmless, and perhaps looking for a little hobby of a non-ideological kind ...

Nope, he works at the ABC, and ipso facto, is tainted, since anyone who works at the ABC is somewhere to the extreme left, beyond the valley of the Trotskyites:

ABC managing director Mark Scott showed disdain for the taxpayers who fund his organisation when he dismissed this story as an "outrageous beat-up" just because Cassidy's role is unpaid. Money is hardly the issue. 
The need for political balance underpins the substance of the issue ....

Which is, if you think about it, an outrageous slur on Cassidy, who presents each Sunday on the ABC, as a relatively straight down the line, gormless reporter on the political scene, willing to tolerate the likes of Akker Dakker on the program without slitting his throat - in contrast to the pond, for example, or anyone else who simply can't tolerate Akker Dakker's one-eyed ranting and would cheerfully strap him into a Silence of the Lambs outfit at the first available opportunity ...

The real point to this is payback delivered by the reptiles at the lizard Oz, who can now safely mount the parapets and begin their culture wars.

Kenny dresses it up this way:

... there is significant controversy surrounding the circumstances of Cassidy's appointment.

But only in the minds of the reptiles at the lizard Oz, who are the ones who did the outrageous beat-up.

It's a minor, unpaid appointment, and it shows how long the reptiles can bear a grudge, and dress it up as a conspiracy and bias and a furtive political favour:

So, on the eve on an election, Labor appointed a former staffer to chair an important cultural institution - ensuring it was dominated by people with connections to the ALP - and kept it secret.

Oh for fuck's sake, a former staffer? In the Hawke years? How long ago was that? An important cultural institution? Which was headed by harmless William McInnes?

Truly we're well off into the valley of the delusional ... and the ratbag ideologue ...

Truth to tell, the real target is the ABC, and it will be an ongoing target for the reptiles. They loathe the place, and they'll do anything they can to degut it, and this is just the first of many skirmishes, and sure enough Kenny at the end loads it all on the ABC:

This is where Cassidy and the ABC should have done better. 
They can argue all they like about Cassidy's obvious talents and experience, and their presenter demonstrating a commitment to public service, but the public was kept out of the loop. The government was only able to keep this secret because the ABC co-operated. 
Cassidy and most everyone at the ABC knows such appointments, normally, are publicly announced. Did they not inquire why this hadn't happened? Why didn't they declare it themselves? 

Well because, as Kenny has spent time establishing, when he was dumping on the Minister involved, that's the job of the Minister, but wait the Minister didn't do it, because it was a conspiracy, and so the ABC was in on the conspiracy, and so it was left to the reptiles to unveil this vast, gigantic, unholy conspiracy ...

Instead, throughout the election campaign the Rudd government and the ABC knew the Insiders host had been given a prestigious appointment. 

So prestigious they had - and we mean him no harm - William McInnes handling the show?

Why it's as much to the point we all know that the Insiders ratings thrashes those of the Bolter's report, and it's just so unfair that his show should be more popular ...

And they decided to keep it quiet. Some of us would simply like to know why.

No you wouldn't, you'd like to kick them in the guts, and when they're down on the ground, you'd like to kick them some more.

And in the end, this dubious process, and the fact Cassidy is still an active player in day-to-day politics, is why Brandis asked him to step down.

An active player in day-to-day politics?

He hosts a TV program which ostensibly is meant to be balanced, and is subject to public complaint if it isn't.

But to someone like Kenny, a ranting raving right wing ideologue, anyone per force on the scene at the ABC is a biased player. Can he imagine a really insulting comparison to wrap up his piece? Of course he can:

Imagine a similar secret deal involving, say, Andrew Bolt and the last days of the Howard government. Ponder the level of interest from Labor and the ABC.

Barrie Cassidy is the Andrew Bolt of the ABC?

Fuck the pond dead, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better if the paranoid behaviour of the reptiles at the lizard Oz is encouraged, and allowed to flourish and once more they can indulge in culture wars and claim scalps, ostensibly to produce balance, but really so that they can drive the ABC into the ground.

The trouble of course for the average punter is that, unlike Brandis and the other rorters, we don't have an allowance for the purchase of all sorts of cooking and history books. We rely on the ABC ...

Perhaps the reptiles really do believe that if the ABC is mortally wounded then the lizard Oz can flourish again.

Which is to suggest that delusion can really be heaped onto delusion, so that you end with a mountain of delusions ...

But now for the acid test. Let's see who's appointed in Cassidy's place. That'll tell us everything we need to know. And frankly they'll have a hard time coming up with someone better than the amiable, battered, weather-beaten Cassidy, who's done more than a few softening rounds in the ring ...

Will it be ideological? Will it further the cultural wars? Will the museum for democracy be able to mention the sense of entitlement which suffuses the rorters?

Time will tell ...

(Below: ah the good old days and you can relive more cartooning thanks to the NMA here. What a pity the online exhibition stops at 2010. In order Lindsay Foyle and Petty).