Considering the kind of lives many women are living on planet Earth at this time, Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s is up there in the very top level of privilege.
So it comes as something of a shock to read leading feminist Anne Summer’s piece today, in which she frames Ms Gillard as a victim. Victim of bastardry and misogyny, cruelly mocked, scoffed at, subjected to vile commentary including pornographic representation; criticised whichever way she turns, frequently on the basis of her sex, and shown “not the slightest drop of mercy or respect.”
Not only is Ms Gillard deprived of respect, Summers writes, but as a consequence of personal disdain for her, the office of Prime Minister is also inevitably disrespected.
It’s a bit rich to expect the public to respect the office of Prime Minister given the complete contempt the ALP itself showed towards this office when it was inhabited by Kevin Rudd. This disrespect was compounded when the ALP gave us no warning of their intention to topple the man who had so triumphantly defeated John Howard, and instead acted as if they were governing a nation of mushrooms.
Be that as it may…
While there is much truth in Summer’s assessment of the situation, one has to wonder if it is wise to paint the Prime Minister in such catastrophically underdog terms at this time. There will be plenty of opportunity to dissect the sexism Ms Gillard has endured after the election. If she leads her party to victory she can be portrayed as a glorious survivor of vile misogyny. If she leads them to failure, books can be written about the cruel and unfair treatment of our first female Prime Minister. But right now, nobody wants a victim in charge of a government that is already hurtling down the road to ignominy.
No matter what your opinion of Ms Gillard, I don’t think you could deny that she is a woman of extraordinary strength and tenacity, and a damn good fighter. Indeed some, perhaps all of her best speeches have been made when she’s been on the back foot, and defending herself against personal attacks. Think the globally acclaimed misogyny speech, for example, as well as the press conference she gave to settle the matter of her alleged involvement in dodgy dealings whilst working at Slater and Gordon. These are not the actions of a woman with a victim mentality. They are the actions of a survivor.
What Ms Gillard endures is sadly no different from what many women endure on a daily basis. That any of us have to put up with misogyny is an outrage, and there are many among us who live with a great deal more of it than Ms Gillard, without any of the compensations she enjoys. In view of this, while it is appropriate to point out misogyny when it so publicly manifests against a high-profile woman, it isn’t appropriate to cast that woman as a helpless victim. In the hierarchy of female suffering at the hands of the patriarchy, Ms Gillard is luckily on a low level.
I find it difficult to imagine that the Prime Minister herself would appreciate the gender card being played in this way at this time. I see no indication that she considers herself in any way an underdog, and her reaction to sexism and misogyny has been anything but that of a woman looking for mercy.
“Is mockery the new misogyny?” Summers asks.
Mockery may well be yet another form of expressing misogyny in this situation. But the sad fact is that we can’t afford to focus on that right now. Gillard is facing the fight of her political life. Far more importantly, the ALP is facing the same. Do we really want to offer the nation the picture of a victimised, bullied, vilely mocked woman as our next PM? Or should we be wise enough to keep our peace on the misogyny angle, and leave the pity party for another time?
No Place For Sheep 
Mmm… I read Anne’s comments differently. I didn’t think she was having a pity party (though I do agree I believe we shouldn’t) I thought she was saying the the overwhelming commentary had become mocking (for me I read ‘putting shit on her every action’) and that they were using it to beat her out of her PMship. I can’t say I disagree with that.
Overwhelmingly, it has become obvious to me that they don’t want her as the PM. Which is great, because it means she is doing her job!
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Am afraid, spacekidette, despite a whack of cynicism of my own as to the ALP, I must endorse your comment and sentiments.
Time for some to get a sense of proportion, perspective and context as to what has gone down the last five years.
What would the place been like if we’d elected Howard Costello or Abbott, given the example of conservative austerity governments offshore?
Hypo, Jennifer and Marilyn can carry on till the cows come home about how much better I’ll be off if I’m fortunate enough to be round to experience the pure cornucopia, abundance and unadulterated joy of having an Abbott government; the anti Gillard hysteria pulls me one way, but after Morrison again, my bs detector yearns for Julia.
And yes, I don’t mind Sanders and can disclose she is an fb friend and am more impressed with her for what I’ve got to know of her, as with hudsongodfrey there is a little more of “mellow” that seems lacking in trigger-happy younger turks ready stick their fingers in a funnel web’s hole for the sheer fun of it.
Which is not to say I am certain to vote Labor, there is Wikileaks ,the Pirate party or Greens, or even the sustainable population party depending on the polling for the seat and senate ticket I will needs must
have to fill in.
What is it some of you don’t “get”, as to what sort of governemt we will have should the Tories get in?
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Correction, Anne Summers, must have been thinking of US Senator Bernie Sanders.
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PW,
You are at serious risk of catching ‘what if fever’.
I hope for your sake it doesn’t morph into ‘reality denialasm pox’.
You have heard of Paul Howe’s haven’t you?
You did agree with Gillards ‘never ever will I support off shore processing didn’t you’?
You seem to have only one position.’Anyone but Abbott,’ no matter what Gillard/Howe do.
And you cannot see how dangerous such a viewpoint is.
Obviously if Gillard shut down the climate change dept,(which is an admission of its failure and that faux Labor is readjusting its climate change view to get the witch ditchers vote) you would support that too.
I guess what I’m saying is that you and DQ etc, are willing to admit in public that Gillard has done nothing worthy of your ire, and can do no wrong.And you are asking people to trust Gillard.Trust Gillard?You are deluded if you think the words trust and Gillard can survive in the same room.
Howe has pressed the conveyor button at Gillards cremation, by letting the AWU cat out of the bag.Gillard is about saving her job, which is to save the AWU and head off Abbott’s upcoming enquiry Royal Commission.It’s hard to imagine a more clear case of panic mode.Nothing to hide Mr Howe?
I think I can safely say we will soon see.
You keep singing Solidarity Forever brother.
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Nope, I won’t bother any more, you are like Chicken Little, the sky is falling in, the sky is falling in.
The issue is whether Abbott is a solution rather than a problem, even against a mediocre ALP.
Give me a mere head cold against the full pneumonia, any time.
You MUST stop pulling my leg- STOP it….. or I will take you for a fool.
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Head cold?
Gillard has shat in the water so many times,pneumonia is the least of your problems.
I wish I had your crystal ball.I’d use it to keep by door ajar and let the nasty boogy man out.
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And every time you accuse Gillards critics (and those not supporting her, or choosing another vote option), of being Abbott supporters, it makes you look like a right Royal tool.
And please stop insulting the intelligence of readers by plagiarising the GW Bush mantra.
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I’m hoping that Gillard will not be perceived as a victim in contrast to Abbott’s wannabe Putin shenanigans. It does no woman any good to be painted as a victim.
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JW You questioned in an earlier piece whether Gillard was legitimising mysoginy.I think you may be onto her (Howes) back up strategy.
Summers apologia says this to me :
If she is claiming the attacks on the PM are based (even partly) in misogyny,I think she devalues the word, and the cause to address it.Because in doing so,like many others she has not revisited Gillards actions and the very fact that her installation was via the boys club,who continue to drive (own) her.
You cannot possibly cry misogyny, and then engage in bedding the ACL for votes.
The whole premise has fallen at the first hurdle.
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It isn’t a premise I think Gillard would promote – I don’t think she has any interest in being seen as a persecuted woman. She knows how badly that plays in politics. And she does owe her position to the boys. She knows which side her bread is buttered & the misogyny speech was aimed at Abbott
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It will be long after she’s political dust before the current Labor camp admit she never, ever owned a premise.She,like the premises, are the sole property of the King (Queen) makers.
And I’d agree with you anyway ,this one is Summers, not Gillards.
It was obviously aimed at the shallower end of the pool.The place where the votes come cheap.
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http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/asio-says-this-woman-is-a-threat-to-security-20130301-2fbnd.html
Now this woman is a victim of Gillard’s mad race to the bottom of the human rights scrum.
It’s laughable that anyone can claim Gillard is mocked so much – look at how General little Johnny the War criminal Coward Howard was mocked for years by all and sundry.
Gillard also cannot whinge about sexism and nor should Summers, that is so frigging 1970’s.
I don’t think Jennifer or myself have ever needed to bleat victim because some boys said bad things about us.
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I wouldn’t thank anyone who listed all the awful things that were done to me without ever once mentioning how I’ve survived.
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Me either. I am strong and survived and that is all that matters.
Gillard though is a spoilt brat who claims state school education but fails to mention she went to one of the richest state schools in SA and they didn’t teach her how to even say T.
Commooonidy, negosiate, they bloody woman can’t talk.
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LOL – I had a coffee fit when I read that.
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I think you’ll find she butchers the word thusly,
‘Ga-m-yoon-iddy’
and then there’s
arkonnomee
air-jar-gay-shun
Still the only speech that matters is the one she gives last.
(The deafening sound of a ticking clock)
I’ll be recording it so we can embed it here for the worshippers to weep on.
😉
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Wannabe Putin is apt isn’t it, there’s such an obvious parallel I would have thought it was almost embarrassing.
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Space Kidette, I can’t say I disagree with it either, I just question the wisdom of focussing on this at this time. Makes her look whipped and that’s a bad look just now. What Summer’s piece lacks is any mention at all of PM’s strengths in dealing with whippings, making her look passive
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I doubt that Gillard can be held responsible for what Anne Summers may write in an article!
Sometimes a defender can score an own-goal.
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DQ
I read your whole post and this bit
“I doubt that Gillard can be held responsible”
made me think of 2 words.
Paul Howes.
Unless and until we know different.He’s calling the shots.So being ‘responsible’ is not her lot.
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Please do not create a strawman from a partial quote or a misquote.
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No I don’t hold Gillard responsible. I don’t think she would play the card Summers has.
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No-one since Howard has deserved ‘beating out of a PMship’ moreso than Gillard.
She is a pathetic marionette to Howe, who have teamed up to assume Howards toxic agenda.
There is no shortage of delusion followers and apologists for her though.
A pity there dreams will soon come crashing down.
I have never seen so many intellectuals behave like imbeciles as they struggle to defend Gillard,whilst steadfastly refusing to look at or acknowledge her actions and sleazy liaisons/deals.
At least we knew what sort of reptilian behaviour Howard was capable of, and he did get elected.whether we liked it or not.
Suddenly Gillards defenders want a rule change.
Having lost all faith in Gillard I will do what most grown ups do.Vote according to my CONSCIENCE, and accept the umpires(electors) decision.
And pu-lease peeps, stop blaming the bloody media.
Her record(or should I say Howes) speaks for itself.
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Disappointing piece from a usually excellent writer.
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Who,JW or Summers?
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Jennifer.
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I think we have to decide very quickly what matters in this election – misogyny aimed at Gillard or keeping Abbott out of the Lodge. Summers doesn’t once draw attention to Gillard’s strengths, especially her strength in withstanding whatever abuse has come her way. Instead she draws a portrait of a passive victim. This won’t help keep Abbott out of the Lodge.
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What strengths, beating up on the poor, jailing and trafficking humans without charge, denying gay marriage and equal rights for the minorities among us and having a dogwhistle as big as Morrison’s brass band?
It doesn’t take any strength to be an arsehole, it just requires the personality of an arsehole.
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You know I am not an admirer of the PM, however I do recognise the toughness she has in the face of almost universal hostility.
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Rats have tenacity too.They also spread disease and eat their young.
They have their place.
As does Gillard.Which is not leading the country.Had she chosen to lead,I’d be the first to support her, and that is how it was in the beginning, before she became true to type as per her engineering team.
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Howard and cockroaches, chokos and couch grass are all tough, doesn’t mean we want them around.
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There was that old saying, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” famously paraphrased by Dorothy Parker when challenged to use the word horticulture in a witticism. She came up with “You can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her think”.
Maybe there are parallels with what Marilyn and Hypo argue in that you can vote Green if you want but surely you can’t expect a minor party to take government?
The balance of power in the Senate and one or two voices in the house are about the most they’d reasonably hope for.
And sooner or later one of you or maybe both is going to have to concede that unlike coke, things don’t go better with Abbott!
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Sooner or later you will realise that not voting for eith Abbott or Gillard sends a message that neither is worthy of PM-ship.
But I seriously doubt it.It’s your Karma,feed it whatever shit you want.
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Well if you want to continue in that vein please be assured and an Abbott government is about as far from Nirvana as I can imagine us getting.
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Perhaps there is a pet hair trapped on the LASER head of the CD player?
That would explain this skipping.
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Oh right, so we’re up to the bit where you tell be that Julia is the antiGanesha…. please go ahead.
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Plan B
(Insert outcome here.)
………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Gillard is gone JW.
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I don’t care if Gillard goes. I just don’t want the ALP to go, and she is critical to this
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I want Labor back too.That is what I have been endless bleating.Under the Gillard regime this is not possible,because she has reversed all their progress and goodwill and Howe has told the electorate only fist waving pro-militant unionists may apply.
Not a Labor I could ever support.I’m not interested in Tea party Labor.Even between union membership periods I still upheld to fair go principle.Even to non-union workers, and unlike Howe et al, that support has/had no price tag.Despite Labor successfully occupying the centre left and profiting from it, he has told them to fuck off.And they will, and I doubt that while Gillard and he have any link to politics,that share will return.
Come election day we’ll know for sure.But personally I cannot see any magicians in the ranks.
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Exactly. That is what Hypo and Marilyn simply do not get. Roll Gillard and we might as well resign ourselves to three years of Abbott.
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And support Gillard and you endorse her(and Howe’s) world view.
You do.
I say,No thanks.
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What is the fucking difference between Gillard and Abbott?
Not a thing. Both ignorant, racist bigots. Both 10 pound poms but in Abbott’s case his cruelty to refugees can be seen in the fact that his own father was an unaccompanied child sent here to protect him from the war in Britain, Mark Dreyfus from the ALP’s father was sent the same from Germany.
Yet they all persecute and punish and torture unaccompanied children – there is NO FUCKING DIFFERENCE.
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I agree. Summers article is an own goal. Gillard is no victim, she is Prime Minister. Stormed at and vilified she may be, but she has shown strength and resilience in its face.
There are more than enough right wing lunatics and self-interest groups to attack her without the lunatic left joining the party.
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Poor, precious, gently-souled, badly-fouled, Turnbul!
I found his televised gut-wrench, retchingly gut wrenching. A call for sympathy undeserved, for piteous mercy, for justice to a crim, for equal treatment to an unequal.
Nearly puked at that performance and the puke nearly exploded with the idiotic declaration of universal love from that imbecile Elvis fan in the audience!
Pu leez, as Hypo would say! Pu leez!
I can’t understand Summers’ inability to see the contradictions she placed appositely on the same dish. People are mocking the PM unjustly, right next to a whole lot of morsels of bad failures, bad thinking, bad betrayals of anything the ALP, its members and the Parliament stand for.
The specs appeared after three years of her not wearing any in public. Suddenly her public persona has changed it would have been a trivial thing for us to make mention of them but this move has reminded us of her own defiant declaration: “this is the new Julia!”
So, is this the new, new Julia and what can we now expect of her? Will anything change?
The non-campaign campaign is very much, mock-worthy, scorn-worthy, worthy of disbelief and cynicism.
The fear-posturing of what would happen if we let the torries get in, is similarly void of legitimacy since this Govn’t has done little –so very bloody little- to distinguish it from what the torries would be doing, in almost every portfolio; and by the looks of it, when they do get in (this ALP, I mean) we will be banging our heads against a rock wall asking ourselves why the bloody hell we’ve voted the shits in and how does one get out of their Tea Party clutches.
Folk like me don’t give a stuff about what the Pickerings of this world say or do with their fantasies. I give a stuff about what is done by the Govn’t and by its leader and when I see that they are mocking me, that they are treating me with scorn and disdain, that they talk as if I don’t exist, as if I am nothing more than a moron, as if my sense of judgment must defer to theirs, then my advice to the leader and the Govn’t is to stop having sex with and by themselves in the wormy grounds of their own vicarage and begin engaging the whole country.
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Hear,hear!
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…and, in my frequent flight of academic fancy I am reminded of what Cicero thought of his Romans: “dregs” and “oxen;” and whilst I could, reluctantly, excuse a Cicero of such indiscretions, I must stop short at the thought that Gillard is a Cicero and excuse hers.
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flights…
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Tell you what,Turnbull surprised me the way he chewed someone out over Manning/ Assange/Zygier (??), I think, on QA.
I’d rather Turncow than Tony Robot most days.
Still, a nation gets the politicans it deserves, so maybe you are right that Abbott gets in, activating a sort of comeuppance mechanism or mass karma for a complacent and comfortably off people.
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Couple of links for the grown ups with analytical minds and who see politics as more than a ‘footy’ game.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/2010-rewind-as-pollies-still-play-voters-for-mugs-20130228-2f7jw.html
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/labor-must-get-to-the-heart-of-the-rot-and-its-not-all-about-obeid-20130228-2f956.html
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OM? The Twitter Gods are angry.
I doubt even the pro- Gillard camp here would declare that Gillard is being bullies would they?
If so can they point to any recent media of opposition cases of it?
And is any attempt to criticise a female PM now automatically bullying?
(She wishes)
LMGO
(laughed my guts off)
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EDIT
‘being bullied’
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I agree with JW. Anne’s complaint about the mockery is well and good but not the way she heavily hammered the gender and misogyny angle. Gillard didn’t get to where she is without knowing how to handle sexism. Her approach was to hold back until she saw an opening and hit through it for six and worldwide acclaim. She didn’t claim womanhood as a special handicap like Anne Summers wants to. It can’t do Gillard any good to go into battle with a perceived special media handicap. Pickering is a sexist old bastard but that’s his problem, not Gillards. At least, if I was supporting Gillard I’d mock Pickering, not cry foul over how unfair it is because that makes him look powerful and makes Gillard’s position look weak.
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Yep. Exactly.
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Pickering is a cretin ( yeah, yeah I know, I am too ) and Gillard did well to stop the Coalition momentum over sexism, but calling the election this early to conform with an agreement with the indies seems to have halted her own momentum. They’ve been out of step and back to defensive mode since.
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Just to clarify this point.The election ‘period’ was pre-arranged.The timing of that announcement was entirely down to Gillard/Howe and whoever else is calling the shots strategically.Both independents expressed surprise at Gillard announcing it this early, and neither asked for that to occur.
My guess is whoever faux Labor’s strategists are, they are actually working for the coalition.No-one is this inept, deliberately.
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As Bob Ellis says, never comment with out reading or viewing the subject first. So, got round to it and found, really, little to quarrel with or get upset over. Seemed much more about the media than Gillard.
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I should say this, I know what gripes Gillard’s critics, especially as to asylum seekers. Some where else someone commented today that maybe Labor should just take the hit that would could come from a significant softening on the issue, lose a few rednecks and the election and start over.
It just worries me that too big an Abbott victory might see him entrenched for much longer than a single term.
But I see the point re Labor living with themselves on this.
The conservatism within Labor alienates a lot of people. I have a friend far more Labor than me even, wondering why the government wont allow tax deductions for an ethics course in NSW- the subtext is, Labor doesn’t care about ethics and the conservative right of the party probably thinks you should go to church for ethics.
Summers herself admitted to being perplexed at their decision concerning single parent benefits, in the interview with Clementine Ford and personally am fed up with their conservative attitude to environment and the Greens.
The right faction is bloody minded enough to run the government into a crippling defeat rather than give way on certain ideological points.
Which reminds me.
Clementine Ford wrote a balanced article on some thing called the Large Labia Project in the Fairfax Daily Life section during this past week, concerning the latest and most absurd yet of the cosmetic surgery fads imported from La-La Land and the pressures women are under to fall into line, as to destructive fashion fads.
Please accept that am not trying to be funny here, its an after thought and off topic except for the connection with Ford.
This is a site that often promotes women’s issues at the intersection between medicine and mass media and so I thought I’d mention what I thought seemed reasonable comment on the wretched idea.
The media seems capable of convincing folk that shit is chocolate these days.
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Basically Summers asks “Is mockery the new misogyny?” placing the question in the context of Gillard’s Prime Ministership and the way she’s been attacked sometimes unfairly by some of her critics.
Obviously the question is meant to be rhetorical, but the answer to the question could be that mockery is probably just mockery for much of the time. Whereas just because misogyny shares a demeaning aspect with disparaging your political enemies though mockery doesn’t really make the two interchangeable.
It takes a special kind of blinkered view of Gillard as some kind of paragon of political virtue in order to find oneself interpreting every critique of her through the prism of her gender. Yet surely anyone in the “top job” needs to stand on their considerable and demonstrable merits? Not just the unerring support of those of us who think it might be nice if the lady was given a fair go.
I will of course concede that Abbott does not have to put up with nearly the same degree of bias against his gender, or any other personal attribute that is similarly beyond his control. I just don’t think you cry glass ceiling in the case of a female Prime Minister.
Of course we have to be careful that political commentary from the cheap seats doesn’t give permission for misogyny as an extension of partisan political agitation. But I presently see it as such a small percentage of the overall content of political opinion that I don’t think Summers is entitled to play the gender card on this occasion.
Anyone slightly more realistic about the situation might recognise several policy blunders along with a number of very divisive issues that plague Australian politics these days. Not everyone’s going to like a range of policies with such uneven appeal as action on climate change on the one hand tempered by human rights abuses of asylum seekers on the other. All while the central Labor tenets of economic egalitarianism through better industrial relations go begging in the middle of a two speed economic boom that yields virtually no employment dividend in most areas.
People who have something to say about those issues in a democracy have every right to express their reservations in ways that are motivated by political discontentment. It really only is when their sole criticism or an overriding theme of the way they go about it is so overtly sexist that we’re faced with sound evidence for bigotry penalising our Prime Minister for her gender rather than her politics. And only on those rarer occasions does it make any real sense to make the leap from perhaps being rather irrelevantly offended by what Summer’s rather vaguely describes as “pornographic” to offering the more egregious kind of offence that contains such indefensible use of unmitigated gender bias as to really prejudice the political debate. And it has to be at an unequivocally poisonous level to so as to demand attention, because the one thing we ought not to do around prejudices is emphasise them in any way unnecessarily. In doing so we may empower very small amounts of offence to pay exceedingly large dividends for the holders of genuinely misogynistic views.
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What I read in your post HG, is that at this time and place, the ‘means’ of politics is swamping (ruining-devaluing) the ‘end’.
This gets down to big picture stuff.We cannot ever hope to see the big picture when power hungry idiots see that holding ground for egotistical reasons should precede the greater good.And worse that they think we don’t notice and they think they will get away with it.
And this observation has FA to do with idealism.I have witnessed (as have we all) the continual ‘bastardisation’ of the term ‘I got in to make difference’ so many times.
Like millions, I was actually so naive to think that the ousting of Howard would see us find another more worthy trajectory.Paradigm,if you like.
But alas I was wrong.And it sickens me to say this failure is going to be pencilled in to either Abbott or a hung parliament.
Neither is culpable in my view.Not by a long shot.
Labor had this chance and blew it.They blew it by not standing firm when Rudd’s polls dropped.(Which was never the case.The AWU and the right were up to no good) And it is only the wet behind the ears politically, who think that result was down to ‘him’, and not down to arseholes like Howe, who knew they had no hope of controlling Rudd, and every chance of roping in Gillard to ‘walk the streets’, on their behalf.Rudd had to go.He challenged their unquestioned power to design the caucus and ministry.
I see Howe as nothing but a political pimp.He now has Julia is currently walking the streets of West Sydney.
That to me, is misogyny.
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Look I get that there’s a lot wrong with the Gillard – Howes connection. But I think you’re not only overstating Howes’ influence in this, you’re also doing the very thing that I think in the bigger picture is to be avoided. You’re calling something misogyny on a cheap pretext when for all the many valid criticisms you could have made this one merely cheapens the word misogyny by reducing it to some kind of catch all barb for myriad political calumnies.
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Well she was appointed by men for men.
How her success / failure is recorded in history will probably also be dominated by men.
So I think at some point in time the word will get thrust upon the punters.
I don’t see how you can claim I am overplaying Howes influence.
Do you consider he had nothing to do with Gillards installation, and the fact that she still has her job despite losing her way more than Rudd, and having worse continual polls than Rudd?
Really?
Have you not seen him in body guard,masculine champion, full flight?
Calling the likes of himself gutless pricks for treating Gillard as she (he) treated Rudd?
Did you see him spit chips when Gina convinced Ferguson to import slaves?
Really?
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You could say that, or you could say that she secured the confidence, first of those men and women of her own party and later of the men and women of the electorate to a sufficient degree to have been able to form and lead a government of her own merits. All while unaccountably being a woman and a ginger one at that!
What’s relevant the gender, the complexion, or just the fact that you’ve a yen for the Ruddster and a grudge against Howes?
Shouldn’t it be that parts of each are true, and that the whole if it adds up to Abbott as PM ain’t going to be acceptable if I’ve anything to say about it 🙂
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HG, This is the last time I explain it to you.
(So stop with the twisting words shit)
No I don’t want or intend to do anything to inflict Abbott on the electorate.
Whether Rudd is leader or not I don’t give a toss.It is how and who installed Gillard.(I have constantly criticised the WAY he was dumped and by WHOM)
I cannot EVER vote for a party who has enacted on the electorate,what Gillard has done,and even more so given she has done it under the Labor Party badge.
If you are so immature as to not see the toxic influence(now fully exposed) of Howe et al, it says everything about your principles,not mine.
Refresher.
Anyone but Abbott or Gillard.They are the same.Can’t be trusted and not their own person.They deliver agendas outside the scope of their support and any mandate they claim.
I expect the right to have a leader who governs on behalf of the community at large and this does not include ‘inappropriate and undue’ influence.Which goes to church,business and unions.
Note the words inappropriate and undue, and if you cannot figure out what that means ,no wonder you welcome miners designing their own taxes,and the ACL etc.
Sometimes I think you like playing the thick guy HG.Probably a fun little role play.
Please don’t.It doesn’t suit you.
And frankly I think you have a giant fecking job to do, to convince the electorate that their judgement is impaired,when it comes to Gillard.
Do you own a time machine?The easiest way to improve Labor’s minuscule chances are to ditch Gillard.I get that YOU don’t believe that,to which I simply say.The shortest possible and direct route to elect Abbott is to present Gillard.
Present away.So watch it all unfold.
As I said earlier, ^, vote for Gillard, it’s your Karma.
There is one term which will not be heard in political circles post September 14, for a clear 6 month period.
“I / we didn’t see THAT coming”
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“you could say that she secured the confidence, ****** of the men and women of the electorate to a sufficient degree ”
And can you show me the evidence of this statement?
To me she duped people early and then shat on their aspirations.
That evidence is clearly reflected in her actions.Yours I gotta see.
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That’s your whole problem I think with this issue. Whenever Gillard is mentioned it is as if the red mist descends upon you and you can’t see that the difference between having secured the confidence of others on merit or having merely duped everyone relies upon a set of facts that we aren’t necessarily privy to and which can’t so readily be asserted.
I tried to write an alternative assessment of the situation that was couched more in hypothetical language than assertions for that very reason. Because when you ask questions about what I believe as opposed to what I know or analyses I make on the facts that are available to me then I think we’re staying into difficult waters.
I think on the evidence that Gillard is not so good but not nearly so bad as Abbott would be, I make a similar assessment of where the balance between the strength of character of the prospective leaders and the loyalties of the followers lie on either side, when I regret that Rudd could no more lead Labor to the high ground than Turnbull could the Liberals.
The facts as I see them are that the Greens if they can be convinced to compromise from time to time do hold a range of progressive values that I’d very much like to see incorporated in some degree in Australian government policies. But that as a third part they just will not win in their own right, so their best chance is in coalition with one of the majors, and that ain’t going to be the Liberals and Nationals.
Maybe if you’re ever going to get past hating Gillard and one other person of questionable influence in the background then you’ll see your way clear to liking a narrow victory for Labor in the next election, possibly with Green’s support.
Bob Ellis thinks this likely on the quirky notion that we’ve had one term governments in the past and three term ones, but never ever a two term one.
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Bob Ellis appears to be a gazer extraordinnaire,By way of navel and crystal ball.
Mr Buckley has also backed faux-Labor.
That’s the problem, with this cardboard cut-out of Labor.
The cheer squad is asking for votes for a stubby holder versus voting for an ethos.
I choose ethos.Which under Gillard IMHO is well and truly MIA.
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I want Abbott and Gillard both gone, preferably back to the rocks they crawled out from under in Wales and England so we can have some proper people as leaders of our political parties.
By keeping these two contemptible bigotted racists as their leaders the parties are stating loud and clear that Australia’s in general are bigotted racists and that is not a country we want.
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I’d like them both gone too.It’s a pity Gillards supporters here are so easily sucked into supporting a name over supporting their belief system.
They take shallow personality voting to new heights.As for any fair appraisal of the 2 insidious options in front of us, by the Gillards camp, forget.Blind as bats.
By choosing not to lobby/complain/fight for real Labor they condemn themselves to a teaparty either way.It’s all too easy to vote for a person based on her number plate and live in the ridiculous hope that they can reform the vile bigotry post election.
Like you say,if reform was possible at all, why run shit scared from one tea party scammer to the other.
Their logic might stack up if there was some.It matters not,anyway,because Gilly is a goner.By the end of next week the blow flies will be swarming.
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I think you are alluding to the political process taking on a life of its own hudsongodfrey and I think you’re right.
Why indeed is the truth such an enemy of large sections of media, with proprietors and shareholders egging on the process, as likely beneficiaries.
They no longer report the news they make it and god help you if your appointed part is poisoned, as the Notw scandal involving Murdoch’s victims demonstrated and more recently the suicided nurse demonised over princess Kate’s morning sickness- and perhaps the two twits who pulled the stunt and got the blowback that was intended for someone else, as well as that nurse.
You are what they say you are and never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
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Well perish the though that the only life left in the poor old political process was sustained purely at the behest of the MSM. The growing number of punters willing to believe anything but may seem encouraging, but it is sadly yet to be proven that many corners of the alternate so called new media contain anything besides various flavours of ill moderated extremism and conspiracy theories.
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All possible,but Gillard has not had any unfavourable press lately,which was /isunwarranted.If anything quite the opposite.
Not enough probing.Billions $ for power stations in Vic for one.
Shutting down the Offices of the Dept Climate Change, for another.
And no the media is not probing into Abbott’s policies enough either.But FMD Gillard is not being treated unfairly at this stage by anything other than her own record of failures and suspect alliances.
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“..Gillard has not had any unfavourable press lately”.
That is a breathtaking statement, my friend.
Please explain.
But on your other criticisms I’d be doing you and me an injustice if I didn’t mention the same horror I feel as your self as to how our system has sold out on
(some of, more to come ) the most basic tenets of what constitutes a civil society and civilisation.
It’s just I think we are an “occupied” society and the only choice perhaps does relate to which faction of collaborators we endorse by plebiscite.
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Only to be outdone by your breath taking foot in mouthedness.
By unfavourable press, I mean as per the earlier times when she was copping unfair and one sided pro Abbott chaff.Which if you actually care to recall I also acknowledged when it occurred.Times have changed but your myopia has not.
Any ‘bad press’ she gets now is far more balanced and appropriate to her actions.
If anything the MSM gas softened on Gillard.They still have not applied the blow torch to Abbott, as they should.
Don’t look now but your AWU stubby holder is in full view.
You know I support neither version of the 2 current tea parties, so please let’s resist the urge to justify voting for Gillard, over and over again.
Just take me on my word, if you can manage it, that I am no supporter of Abbott or Gillard, and I think I can mange to struggle my way on election day to pave the way forward for sleeping with a clear conscience.
If Labor wakes up its self created nightmare I’ll revisit my voting intentions, but it looks like they would rather die a thousand times at a massacre, than blush once, in any genuine attempt to survive on their hard fought principles.
I gave Gillard a fair go.She abused it.
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Here pw,
Especially for you, to prove there is no media conspiracy.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-04/inflation/4551592?section=justin
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-04/job-advertisements-in-australia-hits-five-month-high/4551586?section=justin
Oh yeah, and please don’t tell me it’s only the ABC who tells the truth.Or I’ll chuck up all over you.
PS It is being reported all over the media.
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Another issue of note : do any of you think Abbott would have a Royal Commission (effectively) into the Roman Catholic Church? It is disguised in the terms of reference, but that is what it is. A former friar came out today and said that half the priests are homosexual if not more. Now to me that is not a crime, but the RC Church teaches that it is a sin: buggery, sodomy or whatever they want to call it. A fine hypocrisy.
A recent Lateline interviewee pointed out that the international average is that 6% of priests are paedophiles – in every archdiocese around the world. The numbers seem to be considerably higher in the Newcastle/Maitland diocese.
Now Abbott cannot stop the Royal Commission. Once commissioned it goes until it gets to its natural (or unnatural) conclusion, but he can bury/ignore the findings and help his mates in the RC Church to limit the damage.
Do you really want Abbott PM? I certainly do not. At any price.
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I doubt Abbott would have called a RCom.
The TOR of Labor’s RCom is full of holes, so let’s not get too chest thumpy about it quite yet.
” Do you really want Abbott PM? I certainly do not. ”
No.
But in the end, the chance of him being PM is purely down to faux- Labor, and the gimps who call the shots.What a pity.
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I know, its a bit tangential to the blog post, but this is the point in time where it all came out into the open with respect to Julia, so far as the public were concerned. Just in case you had not seen it, Jennifer, given that you know I KEA:
https://twitter.com/greenat16/status/305986427148189696
Interesting, too, that that Twitter entity ‘@SandraEckersley’ has Zeroed in on The Beanie Kid, ‘@greenat16’ ‘s interest in the Assange ‘sextradition’ matter. Interesting, too, to see how little informed ‘@greenat16’ is as to how BOTH alleged complainants cases can be seen to have collapsed from information supplied by the Swedish authorities themselves to the UK Supreme Court appeal hearings into the extradition. See: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5317#146026
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No.
This is right on topic.
The Australian public ordered beef meatballs in good faith , and we ended up with a poor equine substitute, which risks our well-being.
Please can we have Labor meatballs made with genuine red blooded beef, as we ordered?
Cheers.
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Forrest Gumpp, that is a huge thread there, comprising informed people such as your self and a motley collection of rednecks,the uinformed and prigs on the other. If only I felt better today, I’d read the lot now and get back.
As you probably already know, I am convinced that Assange has been set up by fascists who resent their outrages being identified, but that for another time.
As for Sandra Eckersley, could this be one half of a well known academic couple who specialise on Ecology? Smart cookies, I’d think.
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Eckersley keeps writing endlessly that Julian Assange is a man charged with vicious rape and the moron letters editors keep publishing the lies.
I think letters editors should show more sense and not publish lies.
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Ahhh, as one lives and learns. Wrong Eckersley?
Thanks for that Marilyn.
You new site has a foul, idiot password system, so thank them if I don’t bother with them .
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Robyn Eckersley was the person I was thinking of, these people are progressives, not contrarians.
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(hugs for Marilyn), xxx.
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What nonsense Marilyn. I merely assert Julian Assange should stop conflating Wikileaks with his own domestic sexual assault case. I agree entirely with Alex Gibney on the fall of Assange to hubris. I recomment the new Wikileaks documentary.
Oh and Robyn was ahead of me at school but same school.
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/18/alex_gibney_julian_assange_has_become_like_those_he_despises/singleton/
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Well ahead.
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Good to read in today’s Guardian, Oliver Stone visiting Julian Assange. He, too has the brains to recognise the smear campaign for what it is.
Btw, MS, thanks for the heads up, but play nicely, please?
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Ahahahahahahaha! Ikea! Even with the horsemeat!
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Okay Forrest! How do you embed the image? I really would like to know.
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Me too,
for windows .
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HG,
Under Ubuntu Linux, my OS, I just right-click on ‘Expand’ (for example) on a tweet on the Twitter platform, then select ‘copy link location’. I then left-click the tab in which ‘Sheep’ is up, and insert the link with a middle-click into my ‘Sheep’ posting pane.
Initially, I just see the text of the link appear within my ‘Sheep’ post.
Then I post any amplifying comments before clicking the Sheep ‘post comment’ button. Twitter and/or Ubuntu Linux does the rest. Then the embedded image of the tweet, or Twitter conversation, as the case may be, appears.
But not always. Sometimes one only succeeds in posting a link to a Twitter conversation, rather than getting an embedded image of the tweet in question.
Linux and Windows are in many respects subtly different.
I hope this explanation helps.
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Faaarrrkkk!!
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paul walter,
I was asked, you know. There are, in my view, far too few questions genuinely asked of others in blog comment threads. Such can be a big part of engagement. I just wanted to do my little bit to encourage engagement, and on a non-politically-contentious matter at that.
Did you know Graeme Kennedy, BTW?
Hypo,
Whilst I do have Windows XP Pro in a partition on this computer, it is literally years since I have used Windows. Sorry if I have been of no help re the embedding of tweets on Wordpus under Windows. There is probably a how-to somewhere on the Twitter or Wordpus sites, given Windows relative ubiquity in the digital scene.
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Good morning Forrest.
No, I never knew Graeme Kennedy, but I would have loved to have been acquainted with his bank account. He could be authentically and side-splittingly funny- rest peace Graeme!
Have a nice day and thanks for the links and often deeply thought out comments over time.
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What nonsense. Hard to see how and when I have ‘zeroed in’ on the Beanie Kid but my few interactions have found him generally extremely well informed. The Swedish case is far from collapsed regardless how much Julian Assange may pretend it it. He is a master of spin.
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/18/alex_gibney_julian_assange_has_become_like_those_he_despises/singleton/
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Sandra,
You’re a day late and a dollar short to be posting on this, but I do think that the title of the film that the article is about is quite prejudicial. After all the popular notion that Wikileaks are hackers and have themselves stolen any of the leaks that they published is categorically denied. They claim to be a media organisation and it is yet to be shown that they are anything but that.
Secondly you’ve claimed elsewhere that Assange is conflating Wikileaks with the allegations levelled against him. He is clearly claiming that the sexual assault accusations are only levelled as a means to frustrate Wikileaks’ operations, and that the Swedish insistence on pursuing his extradition is designed to put him at risk of being extradited on to the United States. Either could be true, but clearly the impasse could have been resolved by questioning Assange via a video link such as Skype and then advising their intention either to formally charge him or drop the case.
There are all sorts of cases to be made for the view that Assange isn’t a saint, but if they are false then how one can have sexual assault charges levelled against them and avoid discussion of them leading to questions that are a lot like “when did you stop beating your wife?”
I’m yet to find anyone who likes Wikileaks but happens to hate Assange in a way that is genuinely unbiased, and I think that’s a problem for the way we approach his public image as well as Wikileaks’. Who we blame for that is likely to be divided along similar lines and to attempt to separate the two in a way that denies the main rationale he’s offering for his behaviour in taking refuge with the Ecuadorians would seem wilfully ignorant of the facts.
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Sweden is not about Wikileaks. That is the whole point. After much research Alex Gibney, a big fan of Wikileaks, came to become disillusioned about the way Julian Assange has conflated his own personal situation with Wikileaks as a way to avoid facing up to four serious allegations of reckless sexual behaviour that deserve investigation.
The name of his film “We Steal Secrets” is based on a FBI statement and is designed to be ironic in the same way Gibney’s earlier film Enron: The Smartest Guys In the Room was not actually suggesting that was actually the case.
Alex Gibney is one of the finest activist filmmakers out there. His take on how Julian Assange changed in the global spotlight should be considered as insight rather than attack.
Julian is using the goodwill of Wikileaks as a shield. This is wrong. Standing aside from Wikileaks while the investigation was concluded would have safeguarded Wikileaks from any ‘collateral damage’ yet Julian has chosen to bring the organisation down with him as he steadfastly refuses to accept the verdict of now five court hearings across two countries.
Sweden has not extradited anyone to the US for a political, military or espionage charge in over 50 years. It is a haven from the US. Exhibit A
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-04-25/world/38817504_1_extradition-treaty-ana-belen-montes-indictment
How Assange presents the legal facts about the Swedish case and the reality is quite divorced. Why he choses to lie is of some interest & concern given his role as a transparency activist.
Fact is Julian Assange applied for residency in Sweden a month AFTER Brad Manning was arrested and any sense of Swedish collusion with the US was only invented after two of his ex lovers complained to police about his reckless behaviour.
His claim he waited in Sweden to be questioned is a nonsense as while he was interviewed once there he was then uncontactable & left Sweden the day before a firm date had been set with his lawyer for an interview.
He promised to return but then didn’t.
The UK cannot extradite someone for mere questioning & Assange knows he is now the English equivalent of charged.
It has now become a game of face saving as false information is circulated to help the true facts being avoided with more and more hypothetical spin. There remains no evidence that the US can charge Assange with any crime.
Julian Assange needs to face up to Sweden, drop the circus and get on with his life.
http://samtycke.nu/eng/2013/02/swedish-legal-facts-why-mutual-legal-assistance-wasnt-used-in-the-assange-case/
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Sandra,
I don’t accept the conflation line that you’re running here. The well founded fear of persecution that Julian Assange has managed to convince the Ecuadorians of is based upon the contention that he is at risk especially if the US get their hands on him. This is not at this late stage a matter that can be disentangled from the sexual assault allegations. The two are linked by the fact that has been the rationale behind the measures he has taken to avoid what otherwise boil down to very insubstantial matters.
You may wish to assert that Assange made the whole thing up, but clearly over the journey his concerns have been shared by others in the light of what is known to have been done to Manning and reports of a possible grand jury. Either interpretation is open to question, but I submit that if it were my life or liberty at risk then I would probably be equally unwilling to surrender myself to the unknown.
What I am questioning here is not the letter of the law but the content of the justice that it delivers. Nothing that has occurred here has the appearance of treating minor matters lightly but rather of a disproportionately concerted effort to frustrate Assange’s efforts as the leader of Wikileaks to speak truth to power.
To my mind it is what his continued liberty represents in the face of authorities’ wishes to present a credible threat when challenged that need to be prioritised here.
We need to be far keener on saying that a military that puts 30mm cannon shells through journalists and children has more of a problem than some public figure with dodgy bedside manners.
But I wouldn’t argue that two wrongs make a right, and would greatly prefer to see Assange face down those charges and hopefully clear his name. Unlike you though, I’m too sceptical that this race is fixed to harbor any real hope that it could occur.
What I think would help the situation are public announcements by interested parties that would set the tone for the greatest possible fairness and accountability going forwards with this. The Swedes to publicly set a deadline for Assange to submit to interview without requirement for prior extradition.The Swedes could then if they choose to charge him appropriately reveal both what the charges and range of penalties might be. Lastly, and I think this is most vital, the US should provide dependable reassurances to Assange that they do not intend to level charges now or in the future against him in relation to matters connected with Wikileaks activities.
I know you and the author of one of your articles contend otherwise, but this appears to be one Swede’s version that in terms of the need for clarity and accountability is critically absent from the public record of events. What would be wrong with doing any or all of the above?
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If Julian Assange had any real evidence the US was in conspiracy with Sweden to extradite him to the US (ignoring fact this would break a 50 year tradition of protection) then why didn’t Assange present it to the UK courts to explain why he shouldn’t be extradited to Sweden?
Then lets look at what he is accused off. How can anyone say this sounds like a set up?
After leaving Sweden Julian said nothing about any US-Swedish plot to extradite him. He just seemed angry that he was being called to account by women. He also said the sex case had actually benefited Wikileaks financially by raising his profile.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9309000/9309320.stm
Julian Assange has waged a full blown media war on Sweden denouncing practically every aspect of their society. Being seen to be helpful to such a now divisive figure is unrealistic & unpopular. Sweden will now do everything exactly by the book. No favours.
As such a big celebrity there was of course some bungling in the case initially as people jostled to take a look but now the gloves are off. The case must proceed as otherwise their will be community outcry that he has just been let off. Scrutiny will make it impossible to be anything but a fair procedure.
Much said about what happened has been found to be invented by people with vested interests. Like Craig Murray.
http://samtycke.nu/eng/2013/02/is-former-ambassador-craig-murray-a-media-seeking-liar-or-just-a-pathetic-researcher/
The conspiracy theory itself is so far fetched it could only have come from someone with paranoia born of moving 37 times before the age of 14. While I can see how Assange believes it after a life on the run, why others do is a mystery.
As for Wikileaks. Assange antics have resulted in fact the whistle blowing site is now effectively dead.
Shame.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4267942.html
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She still after Assange? What is the GRUDGE, with these people?
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No grudge just a commitment to exposing hypocrites who claim to be truth advocates while lying, ignore women’s rights, take advantage of people’s wish to make a better world and use a propaganda army to vilify critics.
Read the links above. You might learn something new.
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I don’t think it is a grudge as opposed to a different understanding of the facts. Based on Sandra’s response to your jibe I’ll add a few thoughts I omitted earlier since there seemed to be inadequate justification for arguing the proportionality issue in this case.
So… I agree that the women in question have the right to recourse. But this has by now involved a very large expenditure for what appears to be a very minor crime. And that concerns me somewhat in terms of what motivates Swedish authorities to take it to this level on this occasion whereas I find it impossible to believe that they would do so for any less publicly scrutinised individual. If an argument is to be advanced that an example needed to be made of this person then the example is I think a poor one.
What we have here are cases that might best and hopefully most neutrally be described to have involved lapsed consent. In other words there was consent at some proximate earlier point and then at some later point the nature or number of instances of sexual penetration changed and consent either was or should have been understood to have been withdrawn. The nature of the offence is not such as to cause a very high degree of injury to the women who now see themselves as victims of an injustice that certainly exceeds mere insensitivity but involved neither violence nor even force. There is a violation of trust that is in question and an abuse of another person that if proven certainly does consist of a kind of assault.
Nor does it dignify the comparison to place a monetary value on dropping the case if the accused refuses to cooperate and the expense becomes too great. It may however be instructive to think of how many people’s greater suffering such a large amount of money might have alleviated. I think in those terms then the Swedes might well be called upon to justify the lengths to which they’ve gone to pursue their high profile suspect here.
It is because of that I seriously question what greater good Sweden is trying to pursue in taking the course of action that they have, and if the only reason or motive for so doing is to serve officiously to uphold a legal principle.
I’m aware that some have difficulty in believing that Assange’s fears in relation to Sweden and the US exist outside of his imagination and those of his supporters, but frankly nor do I believe the Swedes aren’t pursuing this well beyond reasonable limits.
And it is with all of that in mind I mean only to add to the calls I raised earlier to provide reassurances to Assange in this case. He is clearly in a position that is highly compromised by any false accusation of rape that may be levelled against him and additionally supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.
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No jibe, hudgod: a genuine question, expressing genuine exasperation.
It’s not a game- a person’s life has been ruined because of this unprincipled campaign against Assange.
I don’t accept that it’s a “different perspective”.
I see it as a deliberate ignoring of evidence based on personal prejudice.
If I am wrong about vindictiveness and psychosis, I’ll go heave.
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Sorry, google problem, Paul Walter
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computer prob after outage. Paul Walter
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Someone is definitely Paul…. I doubt that anyone is truly innocent in all of this but it is one of the less edifying incidences of what appears to be political chicanery that we’ve seen of late.
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I would say there is little doubt as to Julian Assange’s (at worst relative, probably absolute) innocence, against the knowing lies of the Butlerites on the one hand and rightist politicians and msm, on the other..
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Thanks hg for the incisive comments on condoms, rebellion, judicial matters, to Jennifer for the blog, and on Swedes. And speaking of Swedes and other vegetables, I take myself to a nunnery for 3-4 months each year as a gardener, to relieve the incumbent, on the border of the old West and Stasiland in Germany, every northern summer/autumn. And you ain’t met more assertive feminists than German nuns , believe me. I am off next week. doug may feel I am off 24/7. I have learnt much on the musings of all on this blog, as a rightist, and hope I understand the manifest hurt expressed as anger by the many posters, and the knowledge, argument, humour and sense of you on the left/feminist side of thought. Life and arguments are so, so, complicated and as another said on the blog, proportion and perspective are essential. From my conversations with the sisters, in past years it was no better in Stasiland. As Socrates said “Be as you wish to seem.” If I may, I will re login on my return.
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It is so uncivilised of German Nuns to lack internet but I’m sure you’ll find some way to make amends upon your return 🙂
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Sandra Eckersley,
My apologies for not having responded to you earlier here on ‘Sheep’. I’m taking it that your tweet (embedded below) in response to an earlier one of mine to Twitter userID ‘@Greenat16’ on 3 March 2013 is related to your comment of May 20, 2013 at 4:47 pm, on this blog.
It is to be noted that you were not a direct addressee in my tweet of 3 March to Twitter userID ‘@Greenat16’, but that is no problem as it has to be taken that a tweet, once tweeted, is in the public domain for all to see and link to, if they either see it in time (as an ordinary user) or have some privileged access to the archive of the Twitter platform that enables them to see it much later than any ordinary digital mortal could. As Twitter user Anna Ardin, from Sweden, found out, at significant cost to her own future credibility, in mid-August 2010, after deletion of some tweets from her account.
I share your view as to The Beanie Kid (‘@Greenat16’) being “generally extremely well informed”. That was why I was a little surprised at a seeming unfamiliarity with some of the background to the Assange matter revealed in some of his tweets at around that time, now nearly three months ago. Then I had to remind myself that, given the virtual MSM blackout in Australia with respect to reporting on the Assange matter, The Beanie Kid may well simply have been uninformed in this particular area.
My apologies if my use in the tweet of the term ‘zeroed in’ carried any derogatory connotations for you, but I have observed elsewhere your fairly pro-active approach to attempting to make this cause all about Assange and some alleged sexual improprieties that may, or may not, have been committed, or complained of, in Sweden nearly three years ago. That is not to dismiss such concerns in a general sense entirely, but I think it is not as yet widely enough recognised that the deliberate coupling of allegations or inferences as to sexual improprieties has come to be a modus operandi of an off-the-clock intimidatory US prosecutorial overreach that has come to be one of the hallmarks of the ‘War on Terror’. It is precisely because concerns as to sexual proprieties are so widely and genuinely held throughout the community that the coupling of allegations (Assange) or inferences (Rolf Harris, Brian Howes) are seen as being so effective in anaesthetising public opinion to the end that a much greater abuse of process taking place may be overlooked.
Just to clear the air between us, let me say that I now understand the reason for your questioning, in a now deleted tweet, ( https: //twitter.com/SandraEckersley/status/337400236626550786 ) as to whether I was userID ‘paul walter’. See:
I had not noticed your other comment to a ‘Sheep’ thread, and paul walter’s response. That is a bit of a problem with the WordPress blog format, that one cannot see indicators of more than the eight most recent posts that have been made.
Good to see you engaging in discussion of this most important matter outside of the limitations of Twitter.
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Look, for Christ’s sake.
Let’s DROP this bullshit as to Assanges persecution being anything BUT political.
I mean, after all this time…just a skerrick of honesty?
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Well if it’s not inherently political then it has certainly been politicised, so that one cannot decouple the two halves of the issue without addressing them in order of priority from biggest to smallest. The political threat on Assange needs to be removed for the matter of whether a sexual assault to be credibly resolved.
If the political threat isn’t removed the message that the Swedes are actually sending to women seeking recourse over other sexual assaults in their country is that some high profile cases are more important than others. Do you think it represents a credible threat to other perpetrators who are wondering whether to jump on a flight to London knowing that the lengths prosecutors have had to go to in fruitless pursuit of this cannot continue indefinitely for an indeterminate number of less well known cases? This case has irrevocably damaged Sweden’s reputation for justice by undermining their sense of proportion.
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It is political and from two trajectories, not just the straight Tory political one.
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Yes I suppose so but then we’d just be using language at odds in a way that while it does better to reflect the complex realities but kind of obfuscates the simpler point that I was trying to make in drawing a proximate distinction between a legal issue and a political threat.
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Well you and I are able to do that, the Assange example fails both on legal and at various political levels.
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Presently in Abu Dhabi, on my way to Berlin, pulled over for wearing an old beloved teeshirt with logo “Go Israel”. A rather stern moustachioed man is roaring at me. A very pleasant Irish lady says that as I am in business class all should be OK. Language has deserted me. I, at this moment have more in common with my flint ancestors, than the Renaissance.
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Okay well stay safe and see if you can’t find a better T-Shirt to wear in Abu Dhabi. 😉
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As ye sow, so shall ye reap.
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LOL !
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It appears gumnut was last seen being followed by two large men “of middle-eastern appearance” carrying machetes.
RIP.
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Then there is the NBN. A matter close to all our hearts, which Abbott would stop if he could, and hand over responsibility to private enterprise (read transnational telcom companies) who would bring in high speed broadband, sure enough, to the capital cities where they can make money; tough luck for all the regional centres, if they are lucky the government might pick up the tab in 2025 or so, if they are lucky.
Abbott plans to save billions; guess where some of the billions will come from?
Abbott PM? Not at any price.
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Have anyone told you that dead horses feel no pain,yet?
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And make wondrous ‘burgers.
Also, the horse’s douvers, great with olives and cheese on a Jatz.
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Then again we could have a Pitiful PM party: Yesterday’s champers, sunnies in frames that echo Julia’s specks, desiccated s(h)nags, dill pickles, murtadella, figs for the sycophants…
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Mate, you’re gunna need more figs.
And I was thinking if they minced Gillard soon, they could chuck her in a cave and she can do a spectacular comeback at Easter.I am sure DQ and a couple others would accept her as the second coming.
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I think Jennifer’s nailed it: “…a damn good fighter. ”
Wouldn’t Mademoiselle Gillard make the most excellent General of the Armed Forces? Perhaps it’s a shame we’re not a military dictatorship. Then we’d get to see her operating to her full potential.
On Anne Summers – while I’m a bit undecided about the merits or otherwise of whoever-we’re-talking-about being portrayed as a victim, I have to say that my misogyny-radar has been continually blipping quite insistantly of late.
But then, nobody from the Mardi Gras came over and kissed me last night, but the older and less attractive guy standing next to me got kissed three times!!! So perhaps you could say my interpersonal-niceties radar is a little sensitive…
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Misogyny is when someone hates women, not merely disagrees with them.
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That’s about the shape of it, Waul Palter!
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Which raises the question, what if the roles were reversed?
http://leserrancesdamandine.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/quand-elles-abusent.html
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Not sure, but by golly some sweet peaches there…vive la difference, or is that differance..
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I want to discuss the issues; all I get is the same old shit from Hypocritophobe.
That commenter has posted the same content hundreds of times on all threads and it is wearing just a little thin.
Discuss the issues! This is not the Daily Telegraph.
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As opposed to your stellar excuses and rebuttals?
Gillard is doing a great job?Hahaha.
If you stop apologising for her ,I’ll stop reminding you what you should stop defending her for.
Deal?
She has till this time next week and you know it.
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Discuss the fucking issues!
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Topic Title
“Now is not the time to have a pity party for the PM”
Stop the party then.
Now here’s my 2 bobs worth.I agree give her no pity, show her no mercy.End her career as quick as we can.
Just be careful not be too nice to Tony in the process.Explore all voting options and go with what is the mortally right thing to do.Forget the two big tea parties.
Vote with a big picture view.
Bury both of the tea Parties this election or it will be too late.
Happy now you first class dummy spitting sook?
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No. Discuss the issues!
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““Now is not the time to have a pity party for the PM”
Try to stay on topic and in control.This is not the Drum or Ellis.
Where you can chop and change your pseudonym an infinite amount.
Each time you post you sound more and more manic.
Any minute now your home made London bint alter ego will start screaming expletives.We’ve all been there before MR Melting Butter Mouth.
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Do we need a sandpit like they have at Quiggin, for stoushes?
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No we need less apologists who are unwillingly to look at the basic facts and the repercussions, thereof.
How Gillard got in.
Who put her there(and maintains that situation, on her behalf)
And what price the electorate will play, as she pays pack her debts to those who installed her.
I cannot even get some of the loudest fans to examine anything at all about Gillard.
And I believe we need smarter people who know how the voting system works.
Tired of the two choices chorus.
We had two choices last time did we not?
And according to the Gillardists everything is honky dory.
I say the punters disagree.Vehemently.
In a week,maybe ten days the dummy spits here will end as the final straw does it inevitable thing.
Anyway I’m right on topic. so I aint off to any sand pits or sin bins.
If DQ wants to, he’s welcome to.He can make old Bob a mud (humble) pie while he’s there,so he chow down when Barnett gets back in.
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Courage and patience, Hypo! Couragio! Coraggio e pazienza!
It ain’t gonna be easy because the poor Greens get no press of any value and lots that’s downright foul! And that ain’t gonna change any time soon, alases and molasses!
And the hoi polloi have been used to simple choices: Woolies or Coles? Black undies or white? Libs or Labs? See, good ol’ simple stuff. Some might say it’s simplistic stuff but then, alases and molasses, they’re in the minority.
So, when someone can’t understand exhortations like “look at the big picture” it’s because they wanna know which of the two ding-a-lings you’re gonna vote for. The notion that there are other permutations that one can put together than those listed on the How To Vote card, doesn’t enter their heads.
They want a choice of two! Only two! The ones they’ve been voting for all their lives. So tell them Hypo, which ding-a-ling they should put their numero uno! Stop being so bloody obtuse – and unsimple!
Zeus help me!
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I think that those who ‘simply want Gillard’ are simple enough to vote Labor 1.And believe me, I want them to.I really do.I want to know who the DFs are who want to destroy real Labor.
So,
(and here’s the irony) There is no better way to get rid of Gillard /faux Labor than to say,
All those who believe in Gillard Vote Labor 1.
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So to translate, we don’t so much need a sandpit as a molasses-wrestling ring? Sounds good to me!
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There’s more than enough sickly sweet treacle, oozing from the orifices of the apologists.molasses is totally unnecessary.
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Next issue : Health
Abbott was once health minister. His idea of exercising his discretion was to cause additional abortions by refusing to allow RU486, the so-called morning after pill. Why? Probably because to allow its wide usage would be to “encourage” sexual activity outside marriage, without the Catholic guilt and the real fear that the woman might get pregnant.
Expect Abbott to impress his twisted Catholic morality in health welfare and anywhere else it can be applied.
It will inform and infect Liberal policy for the next decade.
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Yes I wouldn’t be surprised Doug. Certainly that was the case with Howard, who essentially played the numbers is quite an unprincipaled way, but left enough space to slip in a few little fixes for his own personal bugbears. One that I remember working on in particular was to discourage divorcing couples by forcing them to undergo counselling directed specifically at encouraging them to stick together (c’mon c’mon). Somewhat contrary to the whole idea of counselling…
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Unprincipaled? Oh whoops, just to clarify I’m not referring to that pasty William or his ruddy half-brother.
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Yes, this was the start of this unprincipled politics, although you could say it was paralleled by the rise of the NSW ALP Right, complementary to contrarian neolib Toryism, both spreading out from NSW like a cancer, post industrialisation and multiculturalism.
It has been exclusively the politics of unself-reflexive self interest, prejudice, knee jerk reaction and valorised denialism, fuelled by and fuelling “ressentiment”, as the French pomo’s describe it.
So, back to a sort of dark ages we go, like classical Athens after its Golden Age, as a deteriorating barbarocracy based exclusively on fear, ignorance and hate.
Howard and Keating tinkered with it, Howard entrenched it and Labor and Abbott between them have, criminally, have kept it going, already so ignorant, fearful and arrogant through it, as to never have the guts or even notion to consider its origins and basis and even confidently proclaiming Feudalism to be the natural order, in the case of Abbott and the religious right.
A culture turning senescent before our very eyes, as Karl Marx might have predicted.
Both Hypo and DQ are right, and wrong, in different ways. They are polar opposites on this but I think the truth is somewhere between.
It could be that the divorce counselling antic, a hallmark stunt of reactionary TeaParty type “thunking”, has a bastard offspring in the imbecile decision last week to deny tax concessions for ethics classes in NSW, whilst allowing them for religious instruction.
Aggressive conservatism- a process that will speed up under an Abbott Government- but WHAT has happened to the ALP, that it would even countenance such an obscurantist policy?
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I see you’ve given up.
“Expect Abbott to impress his twisted Catholic morality in health welfare and anywhere else it can be applied.”
Can’t say i blame you.
So my question to you,is who will lead Labor after the massacre, and how will they rebuild?
I cannot expect you to name the shadow cabinet,because quite frnakly Howe and Gillard have condemned some very good ministers to oblivion.
I’m easy if the engagement is too painful, but I am well on topic.
Although how Howard’s health policy is is something you might explain better.Can you give us a clear comparison of what the current Lib policy is V Abbotts?
I mean surely she have gone over it all with your fair minded fine toothed comb?
And if your courage returns DQ, can you enlighten viewers on where you stand regarding Howe?
Do you support him unequivocally?
Are you a Labor member?
A union member?
A union lawyer?Hmm.
Do tell.Why not one single criticism of Gillard and Howe?
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Who is this Howe person you keep talking about? Apologies but I don’t have TV, and the the only meaningful reference the Google machine turns up is an obituary for a Betty Howe Gillard who died in 2006.
And what’s wrong with giving up anyway, when there’s apparently very little conceivable alternative? I would suggest that the choice of leader psot-election is going to be contingent on whoever keeps their seat.
In which case, perhaps everyone’s favourite ventriloquist dumy Antony Green might be a good person to ask – and he might even be able to tell you who’s hand is up the most likely person’s back.
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Only a shit stirring brain dead moron would claim to have no knowledge of Howe,then claim to have no TV and do it while basking in the full glow of the infinite possibilities of internet search engines.
But go ahead.Frame yourself.
On second thoughts,let me assist you,
http://lmgtfy.com/
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How rude!
Well let me just say that I’m not the slightest bit interested in the petty maneuverings of some union official. These people are simpering by nature and it’s usually entirely possible to predict what they’re going to say to any given audience before they even open their mouths, and as such their support is treated in the same way as a rock star treats a groupie. Meanwhile, the fact they’re rorting their own members is merely an act of biting the appendage that feeds them – which might feel good at the time, but which is ultimately deleterious. Poor form, but understandable, such is the human condition.
Thus I wouldn’t think it was unrealistic to claim that Abbott was taking advantage of the recent scandals to bash the union movement as a whole. Why wouldn’t he?
Well, if he truly believed in free and efficient markets he might think twice about that. Aren’t unions an intrinsic part of an efficient market? If other interest groups, like the big miners for example, can negotiate as a collective, then why can’t workers?
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There, you see!
You thought I was the rudest person you had encountered, but the Hypocritophobe asleep, is ruder than I am awake, in a month of Sundays.
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Thanks pw.
A compliment from a back-peddler is the most precious of all.
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The word is “back slider”, not “back peddler”.
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Because you are obviously lazy by nature, I’ll spell it out.
I googled gillard howe.
I got ‘paul howe gillard’ from that entry
Then I selected the top result which was
‘Paul Howe to Julia Gillard,’
which gave me this,
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2013/02/paul-howes-to-julia-gillard-weve-got-your-back-to-tony-abbott-who-wants-the-fraud-investigated-we-ai.html
But of course if any words in the link criticise Gillard or Howe, then this guy is obviously a slave to Abbott.
I think the grown ups can see the trend,Jammy.
This is te last time I make you and the rest of the AWU sock puppets look good.
So come on DQ, who are you?
Really?
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There is no trend. The crap on that web site has been discussed ad nauseam all over the net. A load of abject bollocks. They have got nothing on Gillard, because if they did, they would have charged her months ago. The police are in the back pocket of the conservative forces in this country, this would be a gift to big to pass up.
If Gillard wasn’t a politician she would be suing arses like there is no tomorrow.
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Then in a few weeks she can start drawing up the papers, as she plans for her new career.
If you think that Labor will be all luvvy duvvy after what is coming up under Gillards watch you watch too much soap.
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Hey, lets get one thing straight, I want Gillard gone. She has best part destroyed the Labor party in a couple of years. The Labor party pulled the biggest boner ever getting rid of Rudd.
I will always maintain, Rudd is a nerd, none the less, a winning nerd. He would have shit the next election in, no doubt about it. They got rid of him on the alter of Gillards ego, end of story.
However that does not mean Gillard is guilty of anything except, a large barrage of unfounded innuendo.
For mine they should get shot of her before it become toooooo late. Rudd is a nerd, that is a given. But he is a winning nerd.
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I agree, somewhat, although unless they installed an attack dog or someone universally popular it will be seen as (and sold by the MSM) as an admission of failure.
And if you think the likes of Howes can abandon narcissism and megalomania that easily, then I think I think you might have potential as fiction writer
😉
Basically with what faux Labor has to offer,Gillard is too far gone, and the list of voluntary sacrificial lambs is shorter than the list of Gillards true political friends.
They missed the op to put Rudd back two weeks ago.
Going to West Sydney will be Gillards Green Mile.
Howes won’t go out with a whimper so you can expect some fireworks real soon.
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Darling, it is “Howes”, not “Howe”.
I’ve let it go for several days, but the pedant in me is now provoked to full scale rebellion.
From this point, I will consider any reversion to the more primitive nomenclature, a “Howe-ller”
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I bet, back at the office they call ‘im “Owey” as in “owdy, rowdy Owey! Owyagoin?”
What’s in a name when a dirty prick is still a bumhole and stinks just as bad?
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No arguments from this quarter.
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“Pigsy,’ more like.
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Owey Pigsy Malone!
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* I blame atomou.
* I was too scared to put the ‘s’ on the end, in case it needed a well placed apostrophe.
* I have lost all confidence in punctuation, now.
* I might starting writing in dot point form, from now on.
* I used to be a common, comma, dropper-inner-er.
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Qui, moi? JAMAIS!
Non, Rien de rien, Non, je ne regrette rien, Ni le bien qu’on m’a fait, Ni le mal tout ça m’est bien égal! etc, etc, etc!
Be encouraged! Be brave! Flood the world with Ss! Better than being flooded with stupid thuggish polies.
I’d love to do an exit poll. Often I hand out how to vote cards on pre-polling and I make silly calculations of whether the world has become wiser since the last election. Always come back home dying for love!
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S’s,s’, S’,ssssssssss,,,,,
The scissors’s’ are in the drawer’s’ bottom drawer’s’ at the base of the stairways’s’ end!
I feel free!!
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See what I mean?
Rejoice!
Enjoy!
The S is the most puissant letter in the English language! Take a gander at a dictionary -of the English language: there are far more words listed under S than under any other letter. It’s mighty, I tell ya, puissant to extreme! Even F is way less puissant.
Let fly the apostrophes!
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I wouldn’t credit Mick Smith with too much love for veracity, Hypo. He’s a loony looking for an asylum and no asylum would have him so he opened his own.
Profuse doubts flood my mind that anything will come of that little escapade into our pious Julia’s past possible indiscretions and I would certainly not rely on that for any comfort in the hope she might get excoriated and ostracised Rudd-like from the party. It won’t be that event that will see her out.
But I think you’ve hit the proper logical spot with your call for those who love Julia to vote for her. Now THAT is the political paradox that plays such delightful games in our -and I daresay many other- country. You hate the person but you still have to vote for them because you hate the other even more; and because you think there’s only one other.
Bleh! Pox! Zeus damn! Pooh! What stinks around here? and other such ejaculations!
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I vote we do an autopsy of votes after the elction.An exit poll if you like.
I’d like to think we could get some results in before the results were known, so as to get a snapshot without the readers feeling a tad apprehensive of having ‘it’ out there.But you know ato,I have a sneaking suspicion a lot of people will do the humane thing, and put her down swiftly.I don’t reckon Antony Green will be getting overtime at this election.
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Fairly obviously, there is more than enough criticism of Julia Gillard and Paul Howes from the lunatic right, the centre right and the loopy left and all the rest of the nay-sayers and fruit-loops.
I don’t need to stand anywhere on Howes.
What’s this about giving up? Any mention of Abbott PM is conditional and predicated upon the electorate committing harakiri by being so benighted as to elect Abbott.
We are still 6 months from the election, and I still think Abbott is unelectable.
Which “very good ministers” have been condemned to oblivion??
Don’t expect me to be here 24/7 like you seem to be. 🙂
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No response so I’ll take it as all being accepted as true.
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Do what you want.I made up my mind on several of your positions the same way,namely you would not list the reasons which differentiated the Rudd and Gillard ‘lost their way’ scenarios and Rudds list of reasons to be gutted.Other than he was an alleged control freak.I’d actually say being controlled by an obvious control freak like Howes, was worse for a PM, but we know where you fall, on Gillards perfection.
So DQ,what is your real connection to Labor,Unions and law in those areas?
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None whatsoever. What is your connection to Rudd, and/or the Greens?
As for Rudd, my view is and was that the less said the better. Unfortunately people seem to want chapter and verse – something suitable to a history written in about 10 years’ time when the issue is not so heated.
It cannot – cannot – be useful to rehash this issue ad nauseam whilst a death match is in progress with the Noalition.
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No connection to Rudd other than to say he was gutted for a lot less than Gillard has done since.
My connection to the Greens is (as of the Gillard last pointy straw which blew out the tyres on the camel truck,killing all the cargo,) via a very sharp pencil on polling day.
Don’t thank me.You’re more than welcome.
And I am glad to hear your loyalties are yours alone,too.
It gives you hope to help Labor rebuild after the upcoming landslide.
PS
Please try not to revert to wasted votes,I will elect Abbott etc.
The record is cracked.
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Sorry,that was ‘moi’. ^
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You are a sweet nonny-mouse hypo.
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$1 billion dollars for the rev heads.
In this day and age?
$1b for Connex
“This morning Ms Gillard is offering to spend at least $1 billion to start work on Sydney’s West Connex motorway – but has placed a number of conditions on the spending.”
They wanted a Surplus? Really?
Justify one billion for a f*cking noisy polluting bikie hang out DQ.
Now justify it on the same day/site we read this
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-04/un-monitors-question-single-parent-welfare-cuts/4550662
As predicted Gillard/Howes now throw barrels of pork at people they have yet to offend.
The problem being that by weeks end there will be no money left and no Labor votes either.
Unbelievable.
Show her pity?
Show her the door.
(PS You die-hards keep Gillard at Number 1)
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Oh no, core temperature is getting towards the dangerously high registers again.
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Beware the fallout.
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I think we all need a holiday from blogging….who can handle this until September, a trip overseas sounds nice…to get some perspective and peace 🙂
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You could be right Helvi.But be brave.It will all end well before September.
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You mean Abbott will be hit by a low flying flak?
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Possibly, but in longer than a fortnight there will be an MSM campaign on top of the inevitable raining down of ‘Labor I told you so’s’ in the deep dark halls of power.
It would take a Paul Keating to stand upright in the hurricane which is about to beset the Labor faithful.He would be the go to man to bury Abbott.
Of course, as most of you know, Latham would be my second choice for the mission at hand.
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EDIT
‘no longer than a fortnight’
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I have always loved Keating, how can one resist a wit like his.. .:)
As for Latham, he showed promise but he just became kind of rough…I could see him getting into a real fight with Morrison.
I liked Rudd a lot at first but after while I thought he gave up too easily…not a fighter enough…
I’m starting to sound like I’m talking about Goldilocks
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ah, but who is just right?
Yes wasn’t Keating good! I wish he’d make a comeback.
I’m sort of wondering though whether we might be able to entice Obama to become an Australian citizen and enter politics, whereupon he could have a second stint at leading a country out of a dark place.
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sam, Keating, Obama….and Michelle could save any place, we must not forget Michelle, she ought to get into politics….
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Beautiful viewing, thank you SBS. Abbott looked and sounded like an escaped fart in a lift interviewed by the female presenter whose name has completely escaped me. Well done female presenter.
But then, so looked and sounded also Siman Banks (from Hawker Britton) when Julie Baird asked him about the chopping of the single mother’s assistance. “derrrrr… dahhhh… you may criticise the government but the others are even worse… derrr, dahhhh, uhhhh… don’t pick on me pick on them!”
I am so thrilled by this bunch of bastards! So bloody thrilled!
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Talking about fleeing flatulence, Shorten and Bishop could not be surpassed in their similitudes last night on QANDA. Questions on single mother pension cuts made Shorten’s head swerve about like a pricked ballon. One could smell the contents escaping the barriers of my flat screen; and questions about “protocols” for the asylum seekers had the same effect on Bishop. For once I was thankful that Jones did his dog-with-a-bone routine. Bishop was certainly farting – or sweating profusely or… you could read her mind as if it were a glass cabinet: STFU, Jones, STFU!
Highly enjoyable stuff.
What a filthy jerk that millionaire slob was though! “I’m lost, I’m lost! I’m just too fucking honest to be here! You are all idiots!” More like a turd than a fart, that one. (Shit, I hope Mrs Ato doesn’t see this, she’ll knacker me dead!”
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Dieties help us if the ‘bum to fence welded’ Shorten ever becomes PM.
The man is so out of his depth and fake he made my skin crawl.
When Bishop gets that glint,she resembles a famished female praying mantis.
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…and this silly woman wants be FM, when all was lost, she started flirting, kept touching Ferguson, who was not one bit amusing, the Russian bloke was funnier …
The best of the lot was of course Bill Shorten, and Milne wasn’t bad either. Even Jones behaved better than usually.
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Have pity on WA instead>
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-04/wa-labor-concerned-at-gillard-effect/4552104?section=wa
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A propaganda beat up, you know that as well as I do.
Cummon, argue it honestly.
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People on the street in WA actually raise the topic of Gillard, and their desire to get rid of her.
Without a single prompt.
There is a sense of impatience at having to wait so long to do it,if anything.
Now I can tell you ‘honestly paul, Labor would be crazy to allow her to ruin the small chance Labor has in WA.Who can blame them.
Now if you are right and this is propaganda,explain why Gillard is not in WA?
Is she an asset or a liability,in WA?
In Canberra?
I don’t need/read propaganda,
I got 1,2,3,4,5 senses working overtime>
PS I’d go so far as to say that Barnetts chances would be a lot less under anyone but Gillard, and I am sure that poll has been done.It’s only the blind faux-Laborites who keep blaming the media.
This morning Abbott and Gillard are call the other dog whistler on foreign workers and refugees.
Pas me the sick bucket.
A fight to the Tea Party death.If only.
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Tim Fergusson was fantastic on QANDA last night: “There will be no promised under the candidature I lead!”
Fantastic too, about free education and free transport. Eminently sensible aims for any govn’t, for any country!
I could vote for that boy. Him and Assange.
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.
May I suggest, Hypo, that you take a nice long rest? Consider your blood pressure : hypertension will see you apoplectic long before September. 🙂
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Maybe I should spread the hypertension over several pseudonyms?
Does that work?
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Hypo, please do not start using other pseudos. I certainly wish that everybody would say the good, the bad and even the ugly under one name ,one pseudo.
I have just been to Drum and once again witnessed someone talking to her/himself using four pseudos within one article.
Hypo, I for one would recognize you under any name 🙂
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I am a slave to your wishes,ma’am.
The drum is a place where about ten people post under ten thousand names.
The ABC Mod rules are quaint.
Pathetic,un-enforced, but quaint.
It’s a brooder for Bird flu.
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Don’t know – how many do you use?
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I could never have enough to keep up with yours.
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I have one and one only. If you say anything else you lie.
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Roger,that.
I’ll file it now.
File under :
“I drive better when I’m pissed”
“No more taxes”
“I won’t come in your mouth”
and
“my wife doesn’t understand me.”
😉
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You lie. What else do you lie about, Hypocritical?
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No I don’t lie.Never.
I am as honest as Julia Gillard is.Moreso.
And you?
Only when you write it down?
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Sag mir wo die Blumen sind… I mean where have all the female posters gone…
Have you blokes scared them away 🙂
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Helvi, the Wallflower Defence…puhlease!
If you believe in some thing you will speak even if others disagree and risk the slings and arrows for what you think is right.
The Shrinking Violet thing is a poor excuse.
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Paul, I’m kidding, I just have not seen Poirot or Ann here …
You are all lovely blokes, you dont scare anyone away 🙂
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THAT’S ME
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Another loveable nonny-mouse?
Actually Helvi, after I posted last, I stopped and thought about it again.
It IS true that conversations here can become aggressive, even I back off for a while sometimes.
And it’s not just blokes, either.
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So is some of the people are of various genders and some of them are aggressive some of the time………….?
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EDIT
‘So if’
I sound like Fenech
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Paul and Hypo, we all get grumpy at times, and yes Paul, us females as well, not enough sleep, too much sleep…I find you all OK, I often put a smiley to indicate that I’m not serious…
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Nice to have your face back Helvi.
Lime Green is not your colour
😉
😉
🙂
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Don’t know. Isn’t Hypo a big sheila? 🙂
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Mind the adjectives, Quickie.
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A little sheila??
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HOLY SHIT!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-06/baillieu-set-to-stand-down-as-vic-premier/4557014?section=justin
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As those at the feast profaned the sacred vessels pillaged from the Jerusalem Temple, a disembodied hand appeared and wrote on the palace wall the words, “Mene, Mene, Tekel, u-Pharsin.” The prophet Daniel was summoned and interpreted this message as the imminent end for the Babylonian kingdom. That night, Belshazzar was killed and the Persians sacked the capital city.
Wikipedia
Mr Belshazzar saw the writing and ran. Mrs Belshazzar though seems to be ocularly defective. Probably the new specks.
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This is the reason Abbott will never last long in the job.
Baillieu got where he was because he presented as a ‘presidential looking candidate’, nothing more.Just what was needed at the time.All he needed was training in memorising spiels and speeches and reading the Teleprompter.
He did that all very well.No substance,no policy, just a product of the apathetic Aussie tradition of ‘voting someone out,because it was time for a change’.The milk was off.
Abbott cannot manage the message bit and his milk is already off.
Although in a one on one contest, he is a shoe in to grind Gillard into mince, he will wear out his welcome in lightning time.
The idiots in Labor just need a new (actual) principled leader, and then Abbott is history.
The ball has been in their court for months.They don’t want to win.They want Gillard,instead.They well and truly missed the boat.
Oh well, let it be a wake.Anything for a piss up.
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Cute, eh?
Serves him right for being so confrontationalist.
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Wasn’t he the one who wrote a ‘iron-clad commitment’ to his states people and then shafted them?
If Karma has its way,Gillard,Abbott,Newman and O’Farrell will follow his lead.
Maybe Bazza can organise a hunting trip in a NSW N*Park with Dick Cheney and the mob above.
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The Vics thought the grass might be greener on the other side of the fence; rather like the voters in Qld and perhaps those in NSW, they soon found out otherwise.
There appears to be a moral there; now what can it be?
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That there is no grass on the other side of the fence!
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Grass growing is best left to Nimbin?
I never inhaled?
Impaled?
Derailed?
Blue Baillieu.
Oh shit, that is so fucking funny.
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I think what DQ is saying (hinting) is ‘don’t vote for two faced fishy smelling, snake-oil selling losers’.
At last we are as one.
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The dog whistling has paid off Mr Howe,Ms Gillard,Mr Morrison,Mr Abbott etc.
Well done.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-07/hanson-wants-to-run-at-next-election/4558772?section=justin
Is this Julia’s long lost twin?I guess at least Hanson is up front about her view.
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Seen on Daily life:
How to build an Abbott proof fence.
T-shirt with the words, NSW Women for Julia.
To be sure, to be sure, to be sure and silly!
http://www.dailylife.com.au/?fb_action_ids=10151297325646883&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=feed_opengraph
I don’t suppose there is a way of adding a jpg here is there? Nevermind, just hop onto the link.
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Well Ato,
As comments are closed on the article,
All I can say to those whining about what Hell Abbott has in store for women (nd the country in general) is this.
Blame Gillard.
BLAME GILLARD.
She is the single most common reason Abbott will be our next PM.That there would be people disgustingly arrogant who would demand we support Gillard to avoid Abbott is possibly the greatest yellow backed piece of moral vacuum in our electoral history.
Gillard has damaged the female brand immensely.
She could have drawn a line in the sand anywhere she wanted, but all she did was trace Abbott’s line, with Howes finger.
Thank goodness history will record this how it happened and not how the likes of some here would like it painted.
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Yes I know. That it is closed for comment, I mean. It was posted on my Facebook page, along with another item from the same rag, about what advice to give your daughters about rapists. That, too, pissed me off and I wanted to say something but I couldn’t, so I just let loose on Facebook. Lots of likes.
Very true about the rise and rise of Abbott and Hanson.
http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/stop-telling-women-to-be-afraid-20130306-2fjy5.html?fb_action_ids=10151297325646883&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%7B%2210151297325646883%22%3A256296784506323%7D&action_type_map=%7B%2210151297325646883%22%3A%22og.recommends%22%7D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D
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It’s so bloody obvious, one gets quite turbulent thinking about it. I mean, not being able to feel the daggers digging into your back while you’re watching your front! How thick skinned must you be?
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