For the second time in matter of days, Helen Pringle has published an article in which she claims I did not get my facts right and used “unprincipled reasoning”on which to base my January 10 post on Melinda Tankard Reist.
This is in spite of me commenting on the first publication, and correcting her misinformation.
At this point, were I Tankard Reist, I would call in the lawyers to threaten Ms Pringle with defamation action unless she withdrew her claims, apologised, and paid me money. Pringle knows, however, that I don’t believe in such action as a means to resolving anything, and she feels quite safe to continue making false claims, in the full knowledge that they are false.
Neither does Pringle disclose that she is a contributing author to Tankard Reist’s latest book. In fact she explains nothing, her reference to me being as follows:
[Leslie] Cannold and others like Jennifer Wilson can see these considerations clearly in their own case, and in cases to which they are (rightly) sympathetic, such as that of the Bolt complainants. But they seem unable to take a stand based on principle in regard to those with whom they are not in sympathy. Unprincipled reasoning like this about freedom of speech is rife in what passes for public debate in Australia.
So in an article entirely about freedom of speech, Pringle neglects to advise her readers that I am being threatened with defamation by her colleague, Tankard Reist, in an attempt to silence my freedom of speech. Instead she describes me as “unprincipled”, offering no context at all for that accusation and no links to any context either so that her readers may evaluate the situation for themselves.
Had Pringle bothered to check her facts, she would have discovered that the sources on which I based my piece of Jan 10 2012 are fully referenced.
I can think of little less principled than continuing to publicly disseminate information after being made aware of its falsity. Pringle has further lowered the tone of public debate in this country .
Her article concludes:
So let’s have vibrant debate and disagreement about exercises of speech in our polity and our culture. And let’s have it in a context marked out by considerations about the inviolability of the person…
That is the inviolability of all persons, isn’t it? Including those with whom Pringle is not in sympathy?
No Place For Sheep 
Helen Pringle should speak to the authors of ‘The Porn Report’ about whether or not they think she got her facts right in regard to their motivations.
She might also want to reflect on the polemic used by MTR against people she has decided are ‘bad’ people.
The whole piece was a straw man argument. Drivel.
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Yes, her whole chapter in Big Porn Inc was an attack on them.
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Pringle and Reist must watch a lot of porn to know so much about it.
So, in the interests of balance,can everyone else have the same right,and judge for themselves,or do we have to take their words for it ?
Can we have a list of the porn they watched please so we know exactly which porn was involved, in the ‘studies’ they undertook on our behalf.
Can they also list the degraded imprisoned,violated, abused assault victims of those movies so we can also interview them.
And so the the ‘MIUAYGA pattern continues.
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Pringle’s probably just another porn obsessed god bothering hypocrite.
Have they called to bring back the Witch Trials yet?
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Trevor,
As I understand it Helen is a socialist who was active in student politics as a Trot – and therefore she is an authoritarian lefty. Her criticism of the porn industry is as much about capitalism exploiting women as it is about authoritarian moralising (Stalinists and Maoists ended up being very sexually repressive – Maoists especially so – sex was seen as a bourgeois indulgence).
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Thanks Ray, that’s background that makes sense.
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Well Jennifer I will afford some kudos to Helen on the ABC’s website at least for at least attempting to field a few of the questions that people there had for her. I didn’t know anything of her associations, at least not that I recalled until you mentioned it here, and thus took her more or less at face value.
Okay so when seriously pressed I noted she withdrew from responding to me. I really hope that I don’t come across so single mindedly as to be closed to debate from any angle. I’d really rather that anyone who takes what passes more or less for Reist’s side in the debate could come up with some evidence of what harm there is in most of the stuff that they seem to want to censor.
So while I take the point that Helen Pringle may have verballed you with her uncalled for feint at you and your motives. The fact remains though that it was hardly a full blooded swipe indicative of any real intent to lock horns even on her erstwhile confederate’s behalf. In my view the thing to do is defend your motives as well as the facts of the case. This is what Reist fails to do and what most came to annoy me about Pringle’s piece.
It was that last line insinuating almost sarcastically about what she presumably regards to be a lack of “the special worth of pornography”. Surely it is here without actually undertaking the kind of examination she recommends of free speech that she comes to the point of mentioning what she actually wants to criticise. Its the closest she comes to locating where she wants to draw the line against free speech. If I’m wrong then I hope I’m not verballing her, but some people summarily regard all porn as singularly and indisputably intolerable in a way that they appear to regard as self-evident. The problem is that they fail explain why the majority of society distinguishes between an appropriate level of restriction and tolerance of adult entertainment as opposed to expressing near unanimous disregard for child pornography.
After a great many sorties of words and accusations about ideology back and forth on this issue it still occurs to me that striving for ideals that are irrational may well have a lot to do with what’s wrong with some people’s thinking. I for one remain somewhat vexed by the notion that people seem to think virginity, chastity and celibacy are somehow ideal, (if only in women!?). There is a lot to be said against the notion that people who claim understanding of right and wrong appear to live in a state of fear of sexuality as evidenced in their struggle to control it in themselves and others. That we generally fear most what we least understand shows how deeply their ideology is inconsistent.
Maybe you can help me. Does this even begin to explain why people often appear to be so incapable of tolerating dissent from a world view involving a singular version of what everyone ought to do that happens to parallel their own solipsism? At least I’ve come to suspect that it is down to a strong emotion like fear as opposed to a mere lack of the imagination it takes to countenance genuine differences in peoples moral sensibilities.
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Excellent post HG, I agree entirely.
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Hello Hudson,
I’ve written a piece for the Drum dealing with just some of these points, and am waiting to see if Scott Stephens will publish. Specifically, I address the notion of an “ideal” concept of sexuality, claims of what it is “supposed to be” and the crypto theology inherent in that concept. I also point out the “refused classification” category we already have in place in this country that covers everything the anti porners complain about, leading me to the conclusion that as it isn’t changes in the law they’re campaigning for, it’s control of our sexual discourse.
If the ABC doesn’t put it up, I’ll post it here.
I agree with your theory that fear is the basis of it. However, I’m reluctant to include that analysis at the moment. I want to do some research first. Their desire to control sexuality is so great it stands to reason that it’s fuelled by great and complex fear. The religious can hide that by claiming it as god’s will, the non religious by appealing to some imaginary norm they believe everyone should share.
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Thanks Jennifer,
I’ll look forward to the article no matter where it eventually surfaces. I’ll be interested to see how you resolve the tension between motives we may ascribe to normative thinking (or what Ray below calls authoritarian feminism), and the notions of harm that ideology appeals to when it proposes to suspend tolerance differently than you and I would.
In thinking about that I’ve been pondering whether we’re challenged to somehow refute harm or otherwise interrogate the evidence for ourselves given that what passes for evidence emanating from the other side of the debate isn’t just thin on the ground but conspicuous in its absence.
When I argued as I did that the majority distinguish between adult entertainment and child pornography I may have described more approximately where the limits of tolerance are actually set by society than Ms Reist does, and thus I’m not often challenged on it. Yet putting aside whether my statement reflected sentiment accurately, there is the small matter of whether it actually does no more than to reflect a different social norm that is of itself no more valid than Reist’s ideology. Reist might wish to argue that just because people are willing to go along with something doesn’t mean that it is the best thing. If we were to counter in the same terms saying that neither can her version be shown to be better, (or at least not on the kind of evidence she’s produced thus far), then there’s still the problem of comparing normative moralities rather than advocating for something altogether different.
I think we do well to engage some kind of agreed injunction against many of the harmful acts we rightly deem criminal. The more harmful, then the easier it gets. The potted version of the argument as I understand it goes that a society should not be forced to live in fear of untrammelled violence, theft or even dishonesty. Thus it regards the use of force to control individuals committing those acts to be justified in the service of the entire community as well as the victims of those crimes.
It seems pretty obvious in those terms that consenting sexual behaviour shouldn’t hold similar fears and is thus rightly regarded in a different category. That may be different from saying that in our sexual relationships something as simple as infidelity can’t represent an acknowledged kind of harm, but I think that we accept that risk as individuals. Indeed I think the greater moral merit derives from an action freely chosen than by mere compliance with imposed injunctions or social norms. So when we appeal to upholding the higher ideals of freedom and liberty I suspect something as simple as the choice of how to express our love is implicitly included.
My simple attempt here is to articulate some fairly uncontroversial elements of why I think certain campaigns to protect us from ourselves are utterly regressive. If I’ve been successful in approaching the issues that those campaigners raise from a standpoint which refutes the main thrust of their ideology by substituting a better one, then maybe we may finally dispense with their arguments altogether.
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One of the strangest disconnects in our society is that murder and mayhem may be depicted in all the blood gore and filth that the mind can devise, yet the accurate depiction of sexual activity is the thing which we argue over. Endlessly.
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If that was a tweet I’d re-tweet it.
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Feel free to republish it.
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Thanks, DQ, I will.
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My own thoughts precisely Doug,
I suspect a rehashing of thoughts about the suspension of disbelief through the medium of George Carlin is in order. With permission from Jennifer or whomever might need to moderate this bit.
People much wiser than I am said,
“I’d rather have my son watch a film with 2 people making love
than 2 people trying to kill one another. I, of course, can agree. It is
a great sentence. I wish I knew who said it first. I agree with that but
I like to take it a step further. I’d like to substitute the word Fuck for
the word Kill in all of those movie cliches we grew up with. “Okay,
Sherrif, we’re gonna Fuck you now, but we’re gonna Fuck you slow.”
It’s actually an excerpt from his most famous monologue “Seven words you can’t say on television”. Though derivative of a 1966 Lenny Bruce piece this was first performed circa 1972 when George was arrested for performing the routine. I thought a reminder of it seemed somehow pertinent here.
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“The religious can hide that by claiming it as god’s will, the non religious by appealing to some imaginary norm they believe everyone should share”.
This is where the debate starts; the highly problematic end-game of both positions.
Any essay you care to construct Jen Wilson will need to, I believe, address AND remove these…..obstacles.
Not only have they taken up far too much space already……but have also sent us all off on wild ricochets and interesting cul-de-sacs
Nothing more.
A wonderful line.
Please make use of it.
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StaggerLee,
I hope you will not disallow that when the “claiming it as god’s will”, and “appealing to some imaginary norm” are used to describe the “desire to control other people’s sexuality”, then there is also a third way that involves understanding how to forgo that desire!
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Hudson,
3 things.
First, I “disallow” little, precious little, in questions of this nature.
Second, that “desire” you speak of means no more or less (to me) than any other desire unbridled by a social Self.
And finally,I suggest you ask that question of its author.
I, for one, am fascinated and also look forward to the article……I wonder at the manner of (Wilson’s) argument; its trajectory and consequential points.
As a postscript: Your sentence construction still needs great attention Hudson.
I suggest you reconsider the structure of your compound/complex sentences. It is my belief that with simpler sentences – single verbs and predicates – your posts will achieve two wonderful things: clarity and easier readability.
I hope you receive this constructive criticism in the spirit of…….blog comprehension 101.
🙂
Sincerely,
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The unsatisfied reader can always blame the writer’s craft just as the writer the reader’s comprehension. I do the best that I can to juxtapose complex ideas as best I can. It may not be the stuff of pulp fiction that is readily consumed and soon forgotten, but it is at least an attempt.
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Yes, this is where the debate starts, it has taken some time to get to it.
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Indeed it has.
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Hudson,
Helen belongs to the authoritarian branch of feminism that sees sexuality as inherently dangerous to women. There is a bitter and unresolved conflict between authoritarian and libertarian feminists. No doubt Helen has a rather narrow idea of the ideal feminist girl/woman. Many authoritarian feminists are academics and intellectuals and they seem locked into this archetype. I’m not in any way criticising this. I’m merely suggesting that this does not suit every woman. But these overly intellectual women have a bit of an issue with the Aphrodite archetype.
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Thanks for that clear explanation,Ray.It puts very much in context the inflexible absolutist positions,I see being churned out on (mainly feminist) blogs.
😉
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Hypo,
I’m 56 and was very involved in student politics during the 70’s – many of my close women friends were feminists of varying stripes. I remember the debates and the bitter factionalism. I have always sympathised with the sex positive, libertarian perspective and its feminists counterparts (as did many of my anarchist feminist friends/lovers).
The split between the sex negative, authoritarian and sex positive, libertarian left goes back to the 20’s and libertarian communist theorists like Otto Gross and Wilhelm Reich. They believed that the control of sex was a major instrument of totalitarian systems. I see little difference between the puritanism of totalitarian communism, right-wing fascism and religious fundamentalism. During the 70’s a branch of feminism began to use the same techniques. The pity is that this involved limiting women’s sexual power and creating a concept of an ideologically pure and intellectualised sexuality subservient to the larger revolutionary goal.
However, eros is anarchic and other women quickly rejected their narrow definition of female sexuality.
During the 80’s I mixed with an entirely different set of strong women who rejected the overly intellectualised and ideological positions of tertiary educated, leftist women – who they thought were out of touch.
MTR, through Spinifex, has now surrounded herself with authoritarian feminists and seems to be wanting to shift her ‘base’ from the religious right to a cohort of academic authoritarian feminists (Pringle, Bray, Rush). Both groups share the arrogant belief that they know best and can act as moral police. They make for interesting partners.
Btw, MTR is under the current delusion that Germaine Greer is a soul mate. If she only knew…
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Cheers Ray,
That was very informative stuff.
Confirming again,who is who behind the anonymous vitriol, and why.
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Helen Pringle appears to have the wrong end of the stick. Her argument seems to be premised upon Jennifer Wilson somehow interfering with Tankard-Reist’s freedom of speech, whereas the real position is that Tankard-Reist is the one seeking to silence a critic, and resorting to the law of defamation to do so.
The lawyers’ letters sent to Jennifer Wilson by Tankard-Reist’s lawyers could not be more blunt in the statement of intent to prevent Jennifer Wilson from exercising her right of free speech.
I will attempt to post this at ABC as well, but don’t hold your breath.
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Amazingly enough it has been published :
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/03/01/3443673.htm
I would like to hear Pringle’s explanation.
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The fact-free, anti-choice, cults on compounds, gun crazies, KKK left-overs and other assorted not-so-brights wrangled together by a young Carl Rove for the benefit of the Mega-Rich are calling who “unprincipled reasoning”
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LOL! Nice satirical piece!
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NPFS userID ‘DontSueMeMTR’, in a post on March 10, 2012 at 11:27 am to JW’s blog ‘This is not Tu Quoque, it is not, it is not’ ( https://noplaceforsheep.com/2012/03/10/this-is-not-tu-quoque-it-is-not-it-is-not/#comment-12680 ), in conclusion says:
“The fact that almost nobody else seems
to think that [MTR’s resort to defamation
law is] a big deal is infuriating.”
`
‘Don’tSueMeMTR’s assertion isn’t fully correct in terms of the overall and ongoing ‘#MTRsues’ debate, and it could be important that viewers know that that is the case.
`
It is just that Dr Wilson’s latest blog, ‘Helen Pringle’s hypocrisy’, seems to be an even more relevant place on NPFS for this post than as a reply on the original thread.
The reason the assertion isn’t fully correct is that there are two strands to the debate: the first being the Twitter hashtag timeline ‘#MTRsues’ (which gave the name to the ongoing contention), and the second being the conversation consisting of articles published in the main stream media (MSM) and on various blogs, together with, in many cases, associated comment threads. DSM MTR’s assertion is reasonably correct with respect to lead articles in the second strand, but not so with respect to the Twitter ‘#MTRsues’ strand.
It is also important to note that not only have the two strands to the debate been conducted on different platforms (Twitter, and that of the MSM and the blogosphere), but in chronologically distinct phases.
The first chronological phase was that of the period between Sunday 8 January 2012, when Rachel Hills’ article was published in the Sydney Sun-Herald ‘Sunday Life’ insert magazine, and Saturday 14 January 2012, when Jennifer Wilson publicised the fact of her having received a ‘concerns notification’ from MTR’s lawyers that related to the article ‘The questions Rachel Hills didn’t ask Melinda Tankard Reist’ that had been published on Wilson’s blog ‘No Place for Sheep’ on Tuesday 10 January 2012. During this phase there was some commentary generated, primarily in the MSM, among various claimants to the status of ‘feminist’, commentary that was initiated outside of the context of MTR having taken resort to the processes of defamation law to silence a critic, presumably because such litigious intent was not yet publicly known. This six-day chronological phase forms part of the MSM/blogosphere strand of the ongoing debate.
The second chronological phase is that following Jennifer Wilson’s publicising of MTR’s lawyers’ issue of a concerns notification in her NPFS article ‘MTR threatens Sheep with legal action if we don’t censor our posts about her immediately’, a phase commencing on Saturday 14 January 2012. It was this article that triggered the Twitter strand of the debate, one that almost immediately, by way of the informal conventions of Twitter conversations, adopted the hashtag ‘#MTRsues’ as a means to collecting most tweets on the subject into one ‘timeline’, or sequential list.
The ‘#MTRsues’ hashtag timeline strand of the debate, in contradistinction to much of that of the MSM/blogosphere strand upon which ‘Don’tSueMeMTR’s comment is perhaps understandably based, was overwhelmingly hostile to MTR’s having taken resort to defamation law in attempting to silence Jennifer Wilson.
(Thanks not so much to Twitter itself as to the third-party application TweetReports, the ‘#MTRsues’ timeline is capable of being made a matter of available record conditional upon interested persons being prepared to sign up, initially for a free trial, then subsequently for a minimum of US $9 for one month’s subscription to TweetReports, under the terms of which an archive of tweets to that timeline can be downloaded and analysed. Normally, access by ordinary Twitter users to hashtag timeline tweets for reference purposes on the Twitter platform is a limited and ephemeral thing. This link will get viewers onto the TweetReports website via the page specific to the tracking of the ‘#MTRsues’ hashtag conversation: http://search.tweetreports.com/search_results.php?search=%23MTRsues&sear=Y )
`
I cannot escape the feeling, when I look at the chronology of this contention, that all may not be as it might have seemed at first glance. It seems incredible to me that established commentators, once resort to defamation law was revealed, should have continued to publish in relation to this contention as if Jennifer Wilson and the defamation threats did not exist, as they largely have!
It is almost as if there had been a chorus of MTR supporters already organised, a literary claque, as it were, emplaced to back up what may have been intended as the opening gambit of an intensified media campaign promoting the image of MTR, the 8 January 2012 Sunday Life article of Rachel Hills. It is also almost as if there had been a parallel targeting of Jennifer Wilson by at least some involved in this seeming campaign as a perceived specific threat to its plans for MTR’s future. The expectation may have been that the lawyers’ demand for non-publication as to their concerns notice would have been met with compliance, but that when it was not a discordance with respect to the work of the postulated claque became unhideable. All the claque could do to fulfil its intended role was to proceed as if Jennifer Wilson and the defamation threats did not exist!
As time passed and more became publicly known as to the existence of defamation threats, the ‘non person’ treatment has had to morph into one of apologia for the taking of resort to this action, of which Helen Pringle’s article to which JW refers is a classic. It is interesting to note Pringle’s claim as to Wilson “seem[ing] unable to take a stand based on principle in regard to those with whom [she is] not in sympathy” in juxtaposition with Wilson’s recorded support of On Line Opinion’s rejection of calls to censor an article by Bill Muehlenberg in 2010. Pringle should have got her facts right, especially after having received a ‘heads-up’ from JW.
It would be very interesting to know the legal position that may have come about vis-a-vis MTR’s defamation threats and the subsequent revelation of her earlier attempts to pressure OLO into refusing to continue publishing Wilson, on pain(?) of MTR withdrawing submission of articles to that online journal, a threat upon which she has seemingly made good. Is there such a thing as malicious defamation litigation, I wonder?
I have commented already upon the chronological anomalies apparent in Miranda Devine’s pocket-biography of MTR, ‘Why being Christian gets you crucified’, here: https://noplaceforsheep.com/2012/01/21/entitlement-bullying-and-private-faith/#comment-11175 . When these anomalies within the Devine account are taken with others relating to the taking down of Wikipedia entries and to the evident identification of JW and NPFS as a perceived threat to MTR’s future, any claim as to MTR’s being deceitful and duplicitous constituting defamation becomes rather weak.
It should be borne in mind that one of MTR’s lawyers’ demands was that ALL references to MTR be removed from ‘No Place for Sheep’. A quick skim of NPFS reveals many, many references to MTR, even if only in the ‘tags’ line at the start of JW’s blogs. MTR’s lawyers’ call was, in effect, for the destruction of the NPFS site as a signpost for legitimate MTR-related commentary in general, rather than just for the correction or taking-down of specific allegedly defamatory material. Now why would that be important, and do other interests beyond those of MTR herself have something of significance at stake in what looks like having been an unco-ordinated impromtu ambush that may have, in any other circumstance, been expected to have taken out ‘No Place for Sheep’?
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A fine summary/chronology, Forest. I would suppose that the claque are unable to deal with the argument over the defamation threat, and that the claque is set upon its path to criticise, discredit and silence any dissenting views.
I have pricked at the united front over at ABC religion, and will continue to do so. Who knows, some of them – those with a conscience and integrity – might even break ranks.
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This is brilliant, Forrest.
Re the Twitter thing – I’ve tried to sign up several times and the damn thing won’t let me. Will continue to attempt it.
Of course now we are archived at Pandora, there’s a record of it all, not the tweets of course, but everything on Sheep in case anything nefarious does happen to the blog.
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Thanks for the info, Forrest. I only became aware of this site, JW and everything that was going on because of the defamation threat, so anything that happened prior to that had to be caught up on.
You are also correct in assuming that I have only been following the debate in the MSM/blogospere. I did sign up to Twitter in an effort to follow what was going on there, but found the whole format quite confusing. I have not persisted with it. Obviously, this has been to my detriment.
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In your last paragraph,FG, (if correct) seems to indicate that ‘someone’ is trying to rewrite history and the Google search entry would draw many blanks (when combine with Wiki laundering)if NPFS was non-existent.
It is almost impossible to believe that there are not political/media promises in the wings.
And my ‘fertile imagination'( here at the blog which contains a mix of Politics, Society, Satire, Fiction, Fun Stuff) still makes me think that there is something more Catholic,than Baptist about that.
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Sack her?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-13/abc-presenter-katter-ad/3886446?section=wa
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I think the Religion and Ethics area at the ABC needs to be renamed, to better reflect its DNA.
I’ll throw a few suggestions up for consideration.
Unhealthy Obsession
Bubble and Squeak
Padded Sell
Methane Overlord
Uneven Stephens
Stricken Soup
Pulp Friction
Wooden Skewers
(Copyright)
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I think I read the Pringle thing at the ABC site.
Not the sharpest tool on the rack, is she?
As with a number of other commentators, she’s been unable to grasp who is the injured party in all of this.
Someone above said that the religious right dont like having had the light shone into dark places, the funkholes where they’re actually skulking.
QA last night made the unhappy announcement that it has recruited a pentecostal anti pr#n evangelist, from the USA, for next week’s show.
Very orchestrated, it begins to seem..
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I can hear the cordless drill whirring the screws into the name plate on the new office door at auntys HQ.
The suspense is racing along like plasticine on carpet.
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Good point Paul,
So do you nominate Tool Box,
Tool Shed or Tools Galore or other Toolian name for the R & E site?
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Sent off a post to Pringle’s (moderated) site. Interesting to see if the owner of such an authoritarian tone allows it up.
Someone called Tony got a run; stay tuned..
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Link?
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http://theelectionreview.com/freedom-of-speech-and-harm-a-thought-experiment/
It’s the troll who came here.
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I think all dots are now fully connected JW.
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Paul over yonder you said
“You suppose Pringle means the inviolability of the zygote when she talks of the inviolability of the person, given some of the other guff she’s gone on about over time.
I take it Tony Martin could be the same”Tony” who threatened Wilson at her web site?”
(I will take the lib of responding here.I hate the idea of body lice,so I won’t be logging in over there.)
What Pringle means is that you can have freedom of speech, as long as it does not impact on, or impose on , her world view, and the sheltered lives of her orang utans and lemmings.
In other words (as she put in her Finkelstein Submission) she wants legal protection (the right to use defamation laws etc) for her and the MTRs of the world,but the rest can be silenced at will.
Read the link I posted.It has her submission.If I were the readers I’d save and analyse a copy.
Big Sister.
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Pringle a Trot? Not on the basis of anything I’ve read of hers.
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I’m sure I read it in something she herself wrote, but I can’t find it. So now I’m not so sure… Damn.
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Is this pertinent to the discussion at hand or old news?
I may have missed something?
Click to access Dr_Helen_Pringle.pdf
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When you get to the Points around ‘9’ , your neck hairs will fully erect.
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I’ve read the paper; it seems unexceptionable to me. What are your specific concerns?
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Edit:
add a ‘be’ between ‘will’ and ‘fully’.
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!@# ME!!! Two comments published in response to HelP. Someone at the ABC is asleep.
One waiting to go in as well. Have you put in a word for me Jennifer?????
LOL
BTW, tried to read her submission, but the verbiage overcame me, I had to go and lie down with a nice brandy.
I recall a High Court judge who taught me at Uniiversity would say to students ‘One line only to sum it up and no one liners in your essays for me’.
I asked him why he did not appreciate wit in essays. He said “I do my dear, but students cannot write with it, they labour over it and it shows”.
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Good one Lola. In Pringle’s paper :
“We the people have the authority to decide who comes into the marketplace and the circumstances in which they come.” (at foot of p3)
A one liner? Reminds me of someone . . .
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DQ,
Sir,Sir, I know…it’s ‘the hermit’…and, and Tony Abbott… 😉
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I was thinking of John Winston Howard, young lady. But if the cap fits . . .
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I think Scott Stephens is very interested in getting debates up at his site and attracting a wider range of readers. Nothing to do with me, Lola, but I’m glad your comments got published.
Re an earlier post – I’m sorry for the grief and loss in your life. I can’t imagine much worse for parents to endure.
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Thanks Jennifer
It could be worse – she could have turned out like MTR.
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I read a clear connection between what is said from Points ‘9’ and the referral to 2;2, as a clear connection to the current defamation scenario here.
Didn’t you?
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And read Point 3 Page 1, again
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DQ
And the last paragraph on Point 2, page 6.
I’m sorry that I don’t see this document as harmless or benign,given the conservative right are going to saturate the process with similar submissions.
look at the ongoing push at the ABC for goodness sake.
Look at their current political structure.Look at the recent/currentcommentary.
Even Holmes is in denial.
Back to Pringle
Whether we support a Bill of Rights or not, is a moot point.
We all need to know(now more than ever) who is also presenting this chaff dressed up as concern,in their ‘pretend’ power struggle to preserve free speech AND make the media accountable.
Pringle’s submission will be one of many similar ones.
Should we not keep our eyes open lest we wake up in either 1984, or worse 1956?
And notice how almost all her cherry picked justifications are references to the litigation capital of the planet.
The worst or best bits?
You decide.
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The last paragraph on point 2 (p6) does not find favour with me. She obviously has little real understanding of the equitable and tortious remedies available. However the other points you mention are the questions raised by the Finkelstein Inquiry itself, with HP’s responses in blue.
Considering that Pringle is not a lawyer by training and obviously not an expert in legal jurisprudence, she argues the John Stuart Mill approach quite well. I see no great fault in her approach or her conclusions, other than as stated above.
DQ
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Thanks DQ,
Obviously our cynicism glands are are dissimilar in size.
Perhaps if you could find some time you can scan through some of the other submissions and see if you see any Pringlesque submissions.
A second opinion would be good.It is obvious there is a lot of self ‘legitimising’ going on in the New Wave of “Authentic” feminism.
Fancing that lot lookin’ out for li’l ole me.
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Thanks for link Hypo.
At last the real agenda, an American Tea-Party style attack on Freedom of Speech, a pastime much beloved of conservatives.
For some commentators at least it seems social issues are merely a stalking horse, for another more obscured agenda.
And like Hypo, I’d see this agenda as elitist and a disturbing move toward more authoritarianism.
Take it from me, this is no Trot!
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Paul,
You will note that in the printed media submissions the fear of accountability looming has certainly bitten hard.
look at the size of the submissions docs.
Take particular heed of WA Newspapers who currently hold a monopoly combined with Channel Seven, owned by the ever expanding Kerry Stokes Empire.
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FYI
Maybe you can pick up the phone JW?
http://www.womensforumaustralia.org/_literature_40430/Body_Image_Forum
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Ummm, I don’t think so Hypo! I’d get slapped with an AVO as well.
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I don’t think so.You’d have to borrow someone else’s mean streak first.
Plenty of spare hatred and bile dripping off the anti-choice, ring leaders over at Anti.
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My gift to you.
http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/independent_media_inquiry/consultation/
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Speaking of media cover ups.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-13/brooks-re-arrested-in-new-hacking-raids/3887300
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JW
FYI Name used recently:
http://pubapps.uws.edu.au/teldir/personprocess.php?8694
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The abusive comments Tony Martin leaves make it difficult to imagine who he is. A troll, that is for sure. With a powerful hatred of me!
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Or is this him???
Tony Martin is @ ABC R + E and Pringles trough.
See “Walking Bus”
Click to access ST%20phillip%20Neri.pdf
Is this him???
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They are interesting links in their various ways. I wonder if the character mentioned in couple of them has connections with the burkes trying to hassle Dr Wilson?
It’d be typical of the ethical level of a religious conservative.
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You can see how that would p*ss off any real,Tony Martins it draws into the mix.
The TMs above are just a search with a few key words to see what popped up.
(The Troll is young female using the name.Pretty sure.)
If not and one of the TMs above is the culprit he would obviously wear it.
Opinion Forums need to have better log in/ID/requirements.
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Pringle seemed to finish her post with some fine `goose-manship` ending with Bolt. Mine, JWs, Cannolds, Pringles or anyone else`s opinion don`t really amount to a hill of beans, it`s the Judges opinion that counts. It was a court case.
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Found this Pearl of Wisdom, at the Article linked below.
Audrey Perfect · Top Commenter
For anti-choicers, life starts at conception and ends at birth.
This is what the likes of Hanrahan and the Catholic Church will get for Australia, if they have their way.
Birth or die legislation and rape by ultrasound etc.are being driven by the Christian conservative right,anti-choice movement.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/03/07/arizona-senate-passes-bill-allowing-doctors-to-not-inform-women-of-prenatal-issues-to-prevent-abortions/
We all know who the other usual suspects are.
I think its time the National Broadcaster started covering this,(as a Media, not in the Drum commentary)but we all know why they find themselves compromised severely,in this area,on this topic.
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One thing I’ve discovered, it’s pointless visiting all these bogus religiouis conservative “feministe” sites anticipating any meaningful engagement.
They are just right wing sites masquerading as feminist and its a great shame. There ARE many problems facing real people in the real world, but these and the voices seeking to explain them, are silenced and obscured through the right’s attempts to create false issues creating false consciousness and therefore prevent lack of meaningful awareness and action.
Hypo’s 10.12 post makes clear in the linked example of the eventual consequences in law of the silence/transgression technique misappropriated from genuine feminism to suppress communication. But men need take no comfort from women’s overt oppression, for the same denial of rights and information can also be applied later to them, if women are shown to be effectively suppressed.
The theft and employment of the few subversion techniques for resistance by the oppressed by oppressors is a doubly offensive ploy. It undermines not only the real victim’s capacity for expression and where necessary resistance, through the malicious reversal of oppressor/oppressed speaker positions that re-establishes authoritarian power relations between poster and moderators at conservative sites, but further, ensures the inability of victims to challenge repressive measures through logic and discourse, leaving only in the deliberate “silence”of rightist moderators, the consciousness of a remaining conservative position within which a repressive tolerant, subceptional guilt component remains for the disciplining of victims obscuring from the mind real problems and actual causes.
There is no doubt the “silence” is intended to intimidate through denial of meaningful conversation intended to shift guilt to the poster- it is a despicable technique employed by these people!
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Yes, I agree. There’s little to be gained but irritation and disappointment.
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Over at ABC religion this post sits, unanswered, at the top :
Doug Quixote :
13 Mar 2012 12:38:44am
Helen Pringle appears to have the wrong end of the stick. Her argument seems to be premised upon Jennifer Wilson somehow interfering with Tankard-Reist’s freedom of speech, whereas the real position is that Tankard-Reist is the one seeking to silence a critic, and resorting to the law of defamation to do so.
The lawyers’ letters sent to Jennifer Wilson by Tankard-Reist’s lawyers could not be more blunt in the statement of intent to prevent Jennifer Wilson from exercising her right of free speech.
Ms Pringle may have a reasonable explanation for her approach; I would like to hear it.”
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/03/01/3443673.htm
I still want to hear her explanation.
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Don’t hold your breath. There’s an article at the Drum today about Invisible Children’s religious affiliations. I’m waiting for the Pringles & Co to protest that religious affiliations have nothing to do with their arguments which should be judged on their merits, and Invisible Children are victims of an ad hominem attack.
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T (ony) M (artin)
Can you think of anyone with those initials who might really hate you, Jennifer? Stood up to any bullies with those initials lately???
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You’re so awesome! I don’t think I’ve read through a single thing like this
before. So good to find somebody with a few
unique thoughts on this topic. Really.. thank you for starting this up.
This web site is something that’s needed on the internet, someone with a little originality!
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