Just as an aside, the pond thought it might start with a demented joke from prattling Polonius … and the lizards of Oz …
How the reptiles love to find humour in a global pandemic.
Come on Polonius, catch up, you silly senile old sod with your ABC obsession … but more of Polonius on the morrow, because a relentless, completely anal obsession with the meejia is surely worthy of a Sunday meditation.
Meanwhile, the pond devoured the Weekly Beast as usual, and while it's worth reading in full here, the pond couldn't resist excerpting this piece …
You see, Meade set up the reptiles this way, by cheekily quoting their boasting …
“Eager to experience full, accurate coverage of the disaster, and to understand what it meant for the nation, new readers flocked to The Australian.
And then delivered the figures …
The reptiles not even in the top ten!
The ABC that Polonius fears and loathes in first place, and even The Graudian in a most excellent seventh place!
The odious Daily Snail cracked fifth!
And the reptiles, tucked behind their paywall, were in delusional nowheresville, stuck somewhere out of sight above the faraway tree ...
Oh how the pond loves to drink the reptile tears of despair …
But now on with the main event, and the pond didn't have to swat away all the contenders, though there were many trying - Dame Slap, the dog botherer, the bromancer, Polonius himself - all very trying…
As always, the pond had eyes only for nattering "Ned", the king of boredom, the prince of tedium, the ancient mariner of alarmism … and did he deliver a ripper, or what …
Note that opening flourish from the iuvenum disciplina … "world must"
It reminded the pond of an outraged line in this day's dog botherer piece:
But the dog botherer is a treat for another day.
The pond will just note that the reptiles love to hector and lecture, and is there a better hectoring lecturer than "Ned", who has received his instructions from his master, and in turn loves to lecture the world …
And the reptiles reward him with a jolly big splash for starters …
And the pond loved this little tie-in hooked up to the opening gobbet, because what do you need, when the world turns towards darkness?
Actually instead of a flashlight, the pond is more likely to reach for a cartoon …
As for the rest, "Ned" seems sublimely unaware that the Murdochians are the Donald's chief boosters. Fox News is full of tribal cult loyalists, and so is the rest of the Murdochian stable.
Will any of this penetrate "Ned's" skull? Of course not. "Ned" is doing the usual reptile ploy. Pretending to deplore the snake oil salesman's narcissism and vindictiveness, while in reality paving the way for his ongoing triumphalism...
Oh fucketty fuck, if Trump is a braggart, an exaggerator and a manipulator, and a routine teller of lies, and a dangerous authoritarian who poses a major risk to the globe, where are the Murdochians in all this?
Where are the truth tellers in that rank assembly of cheese eaters? Why they're all chanting in unison, marvelling at the superiority of his political skills … just as they would have done in the time of Mussolini or Herr Hitler …
This endless bullshit and mock wringing of hands would be amazingly tedious if it weren't so bloody marvellous and funny …
And how does "Ned" cope? By quoting huge slabs of drivel scribbled by a hack, and read from a teleprompter the Donald said he'd never use ...
It's just a bunch of nonsense, and the real action involves the court intrigues that surround the new monarch …
Say what you will, "Ned" makes a fine hook on which to hang a few cartoons ...
It's just more of the same old crap that the 'leets peddle so that they can stay 'leet, while furiously pretending they're not 'leet, even as the local 'leetists bunker down in Surry Hills, only to be shocked to discover that the punters prefer the ABC, or woe of woes, even the Graudian …
And as for the rest of the high-minded blather?
Populism isn't that hard to understand. The world saw a lot of it in the twentieth century … and one of the first requirements is a compliant media. It wasn't only the German press … the Daily Mail was full of blinkered authoritarianism, and a love of black shirts and demagoguery, and these days the reptiles are full of it too …
And full of types like "Ned", the most notable of the local Lord Haw-Haws, pretending to do a hand-wringing while paving the way ...
It's remarkable how snake oil serving all this is …
All that carry on about how much it would cost … as if anyone cares, as if the Donald wasn't a habitual bankrupt, who couldn't even manage to make a living out of casinos …
Receipts actually are on the rise comparatively, coming in at $1.18 trillion through January compared with $1.1 trillion a year earlier.
However, the rate of spending is adding to the shortfall, with outlays coming in at $1.57 trillion vs. $1.42 trillion for the first four months in fiscal 2019. That’s a 9.6% spending increase.
President Donald Trump has insisted that economic growth would cover the cost of the tax cuts implemented in the 2017 deal he struck with Congress. While GDP rose 2.9% in 2018, it slowed to 2.3% in 2019 as the debt and deficits continue to rise.
Where were the Murdochians in all this?
The reality is that populist authoritarianism is becoming more popular, as older voters and reptile readers with little grasp of the past century are unafraid to worship their demagogues with feet of clay, and devise ever more wretched excuses for why there should be, nay, there must be, a second coming of the Donald ...
Oh fucketty fuck, there he goes again, quoting the man as if it meant something …as if nothing else much mattered ...
Well all droll things must come to an end, even nattering "Ned", and here's a short gobbet to go out on ...
Why are the Democrats and their supporters facing a decisive test?
What about the reptiles? Where are the Murdochians and nattering "Ned"? Are they facing a decisive test?
Not really, they're just sheep in a pen, preaching defeatism, supine and senseless, silly old blatherers, contentedly awaiting the slaughter …or worse, the butchers sharpening up their knives for the throat-slitting to follow …
Most amazing in all this? The world is told it must prepare, but not a word of how it might prepare, or what to do, if the Donald gets back in, and keeps on fucking the United States and the planet …
And there in a nutshell, is the problem with the Murdochians… because they too are happy to fuck the United States and the planet, so long as they can see money in it … and never mind what else might go down ...
Update on a technical reader's point.
The world should be aware that Tamworth was the first city in the southern hemisphere to boast of street lighting.
So naturally if anyone talked of a flashlight, Tamworthians knew they weren't just talking about neon displays or the flash from cameras …
As evidence, the pond cites the ABC Weekly, 6th October 1945, found at Trove here …
You say tomatoh, the pond might say tahmatuh, and if you say torch, sophisticated Tamworthians will know whereof you speak, by shining their flashlight on it with their up to date Everyready batteries, soon to be dumped out the back in the hay shed where the python and the rats reside ...
'Flashlight'? i suppose now that Lord Moloch is a US citizen he can speak American, but I've always called it a torch. It was a torch where I come from, and I'm pretty sure that's what it would have been called in Tamworth back in the day, DP.
ReplyDeleteThe pond isn't so sure. See above.
DeleteBut Eveready is (was) an American company, DP. Hence American terminology.
DeleteAlways wondered where batteries came from - battery hens!
DeleteAh, but the pond faithfully attended Saturday matinees at the Capitol theatre, and could fluently speak American, and learn how to deal with dry gulching varmints and gangsters armed with gats (though it can't recollect 'lying dog-faced pony soldier, even if they spoke with forked tongues), while also maintaining a properly British dialogue, saluting the Queen and honouring the flag, thanks to the British empire quota quickies of the extremely Rank kind. There is no linguistic purity in this bastard country ...
DeleteOh yeah, Sat'dy matinees indeed. Endless weeks of the Flash Gordon serial with a bunch of lost souls parading through the caves (sigh). And singing along to "Here we are again" every interval.
DeleteBut I actually got a lot of my Yanqui vocabulary from the radio: American (and British - does anybody else remember 'Journey Into Space' with the giant recumbent Martian and the Aussie sheep farmer ?).
Anyway, the word I had most difficulty explaining to my primary school co-attendees was "lush". Yeah, so you try explaining it to a bunch of suburban 10yos.
Nattering Nedster: "Trump and Johnson perceived the weakness and resentment in establishment orthodoxy and secured a political realignment in their countries. How long this lasts defies prediction."
ReplyDeleteSo, according to our addicted Natterer, Trump and Johnson "perceived the weakness and resentment" did they ? Well, perhaps we might remember that Trump's "perception" was so very good that he lost the popular - ie democratic - vote by nearly 3 million (2.1%) ! And perhaps we might also remind Ned, and ourselves, that after two years of Triumphant Trump, the Repubs lost the House of Representatives by a significant margin.
As to Boris, well, if you check up the British voting, you will notice this: votes for the Tories, just short of 14 million, votes against the Tories (Labour, SNP, Lib Dems), 15.224 million.
So, neither Trump nor Johnson appealed to more than half of their respective voting populations. What happened was that in America some number of people didn't vote because of Hillary and in Britain some number of people didn't vote because of Corbyn (Labour's vote was down by 7.8 percentage points compared to the previous election) and they were rewarded by Trump and Johnson respectively. Maybe more of them will vote next time.
And do you think that any of those ideas or those numbers will ever get through the muddled mess of Ned's befogged consciousness ? No, neither do I, and as it has been truly said "we don't need no stinkin' mathematics here". Well, certainly not in Ned's universe, anyway.
Nonetheless, Ned ploughs on with "But the difference with Morrison is conspicuous."
Yes, Ned, sure it is: Australia is a compulsory voting preferential system whereas America and Great Britain are voluntary first past the post systems. As Johnson's victory showed, in a voluntary FPTP system, a small change (a percent or two who don't vote, for instance) can change the result in a lot of electorates. That doesn't happen so much here - it needs quite a few more electors to actually switch their votes. And the most definitive time that happened was in 2007 when a swing of over 5% caused the LNP to lose 22 seats, including the "safe" seat of its political wizard, John Howard.
So much for all that "weakness and resentment in establishment orthodoxy". eh.
This is what attempting to digest the oleaginous sloppy joe burger of the Natterer’s column did to my system this morning...
ReplyDeleteWhilst patrolling the sump
Ned called up to Trump
For you I must plump
How high should I jump?
The world you will shake
You’re such a Mandrake
No need for the brake
Just stay on the make
You’re the man of the hour
We worship the power
That streams from your tower
And makes Greta glower
The lefties are woke
They’ll send us all broke
Old Bernie will choke
And Joe’s a big joke
And forget Buttigieg
He’s way out on a ledge
There’s no need to sledge
Just use your sand wedge
Their news is all fake
So let them eat cake
And cop an outbreak
Of progressive gutsache
Yes I’m but a bump
Upon your great rump
And though you’re a grump
I’ll still be your chump
Now don't tell me ... but is that the start of a great modern work The Rubaiyat of Kez ? Yes, yes, I know, a rubaiyat is supposed to rhyme in the structure aaba like this:
DeleteThe moving finger writes and having write moves on;
Nor all thy piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.
Oops. Oh well, it probably was a rubaiyat until Fitzgerald got hold of it.
Nothing so grand as that GB. It’s simply the reflections of a misspent youth attempting 1960s HSC poetry come back to haunt a semi-ancient rimerer with time on his hands and the Pond for inspiration.
DeleteIn reality it’s more like this…
The hovering digit hunts and having pecked proceeds;
What may be poetry or wit
Adjures me back to edit half the time
Not all my ears believe a word of it
All youth is misspent, Kez, and most of post-youth as well. Had I but a modicum of talent I'd love to join you, but though I enjoy the product I can't share in the making. So go for it.
Delete