Pauline Hanson has re-emerged as mouthpiece for the nation’s racism, going where the dog whistlers dare not venture, vocalising “what ordinary people are really thinking and are too scared to say.” This time her bile is directed against Muslims as well as Asians and Indigenous peoples: anyone who isn’t white and Christian, perhaps?
In a rather surprising move, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced that Hanson is not welcome in the parliament, surprising because he has not said this about any of his right-wing colleagues, many of whom share Hanson’s views. Surprising as well because Hanson is an elected representative in a liberal democracy, and Turnbull has no choice but to accept her presence in the Senate because voters put her there.
In May 2016 journalist Malcolm Farr wrote that voters do not want Hanson in parliament, any parliament, but voters do, and Hanson is. Railing against Hanson is getting people nowhere: she’s come back even stronger than before.
This piece by Margot Kingston in the Guardian yesterday is interesting in that Kingston advocates a change of approach to Hanson, one of respect and conciliation rather than mockery and scorn. While I don’t agree that it’s productive to embark on the re-education of Pauline Hanson, I do believe Kingston is right to suggest that we pay attention to the circumstances of the people who have voted her, and possibly two more One Nation candidates, back into the parliament. I also agree that scapegoating Hanson only gives her and her supporters fuel.
Both major parties have used racist tactics to distract voters from their failures to adequately govern: the manipulation of waterborne asylum seekers is an outstanding example of this: the creation of non-existent threats from which both major parties have promised to deliver us has led to the criminal and inhumane indefinite incarceration of innocent people on Manus and Nauru.
Hanson has been far from alone in exploiting fear and ignorance for political gain. It’s only a few weeks since Immigration Minister Peter Dutton told the country that asylum seekers will simultaneously take our jobs and bludge off our social services.
Given that John Howard co-opted most of Hanson’s beliefs and made them fundamental tenets of his LNP, where they remain comfortably unchallenged, I’m inclined to wonder how much of the elite political and media animosity towards Hanson is to do with class, and gender.
Much of what Hanson espouses seems to me gibberish: a Royal Commission into Islam, for example? She seems at times inarticulate: a seething mass of inchoate prejudice, while the more sophisticated know how to convey a not dissimilar prejudice in a manner more covert. Indeed, the only positive thing to be said about Hanson is that she lacks all subtlety: there can be no doubt about her bad intentions towards those who are not her: what you see is what you get. Hanson doesn’t spin.
Kingston herself has expressed some views on Muslims that have been interpreted as racist. She recently tweeted: OK, I’m gonna blow myself up. I think Muslim refugees should seek refuge in Muslim countries unless they embrace western values.
Kingston explained that the western values to which she refers are respect for the rule of law, freedom of speech, women’s, gays’ rights.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting these values embraced and practiced: the problem is singling out Muslims as a group that particularly needs to embrace them. Many of our white Christian politicians have no respect for some of those values, and some don’t have respect for any of them. Presumably their electorates support their views, as Hanson’s do hers. The elites who sneer at Hanson and her electorate need to attend to the racist logs in their own eyes.
I have a visceral reaction when I see and hear of particular groups being singled out for no reason other than religious belief, ethnicity, and race. I feel sick with fear, not of the groups but of the mindset that chooses certain groups as targets for “special” treatment, marginalisation and hostility. This may have something to do with my late husband being a Jew. We had friends who survived the camps. Their families were slaughtered because they were Jews. My husband and his family experienced prejudice and discrimination because they were Jews. They supported “western values,” but that didn’t save them.
I don’t like Hanson. I’m very sorry she’s back. I think it’s going to be a difficult and frightening time for members of the groups she targets, as her views are widely disseminated through her role as a senator, and parliamentary privilege.
Hanson is the head of the throbbing boil that is Australian racism. The discharge will be copious and vile. But let’s not fool ourselves that Hanson is our only problem: the racism and bigotry she extols is far more widespread than the ugly manifesto of One Nation. Hanson is right: she’s articulating what many think, however the many who think this way are not comprised solely of ignorant rednecks: they also dwell in very high places.
This is why I proof read for free on No Place for Sheep.
Nothing to do today that I can see.
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And your work is much appreciated, Forrest.
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Jennifer’s use of the word ‘extol’ in the last paragraph takes me back in memory to a couple of old threads on Online Opinion that touch upon racism, a subject that ‘exercises’, I think is the word, her somewhat. Given that she has wondered later in this comments thread who various people posting under pseudonyms may be, I thought I might post this link as a lead-in to some insight.
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3130#73870
The linked post refers to poster ‘Foxy’, who, if you scroll the thread, gives an interesting insight as to the first confrontation of her own racism when she talks about Kevin Gilbert and his poem ‘The Pen is Mightier than the Sword’, in which the word ‘extol’ is used.
The last link within the post upon which you first land will surf you to a post of mine in another thread titled ‘Your Tribal Past’. That could be fun to scroll if time weighs heavily upon you in getting to grips with (covert?) racism and pseudonymic identities. You might have to click the ‘All’ button at the top of the page to see it all, funnily enough.
Continuing to scroll the first thread can give further insight as to the racism of other posters, myself of course excepted.
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Thank you Forrest. I will have a look at that when I return home after my day’s activities.
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Saw the Margo Kingston piece and typical of her work. You are going to find at least a few folk currently posting here who will recall the glory days of pioneering Web Diary..I’ll always recall being surprised and humbled when she had my first comment up although I thought I had sent it personally because I figured I had nothing to contribute.
But that was not her feeling with contributors. She encouraged them to find their voices and speak up- as an insider she wanted to know what ordinary people made of what she made of things, because she wore her heart on her sleeve and it contributed to her eventual relinquishing of the blog that had too many contributors, too many trolls, too many stoushes.
She knew Hanson more intimately than us, from the 95 or 98 election campaigns (forget which), “got” where she comes as another person from a Qld regional city and travelled with her on the campaign when Oldfield was still pulling strings.
Having recently stoushed with Hansonists elsewhere I’d say she is not quite recommending that Hanson is treated as troll- don’t give them the oxygen of attention- but suggesting that people adopt a more low key approach when dealing with alienated people and their manipulators.
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It is not Hanson who used the TAMPA and accused Iraqis of trying to kill their babies by throwing them into the sea, or allow SIEVX to sink and lied about it for years.
It was not Hanson who opened Nauru and Manus the first or second time.,
It was not Hanson who lied and led us to three wars.
It was not Hanson who gave us the Cronulla riots.
I think it deserves the cartel of arrogant racists who did those things to have to face her in parliament
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Yes, there is a kind of justice in it, Marilyn.
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Fucking poetic ain’t it really. And still the baby trading racist cartel claims she is the only racist.
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Don’t kid yourself that in the community there’s some fire behind the smoke.
The ‘cartel’ are foster carers of an ugly child.Pretty sure we can all think of places in Australian where racism thrives.
Indigenous people live it every day, because the vilest permanent constitutional racism is reserved for them.They are the default community to be blamed for all the waste in Australia. Every generational misery was under their own choice according to MOST Australians.
eg The Hansonite bloke who abused Nova Peris should have done a long stretch.There is no way there was any message sent in his sentence.The gutless prick even stooped to playing the “I was hacked” card.
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EDIT> Don’t kid yourself that in the community there’s NOT some fire behind the smoke.
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The cartel are the foster carers of a dangerous, murderous offspring.
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All quite true but it will be her (her hiddden minions really, and the foot soldiers in and out of the RWNJ of the LNP) who unleashes the worst in quite a few sub groups and communities, and which will see many peaceful Muslims attacked physically and other.
Today Brandis publicly distanced himself from her policies which means he has told her ,”I’m 100% behind you darling, but I’ll have to tell the public the opposite or we won’t be able to get your shopping list filled”
It would be a far worse outcome for everyone in Aust , if she gets her way on a few of her brain dead ideas.Especially if the LNP back doors a few things.She will be duped,used and used as a scapegoat, but along the way the damage will be enormous.It has already began.You can hear the teeth grinding already.
She’s just another bully, but at the upper end of the dangerous outcome meter.
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Hanson couldn’t exist without the enabling of the major parties. Whether they recognise that or not.
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and they proved again prior during and after the election they will continue to use her impact to advantage.
If anyone thinks ignoring Hanson will deprive her of oxygen they’re dreaming.The MS media in this country are prolific and bereft.Social conscience is not one of their qualities.
So we cannot rely on govt to condemn her, as she should be,and intend to continue to do so.
Every negative reaction response to her O.N mental pygmy playgrounds rhetoric could have been headed off at the pass.By our so called secular political leaders.(meh)
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Reblogged this on Townsville Blog. and commented:
Another great article from this author
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Thanks Townsville
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I went back to ‘simpler’ times and watched the old 60 minutes expose on Pauline. I’m so proud of humanity that we’ve moved on from those days of tribalistic xenophobia and ‘I’m smarter than you’ elitism. https://youtu.be/459x66E_vmo
Many Australians can now demonise Muslims as well as Asians. How many billion people is that?
‘Dumb elites’ will continue to demonise Pauline Hansen and her tribe, from Ipswich bogans to Cory Bernardi, with their own brand of intellectual tribalism. The Regressive Left, with their vapid ideologies of extreme moral relativism and post-modernism, are part of the problem too, at the other end of the spectrum.
‘Humanistic Elites’ try to demonise all tribalistic extremism once it reaches an arbitrary harm threshold. Does that make ‘humanistic elites’ superior? No, just probably more compatible with the current trend of globalism, which is unprecedented in human history.
Pauline and her ‘tribe’ don’t understand and maybe can’t understand the suite of ideas required to be global citizens in an increasingly secular and egalitarian global culture. We’ve seen her brain shut up shop time and time again to possible alternatives to her ideologies. She identifies with her beliefs, so attacking her ideologies feels to her like attacking her.
If globalism moves too fast, expect a rise of Pauline Hansen / Cory Bernardi types who can’t adapt through no fault of their own. Expect also a rise of lefty anti-globalists who can’t adapt either. Many of us perhaps just aren’t wired for rapid change. Change can be bad as well as good and the risks must be considered as well as the benefits.
It took 2 hours for me to write this comment with my zombie snail brain. Do we have an election result yet?
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Dave, did you watch 4 Corners last night? The future is pretty scary for jobs and income.
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I’ll load up iview and check it out. Thanks. Possibly richer countries like Australia will lose out from globalisation unless innovation and reform mean that poorer countries are pulled up rather than us being dragged down. It really bugs me that I believe I’m entitled to 6 figure salary yet others live off a dollar a day and work way harder than me. Australia hasn’t invested enough in innovation, like renewables. Australia also hasn’t had a recession for a long time. When does Keating think we’ll have the next recession we need to have? What are Australians willing to sacrifice now for climate change, investment in innovation and caring a little more about all the near slave workers in foreign lands who support our lifestyles? The future is always uncertain. I’m not scared; I’m probably too optimistic.
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I survive on DSP don’t know how my family will survive if the LNP take thaty away from us. Keating didn’t do working people any favors if my recollection is correct. I wish I had your optimism, it is difficult to have optimism when you are hungry and there is no food in the house and pension day is tomorrow.
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I can’t imagine what that must be like. My wife reminds me that I’ve never struggled financially but she did before she met me. If it weren’t for one decision I made years ago to get income protection insurance we’d be in the same boat now. If insurance company screws us over in future then same boat. And no guarantees we’d get DSP if Centrelink screwed us over. I have optimism for the future of humanity but not for my future. Our health conditions are getting worse. I don’t know how people cope with financial stress on top. Looking like LNP will just squeak through and who knows what will happen after that. I have a paranoid fear of what LNP will callously do too to vulnerable people.
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glad I am 62 not 22.
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Dave, I had income insurance too. It lasted for 3 years, just long enough for them to find a technicality to dismiss me on disclosure. Apparently I had seen a psychiatrist 10 years before I filled out the form for income insurance, when I was 16, and as I fell by way of mental breakdown I was disqualified, however thankfully I was put through every test from every health professional AMP could muster to make sure I was broken and those reports helped me to go onto DSP. Thankfully I had been a good money managers and had owned my own home by the age of 42, or else we would have been buggered too mate. All the best to you and yours.
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Yep, you’ve figured it,too.
She gets too much oxygen in the form of attention and not enough thought goes into understanding her, her ideas, simplistic or otherwise and the context in which her and these have been formed.
More issue oriented refutation involving logic facts and figures is needed. Getting cross with her won’t help, it will just reinforce her and her supporters mulishness.
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Which is why when I write a letter to the Editor, I write as if I’m writing to a 10 year old, simplicity being the key, so all understand.
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Have you had any published?
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Yes hundreds over a period of 20 years since 1995.
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No, but Oakshott is ahead in Cowper
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Can’t be any worse than his opponent, in fact a better type altogether.
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Oakshott is a bit long winded but he’s got a moral compass with it.
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Excellent. A pity Windsor didn’t knock off Barnaby, but we can’t answer for voters in rural areas, seduced by having the minister for agriculture as their local member.
The pork barrel will trump the altruistic every day of the week.
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Recount ordered in Cowper.
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It may not be the result you want…
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Turnbull has opened the door to a 3 year fight on racial matters, of ignorance, intolerance, fear and stupidity.
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Totally agree.
Much calling out of the LNP far right and the Abetzian hate brigade, but so far everyone is tip toeing around Hanson.There’s the problem.
She is a moon unit and the social damage she has done this time around is immense.
Community fear ,burning Mosques, pigs heads,and race riots should play right into Brandis hands.
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Hypo, that is a very rude thing, calling her a “moon unit”.
No doubt she has grabbed attention in a big way, very Alan Jones, very Derryn Hinch.
Across cyber space at AIM this is up also:
http://theaimn.com/in-defence-of-pauline/
The thesis here is that she is a regional rather than national phenomena.
I think a nasty developing problem, actually could come in the form of Peta Credlin, now a hack for Murdoch and possibly heir apparent to the ghastly Miranda Devine.
If Hanson is to be attacked it will be in the way Hypo did just above, drawing attention to the consequences of rabid populism for onlookers.
This is a better way than to just run her down because she ran a chip shop rather than go to uni.
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Well PW I appreciate you think moon unit is offensive, and I was actually being kind to her and cruel to the moon.
As >soon< as our so called leaders learnt this hate machine was running they could and should have called her out.There are many smarter script writers than me who could have arranged a suitable message
eg.
"Whatever the election results the —————-Party will not be supporting or forming any alliances with political parties who have polices or an ethos detrimental to the safety and cohesion of our community in our tolerant secular society."
The irony of calling me out for this is funny given many of the things we say about the RWNJ of the parliament.
I get that we tell kids at school to NOT tolerate bullies and stand up etc.But don't call out Hanson?
Yeah nah.
She is a polyp at best.
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Indeed.
I anticipated your heated response re last posting, as you’ll observe below.
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You are all ignoring the point that Hanson is doing nothing more than most of the major party racists: they just do it more covertly
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Yep (again). That’s why I appreciated your post. It was a necessary ‘ouch’ for me.
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Hence keeping an eye on the LNP nutjobs (Brandis etc ) and what the ‘covert’ ON deals will be.That said I try to diss them equally.
I believe if we are prepared to (and we are here) have a go at the LNP RWNJ, then Hanson should be told that a RC into Islam is lunatic shite.
The media should also expose Hanson and dig around at her hidden support network.
There is no way she is the ‘director’ in the group.
That’s another problem,she is easily duped.
Exactly what happened last time.
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The cartel are way more racist than Pauline, She is ignorant, they are calculated in their bigotry and racism.
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Much of the elites’ criticisms of her is from the chip shop angle. They are educated racists. Somehow they believe that to be better.
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Yep, he called in the full horn and trumpet sections of the orchestra, never mind the dog whistle
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Well then what the fuck have the last 15 years of brutal racism been?
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We may recall that Tony Abbott sought to destroy Pauline Hanson and One Nation, and to re-integrate her supporters into the Coalition. He very nearly succeeded in destroying her and the result was her imprisonment, all too briefly. The other results were the subsuming of racist and crackpot supporters into the Coalition; I don’t call them the Looters & Nutters Party for nothing.
Her views are odd, crackpot and racist, but as with any populist she has some more general appeal: to those who dislike the major parties, to those who have disquiet at immigration, to those who seek external reasons for their own failures.
And any populist will have some policies with mass appeal – not everything they espouse will be wrong, some ideas will have merit.
We have been able to ignore her for several years, the mad auntie kept in the attic. But now she is out, and has a seat in the Senate. Just how this will play out is to be seen, but the ancient Chinese curse springs to mind – “may you live in interesting times.”
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We have been talking about Hanson as a female version of the closed minded reactive person, but someone else and something else has crept under our radar because there are no sound effects.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/05/abc-axes-drum-website-in-first-move-by-michelle-guthrie
The cold blooded psychopath, female or male, is far more a danger to society than some reactive little noise machine from the country,
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I know, PW, why didn’t they axe that stupid talking heads nightly tv Drum instead
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Sorry just commented then caught this..exactly my thoughts.
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It needed killing off. The Drum Unhinged was good for a while back in 2009/10, but I abandoned it soon after Bob Ellis started Table Talk, about five years ago.
I was recently pondering where to go, other than here – the possibility of a return to the Drum turned my stomach.
Any reasonable alternatives?
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DQ, I liked the original Unleashed, and after losing Bob , I have occasionally put a line or two on The Drum, it’s very predictable, and it’s total lack of humour did not entice me too hang around there too much.
I feel a bit like an orphan right now and am also in search of a new orphanage; I read and sometimes comment here on the Sheep and also on AIM network.
I see Jennifer, Paul, townswilleblog, Diannaart, silkworm and some other familiar folk there…(AIM ,that is)
Just saying.
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oops, its total lack
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I like The Conversation… though its threads don’t stay active for more than a day or two since it has so many articles.
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Oh yes, I forgot I am there Helvi 🙂 There’s some interesting commenters from time to time. But nobody can match Bob.
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The organised one Nation haters hijacked the Drum.
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Nothing can replace Bob’s dedication and engagement DQ. I have no suggestions other than starting up your own blog. I’d visit you.
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God I missed the shambolic one this election.
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Yes. Me too.
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Even the Drum should not have to make way for the Telegraph.
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I used to write for The Drum but the bloody comments were hell and my life too short.
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And today, they are putting the boot in re Catalyst and Dr Maryanne Demasi.
This is a big league onslaught against any form of informational or broad sheet media from the public broadcaster.. Rupert’s model, of course.
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Maybe if they can make some mud stick on Catalyst in Demasis stories,they can kill it off on climate change.
Win win for the neo cons,coal,uranium etc.
Maybe the big guys just want to drag that fight out as long as they can so they can slide their coal shares out the back door without losing too much, and then go all guns blazing to get nuclear up.Transition the share portfolio.
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Zigactly!!!
Murdoch has been on the government’s back because they reckon the ABC is doing stuff only they should be able to do.. auntie has been lobomised and is a goner.
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The racists in the ALP were only too happy to adopt her racism as well, lest we think that all racism died when she was a silent nobody.
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Which it most certainly didn’t
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…actually Gillard and Hanson DO have quite a few similar traits.
Perhaps another term of Gillard and Hanson may have not needed to run?
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It is going to play out badly, as the marginals vote count has turned south.
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Just thinking on it, am toying with the idea that another delinquent attention seeker and moon unit, Cory Bernardi, is starved of attention by the new force on the cracked right, hence the outburst the other day.
Now, time for another musical interlude.
Wilson loves my musical soirees…I apologise for not presenting such an event at an earlier juncture.
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I do indeed PW & will watch this one after lunch.
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I had been thinking about Cory Bernardi and the thought crossed my mind, why just Hanson, there are many male dropkicks involved and where is the attention? Lo and behold, Mishy must have been thinking the same and beat me by a couple of minutes.
But Abbott then Cory Bernardi, then Iron Man..”Nobody wants him.. they just turn their heads”
Meanwhile, infinitely more despicable people get away with murder under cover of darkness and noise, cold blooded and calculating, like Turnbull and Michelle Guthrie.
The Drum web page has been useful over time; why was it cancelled leaving alternatives like Guthrie’s ex-boss Murdoch’s Telegraph as remaining sources of information?
How much more sinister than a few tabloid pratts making fools of themselves?
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Paul, I never saw any posts by you there, or rather I never came across any comments by paul walter.
I don’t think the Coalition approve of the Drum forum, the costs of running it must minimal, most of the commentators are ABC’s own people of late, they used to employ more outsiders in the good old days.
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Helvi , I tried again and again to comment, but not once could I get one up there.
I think I snagged up on the logins, or maybe they just didn’t want me there. I read what I could, quite often and decided not to bother further trying to break through the comments wall.. I’ve had similar problems with NM and IA.and frankly, I don’t give a stuff, when sites seem to make it awkward to log in or get and/or accept fresh pass/code words..
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I hardly ever comment anywhere. I don’t even comment here all that much 🙂 Once I’ve bashed out a post I feel I’ve done my bit lol
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As can be seen to this day.
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Murdoch ordered it’s demise.
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You are a genius.
Yes, you kick start it and if the rest are too lay to seize the moment or exploit the the opportunity and put their brains to work for an appropriate response then the collaboration fails, but you are the one who walks away with a clear conscience.
Probably better not to see the world through rose coloured glasses..
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I hadn’t thought of it in terms of conscience PW, rather how I can best use my energy. You and others more than adequately take up the arguments, and when I’ve finished one post I’m already thinking about the next.
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PW, a brilliant choice. Thank you.
Oh the beautiful youth Ozzie…
I’d forgotten how good they were.
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Morning after the night before. They are actually a group I forgot decades ago and rediscovered on utube.
Many only know the bloke and his wife from reality tv, but his and that group’s Wiki story tells a story of complexity, maybe even tragedy.
He is moth-eaten and looking threadbare from his Ziggy lifestyle..could well be the bloke Pink Floyd had in mind, re Comfortably Numb.
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“kills the people he once saved”
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JW
Drum mega sock puppet troll above.
Recommend blocking
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A dozen or so posts on the doomed Drum makes me a “mega sock puppet troll”?
Thanks for declaring your bigoted fascism where contrary opinion is concerned.
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Now, you were subtly trolled there and bit..
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Jennifer, absolutely spot on (in my humble opinion). Hanson’s racism does receive far more attention than the racism of Dutton, Morrison, et al. Locating racism in “the lower classes” is far too convenient and gives a free pass to too many who share the same views.
Hanson’s politics are awful – but she is such an easy target, being female, and perceived as poorly educated, shrill, etc. Your post was a necessary and uncomfortable reminder for me.
I note that Hanson has also thrown her support behind some men’s rights activists (of the scary kind). People like George Christensen have been working with these groups for several years now, but this didn’t get as much coverage.
I feel queasy now :(.
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I feel queasy now😦.
Hold that thought.
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Thanks Mish.
Yes, it is quease-inducing
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At the Grauniad, Hinch has just put the boot in re the little redhead also.
I wish they would get the count finished so we can see what the score is instead of being forced to conjecture while the aesthetic blight of attention hogs braying in the background disturbs our equanimity.
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I’m interested in the concept of “saying what people really think”, and who the people are who think these things, and yet hide behind a socially acceptable façade.
I occasionally go along to seminars at the Centre for Independent Studies, and I’m fascinated by the atmosphere amongst the audience members. There’s a strange kind of fellowship and over-familiarity. It’s almost as if people feel that they have found a safe space from the slings and arrows of “out there”, and fall over themselves to be polite and friendly and considerate. But at the same time there’s an undercurrent of suspicion. Eyes dart from side to side looking for the faintest hint of dissent or disloyalty, and anyone who asks a challenging or contrary question is quickly cut off and ostracised. And lastly there is the shame. There is a tacit awareness that the views espoused by those present are predicated on the anxiety that results from wilful ignorance, and that they are liable to trample over the rights of others. They realise that upon application their views will result in suffering, e.g. for people denied their welfare payments or the right to marry the person they love, or those locked up in detention of various kinds. And they feel the pain of the people they disenfranchise – this hurts me more than it hurts you. But they stick grimly to their mission, because it’s for these people’s own good, because suffering purifies and aids learning how to walk the right path, and because they realise that the only way their views will become acceptable is if everybody becomes like “them”.
And when the event is over, niceties are exchanged in the foyer about how interesting the presentations were, doors are held open for each other, and the people slink back into the dangerous unknown of the street, suddenly refusing to acknowledge each others’ existence as they perform the walk of shame back into an environment that is hostile to their views – so the mask goes on and they slip back into anonymity.
Perhaps one way to prevent votes for Hanson would be to make voting completely public? Publish people’s names and who they voted for. Surely if this level of accountability is required of people in business or public administration then it should apply to those who determine the makeup of the government??
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Publish people’s names and who they voted for.
Yep.
And it is past time we were forced to bring our ID to the polling place.
Pollies who stir up race hate,bigotry,eg Islam and Halal should be forced to attend counselling on cultural awareness which would include being in a room with the target of their abuse.
All we are talking about here is bullying and the denial surrounding it.
Hanson is a coward.Her faceless men are far worse.Brandis has already done the fore play, so we know that cogs are turning.
He as AG should have shouted down ANY hope os a RC into Islam.Right now this country is seriously fcked up.
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“bring our ID to the polling place” – agreed.
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PS
I don’t wont to stop ppl voting for Hanson types, I just want them to justify it, including by facing the victims of their bigotry.
A name on our votes is a great idea.It would sanitise parliament overnight.
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Turnbull got her in with his disgusting rant, who the hell is he to say x or y shouldn’t be in parliament when they have the same rights as he does.
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He’s Turnbull!!
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Have you noticed him morphing in time into the most dithering version of Malcolm Fraser?
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He has a fluid personality. Like water.
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Don’t worry Marilyn,I guarantee the morph will be complete soon.Once he forms govt his own team (using Hanson as a battering ram) will break down the door to Mals 5 room wardrobe, and like the other Mal, he will be caught trouser-less and with egg all over his dial.
The community cohesion collateral damage,around all this, will be ,shall we say, noticeable.
The fwits are now pant-less politically anyway, because they allowed Hanson to Trojan in again, and if they try to euthenise the O N horse it would almost certainly mean a rise and rise of all far right hate parties at every election in the foreseeable future.
This is what happens when we elect leaders without peace in their heart.
WE siphon off the goodwill around us.
So what does that say about those so called Christian leaders?
A very good question.
I think the answer has the word ‘hoax’ in it.
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Snap, have thought the same thing..god help us if he is another Fraser, six monotonous years of gloom.
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Turnbull on Hanson:
“Pauline Hanson is, as far as we are concerned, not a welcome presence in the Australian political scene,” he said.
“You’ve got to remember she was chucked out of the Liberal Party.”
If anything Turnbull is as foolish as ever – insulting a potential ally in a more hostile senate.
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Or at least being seen to be so.
What if the officially recorded Hanson vote has a very substantial component of what I’ll politely call ‘proxy votes’ making it up?
Would not Hanson’s now seemingly certain presence in the new Senate constitute a perfect diversion from consideration as to consistency with trends of the House of Representatives votes across the States in question?
Every vote cast in a Queensland Division, for example, has to be accompanied by a Senate ballot paper lodgement, and a straight-up Senate vote as per the LNP ticket might look in context of overall voting trends somewhat anomalous, might it not?
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Let him chatter..he slips, an opportunity for the country to break clear of them.
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If the marginals vote keeps heading south it becomes academic any way.
The worst result: neoliberalism+ racism+ censorship= proto fascism and no turning back.
Non conservatives may one day regret all the petty feuding of earlier times..
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Someone always puts them there PW.
We cannot blame the greater publics greed,opportunism and ignorance on a mere political game,can we?
Aaaaaaaaaaaagh democracy, gotta love it..
Look to America for our fate.
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Who encourages their complicity, denies them the info they need and manipulates their culturally inscribed natures?
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Are you asking me what makes America a train wreck?
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Gah!!!! But voting is secret!!! Like sex!! And money!!!
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“THE” most famous racist deliberately uses provocative language
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-05/election-live-blog-july-5-counting-resumes/7568594
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The secret ballot is a cornerstone of democracy. Open votes expose the voters to possible intimidation and reprisals and then to making sure they vote the right way.
I am surprised and disappointed that anyone here would advocate open voting.
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A dreadful example was the East Timor referendum and its aftermath, as Indonesian-financed death squads caught people out in the open because of the voting set up.
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Let us not forgot that the mutant Howard decided to not offend the Indonesian military and govt, so he decided not to allow weapons on our peacekeepers.Weapons would have made the difference in that massacre.The slaughter in the street was enacted by cops and army (out of uniform as well).
Peacekeepers got front row seats of people being hacked to death thanks to howard and world saw the footage to prove it happened.
What justice was ever served?
I so hope Blair and Howard and Bush go down over the illegal Iraq war.
Is the fear of this happening what makes the LNP attempt to de-legitimise the UN at every turn.Can they see some writing on the wall?
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From what I’ve read so far, it looks like Blair went to custard when Bush bullied him on the phone. He knew it was a mistake to capitulate but did and will be paying for it ’till the day he dies.
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“Open votes expose the voters to possible intimidation”
Whereas Hansons second proves anyone can sit in parliament and villfy while the white supremacists etc run riot at will.
I’d prefer to call it a conscience vote anyway.And I believe when ppl have have to own their decisions, the should be proud to stand up for them.
Her toxic voice should have been shut down by tolerant leaders, at here first re-emergence.
AnywayDQ,
you’d always be fine,you only ever vote one way and the universe has cottoned on.
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‘second wind’
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Yes? Then who am I? And who are you?
I doubt Doug Quixote or Hypo are names on the electoral roll.
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I was just wondering today who you all are.
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I am the walrus…..
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Gah
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Eggman?
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I am Iron Man (crackly voice, creaking bones, memory chips shot, joints locking or seizing up, flat battery).. rust never sleeps.
Jennifer, I think we are the only two here who don’t use a sock puppet?
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Helvi and Gerard?
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Yes. Helvi is cunning with the Helvitiny switch.
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Unrecognisable.
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Hypo, one of the nasty bitches on Ellis and the Drum, used to imitate my broken- English-style posts, and even gave a pseudo.
New posters fell for it, but not the veterans…thank the lord, or someone…
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gave me
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Well I believe anyone using a forum or blog should be required to have an email address which references back via their IP to an actual owner or physical address.
Too many folk using VPNs and the like or disposable eml accts to poison the net.
But then I also believe that without a shift towards a better world,ppl should be held accountable to their votes, too.
It is second best option to being able to charge govt who don’t act on AGW .
But then I am merely an idealist on a rapidly shrinking atoll of hope.
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paul walter, cunning? me?
I thought that Helvi and helvityni share the same gravatar…?
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Identity theft?
Same gravatar only shows how diabiolically cunning the whole thing is.
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Speak for yourself, Sir. Literary style is undisguisable. But one does have to have it in the first case.
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Anonymous writes in bad taste, but she does have a certain pizzazz.
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I would loathe open voting Hypo. Why should anyone else know who I’m voting for unless I want to tell them.
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How about this then.A trial over a couple of state + fed elections and when the populous adjusts back to the default ‘humane variety’ , because they can longer hide their destructive vote impact, we revert to the current model.Or better we trial it in QLD (maybe Tassie too) but do it permanently without letting on that it’s permanent.
Shock therapy
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No. 😠
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Mmmmmm K.
How about a referendum on getting up a plebiscite on whether the public would wear it, or not?
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Oh right of course – I guess just like Shorty and Plibers and the gay marriage plebiscite it didn’t initially occur to me that anyone would stoop to such low tactics…
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I don’t think it was a serious suggestion, DQ.
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SamJ, I think we are about to discover that low blows are the norm, not the exception.
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Second lowest ALP % vote in history, and Shorten is now touring Tassie.
Headline:
Underdog proves underdog status.Celebrates.
Wouldn’t it be wiser to save the war chest ,Bill ?
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This is the quality of One Nation candidates>
http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/wa-one-nation-candidate-convicted/news-story/3cb58eb2626eaf9f4c779c128ce72805
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and……….How dirty a tactic is this>
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australian-federal-election-2016-fraudulent-letter-endorsing-barnaby-joyce-should-be-investigated-by-afp-says-tony-windsor-20160706-gpzpa0.html
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Too late now, Hypo.
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Oh dear >
another swamp creature >
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-06/who-said-it-donald-trump-or-a-movie-baddie/7574498
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Tony Blair and his government have been censured over the Iraq invasion:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/06/chilcot-report-crushing-verdict-tony-blair-iraq-war
Regarding the lack of UN approval:
“In the absence of a majority in support of military action, we consider that the UK was, in fact, undermining the security council’s authority,” he says.
The report also demolishes Blair’s claim made when he gave evidence to the inquiry in 2010 that the difficulties encountered by British forces in post-invasion Iraq could not have been known in advance.
“We do not agree that hindsight is required,” Chilcot says. “The risks of internal strife in Iraq, active Iranian pursuit of its interests, regional instability, and al-Qaida activity in Iraq, were each explicitly identified before the invasion.”
George W Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard should be on trial for starting an illegal war.
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DQ We all know,The 3 psychopaths will never be tried.Chilcott was always going to make so many loopholes and escape routes.
This the reality for sending children and grandchildren to die, and for those that don’t ,allowing them and their families and friends to suffer the burden of PTSD
****it is easier to change the gst, than to avoid going to war, even illegal or illegitimate wars*****
(The people actually have NO say in either)
So much for duty of care.
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EDIT Meant to say HARDER to change GST, as in it’s easier to send us to war!
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Tony Blair, the man who knew better but kept silent..
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One of 3 megalomaniacs itching to use fear or flesh and blood to boost personal power and validation.
The Hague awaits >>>>
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At last someone in the media gathers the words to describe the Howard era.
“Mind Boggling Incompetence”
Fact check, LNP voters are more concerned with shutting down marriage equality that sending kids to illegal wars.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/chilcot-report-the-mindboggling-incompetence-of-bush-blair-and-howard-laid-bare-20160706-gq06hy
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Wilkie is also ramping up the dialogue on the lie based war.This should confuse the bejesus out of Mal T.
88 Aussies would probably still be living today if the deputy dog had not used us a penis enlarger for GW Bush.
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Really? They died months before we invaded Iraq. I think we need to blame blowing up Afghanistan for that.
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Quite right.blush.The wars for votes/money/wheat/oil/ US mateship,etc, are so thick on the ground with lies and deception, one blurs into the other.But the outcome and underlying cause is the same.As in this case the culprit due to explain with his accomplices,at a court in Hague, the justifications thereof.
And to explain who gave him the permission to lie to Australia,and when,why and how.I’d say the argument of non-disclosure excuse “because security” is now totally moot.
Let us say the Wilkie is spot on.The deputy badge became a target on the back of innocents, via Howards desperate need to impress his friends.
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Hypo, the honourable Hans Blix from Sweden did NOT find any WoMDs.
Holt went all the way with LBJ, Howard did the same with President Bush. We are obedient to Mother England and Daddy USA.
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Obviously Mr Blix (unlike Howard/Blair/Bush ) actually had honour.
Liberal politicians=self>party>donor>self>constits and country are last on the list.
BTW
Notice Little Johnnies makeover ?
It’s amazing how quick the eyebrows on a snake can grow.
Surplus calcium from the lack of spine,perhaps?
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Perhaps Bill Clinton shooting cruise missiles into Afghanistan at Bin Laden started the whole mess in 1998?
http://edition.cnn.com/US/9808/20/us.strikes.01/
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It’s been going on since the Age of Imperialism, the end of the Ottoman Empire, Sykes Picot and the discovery of oil.
The oil is there, also strategic locations like Afghanistan.
The rest, all the loss of life and ruination of people’s chances at life, is merely to do with “collateral damage”, as someone like Dick Cheney might say.
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I blame Adam & Eve, and Cain & Abel.
Am I my brother’s keeper?
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BREAKING NEWS
Australia’s greatest and longest serving Serial Liar, and former AWB (Iraq Chapter) Fan Club President, Slime Minister John Wink!ston Howard, makes heavy weight comeback.
Says illegal war in Iraq was a great idea,stands by it,would do it again.
Hopes he can soon.
In a rare break from his full-time, life long career of scribing and narrating his fictional novel, “White King”, The Complete Sanitation of Australia’s Political History,” and adorned in a stunning green and gold Glomesh ‘onesie’ , white arm band on each upper sleeve and coupled with a LAPD bullet proof vest, he also reminded the fawning media that his greatest regret was (still) that he did not seek compensation and apology from the indigenous people who pre-invaded Captain Cooks colony.
Howard said his door was always open,even in Naidoc week.
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The Little Man and his inflammatory nonsenses leading up to Bali, I remember so well, as he flogged the terrorism pup…I remember feeling so disturbed, feeling that no good could come the incessant misrepresenting and provocation of Muslims as diabolic and the danger that the constant stream of it, extending from the decades long abuse of Palestinians, would provoke the same reaction at Bali as occurred with 11/9.
After 9/11, I posted at Web Diary that the West needed to take a look at itself rather than “lose it” with Mid-eastern people, but the record shows that the Mafia gang who had debauched democracy with the Hanging chad election seized immediately on 9/11 as a pretext for a cold blooded war of aggression for control of mid east oil and proceeded to bully other leaders into going along with yet another mid east adventure.
Howard didn’t care, he was only ever a faithful servant and it came down to Blair and Blair, who knew and was capable of, better, lost his nerve with Bush and sold his soul to the devil, something he knew he would have to pay for forever.
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After Dr. David Kelly, he must have realised the inevitably of comeuppance and Chilcott is the bird coming home to roost.
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Yes, what’s up? Those eyebrows make him look old and bewildered, not fit to travel anymore….?
Soon Jeannette has to take out her whipper snipper.
At least his hero’s (Menzies) brows all grew in one direction ,upwards and out.
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oops, that was meant as a reply to Hypo’s post, somehow it fell down here…serves me right, getting excited about Johnny and his unruly brows.
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Some peoples say chicken manure can make hair grow.
Perhaps, but….
Obviously not as fast as bullshit does.
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Janette is getting older also. What if the whipper snipper wavered then ended snipping somewhere else instead?
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No heart,no blood loss.
I doubt he has anything else on him she would be interested in, other than his bull nose verandah eyebrow
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Going to join PW and say my thoughts are with JW.Hope she is getting on top of this nasty ‘lurgy’.Once and for all.
Stay warm and dry and keep the fluids up,live on soup.If you’re appetite is flat scoff some good natural honey, to keep you going & should soothe the throat and get the innards working.Ignore the calendar and clock and play some gentle world music in the background,when you can’t snooze .
This year the nasty cold season bugs seem to be on HD steroids.
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I have a dear friend at FB, getting on in years, who has just posted a pic of himself with a dose of this bug- I thought he looked absolutely dreadful.
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Thank you, PW. I’ll be back soon. No pics from me though…
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Hi Hypo, and PW, will be back soon. Thank you for advice & good wishes.
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Get well soon, Guinevere. Hypo’s advice looks sound; though I’d be playing some baroque music, for choice.
A bouquet of roses for you!
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Never a person more deserving of them.
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Irony, or confirmation as to the original source of the (callous?) ‘rednecking’ exercise that put Pauline Hanson into Parliament in the first case?
Has she been put back, to the surprise of many, because a peg was needed to hang the MSM vitriol and divisivness upon? Were ‘proxy’ votes used to help do it?
These and other questions at No Place for Sheep the blog …..
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Abbott, and Turnbull’s Double Dissolution which halved the vote quota for the Senate seats.
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Would not be surprised to see Abbott inflicted on indigenous affairs portfolio.
If so in six months there will be no communities dealing with govt (maybe his pet project Pearson)
I’d prefer to see a minister for multicultural relationships created and give that to Abbott.( a win win for Turnbull) He and the QLD vacuum headed hate machine can fight to the death defending their positions.I reckon both ‘thin cranialled’ alter-aliens would implode .
I can never imagine indigenous ppl having a microsecond of patience for a QLD National either.
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Mr. “Lifestyle Choices” as minister for indigenous affairs.. this a government so crazy I believe it.
For my part I will share a rumour. Ivan Milat to be made minister for Women’s Affairs!
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Looking fwd to Hanson arcing up over local jobs versus the cheap slave ‘perve on Helga’ backpacker option, protected lazy farmers prefer.
More local jobs and enshrined free kicks for backpackers are totally incompatible.
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One for Jennifer- some consolation.
http://theconversation.com/nationals-leader-barnaby-joyce-injured-by-sheep-62369
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T’was just trying to say, “hullo”‘.
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Butted by a dorper eh?
That’s what they all say.
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Ha! I had a standing joke with Chris Hunter (an NZer) about sheep . . . he once said that he only fancied the black faced ones. (ie dorpers)
Baaarnaby may share his tastes . . . 🙂
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DQ, so you are still obsessed with sheep, leave it to Barnaby.
My dear friend CH never was.
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Not at all.
This is no place for sheep.
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On biosecurity,alone,Joyce should be kept well away from all animals.That makes it hard for him.That would preclude most of the the cabinet (all of the right) and a big slab of Nats.
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To call them animals, is a compliment…
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Here’s a peril for Pants Down>
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-12/luke-simpkins-concedes-defeat-cowan-anne-aly/7623068?WT.ac=statenews_wa
I’d be watching her nutjob supporters if I were federal security authorities.
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I think Anne will have her for breakfast.
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Somehow I don’t think Hanson is Halal.
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Priceless, Hypo. LOL
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I guess we have to take the light path with the storm we have closing in on us.
What sort of community standards do we have,when a public servant with Hanson’s attitude would be sacked, and yet she can represent the electorate state and country?
No way is it democratic.No matter how it is spun that a alien like her has any relevance in a modern society.
People are made to attend cultural awareness education prior to public service roles.And she is even more in need of therapy.
(yeah,yeah I know LNP as well, but race hate is her CORE policy)
Having dealt with Hansonites before I don’t expect Dr Aly to enjoy what she is about to face, and nor do I think Hanson cares for what Dr Aly will say,no matter how tempered and intellectual Aly is.Therein lies the problem.You are dealing with a severely synapse depleted cretin, in Hanson.She won’t move sideways,let alone backwards.
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I fear for Dr Aly, on yesterday’s Drum Howard’s girl, Jackie Kelly, could hardly bear to look at the other guest, a Muslim woman, whose name eludes me…
All that hot hate might start bushfires…
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Know the episode you mean. The young muslim woman was way too sharp for tired looking Kelly.
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On the subject of perils, is this perhaps a yellow one?
Or is it just the Yanks behind the Yanks trying to be ‘indirect’?
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I have a feeling this may be more than just tangentially relevant. It does, after all, purport to attribute this particular Divisional electoral outcome in Longman to the influence of One Nation ‘How to Vote’ cards.
I can’t escape the feeling that it was tremendously important to some interests that Wyatt Roy not be returned to Parliament. I wonder why that might have been?
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Labor benefiting from ONP?
How very dare you!!
Seriously though, the nightmare has only just begun for the govt,the opposition,minority groups and the entire community.Let’s see Mal deal with this.This is what DQ was wishing upon the ALP>
http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/i-wont-back-down-hanson-to-pm/news-story/94483173574ac37e86121c0d71a9abce
Fact>Hanson was totally enabled and re-enabled by the vacuum of courage,vision and leadership in the 2 major parties.Both are captive of their masters.Unions and corporate donors.Those demographic overlords apply to both sides.Unions do more political fellating of ‘bosses’ for their own benefit and at the peril of workers than the ALP will ever admit to.
The Murdochs of this world are safe and immune from the violence headed our way via Hanson’s amoebic brain and toxic mouth, so why would they give a sh*t, as long as their wealth ,control and power grows? In fact Hanson is a handy conduit for Murdoch and the RWNJ network to supply fertiliser to their flourishing garden of class separation.
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Hmm. I’d rather have my hands on the levers of power than let my enemies have their hands on them and fuck us all up.
Sitting in a cage and throwing your shit at the passing punters might satisfy you, but not me.
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Then I wait for your appraisal of the alliance of Turnbull and Hanson with trepidation,knowing full well you would eagerly assign the alliance to your precious pretend workers party.
For someone who claims to ride unicorns you have a perverse ‘reality recognition deficit’ when it comes to gift horses.
Knowing you DQ ,you will never admit how close the ALP came to oblivion had they won this election with the swill baggage it comes with.
The eager offshore nightmare of the ALP and now this shows just hoe right labors foot soldiers are.
You dodged a bullet.
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Not a unicorn – it is Rocinante’s self-image, ie, his avatar. 🙂
And Hypo, I hope that you are right. Fervently.
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Willing to bet this certified nutjob is the main denier troll at the ABC
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-05/one-nation-senator-denies-link-to-sovereign-citizens/7695442
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