There, it's done, right at the get go, the cult master in all his glory …
Now it's true that the cult master seems to be undercutting just about everything that nattering "Ned" scribbles in his usual tedious, portentous, solemn way … but is there any way imaginable that the pond could ignore the call of the cult master, or walk past the Ancient Mariner, stopping the remaining lizard Oz readership in their social distancing tracks, and determined to bore them to death ...
Why the short first gobbet? Well the reptiles themselves recognised that readers needed a distraction, so they slipped in video, just to help those about to lose 11 minutes of their life for no particular purpose … but the pond decided to delete it, what with it being a useless screen cap and all, and not playing, and therefore serving no purpose ...
You see what happens when the pond does include a screen cap of a distracting video? It's impossible not to get one without making Scottie from marketing look like some shifty, furtive, caricature of a sly speaker in tongues, calculating and disreputable …
Okay, by now the pond really has totally forgotten what "Ned" is banging on about … time to take a big hit ...
Yes, it's whether you should use KY while screwing, or simply accept the new reality that all bets are off, and you're going to be screwed any which way, and especially junior employees, who should, being young and therefore not comely, just be grateful to be screwed at all …
Or something like that, because the pond's attention had already begun to wander, and seek distractions, and as we seem to be speaking of the hospitality industry…
Well the pond can't speak to that, the interview's outside the paywall here … but suggests that there's a good case for the lizard Oz to die, or at least fade away, or imagine nattering "Ned" as the Cheshire cat, stuck up in a tree, but no, there's another huge gobbet to hand ...
The pond will admit it has a short-term agenda … distracting from that which it set in motion, and dammit, it's going to keep on distracting, perhaps with an infallible Pope …
Oh that potato head, it kills the pond every time ...
The pond guesses that Chairman Rupert has a tactical decision to make too. Having killed off regional information networks, should he just kill off the lizard Oz and take his billions elsewhere? Or should he stick with his pre-COVID class warfare, and crank it up to a new level, by explaining that serfdom is the new and best solution ...
This is where the pond gets confused. The union movement is supposed to be getting smaller by the day, getting more and more irrelevant, and yet somehow, everything is falling apart because of the union movement …
If only we could all just move to the gig economy, forget about confusing rights and entitlements, tedious business like holiday and sick pay, which involves calculations of a computer kind… because, while the pond is no lawyer, if you want to talk about complicated and confusing processes, shouldn't Robodebt at least get a mention? Maybe just settle that with squillions and it'll all go away ...
Never mind, the pond has filibustered its way through "Ned" and there's just one short gobbet to go ...
If you thought "Ned" was a challenge, here's where the going gets really tough ...
Whenever the dog botherer starts off by talking about "harsh truths", the pond instantly knows it's code for "moronic muttering", and is therefore prime pond material, given the pond's mission to bore the socks or stockings or pantyhose off stray readers …
Of course the pond could have gone with the oscillating fan, doing the nanny state routine ...
But that's for sissies, that's for pussies …
The pond is a risk-taker, the pond throws caution to the wind, the pond wants it tough and hard and manly, like a manly Rowe, astride the situation …
More Rowe here, but the pond can only fudge and delay the dog botherer for so long, here comes the rant, alright, little darling, it's going to be a long cold lonely winter, little darling, doo doo doo doo … it'll feel like years, little darling, here comes the rant, and the pond says it's alright ...
Private sector workers?
Sssh, no mention of News Corp please, it would seem like unseemly begging. Perhaps a cartoon coin tossed in the cup would offer some solace?
Let's face it, you should be grateful you're getting a cartoon at all.
What makes you think you have any rights or entitlements? You've got the dog botherer and a cartoon, forget about putting parritch on the table, and enjoy the verbiage meal … and remember this has nothing to do with Bob Hawke, this is to do with screwing the unions and public servants, and good luck with that, just as you might wish good luck to Foxtel, and Binge pretending it has nothing to do with that tainted brand, and the pond trusts everyone has read the Weekly Beast and News Corp carnage … but if you have, it's on with the doggie lover ...
Has anyone noticed how serious this is? The dog botherer hasn't once been sidetracked into a rant about climate science …which perhaps explains why the pond keeps seeking distractions ...
And so to the real point of the dog botherer's missive. Next time we must emulate the Donald, and aim for a much higher body count. It's the only decent and proper thing to do …
It would be like taking climate science seriously, and doing something for the planet. What's the point, because who knows what level of disaster we might have achieved if we'd really tried, and done nothing …. and perhaps the doggie lover's dream of doing nothing, or doing as little as possible, so we can experience a catastrophe in all its Hollywood glory, might yet come true ...
Indeed, because the premiers have nothing to do with the national cabinet, and a fine line must be drawn between dangerous premiers (Labor) and misguided premiers (Liberal), but here, have another tweet …
And why does the pond trust the dog botherer in all that he says?
Well you see he's talked to a single former federal public servant, and that public servant knows how to use jargon, of the input stupid, output stupid, garbage in, garbage out, kind, and he thinks the same way as the dog botherer, and so, it goes without saying, QED …and destructive madness, as opposed to say a US or British response, where destructive madness takes on an entirely different meaning, along with a car trip to Durham ... and a YouTube Financial Times lawyer's picnic …
What, you didn't go there? Never mind, there's only short burst of destructive madness to go ...
Luckily, we've seen how that philosophy has played out, and is still playing out in the United States, but just as luckily, the Donald has arranged a whole new set of distractions in our hour of need …
The phrasing is insidious, isn't it? The EDITOR-AT-LARGE, title in LARGE letters, writes 'there are more than five million people on welfare from taxpayers.'
ReplyDeleteSo, up to the time when the circumstances of those five million changed recently - did they have some special arrangement with ATO that they could choose how much tax they might pay, and to which treasury lines? That is a proposition that appeals to writers of 'letters to the editors' of Limited News publications, as in 'I don't want my taxes going to support - ' and insert group identifier or industry segment not favoured by our local 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.'
Some of us might think it far more likely that those five million worked squarely in the pay range that is the mainstay of commonwealth revenue, paying a goodly slab of the costs of 'welfare', and all the rest of it, for many years. With no 'opt out' clauses. And a little reminder, they will still be paying something called 'GST'.
But the EDITOR IN UPPER CASE can drop comments like difference 'between the old and new mindset' or the much more compelling 'old and new reality' into his column, when the context, and phrasing, makes it very clear that his 'new' hasn't qualified for that title since enlightened employers of the 19th century came to understand that their businesses did better if their people did better.
Perhaps he might chat with some of the soon-to-be-ex employees of Limited News from the country publications - if he knows any by name.
Other Anonymous
It's just another attempt to reinstitute the 'Work Choices' crap, isn't it. That is, your "choice" is to work under shit conditions or to not have a job.
DeleteMost unionists know only too well that employment levels go up and down over time - when good times replace the GFC etc - but that once decent working conditions have been lost it takes a long time and a lot of conflict to try to get them back again. So the idea that if you haven't got a job right now, but when you do get one you'll at least have half-way decent conditions, isn't radical or revolutionary.
Besides, when the EDITOR-AT-LARGE says "...in the private sector, which means the private economy, unions sign up fewer than one in every 10 workers." is what he means (apart from the fact that in a modern, mixed economy, there is no such thing as a "private economy") that across the board only 1 in 10 workers are unionists ? He's dvckheaded enough so that might be what he means, but in reality, it means that some places have hardly any unionists at all, while in others - eg the building industry and the CFMMEU - the majority of workers are unionised.
Otherwise, yeah, OA, you covered the ground that Nullius Ned tried to hide.
Jeez OA, your editorial was much better, and more succinct, than the EDITOR's.
DeleteIt has always rankled on me that some folk think that tax is a payment for future services and it follows that the benefit received should be commensurate with the payment made. The unworthy poor, of course, deserve no benefit as they pay little or no tax.
This conveniently ignores GST and indirect taxes of course. I also suspect that those same folks spare no effort to minimise their own tax liabilities.
With regard to the "new mindset", it looks like a much older mindset to me. The triumph of neoliberalism required an unlearning of many old lessons, not the least being that that the workers are also the consumers.
Of course, it's too much to expect that the EDITOR-AT-LARGE is going to step back and say "well, this isn't working". Like anyone writing opinion pieces for the Oz he will never have a new idea unless Murdoch directs him to have one.
Just on the issue of unlearning old lessons, I am always reminded of Bernanke toadying up to Milton Friedman prior to the GFC.
Deletehttps://www.federalreserve.gov/BOARDDOCS/SPEECHES/2002/20021108/
"I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again."
Well Bernanke was (is) a dvckheaded Randian, Bef, so intelligence is not to be expected from him. But the real question is, who did the austerity afterwards ?
DeleteBefuddled - thank you for the reminder of Bernanke. I had not seen that comment before, but oh how appropriate it is now.
DeleteOther Anonymous
Well OA, the whole speech is dripping in unintended irony but as GB is wont to say "no memory, no shame".
DeleteI seem to recall that Bernanke, however briefly, acknowledged he was wrong but subsequently recanted. Better to retreat into that philosophical castle than deal with an uncertain reality.
On second thoughts, it was Greenspan.
DeleteSix of one, half a dozen of the other, Bef. But yes I do believe that the disowned 'recognition' was, in fact, Greenspan. I don't think Bernanke would have recognised the error, or if he did, in the darkness of night, he certainly would never have admitted it.
DeleteThanks for that FT lawyer's link, DP. Quite engrossing for the whole 25 minutes.
ReplyDeleteBut now, back into the sewer with the Doggy Bov once again. But today, goodness gracious me, he actually gets a lot right: "The microscopic virus from Wuhan, China, has magnified many of the existing problems in our nation, and may accelerate action on some of them.
But that is all, we should not expect much to change in the post-COVID world.
We will be poorer, for a while, and more wary. And we will enjoy the little things, until we take them for granted again."
Now, if he'd just stopped there, that would have been a pretty good 'witness statement' to deliver. But no, the force of ego is not to be denied, so off he goes. "...the Federal Court ... ruling that some casuals are entitled to be paid annual leave - which leaves us to wonder why casuals are paid a loading."
Because, Doggy Bov, it was two completely different and unconnected lots that made two completely unconnected decisions: the "employers" were good with the loading instead of leave thing, and the Federal Court justices who weren't.
And then: "The unions want to add sick leave and job security to the casual mix, in effect turning casuals into permanent employees." I think he's got it. By George I think he's got it ! And on and on and on, the Doggy Bov goes ...
But I really liked his ending bit about forced closures etc: "We are crushing businesses and livelihoods because premiers fear a political price for every infection.
It is destructive madness."
Well no, I kinda thought that if the citizens of a democracy were prepared to impose a penalty on politicians for willfully ignoring said citizen's requirements - ie to reduce infections, preferably to zero - then it would be an act of counter-democracy for politicians to ignore them. But maybe DoggyB was just following Edmund Burke once again: "Your representative owes you, not his industry only; but his judgement, and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion." [Speech to the electors of Bristol, 1774]
So there we have it according to that venerable hero of the wingnut-Right: elected representatives should never pay any attention to their electors' opinions and desires, but just to their own egotistical "judgement". And so it has been for lo these many years.