First the pond must pause to admire today's admirable - nay epic - effort by the reptiles at doing a Copperfield and disappearing its "Newspoll" from the tree killer edition front page …
Oh it's there tucked, away in a box, below the ravaging of Comrade Bill, magically headed "Turnbull hits high", as with a wave of the wand, the 34th 52/48 loss in a row is transformed into a win …
Of course trolls and bots on the Twitter feed weren't quite as impressed …
Pathetic?
How cruel and how unkind, and with that under its belt the pond thought it might ease into Monday with a most worthy Oreo lite biccie… because whoever has been blessed by a Lobbecke must have attention paid, suggesting, as it does, a grand attempt at hypocrisy and humbug…
Yes, not even the original undiluted Oreo is blessed this day with a Lobbecke of that quality, and it turned out that it was the attention-seeking Sexton doing his very best to ingratiate himself with the lizard overlords …
Anyone who can work "the politically correct class in Australia" as his very first words into his very first sentence knows which side of his pandering, forelock-tugging bread he needs to butter first … with the "particularly zealous" verbiage that follows a most worthy effort for a gravedigger ...
Indeed, indeed, that use of a Nazi uniform was particularly egregious and shocking, and a startling illustration of the coarsening of public debate, and the pond has simply no idea where such shocking ideas come from …
Indeed, indeed, and it was typical of the gravedigger that he should not just berate the Fairfaxians, but also round on the reptiles for their hate speech …
What, you didn't notice the gravediggers assault on the Murdochian?
Please allow the pond to recommend its magic transformative Copperfield invisible ink.
As for those who dare to speak their minds, why they get the treatment they deserve …
But back to the forelock tugging, supine gravedigger, displaying all the qualities necessary for admittance into the hall of the one-eyed fame.
No wonder he earned the cult status of a Lobbecke blessing ...
Dear sweet long absent lord, has the gravedigger ever read the lizard rag for which he scribbles, let alone the baying tribe of Murdochian tabloids?
And it might not occur to the gravedigger that his muttering about the domination of the pervasively outrageous politically correct class hints at the sort of kool-aid paranoia beloved of the reptiles, frequently accompanied by ferocious intolerance for anyone who expresses a view contrary to their own.
But if you're going to be a hypocritical humbug, why not go the full doltish humbug?
The pond is aware that a few correspondents have written in proclaiming some affection for the gravedigger, but the pond must judge by the taste of the biscuit, and this is a worthy Oreo lite effort.
The pond suspects that the gravedigger's final plea to lower the virulent attacks and talk of deep intensity of sanctimonious opinions is actually an ambitious plea by the gravedigger for a regular column in humbuggery in the lizard Oz …
Then on a weekly basis he can show a ferocious intolerance for anyone who expresses a view contrary to his own.
The Oreo shouldn't feel threatened just yet, but it's a grand opening gambit, and that blessing by the Lobbecke hints of a promising future for the gravedigger …
Thus far he's only been an intermittent presence, but is it time for him to be welcomed into the lizard commentariat, and perhaps provided with his very own kool-aid laden water cooler?
Meanwhile, the pond is only just catching up on another grand reptile scheme, this time thanks to a Pope cartoon, with more papal news always available here …
Sexton: "One thing they [ ie the 'politically correct class' ] have done, however, is to lower the tone of public debate with virulent attacks on their opponents that reflect the deep intensity of their sanctimonious opinions."
ReplyDeleteI won't yet again cover the old ground of 'psychological projection' - we've been there many times - so I'll just go for the more traditional "it takes one to know one". Which, of course, is just Sexton "shamelessly standing by his values".
Attribution theory provides a good explanation for the way people blame others for bad behaviour while excuses or ignoring their own bad behaviour.
DeleteAttribution theory says that when evaluating others' behaviors, the situational context is often ignored in favor of attributing the behaviour to the disposition or personality or politics of the actor - so they say "lefties are abusive because they are evil and want to destroy Western Civilisation"
But when or if explaining their own behaviour, for ignorant and uninformed people the situational context will be the most salient explanation and they will attribute their bad behaviour to the situational context and will assert that; "I am only abusive because lefties are so evil; it is the lefties who make me behave badly".
The wiki entry is badly written and there are probably better sources for more information about this way that people rationalise their behaviour.
Yes, good point Anony. The variety of 'attribution' I'm most familiar with is the one that runs: "If I do bad things it's because "the situation" forced them on me - it's not my fault ! But if you do bad things it's because you're bad or because you hate me."
DeleteSo there we have a classical marriage of two themes (three if we sneak transference in there somewhere). Firstly, projection allows, indeed encourages, an attribution of one's own 'badness' to 'them' followed by the 'situational' consideration which demonstrates 'my' innocence.
Yep, that pretty much covers all of the Murdoch reptiles, I would say.
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ReplyDeleteA friend used to describe the reptile tactic as "go early, go hard". If your ethical and logical position is poor, launch a preemptive strike. Seccombe notes 175 articles and counting about the Ramsey Centre, there have been more than 200,000 words about Yassmin Abdel-Magied's Anzac tweet and the Pond details numerous others day in day out.
ReplyDeleteOnce a threat is detected, the jihad is launched. Hopefully, the target starts responding to the criticisms which then makes them look guilty in the eyes of the Oz readership. Eventually the the question gets re-framed - instead of "why are the Ramsay board seeking undue influence over academic decisions?" to "why is the ANU pandering to political correctness?".
The confected outrage is a standard as well. They seek out any slight, however minor, and portray it as a major grievance. I read the original comments regarding the attitudes of Sheridan and Kenny before they were taken down and they were quite unremarkable. Any unbiased reading of these guy's work (& we read too much here) would confirm they do share those views. There was no inference beyond attitude.
Lastly, I was amused by the subtext in the comment about Julian Burnside. You have a default assumption that a toff like Burnside is automatically signed up on the conservative side of politics. Maybe he has a sense of humour (or history). Cast your mind back to the launch of a new paramilitary force - storm trooper costumes, lots of flags, Abbott and Dutton. What was the first thing you thought when you saw it?
Sorta like the Ken Henry GFC prescription to The Gang of Four, Bef: "go early, go hard, go households". Which of course led us to the 'Pink Bats' scandal which, as we all know, is because the Commonwealth Government is responsible for all the fine detail of home insulation regulations and also for ensuring that workers hired by newly formed 'Pink Bat' contractors are fully trained and certified.
DeleteBut sure, it works a treat for the reptiles and their fellow travellers.
Babbling Brook?
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