Oh not Nicole and the hot contender for the worst Australian movie ever made ... but aren't the panda and the cockie and the cow pats cute?
And so to weekend business.
Everything's always on the table at the agile pond. The pond never rules any reptilian member of the commentariat in or out ...
Even the ones that reveal a touch of paranoia and a persecution complex ...
So sad ... especially when News Corp's logo is "nocere innocens", or as Google might put it, "facientes mala" ...
Of course there are many splendid moments that the pond has to tiptoe by each week. Prattling Polonius's pile of media bile, in which he reveals what a deeply bitter old and clownish deliverer of condescension he is - mistaking lemon pit sarcasm for humour, as befits an irrelevant old fart - is a must for some ...
Who can blame them? The pond thinks reading about the latest "deliberate mistake" while hinting that the compiler got as pissed as a parrot over lunch is actually a tragedy of a lower order ...
Everybody makes mistakes; only the truly desperate drag John Laws in as part of a cover-up to maintain an aura of invincibility, so the prattler can keep on berating others for their frequently trivial errors ...
And then there are other, nameless, temptations:
Could this be the chief stenographer - the faithful pup, as the Terrorists are wont to call her - going about her onerous new duties? Possibly, who can say or tell ... though it's remarkable that someone forgot to mention an authorial name, either in the splashes or in the actual article online ...
On the other hand, it's such a meretricious piece of work, perhaps nobody wanted the credit ...
And of course it is important to step past any intemperate reptile accidentally urging moderation ...
And so to the feast du jour, and what a feast it is ...
Now this is a challenge for the pond and any passing reader.
It is an epic rant, and can only be indulged in by those blessed with a strong constitution. Like any really long shaggy dog story, there is a punch line, but it comes right at the very end, and many might think that the joke doesn't repay the effort needed to get to it ...
First, as any sensible adventurer must do, let us establish a base camp in the foothills:
Good, good. Note that triumphant line: The West vanquished communism ...
This might surprise the communists of China, especially that bit about a superior economic and political model, and their idle boasting about capitalism with Chinese characteristics ... but the pond is exceptionally pleased that chairman Sheridan is the first to announce that North Korea has been dismantled, along with the government of Vietnam ...
But generalisations and superficialities are an important part of putting things on the table and there are a lot more things on to the table which must be put before we get to a pay-off about superior Chinese communists.
Serious existential questions must be asked and an existential crisis must be asserted:
Hmm, won't someone tell the Donald?
More to the point, this is a wonderful example of the benefits of forgetting history. It's as if terrorism is new, as if, pace the stenographer, Israel hadn't been founded on violence, a vengeful violence arising from the violence of fascists, as if Australia hadn't stained the wattle with blood during the nineteenth century, as if the uneasy relationship between nationalists and terrorism had never existed before ...
After all one person's Pemulwuy freedom fighter is another person's terrorist ... and it was Zionists who bombed an Arab market crowded with civilians, and in 1946 the King David Hotel in Jerusalem ...
But the pond hasn't the time or the space for a history of terrorism - which in the modern era can surely be dated back to its French revolution inspirations - and in any case there's an extensive list of such matters in the diputed wiki, which you can Greg Hunt here.
Of course once the terrorists get to power, the history of terrorism can be handily re-written, so let's get on with the re-writing ...
And let's make sure that we conflate all Islam with terrorism. Take that puny van Onselen:
Of course, of course. The pond should have known it was all the fault of the welfare system, and how it was so much better when people fought tooth and claw for a scrap of bread.
But by now some will be asking 'where's the promised pay-off to this shaggy dog story and its woeful, superficial, mind-insulting and dulling, trivial and full of drivel analysis?
Where's the pay off, where's the reward?
Well sadly, there's a lot more to come before we're there yet.
The importance of continual beneficial fiddling in the Middle East must be asserted, because the west has done such a splendid job in the past, aligning itself with such liberal countries as the fully splendid Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, and the warm-hearted Shah of Iran ... and so on and endlessly forth ...
Now the pond notices that the audience is much diminished and some have run shrieking from the room, even as the bromancer waxes poetic and cites Yeats ... and lathers himself up into a state of dire anxiety and extreme Chicken Little frothing and foaming.
And where does it end? Back with Nietzsche or more to the point that Time magazine cover from the 1960s.
That's where the bromancer, and so many of the other raging reptiles in the lizard Oz are stuck ...
Has there ever been a more wondrous dunderhead?
Bemoaning the death of god as the death of purpose and meaning, as if life can only continue if you believe in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, the easter bunny, and an eternity in paradise ... the very delusion that sustains the delusional thinking and behaviour of fundamentalists of all stripes ...
Never mind, we're almost there ... but first we must sustain the delusion that sustains the fundamentalists ...
We must assert the right of people to give up their mortality in the cause of some fundamentalist nonsense because there's an escape clause and 72 virgins on hand in paradise for the willing martyr ... or if you prefer a nice long drink in the clubhouse after doing 18 holes with Jesus ...
And there you have it.
All that endless interminable blather, and the reciting of the usual guff - George Orwell, the thought police tormenting the Catholics and so on and so forth, and health and welfare - heaven forfend anyone who should want health and welfare - and suddenly the goose is talking about the communist societies the west allegedly killed off, with talk of how a Shanghai IT worker would be better off in communist China than in Greece or Spain ...
To not be able to remember what you wrote in your opening salvo by end of piece is a truly remarkable feat of forgetting ...
But there must be many who appreciate that the bromancer didn't have the heart to end with a bang - the full-blown crisis of civilisation - but with a whimper ...
"... there's a great deal of trouble ahead" must surely put the bromancer way ahead of Chance the Gardener when it comes to fatuous, banal conclusions of the obvious kind.
It beats hands down the idea that riding in a car is just like television, except that you can see much further ...
Who knows what they were writing in 1914 or 1939 - the pond is practising the art of forgetting - but it's likely a few idiot savants were scribbling ... "... there's a great deal of trouble ahead" ...
As if there's ever been a fucking period in fucking history where there hasn't been a fucking great deal of trouble ahead ...
Sssh, the pond was on a promise not to mention climate science, and to forsake swearing for just one week.
But that's why the pond awarded the bromancer the award for shaggy dog punch line of the week.
All that hand-wringing and agitation and distorted and humbug analysis, with copious bashing of Islamic fundamentalists and stout-hearted defence of Catholic fundamentalists, only to arrive at a line 'aye, there be trouble at mill, most likely ...."
No wonder some blame Chairman Rupert for all that ails the world ... the pond can feel the lowering of the IQ, the rush to senility, coming on fast after only minutes in the company of the bromancer ...
Time for a cleansing Pope cartoon, which makes everything clear, if Escher can be said to be clear (do Scientologists think he's clear?), and more Pope here ...
DP - we can go back to the Sicarii and the Hashhashin if you like. Jews and Muslims seemed to have cornered the market on historical terrorism, although the allies were fond of promoting it in the cause of liberating Europe, with Norwegian, French, Hungarian and Polish terrorists amply provided with bombs, weapons and intelligence by our noble intelligence services.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't forget 'The Quiet American.'
http://terrorism.about.com/od/whatisterroris1/p/Terrorism.htm
You gotta love how the triumphant roll call always misses one name, Lech Walesa. I'm thinking that to credit trade unionism with a key role in bringing down the Soviet empire would just do the head in of a numpty like Sheridan. Anyway, what the hell did the member for Finchley ever do to save the West from oblivion? Fight the Argies? Pfft. Or maybe, sell illegal arms to Saddam...
ReplyDeleteIt's not just the reptiles. Recent stories in the media about the fall of communism have all neglected to mention Walesa. It seems he just wasn't important enough, despite the pivotal role he played in raising community awareness and fighting the establishment.
DeleteWe could learn a thing or two from him. Probably why he's no longer talked about.
'Could this be the chief stenographer - the faithful pup, as the Terrorists are wont to call her - going about her onerous new duties?'
ReplyDeletePlease Dot, show some respect! That should read "going about her onerous new senior duties."
The pond stands deeply humble and firmly corrected. A diet of bread and water has been prescribed for the day ...
DeleteI like the caption under the photo: everyone can tell who Obama is, because, you know, he's the black guy. But Putin needs to be pointed out ("Vladimir Putin, right") because, well, there's two white guys in the pic.
ReplyDeleteHi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteThe loss of the beloved Tony, has evidently left Sheridan wistfully dreaming of rough men doing rough things for God, Queen and Country!
Typical Sheridan of course, he waxes lyrical about the nobility of self sacrifice;
"...is ultimately prepared to sacrifice their life for an idea, a set of principles, a set of values, that they believe transcends their own experience and even their own mortality"
Without even realising he is describing exactly the mind set of the deluded fanatics who just killed 130 people in Paris whilst on a suicide mission.
DiddyWrote
Hi Dorothy,
DeleteWhilst Sheridan appears to like his men rough he doesn't appear to be enamoured of rough women. I wonder what he would make of this account of London,from 1728, when the Swiss traveller Cesar de Saussure witnessed two female fighters;
http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/A_Foreign_View_of_England_in_the_Reigns_of_George_I_George_II_1000276666/305
Smelling salts would most likely be required for the faint hearted Foreign Editor.
DW
Amazing link DW, the pond learns something new every day. So much for the brutality of women cage fighting ... suddenly it seems genteel.
DeleteI think Sheridan is a tad scared, Dot. Scared that those 'individuals' he lauds - soldiers and police officers - might not be prepared to lay down their lives for the likes of him. That's the only existential threat in his mind.
ReplyDeleteQuick! More right wing authoritarianism!!
His world view would fall apart without control.
DeleteI hadn't realised before what a fully paid-up cretin is van O. The successful Australian model for absorbing foreign immigrants: he's not talking 1788, is he? He's so right, and so intelligently nuanced, to observe that it's complex. Just as well he doesn't employ the reptilian West versus The Terrorists goodies/baddies terminology, then.
ReplyDeleteIt's actually a good thing that Greg Sheridan is predicting catastrophe.
ReplyDeleteBack in the days when I used to read the Australian for the football news, Greg Sheridan predicted the US invasion of Grenada would fail. I began to notice every time he made a prediction, the opposite happened. This was an unmatched and uncanny talent.
The last one I remember was he predicted the Iraq invasion would bring a wonderful future to that poor country.
I just wish he would do something useful with it, like predicting the Swans won't win the premiership.
:)³, but who are these fragile Swans you cry for? Do you not weep for the Blood stained angels, who shared a motto with the bromancer, Aut vincere aut mori? (Or should that be 'either to conquer or to lose'?). Yes the pond has lived in Melbourne NH and knows the strange ways of the world ...
DeleteRisking disrespect, DP, I'd draw notice to the superb Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It, except that, since Sheridan hasn't been made aware of it, it does not exist and the link will self-destruct.
ReplyDeleteDisrespect away, UC. Excellent link, and here's a spoiler/teaser for those too lazy to click on it:
DeleteIs curing the disease therefore a simple matter? Hardly. Saudi Arabia remains an ally of the West in the many chess games playing out in the Middle East. It is preferred to Iran, that gray Daesh. And there’s the trap. Denial creates the illusion of equilibrium. Jihadism is denounced as the scourge of the century but no consideration is given to what created it or supports it. This may allow saving face, but not saving lives.
Daesh has a mother: the invasion of Iraq. But it also has a father: Saudi Arabia and its religious-industrial complex. Until that point is understood, battles may be won, but the war will be lost. Jihadists will be killed, only to be reborn again in future generations and raised on the same books.
Oh did that get the pond going, or what ...