It was too much for the pond to bear ... and yet there was a final gobbet of gibberish ... showing that Dick had read all the usual preferred reptile sources ...
What a terrible waste of space, what a shocking way to start a Wednesday, and yet remembering that Malta story, and Dame Slap proudly donning a MAGA cap, worse was to follow ...
No, let's start with a cartoon, before the pond erupts with rage at the MAGA cap wearer blathering about judicial activism and hysteria and the magical thinking that it's all going to somehow be set right ...
The difficulty for the reptiles is that Southern Baptist thinking and Taliban fundamentalism is a tough sell, even to the rabid loons that constitute the lizard Oz readership, so Dame Slap has to do some mighty fine line dancing on the head of a pin ...
Yep, Dame Slap will cheer on Clarence and the old-fashioned democratic way, and soon enough SSM will be in the dustbin, together with gay rights, but there is an upside ... Clarence will likely enough leave mixed marriages and slavery and the three fifths clause to one side in his originalism, and women can always leave Malta for Majorca ... if they happen to have generous insurance ...
And there's another upside ... with bible and gun in hand, there's just a gobbet of Dame Slap to go ...
Yep, fifty years later, there's MAGA hat donning Dame Slap pretending she can talk about fulminating Trumpian Republicans, while cheering on the demise of privacy and the right of women to control their bodies, because yah yah, sucks boo to you, judicial activism, yadda yadda, head off to the ballot box and see if you can defeat the bigots, and if you can't, you can just suck on it, it's democratic bigotry at its finest, and if there were witches in Salem, what can you do with judicial activists?
And there you go, another reptile loon done and dusted for the day ... but not before the pond joins with Wilcox in celebrating the MAGA cap donning Dame Slap's children ...
Could it get any worse? Why yes, today of all days, nattering "Ned" decided to stage his come-back ... it had been so peaceful and quiet at the pond without "Ned" nattering away, and suddenly he's baaack, and pretending he cares, while all he really wants to do is dissemble and throw a little dust in eyes ...
At this point, the pond yet again wondered if the reptiles were remotely aware of the changing demographics that made their business model - "Ned" offering hesitancies, uncertainties, wringing his Chicken Little claws and sighing at the sky - a tad out of date ...
Thanks infallible Pope, sorry about the format, and so to the next gobbet, and here the pond must reassure any millennial woman (spelling, infallible Pope) who accidentally strayed into this wasteland that, yes, the pond did read the web version and did open the web version, and yet it kept getting reptile reminders to open the web version, even though the pond was on the web, and never has anything to do with the tree killer edition, and yes, it's all a plot to send the pond scuttling off into the void with an Alston axe-swinging cry that we're all doomed ... because any promise of extra "Ned" content can only be a promise to do more mind-fucking ...
The pond has left in the click bait videos - you know, the 'solution looking for a problem' routine - but will confess to having deleted one in the Dame Slap piece, because dammit, the bromancer is out and about this day as well, and yet the pond has to wade through this idle defeatist blather from Chicken Little "Ned" ...
The pond already knew where this was headed ... do nothing, and everything will be alright, and yet another gesture squashed, and what do you know, it's all terribly complex and fraught, so watch out the sky is falling in the usual "Ned" way ...
Actually it's finishing now, and the pond can break its golden rule and throw in a fourth reptile, because how could the pond waste all its time with "Ned", when it could be wasting time with the bromancer?
At least "Ned" indicated the fear and loathing campaign that the reptiles and the mutton Dutton's mob will be running through any referendum - fear of a race-based institution inserted into the Constitution and sitting adjacent to the House and the Senate ...
Oh it's juicy, and the white nationalist reptile base will lap it up ...
And so to the bromancer, because the bromancer has joined the pond in a fowl mood, with a lot of clucking to be done ...
The big problem of course, is that the bromancer has signalled his availability, his match fitness, his readiness to lead the team.
Only the bromancer has all the qualities, insights and skills needed to plan Australia's defence, and it's a great tragedy that he's been overlooked, and even subjected to snide comments by readers of the pond ...
Please spare a moment so that the bromancer can show how he'd take the ball up the guts. No fancy dancing down the sidelines, or dallying in the back pocket, straight up the guts ... that's why he's the only contender, the only one worthy of the role of Kaiserlicher und königlicher Feldmarschall - or Generalfeldmarschall or Reichsmarschall if you will.
It’s not just the title, it’s the vision thing …
Yes, they were all good men, but they must be ruthlessly sacked until they find Ulysses S. Sheridan to lick them all into shape, and tackle the war on China by Xmas with grim and relentless determination ...
And with that done and dusted - climate science, women's rights, Aboriginal rights and the defence of the country in just four columns - perhaps there'll be time for other thoughts, as offered by Wilcox as the pond's closer ...
A couple of decades back I had some contact with Alston, and he struck me as a fairly intelligent, rational bloke - at least to the extent that could be expected of a Minister in the Howard Government. Things have obviously changed a bit. Are retired Liberal pollies now required to undertake a regime of denialism indoctrination and consume a daily dose of Kool-Aid if they are to be granted Elder Statesman status? The alternative of course is that it’s just another case of a one-time bigwig with Attention Deprivation Syndrome who figures this sort of rubbish will get him a final five minutes in the spotlight.
ReplyDeleteYou gotta laugh when dame slap writes about judicial activism. Apparently she has never heard how the ultra right-wing Federalist outfit assisted the Trumpenfuhrer in stacking the US courts with right-wing propaganda hacks who are going to demolish all of the various hard won social and environmental gains of the past 50 years. And what is worse all of these hacks are life time appointments.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile Alston wrote a doosey of a book praising the Trumpenfuhrer's achievements - Donald Trump The Ultimate Contrarian. His lasting achievement was the stacking of the courts. The book is published by the right-wing "catholic" outfit Connor Court.
A Red Skelton revival, you reckon Clem ?
DeleteThe Bro mentioned Peter Singer yesterday, he has written about Roe etc at https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dobbs-decision-radical-implications-for-supreme-court-by-peter-singer-2022-06
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think Pete Singer's position is quite well known. However, he does quote Alito: “The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.”
DeleteAnd of course that is exactly the thing that doesn't happen: there is no "citizen's vote" on abortion, only on who takes the power of government. So, we "citizens" only get to periodically choose who rules us, not specifically on actual issues. Though in places like California, citizens can get matters raised to be voted on in elections - the so-called "Ballot initiatives" that "gives California citizens a way to propose laws and constitutional amendments without the support of the Governor or the Legislature. " [ https://oag.ca.gov/initiatives ]
Of course in our wonderful Australian democracy we have no such thing, and it isn't generally considered to be a totally wonderful idea anyway given the kinds of things that end up on the ballot paper. But Our Malcolm did the next best thing by giving us a plebiscite on SSM - which, unlike a referendum or a Californian Ballot initiative wasn't legally (only 'morally') binding.
So what exactly does Alito, and the reptiles, mean by "citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting" when there is no issue specific voting - other than perhaps in California. Maybe they mean what their great man, Edmund Burke meant when he said: "Your [elected] representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion." So, in short, elect our rulers and then just accept whatever they decide for us.
And that's "democracy" for you, as the reptiles define it.
Dick is another blowhard who thought he was the smartest bloke in the room so he would strenuously disagree with use of "fairly" in "fairly intelligent".
ReplyDeleteElsewhere in the Murdoch Imperium, John Anderson, another less than fairly intelligent conservative politician, responds to the census and calls on those "dancing on the grave of Christianity" to explain their "better" alternative.
It's an invitation I will decline until I hear what Scott Morrison has to say.
Now about that "dancing in the grave" stuff, what about this:
Delete"Fossils from South African cave are 3.4 to 3.6m years old and walked the Earth at same time as east African relatives"
Early human ancestors one million years older than earlier thought
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/28/early-human-ancestors-one-million-years-older-than-earlier-thought
I wonder if Johnny Ando would like to certify that our ancestors of millions of years ago were Christians ... and if not, did they have a "better" alternative or two that maybe we could adopt ? After all, they lasted for millions of years while we "Christians" have lasted only about 200,000 years so far and we're already trying hard to "remake" our planet.
Err, we were all Christians back then when homo sapiens sapiens came into existence, weren't we ?
A quickie for Dame Slap - "Trump nuts" - um, is she referring to people who fell for his feckless showboating in recent years?
ReplyDeleteShe wouldn't be aware of any persons of that ilk herself - would she?
Dorothy - you are fully entitled to feel grumpy, when you observe the words of Alston before you.
ReplyDeleteAlston never was given to subtlety. It is too glib to attach the term ‘existential’ to Sartre, then to distort Sartre’s reasoning to suit Alston’s pop psychology.
If you are going to use ‘existentialism’ in any opinion piece - at least pay some service to the 19th century thinkers with whom it originated - Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche and Dostoevsky at least.
I am not readily convinced that this Alston - who is much of my age - did as my coevals did at university, and read and discussed Sartre. His brother might have, but he is a very different Alston. To be fair to Sartre, might we agree that the nub of absurdism was that, up to the 19th century, established religions had instructed that humans purpose in life was to follow the commandments of this or that god. If there were no gods - humans needed to find another reason for being. That is not the supposed logical construct Alston has given this day.
But we should not expect better. This Alston has been the essence of mediocrity. How ironic that he was appointed (not voted) to the Senate initially - to fill the vacancy of Alan Missen.
Missen - a founder member of the postwar Liberal party, and one of the few worthy of that name. On principle he challenged Menzies’ move to legally proscribe the Communist Party in Australia - so was passed over for preselection for several years. Shortly after he was elected to the Senate, he made it clear to J Malcolm Fraser that he had strong reservations about the upper house rejecting supply to a government that had a majority in the house. Thus - and our Polonius still uses tricky wording to cover this, even as he chides other writers for maintaining ‘misinformation’ about the events of 1975 - the Senate did not refuse supply to the Labor government - it never came to a vote in that chamber, because there was this one Senator who truly respected the conventions that more recent ‘conservatives’ claim to honour, but happily jettison when they find them inconvenient.
When Missen died, he was replaced by the mediocre Alston, who eventually was appointed to a series of portfolios involving communication and the arts. He talked a big talk about sorting out the ABC, but his only real impression there was to publish a book, many years later, which even those ABC obsessives Polonius and Doggy don’t bother to cite.
It would be a testing game of trivia to ask ‘What did Richard Alston accomplish as minister?’
In time he resigned his seat, for a sinecure in London, then took up board positions on minor corporations who, presumably, wanted to put ‘former Minister for . . .’ in their annual reports.
Oh, and as Clem K observes above - he is listed as author of several books, published by - of course - Connor Court.
Perhaps he will start to appear on ‘Sky’ with those other relics Bronny, and Richo, being fed lines by Abbott’s booby. Sic transit.
That pretty much covers the life and times of "Senator" Dicky Alston, Chad. And it's far more than I recall of him. A perfect recruit for the herpetarium, but where did they dig him u from ? Or did he just blow in unbidden having exhausted his supply of sinecure directorships.
DeleteThe joys of Bromancerhood: "These men [in our "defence" team] are all fine Australians, good brave, competent, etc. But let's be clear: they have together overseen a dismal, wretched, useless, ineffective performance in delivering actual defence capability." Ok, so in nearly a decade of political rule, why haven't your LNP mates done anything about fixing it ? Is it like just about everything else: gotta wait until a Lab government is elected and hope it does the "fixing" ?
ReplyDeleteSo the Bro opines: "Collingwood scored the wooden spoon [bottom of the competition for those who didn't know] on 1976. With a new coach, it made the grand final next year." Oh, so that was what Mutt the Dutt was about: the "new coach" that was going to remake Australia's defence. Yep, that really would have worked a treat, wouldn't it because, as the Bro admits: "the blame for this lies with previous governments." Along with the blame for a whole pile of other failures too, yes ?