The pond has mentioned repeatedly of late that it's deeply worried about the mental stability of the bromancer …
Of course endless moronic repetition of this saw by the pond is one of the syndromes that arises from reading the mindless repetitions produced by the reptiles on a daily basis …
But still, it has to be said, and when said about the bromancer, it seems of late it has to be said at gigantic, Gargantuan, Pantagruelian lengths … up there the unendurable lengths of a nattering "Ned" piece … because the pond is deeply worried about the mental stability of the bromancer.
Almost anything is likely to set him off these days, and then he goes full hand-wringing, alarmist, paranoid hysterical, up there with nattering "Ned's" apocalyptic doom-saying …
All this is by way of a preliminary apology, because the pond never sets the agenda … it must deal with what the reptiles put out, and the bromancer has always been a pond favourite, and so must be heard, and yet this day, he flips right out, and that means the pond must flip with him ...
Indeed, indeed, but talking of extremism, just because the pond's running the inordinately hysterical musings of the bromancer at great length doesn't mean it can't pause for a little exercise in logic …
The pond mentions logic only because the bromancer goes on to quote a philosopher, apparently unaware that the federal government has determined that the study of philosophy is a useless, meaningless exercise, and therefore should be charged out of existence ...
Indeed, indeed, and if the bromancer would just hold that thought for the moment, might the pond humbly suggest that he's missed a real chance there, what with talk of privileging ideology over law …
Now back to the bromancer, and for once the pond is in agreement, when he talks about the grotesque notion of anyone declaring that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinians.
This is true. There are still some Palestinians hanging around. It's a little awkward, and it would be better if they vanished from the earth, but still, they haven't yet been wiped out.
It would be much fairer to say that all Israel did was confiscate a considerable proportion of their homes and lands, and fence them off in gulags, and dish out the most brutal treatment that could be devised, and that rather than genocide, it would be much more to the point to talk about apartheid, and the way that both Israel and South Africa once had a shared passion for nuclear weapons …
But this is pre-emptive idle chatter on the part of the pond. Let us watch the bromancer scribble away in a furious foaming frenzy ...
It's an old rhetorical trick to confuse the implications and actions of Zionism with anti-Semitism, but the pond should remind the bromancer that talk of a meliorative path of liberalism, reform and democracy has lately been priced out of existence in universities.
We'll have none of that artsy fartsy claptrap if you please … here no Enlightenment, no Enlightenment here …
Instead let us celebrate wild-eyed beasts that stalk the earth …
Now in its defence, the pond should note that the reptiles themselves noticed that the bromancer was spinning wildly out of control, and that it might be a good idea to slip in a few illustrations to break up the ranting ...
It goes without saying that the pond shares the bromancer's shock and horror. The very idea that the British Empire was race-based, and celebrated the superiority of white Anglo-Saxon (with a dash of Celt) western civilisation is patently absurd.
It's just that it was right and just for black and brown people to serve their white masters, and if necessary, for them to be shoved into ships, and sent off to a rewarding life as a slave ...
Actually, the humanities departments are about to be priced out of existence, and what a good thing too. There will be no more humbug about the glories of western civilisation, and the benefits of studying important dead male white writers.
No time for that. We must be building another expressway through the heart of Sydney, thanks to the abundance of engineers …
Why, the pond already has a plan on the drawing boards to run a road through Hyde Park, and regrettably advises that some statues will have to be relocated to Woop Woop, where they might serve as reminders of our glorious past, at least for the remaining few who stumped up a fortune for history lessons …
The pond has at least one statue and war memorial in mind, and luckily the reptiles decided to show just where the new road should run ...
Indeed, indeed, and for a moment there, the pond almost began singing along to the Beatles' and their song about revolution.
But the bromancer's aversion to division and hostility - exemplified by the way he rants at all the people he loathes - reminded the pond that the reptiles are certainly not viscerally tribal, and are a tremendous force for good in the world.
The pond imagines them chanting "om" each day before they hit the keyboards to produce diatribes of hate.
The results are paeans to peace and brotherhood (why not leave sisterhood to the sisters), that's why the pond sometimes bursts into song with them …
When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
Age of Aquarius
Aquarius
Aquarius
Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind's true liberation
Aquarius
Aquarius
When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
Age of Aquarius
Aquarius
Aquarius
Aquarius
The pond thought it should throw that in so it could go all nostalgic at memories of dancing on the stage at the Metro when Hair was still a thing, and Kennedy Miller hadn't taken over the theatre …
The pond needed a little hippie love because next up came a truly odious duty ...
"Enemies of the people"?
Where has the pond heard that before?
The term enemy of the people or enemy of the nation, is a designation for the political or class opponents of the subgroup in power within a larger group. The term implies that by opposing the ruling subgroup, the "enemies" in question are acting against the larger group, for example against society as a whole. It is similar to the notion of "enemy of the state". The term originated in Roman times as Latin: hostis publicus, typically translated into English as the "public enemy". The term in its "enemy of the people" form has been used for centuries in literature (see An Enemy of the People, the play by Henrik Ibsen, 1882; or Coriolanus, the play by William Shakespeare, c. 1605).
The Soviet Union made extensive use of the term until 1956, notably by Stalin. It is routinely used by authoritarian rulers, and since early 2017 it has been used on multiple occasions by US President Donald Trump to refer to news organizations and journalists who he perceives as critical of and biased against him, a practice that has been called "menacing" by a writer of an opinion piece and likened to McCarthyism by other authors and journalists.
So the dog botherer is either (a) a Stalinist, or (b) a follower of Joe McCarthy or (c) a fascist, because the wiki here also mentioned this …
Regarding the Nazi plan to relocate all Jews to Madagascar, the Nazi tabloid Der Stürmer wrote that "The Jews don't want to go to Madagascar – They cannot bear the climate. Jews are pests and disseminators of diseases. In whatever country they settle and spread themselves out, they produce the same effects as are produced in the human body by germs. ... In former times sane people and sane leaders of the peoples made short shrift of enemies of the people. They had them either expelled or killed.
It's a given that the dog botherer is a Trumpist … and now we've established that the dog botherer uses the same concepts as raving ratbag authoriarian loons, who are these current enemies of the people?
Julia Baird? That's the best he's got as an enemy of the people? Sure she might be irritating, and smarmy and terribly nice in a cardigan-wearing ABC way, but how did she end up as the illustration under the tag 'enemies of the people'?
Wouldn't it be worth noting that the dog botherer is an even bigger enemy of the people?
Sigh, there's no getting around it, hysteria has really set in amongst the reptiles. Is it the social distancing, the isolation leading to alienation? Can we blame the virus, or have they always been like that?
Now a couple of things should be noted here. That reference to crossing the Rubicon should have been subbed out.
There's simply no place for history in the modern scheme of things. What we need is a lot of engineers, not arcane historical references that nobody will understand in a few years thanks to the y'artz being priced out of the market place …
Ditto all that blather about sovereign, liberal democratic models, because who needs a lesson in Athenian democracy at this point in history? Surely we've reached the end of history ...
As for that reference to the ferals of Seattle, should we remember that we were all young once, and some of us had long hair?
By golly, he would't have lasted a second in Tamworth in the 60s before being shipped off for a decent sharing … if that's not a rustic feral, the pond has never seen one … why, you might have bumped into him up on the stage of the Metro singing along to Hair ...
Meanwhile, the reptiles seem to be slow learners. Here's the dog botherer blathering about the Ramsay Centre, when it's already been decided that such academic studies are a complete waste of time, and should be priced out of the market by our learned leaders, who know we need engineers to dig up more coal, so it might be shipped off to China, or anywhere else somebody can be persuaded to take it …
Ah, of course, it had to turn to an exercise in ABC bashing. It always does … that's part of the moronic mindless repetition that leads the pond to its own form of mindless moronic repetition …
For a little flavour and variety, the pond could be linking to news from Siberia …
More here, but would that be the polite thing to do in company with a climate science denialist?
Is it polite to point out that the dog botherer doesn't have the first clue, and yet as surely as he rants about the ABC, somehow he'll always also manage to drag his denialism into view ...
Hmm, the pond was hoping to save its Rowe for last, but it seems appropriate to run him here, with a recommendation that there's always more Rowe to be found here …
And so to a final gobbet, and what a relief that it's short, though it's packed with hysteria … of the sort you might expect from someone who had a sinister gleam in their sociopathic eye from very early times …
By golly, he's always been kinda weird looking … and it helps explain his downright weird, paranoid outbursts ...
Conclusion? The more the reptiles' hysterical attacks on the ABC mount, and go into extreme "enemy of the people" territory, the more the pond suspects that the News Corp business model is in deep shit … but then that's to be expected of a news organisation that some might think is still on an ancient excellent adventure, but doesn't realise it's never left the 1950s …
"Actually, the humanities departments [of Australian universities] are about to be priced out of existence..."
ReplyDeleteNo, no, DP it is the age of the inexorable rise of Ramsay: Western Civilisation for everyone !
"some statues will have to be relocated to Woop Woop..."
Just as long as they don't touch the Dog on the Tuckerbox, DP, which is the very essence of "our glorious past".
Sheesh, GB, have you done a Chinese hack on future pond postings?
DeleteNo, it's just that because I'm moving backward in time instead of forward, I can remember the future, but have no recollection of the past. Just a tad Morky, I think.
DeleteHi Dorothy,
ReplyDelete“As soon as (the police) slip out from under the firm thumb of a suspicious local tribune, they become arbitrary, merciless, a law unto themselves. They think no more of justice, but only of establishing themselves as a privileged and envied elite. They mistake the attitude of natural caution and uncertainty of the civilian population as admiration and respect, and presently they start to swagger back and forth, jingling their weapons in megalomaniac euphoria. People thereupon become not masters, but servants. Such a police force becomes an aggregate of uniformed criminals, the more baneful in that their position is unchallenged and sanctioned by law. The police mentality cannot regard a human being in terms other than an item or object to be processed as expeditiously as possible. Public convenience or dignity means nothing; police prerogatives assume the status of divine law. Submissiveness is demanded. If a police officer kills a civilian, it is a regrettable circumstance: the officer was possibly overzealous. If a civilian kills a police officer all hell breaks loose. The police foam at the mouth. All other business comes to a standstill until the perpetrator of this most dastardly act is found out. Inevitably, when apprehended, he is beaten or otherwise tortured for his intolerable presumption. The police complain that they cannot function efficiently, that criminals escape them. Better a hundred unchecked criminals than the despotism of one unbridled police force.”
Jack Vance
Amazing how the bromancer manages to completely ignore the whole reason for the BLM demonstrations and end up rambling on about the bias of Australian universities.
This led me to a small mystery.
Greg’s Wikipedia page states that;
“Sheridan grew up in Sydney, attending Macquarie University and the University of Sydney but did not graduate.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Sheridan
But according to the perfidious ABC;
“Growing up in Sydney, Greg graduated from Sydney University with an arts degree in 1977”
https://www.abc.net.au/qanda/greg-sheridan/10643998
So is the Bromancer a graduate or not and surely not in the Yarts.
As usual it appears the fault lies with the sloppy work of the State Broadcaster;
http://honisoit.com/archive/print/2012/Honi%20Soit%202012%20Semester%202%20Week%2007.pdf
Go to Page 17 to get the truth straight from the Asses mouth.
DiddyWrote
By golly that's great field research, DW, the reptiles should send you to Siberia, and then they might take an interest in climate science. Naturally the pond rushed straight to Honi Soit to read …
DeleteWhen talking about university life during the 1970s it feels anachronistic to mention conservatism. Conventional narratives of Australian history present the decade as a brief blossoming of radical progressivism; the full stop at the end of the long fifties and the forlorn precursor to the economically ‘rational’ eighties. Yet during this era a generation of conservative politicians, lobbyists and journalists were undergoing their intellectual and technical training. Among them was Greg Sheridan. Now the foreign editor of The Australian, Sheridan is one of the most influential journalists in the country and has met some of the world’s most famous and infamous presidents, monarchs and general secretaries. Years before rising to national prominence he undertook an Arts degree at Sydney University. “I greatly enjoyed Sydney University, had enormous fun…The fizz and buzz of the university was great,” he says with balanced nostalgia. It was not in the sandstone halls that Sheridan received his most profound lessons however. He speaks disparagingly about the quality of the university itself and says the intellectual environment in the classroom was “very poor” and dominated by “mediocre teachers”. He never completed his actual degree. The battlefield of student politics was where the young journalist found his niche. Sheridan was part of a small but committed band that resisted the dominant left-wing politics of the decade, the politics we now almost exclusively associate with the time and place...
There's a lot more, like staring into the abyss, the void of a black hole. A must read for all bromance lovers … ta³
My thanks also for the great research DW. The comments that the intellectual environment was poor and dominated by mediocre teachers are broadly familiar. I have heard similar from many people I knew in an earlier time, who had not learned the single most important lesson of being at university - essentially you educate yourself.
DeleteThis on a day when we are trying to digest ScoMo ('studied' economic geography) and Tehan (BA) sorting out the universities so they will deliver more products of the kind that industry tells them it wants. Those same industries that have been doing so well of recent years, and whose concept of improving 'productivity' seems not to extend beyond less tax on them, and less pay for the people doing the actual work.
Chadwick
Honi: "...the intellectual environment in the classroom was “very poor” and dominated by “mediocre teachers”."
DeleteAt the risk of repeating myself: now we know why Santamaria soundly criticised Bob Menzies for opening up the universities without having establishing a sufficient pool of "competent" lecturers/teachers. Maybe Menzies thought that universities were no different than secondary schools and could "get by" with whatever staff they could find.
But then acknowledging reality: "you educate yourself". Indeed you do, Sir C, indeed you do. And that us why hundreds of millions of people "graduate" from assorted so-called "educational institutes" all around the world without possessing a skerrick of sense, knowledge or understanding. Just like The Bromancer and the Muncher, in fact.
DeleteWell, that all goes to show how a young fogey transitions into an old fogey. I can't say I have seen it in friends of that vintage I have stayed in touch with, but I have certainly observed it amongst the in-laws. More like young airhead turns into old fogey really.
Anyway, it's notable how hysterical these rants have been of late. It seems like they have been preparing a response to a major civil breakdown, it didn't happen, but they are running the response anyway.
It's remarkable how civil the protests have been and, in the case of the US, how disproportionate the response from the police has been. Even the usually noisy far-right have been staying home pressing their camouflage jackets and cleaning the firearms.
The social media and news coverage makes it all rather self-evident whatever arguments are made. Seth Meyers observed "the worst part of this is that every stoner who cornered me at a party in college was right, we are living in a police state"
I'd like to add that the guy chained to a bulldozer dressed in a koala suit is also correct. Welcome to 2020.
"the pond suspects that the News Corp business model is in deep shit "
ReplyDeleteThe pond isn't the only one that (more than) suspects that, DP I have basically come to think that the reptiles/wingnuts' insistence that everybody is basically 'homogeneous' is based on their own pathological conformism. Now the psychos note three degrees of conformity:
1. Compliance - where a person changes their public behaviour, but not their private beliefs;
2. Identification - where a person changes their public behaviour and their private beliefs, but only while they are in the presence of the group.
3. Internalisation - where a person changes their behaviour and private beliefs and then the wind changes, so they stay that way forever, or until the wind changes again.
https://www.tutor2u.net/psychology/reference/types-of-conformity
So what makes for human homogeneity ? Why, all three of course: just show the right behaviour and don't ever speak of any private doubts or differences. And when does conformity become pathological ? When the reptiles/wingnuts carry on about freedom (their own, that is), but insist that everybody else shows rigid internalisation of whatever memes, tropes or lies the reptiles currently espouse.
And that's why we get the Doggy Bov ranting: "When will it [the ABC] understand that people are more important than their skin colour, faith or gender ? When will it listen to Martin Luther King Jr about the content of people's character ? And when will it ever foster a plurality of ideas rather than trot out the same views from different identity kits."
Just incredible, isn't it, the ability of reptiles to project their own pathological conformity onto everybody else.
indeed GB, Doggy Bov takes the cake again for missing the point entirely, and being host on his own petard.
DeleteAnd when will it ever foster a plurality of ideas rather than trot out the same views from different identity kits."
This from a man who has just submitted his 365th encyclical on how bad the ABC is. One suspects the lack of any form of editing at The Australian (see Richard Ackland in The Saturday Paper today for some choices examples) has played with the minds of Doggy Bov, Bro'mancer and company. It's quite conceivable that no-one has tapped them on the shoulder to note how they are on a churn of a handful of talking points. It takes a lot of love and care for a good friend, or family member to make that call.
I thought this summed it up best.
ReplyDelete"They want the smart poor out of Arts Law degrees (coveted by private school kids) & into teaching & nursing (like in the old days when everyone knew their place). Even with the advantages of private school education the rich still can’t compete on merit at uni so have to rig it."
Well if we consider the DoggyB, Anony, they don't have to rig it much. Consider this from DoggyB: "When politicians argue society would be better off without police, local governments surrender precincts and property to anarchists, and commentators justify violence and vandalism, we know we have crossed the Rubicon."
DeleteFrom that do we reckon that DoggyB has any idea that "crossing the Rubicon" was the last major step taken by Gaius Julius Caesar before leading his band of mercenary thugs into Rome to establish a ruthless dictatorship that only ended with his assassination ? So WTF does DoggyB mean by it ? Does he think that a few things said by various people ipso facto is the end of civilisation ?
DP says: "That reference to crossing the Rubicon should have been subbed out." but I disagree: it shows us just what kind of self-educated dvckheaded r-soul Kenny is. Then again, I suppose we already knew that.
GB - He chooses to think of 'an enemy of the people' in the same (mindless) way that the Trump does, which reverses the sense Henrik Ibsen established for that phrase.
DeleteCould he also be confused by allusions to 'Rubicon'? Its most common use these days is by the Jeep company, to denote an extra impression of toughness, for driving out into the wilderness with guns, carrying those 'real Americans' that Murdoch opinion writers have to claim to admire (but would be most unlikely to invite to their homes for a coffee, let alone a meal; assuming they actually know any of them). Don't leave home without the MAGA cap.
Chadwick
My self-education syllabus didn't include much Ibsen I have to admit, Chad. But I gather that Ibsen, apparently couldn't quite decide whether 'An Enemy of the People' was "a comedy or a straight drama". I confess that I find nearly all of life to be like that. But with respect to Trump, while I find nearly everything he has to say uproarious, none of it is comedic.
DeleteBut that the airheaded Doggy Bov could be thinking that 'Rubicon' is a kind of Jeep, yes, I can credit that.
This may be of interest
ReplyDeletehttps://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2020/06/18/can-the-world-get-along-without-natural-resources/
"The physicist Arthur Eddington once remarked: “if your theory is found to be against the [laws] of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.” Neoclassical economics profoundly contradicts these laws. Yet sadly, we’re still awaiting its humiliating collapse."
Very much of interest, thank you, Befuddled. I am pleased to see that the writer does set out the entire paragraph from Locke, concluding with 'no man but he can have a right to what that is once joyned to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others.'
ReplyDeleteChadwick
Haven't absorbed that thesis in detail, but there may be a somewhat 'primitive' view of 'natural resource' involved there. After all, every human being is a great potential source of 'natural resources'.
DeleteBut I can say that the single most important 'natural resource' is sunlight and yes, that will disappear some 5 billion years in the future, which is long, long, long after all organic life on the planet has ended.
I should also point out that this current incarnation of 'the universe' is about 13.8 billion years old, and no aliens that we're aware of have visited us. But then we're only about 200,000 (or so) years old as a species, which is just about 0.00145 percent of the lifetime of the current universe. So plenty of time yet.