Yep, it's one of those reflexive, ironic, 'physician heal yourself' outbursts from generally grumpy Paul "Magic Water Man" Sheehan ...
It almost goes without saying that Sheehan is the king of the Fairfaxian trolls, but the pond is fond of saying the bleeding obvious ...
How do you know it right from the get go with King of the trolls stripped bare?
Well in order to lay into Scott Ludlam and the greenies, in the way he's done a zillion times before, Sheehan uses a classic click bait troll, by dragging in a gratuitous, fatuous reference to pornography.
Here's how he does it:
There is nothing more popular on the internet than pornography, and that extends to political pornography, the territory of trolls and zealots.
Senator Scott Ludlam knows this, and Ludlam is fighting for his survival. He has only just narrowly averted disaster and now he is appealing to the fringe because he cannot appeal to the majority.
Any half-arsed wretch can play this simplistic sort of game:
There is nothing more popular on the internet than pornography, and that extends to political commentary, the territory of trolls and zealots like the Bolter, Paul "Magic Water Man' Sheehan, Miranda the Devine, Chris Kenny and a jam jar of Murdoch reptiles.
Paul "Magic Water Man" Sheehan knows this, and Sheehan is fighting for his survival and for eyeballs and clicks on his trolling eye candy bait. He has this far avoided heading off to News Corp, only just narrowly avoiding the disaster that awaited his onetime colleague Gerard "prattling Polonius" Henderson and now he is appealing to the fringe because he cannot appeal to the majority by leading with pornography as an eye catcher.
What next? Miranda Kerr's boobs? as featured in the other click bait parts of the digital rag?
It's lazy, empty headed, addled, emotionally laden stuff.
Now the pond doesn't advocate the Crikey solution. Bizarrely at one time they even had a tag for S-XISM.
Which led to this sort of nonsense in No s-x please, we're gendered:
Joe Boswell writes: Re. “Keane: defining terms in the great misogyny conspiracy” (yesterday). Bernard Keane’s piece missed one of the most glaring examples of the phenomenon he describes by concentrating on “misogyny” rather than “s-xism”. For example: “… a hatred not merely of Gillard herself, but of her gender. This isn’t casual s-xism …”.
S-xism is a prejudice based on s-x. But it is now unacceptable for anyone to be labelled by s-x in the plain and useful biological sense, a point illustrated by Keane’s determined avoidance of any mention of Gillard’s s-x. It is years since I heard the word used in that sense in relation to people. Even the government, in the various forms it issues, is no longer interested in knowing my s-x, and demands instead to know my gender. I do not know why. So, surely “s-xism” too is wholly obsolete and we can argue instead about genderism and the genderists responsible for it.
Well actually let's start with the bizarre and wilful refusal to print "s-x" as "sex", or 'r-pe' as rape, and so on and so forth.
No doubt way back when, Crikey determined that doing it this way would avoid filters picking up on the word and blocking the article.
And so you could cop the censorious, repressive Clive Hamilton rabbing on about how Net p-rn goes way beyond naughty, and Art or p-rn is not the question.
Now don't get the pond started on Hamilton doing over Henson, let's just note the explanation attached:
Crikey hyphenates words like s-x and v-gina not out of prudery, but in an attempt to lull over-zealous email spam filters into a false sense of security.
Yep, it's the price you pay for having part of your business turn up in a newsletter delivered via email.
Which brings us back to Sheehan. As a king of the trolls, he doesn't have to worry about email filters, and any web filter surely must have given up on the "porn" part of the job years ago.
And so just to make sure he keeps his title, he opens and closes with a gratuitous reference to pornography:
With Ludlam's political survival at stake, he chose to take the path of political pornography.
Why you might just as well have said that, with the Western Australian senate re-run looming up in early April, Sheehan has chosen the path of pornographic punditry.
As he routinely does, always resorting to Chicken Little hysteria and never ever taking a cold bath ...
Oh go on, the pond knows you're dying to read about Dr. Kellogg's electric light bath protocol.
Yes, you've guessed it, the pond is tired of dealing with the pornographic troller Sheehan, but let's have at it:
'Mr Prime Minister … we invite you to leave your excruciatingly boring three-word slogans at home.''
Indeed, indeed, though it has to be said that Ludlam is a little out of date here, and the new rage is to note Abbott's incredible slowness of speech and his redundant repetition of words - say that three times and you'll nod off without worrying about the repetition - which has seen some demanding a "may damage eardrums" warning before Abbott answers a question.
It led to Shaun Micallef doing a sketch which luckily for the moment you can find here:
Sadly Micallef lacks the writers of a Colbert or a Stewart, but you can Facebook his show here, and he deserves some encouragement because nobody else, outside the always reliable cartoonists, is even attempting political comedy.
Unless of course you count Paul Sheehan as comedy, rather than click baiting trolling of the pornographic kind.
Let's pass over Ludlam's reference to the gulags - Sheehan naturally finds nothing wrong with gulags and the odd killing - to get to the matter of Abbott's homophobia:
''… you show up waving your homophobia in people's faces''. (Not a word of evidence was put forward for this insult, which also insulted Abbott's sister, Christine Forster, who is gay and close to her brother.)
Yes, it's Sheehan who inserted that note about not a word of evidence being provided for the insult.
Yet Abbott himself in a revealing moment said he felt a bit threatened by gay people, and then compounded the folly, when he tried to explain it away, as reported in Abbott still 'threatened' by homosexuality:
When asked to clarify what he meant by "threatened", Mr Abbott would not say if he felt threatened that men might be attracted to him, or if he felt that traditional families were threatened.
"There is no doubt that it challenges, if you like, orthodox notions of the right order of things," he said.
The orthodox notion of the right order of things ...
Which is how Abbott can cheerfully insult his sister, a supporter of gay marriage, and deny her rights and those of others, on the basis that these people are a challenge, an insult if you will, to orthodox notions of the right order of things.
If you happen to believe in the right order of things as ordained by camel herders a couple of thousand years ago ...
And so on as Sheehan thinks indignantly quoting Ludlam is enough of a rebuke.
But this hardly warrants the tedious business of compiling contrary evidence:
''Boasting about your ever-more insidious attacks on the trade union movement and all working people …''
Nor does this:
''It looks awkward when you take policy advice … from mining billionaires and media oligarchs on the other side of the world - awkward, and kind of revolting.''
A photo will do that job:
As for the rest, it's also unexceptional stuff:
''You and your financial backers in the gas fracking and uranium industries …''
But then Sheehan must love the smell of coal dust in the Hunter valley.
And this isn't remarkable either:
''… your heartless racist exploitation of people's fears''.
Oh wait, that must have struck a bit close to home for Sheehan, seeing as how he's spent the last few weeks trolling to whip up fear about the Chinese buying up Australia, and has spent the last few decades getting people worked up about invading Islamics and other furriners ...
And so to that resounding conclusion:
With Ludlam's political survival at stake, he chose to take the path of political pornography.
If nothing else, it reminded the pond of why it choses not to take out a subscription to Fairfax, seeing as how they're now in the business of supporting a click baiting troll who'll free associate pornography with politics at the click of a mouse ...
Now that's genuine journalistic pornography.
Meanwhile, it's likely that Western Australians won't pay the slightest attention to Sheehan's professional pornographic rituals, nor will they have much of a care about the way Arthur Sinodinos is now the butt of cartooning humour.
More Rowe here.
Thank you, Dorothy, for putting your mental stability at risk day after day for our entertainment and enlightenment. I've recently realised that Paul Sheehan's columns provide rich source material for erasures. My attempt – which you might like to click through to at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23547953/erasure1.jpeg – is a bit obvious, but fun.
ReplyDeleteIs it wrong for the pond to suggest a Hitler mo as an artful addition? Seeing as below we now have Sheehan's Law ...
DeleteAn excellent suggestion
DeleteGodwin’s Law
ReplyDelete"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches”
Now we have Sheehan’s Law:
When a fervent conservative journalist vehemently disagrees with a left-of-centre politician’s viewpoint the journalist will ultimately link the politician to pornography, trolls and zealots.
An excellent law HB, and since it's irrefutable and true, we might well use it in the future whenever disturbances to nature require its display and re-confirmation ...
DeleteYeah I know it's Rudyard Kipling, but this is such a beautiful story.
ReplyDeleteHow many Australian Prime Ministers would give their lives for a village?
The Miracle of Purun Bhagat.
http://www.classicreader.com/book/2742/3/