Sometimes I read an article that is so idiotic that I've got to wonder how the journalist responsible manages to get out of bed in the morning without hurting himself. There are some journalists (eg Piers Akerman) that produce nonsensical gibberish so often that I don't even have to wonder how any respectable newspaper would publish their rantings. Well, it seems that the Age, which usually displays some sense, has a star of their own.
An article by Michael Vaughan titled "We don't need feminism to fight inequity" takes the idiotic tripe cake. Before taking a closer look at the article I can't help but question who it is that Michael refers to when he says "we"? Sure he doesn't need feminism to fight whatever inequity he may be facing, but going by his name, he's not the one feminism is fighting for. Either Michael is pretending to be one of the girls or he's presumptuous enough to think that he knows what women need, in which case he should probably reveal the basis for his omniscience.
The hypocritical headline aside, the rest of the article is an example of what you get by mixing complete lack of understanding of the subject matter, illogicality and poor writing and pour the product onto a newspaper page. The article is an attempted critique of an opinion piece by Karen Murphy titled "Blame women for the death of feminism". Karen laments modern women abandoning feminist ideals and heading back into "slavery" and sexualisation.
Whether you agree or disagree with Karen's views, she raises a serious social and political issue, one that requires a considered response from someone who knows what they are talking about. If Michael Vaughan thought that described him, he was dead wrong. Just because Michael claims to be a great believer in equality and because he has a female boss (so what one might ask?), he thinks his commentary has some sort of authoritative status. Hmmm. So lets see what sort of equality does Michael believe in.
Karen specifically singles out for criticism certain types of women and activities that betray feminist achievements. Michael comes back with a "brilliant" equality argument - some men do it too, therefore, it's all good, we are all equal. Let me list some of the activities and illustrate why his position in nonsensical.
lap dancers, strippers, topless barmaids and well-educated prostitutes who do it for the money
Yes, Michael, there are male prostitutes, strippers etc. But if there is one male prostitute or stripper for every hundred women, that isn't equality. It's a sign that the use and abuse of women as sexual objects is much more widespread and, dare I say, acceptable, than similar use of men. And yes, Michael, men do go "topless for many reasons" - sun baking may be one - but a topless woman and a topless men aren't quite the same. The catch is in the sexual nature of the act.
participating/degrading oneself in pornography
Yep, men do it too, but for some reason whenever I come across those foul pop-ups or ads on the web, they always describe, graphically or otherwise the sexual degradation of women. Men do participate in pornography, but usually as ones doing the fucking/degradation of the woman. When it comes to degrees of degradation, the equality is just not there, Michael.
model in degrading advertisements for money.
I haven't seen many ads where men are posed with half open mouths near another man's (or woman's) crotch, in a position clearly implying acts of fellatio, but maybe I've been looking in the wrong places. The key word here is "degrading". Perhaps Michael can name a few ads as degrading to men as the Chivas Regal or the Windsor Shoes ads (to name a few) are to women.
have cosmetic surgery and breast enhancements to make themselves desirable.
Ah yes, my favourite one. Michael must know lots of men who pump silicon into their breasts (or should that be boobs, knockers, tits - those things that men stare at on the train?). Does he spend a lot of time wishing that his B cup was a D, so that he's more attractive to the opposite sex? Is his desirability or identity defined by the size of his boobs? Enough said, I think.
In fact, Michael does nothing to address the key point of Karen's article - that women are increasingly sexualised and defined by their sexuality and that they are complicit in that definition. He prefers to pick on her grammar or expression and imply that the only way for her to know about sexualisation of women is to admire pornography, while claiming that he doesn't take cheap shots. Yeah, those are really killer points Michael - very convincing. Just a tip for future improvement - you might like to try an actual argument once in a while, it helps. Because if all you can do is pick on someone's grammar, your audience may conclude that you don't have any valid points to make.
And when it comes to his claim that Karen must have "taken the time to watch (look at, scan, ogle or admire — your call) all of the things you mention. How else would you be authoritative enough to comment" - Michael, what Karen talks about is all around you. It doesn't require research, just opening one's eyes. And one's mind.
Would you think it odd if you read an article which started like this:
Heterosexuals sue over IVF twins
AN IVF doctor swore in horror after he mistakenly implanted two embryos into a heterosexual who wanted only one baby, a Canberra court was told during a landmark case yesterday.
In the first case of its kind in Australia, a straight couple is suing a prominent Canberra obstetrician, Sydney Robert Armellin, for more than $400,000 in the ACT Supreme Court for implanting two embryos.
Looks off doesn't it? You wouldn't see an article like that in a newspaper. You wouldn't accept it as normal. However, the Age apparently thought nothing of publishing an article which started like this:
Lesbians sue over IVF twins
AN IVF doctor swore in horror after he mistakenly implanted two embryos into a lesbian who wanted only one baby, a Canberra court was told during a landmark case yesterday.
In the first case of its kind in Australia, a lesbian couple is suing a prominent Canberra obstetrician, Sydney Robert Armellin, for more than $400,000 in the ACT Supreme Court for implanting two embryos.
Why is an article like this OK? Why is it so normal that we don't think to question it? Why do we accept a newspaper defining these women by their sexuality if they happen to be lesbians, but not if they are straight?
There would be hell to pay if the women were described as "blacks" or "Asians" or by reference to any other minority status. We do not accept that it is ok to define a person's identity, to categorise them by their race or by their ethnicity, but it seems to be acceptable to define them by their sexuality.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with mentioning, in the body of the article, that the women are a couple, but that is not what the article does. The headline and the first two paragraphs define the women's identity solely as "lesbians". We know nothing else about them. The rest of their identity and their life seems to be of no import. It is their sexuality that our attention is directed to.
Piers Akerman can always be counted on for a senseless rant. If you are looking for an example of really bad journalistic writing, Akerman's his latest piece titled "Leadership foreign to Haneef pawns" doesn't disappoint.
As usual Akerman displays his ability to write in a balanced and unbiased manner by starting his article with "A week before the undesirable Dr Mohamed Haneef bolted from Brisbane, the self-proclaimed great and the good gathered at Griffith University to demonstrate their willingness to be used as political pawns in his support." Actually, for Akerman this is quite restrained - at least he didn't mention stormtroopers, Hitler's Nazis, Stalin's communists and Mao's Red Guard in one sentence, but someone should tell Piers that while loaded language may sometimes enhance a valid argument, it does not bestow validity on an argument which has none in the first place.
Akerman follows his normal practice of not letting the facts get in the way of a right-wing rant or to interfere with his near-pathological* need to attack the ABC. He wastes no time attempting to bring the ABC into his story "They were welcomed by the ABC’s Sandy McCutcheon, Radio National Australia Talks Back host, and addressed by Haneef lawyer Peter Russo and barrister Stephen Keim before a torrent of the usual civil libertarians, lawyers, preachers and Democrats spoke." There then follows a comment about McCutcheon's involvement in an anti-Iraq war symposium (why wouldn't anyone like the Iraq war, it's been so successful!). However, in his haste to have a go at the ABC, Akerman conveniently forgets that Sandy McCutcheon has not worked at the ABC since 2006. Akerman's brand of journalism obviously doesn't require accuracy.
Then Akerman has a bit of fun with Haneef's interview on Channel 9, during which he was described as “a shy man . . . gentle for a suspected terrorist”. With impeccable (or should I say impenetrable) logic Piers immediately states "It has an eerie echo in a phrase by John Hooper, in The Observer, who described Mohamed Atta - the terrorist who piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Centre - as “a shy, considerate man who endeared himself to Western acquaintances”.
That's right, all "shy", "considerate" and "gentle" men (of Middle Eastern appearance of course) must be terrorists! Why didn't we see it before? It proves the case against Haneef! Maybe its the "secret" evidence that Kevin Andrews is reluctant to share with us. Perhaps Piers will volunteer his time to help the AFP draw up plans to round up all shy and considerate men and hold them indefinitely on suspicion of terrorism.
Interestingly, Akerman criticises Tara Brown for being too superficial when interviewing Haneef. Not having watched the interview, I can't comment on the veracity of that accusation. But I will comment on Akerman's failure to practice what he preaches. Having accused one reporter of superficiality, he demonstrates the same in his article. He accuses Kerry O'Brien of showing a "lack of understanding" when questioning Ruddock about the government's handling of the case, but says nothing about how this alleged lack of understanding was manifested. He demonstrates his lack of critical analysis by quoting Kevin Andrews statement “I’m going to protect Australia and Australians first. So far as I’m concerned, his visa is cancelled and that’s that” and asserting that "It’s called leadership. It’s in short supply in the ALP and obviously an alien concept to Haneef’s supporters."
Yeah, that's right, a political slogan about protecting Australians from someone who is not even a threat to them followed by a refusal to discuss the matter ("and that's that") shows leadership! Some might think it shows lack of accountability, but Piers is happy to gaze adoringly at any Howard government Minister and, like Andrews, obviously doesn't feel the need to explain how the Minister's conduct demonstrates leadership qualities.
Then there is the assertion that "under the Act, the Minister has that discretion and in this matter he has acted both legally and correctly." Akerman obviously has legal qualifications that he carefully concealed from the rest of us which enable him to determine whether Andrews acted legally. Pier's valuable opinion notwithstanding, some of us may want to wait until a court rules on the matter, while remembering that the Minister has a duty to use that discretion for proper purposes under the Migration Act and not for extraneous reasons, such as ensuring the continuing detention of someone who has been granted bail.
Oh and of course his article doesn't explain how taking issue with what the government did turns us all into political pawns, but hey, an article content doesn't really have to relate to the title does it?
But there is one thing that I agree with Akerman on - leadership is in short supply in the ALP. If they keep on going in that manner, Akerman may have to start writing nice things about them.
* Yes, it's an example of loaded language, but I do attempt to make a (hopefully) valid argument.
The Australian newspaper claims to support free speech. Earlier this year, News Ltd (which owns The Australian), in conjunction with other media organisations launched the "Australia's Right to Know" campaign, aimed at reviewing the increasing restrictions on media freedom. The Australian even has a web page, titled "Your right to know", dedicated to freedom of speech/freedom of information articles.
But while (quite correctly) demanding that freedom of speech not be unreasonably restricted for its journalists and editors, the Australian hypocritically fails to apply the same standards to itself. When Tim Dunlop, whose excellent blog Blogocracy is on the News Ltd site, published a post containing well-reasoned criticisms of The Australian editorial, the post vanished from the site, as did Tim for almost 24 hours. Thankfully Tim is back, but his post isn't. It's content has, however, been picked up and reproduced on some other blogs, such as Larvatus Prodeo (see comment of Darryl Rosin) and the Poll Bludger.
The content of the post is reproduced below as a protest against the hypocritical and unreasonable censorship by The Australian/ News Ltd. If other bloggers are reading this - please consider also reproducing the post. Lets show the mainstream media that the one proven way to make something more popular is to try and censor it!
The content below is copyright of Tim Dunlop. Anyone citing this content, please make sure that it is properly attributed to Tim's blog - Blogocracy.
Who says the mainstream media don’t pay attention to the blogosphere? This extraordinary story relates to this week’s Newspoll results and the way The Australian reported it. Peter Brent runs the excellent psephological blog called Mumble. It’s one of a number of blogs that run analysis and commentary of opinion polls, and others include OzPolitics, Possums Pollytics, and Poll Bludger. Yesterday, Peter Brent noted that he had fallen foul of some of those at The Australian:
A courtesy call from Editor-in-Chief Chris Mitchell this morning informed me that the paper is going to “go” Charles Richardson (from Crikey) and me tomorrow. Chris said by all means criticise the paper, but my “personal” attacks on Dennis had gone too far, and the paper will now go me “personally”. No, I’m not making this up. If they only get as personal as I get with Dennis, then it should be tame, as I don’t believe I’ve ever criticised anything other than his writing. And to think I described Dennis, in a chapter in a book being launched this month, as (with no sarcasm) “a fine journalist”. All very strange. And - I’d be lying if I didn’t admit - a little stomach-churning.
The editorial is up this morning and yes, they do “go” Peter Brent. They defend themselves in the strongest possible terms and attack, specifically and generally, just about anyone who disagrees with them, particularly “Australia’s online news commentariat that has found passing endless comment on other people’s work preferable to breaking real stories and adding to society’s pool of knowledge.” There are a number of things to say about all of this. The first is that the editorial is as much concerned about charges of bias against The Australian as anything else. This is how it begins:
THE measure of good journalism is objectivity and a fearless regard for truth. Bias, nonetheless, is in the eye of the beholder and some people will always see conspiracy when the facts don’t suit their view of the world. This is the affliction that has gripped, to a large measure, Australia’s online news commentariat that has found passing endless comment on other people’s work preferable to breaking real stories and adding to society’s pool of knowledge.
If bias is in the eye of the beholder, then there are a lot of “beholders” out there who think The Australian is biased, particularly in its coverage of polling data. The evidence for this is not just to found in the blogosphere but on their own pages where their columns and articles often fill up with criticism from their own readers accusing them of spinning information in favour of the Howard Government. In attacking the “online commentariat” they are also attacking a sizeable sampling of their own readership. The latest bout of charges of bias were prompted by this week’s Newspoll and many people, including me, were struck by the way The Australian chose to cover the story. For instance, Bryan Palmer at OzPolitics wrote:
“When I first glanced at today’s headlines — Howard checks Rudd’s march — Kevin’s sizzle not snag-free — Howard finds fertile ground for support — I was expecting to read about a polling improvement for the Howard Government. What I found was a flat line.”
What’s interesting is that The Australian seems to believe that only they are capable of objectivity and they reject entirely any charge of bias. This is odd given that Chris Mitchell himself has said:
“Can I say something about The Australian’s contribution to the national political debate. It has made, as a newspaper, a remarkable contribution, I think back over the last 10 years that this government has been in office and I think of the positions taken by The Australian newspaper. “It has been broadly supportive, generously so, of the government’s economic reform agenda. And it has been a strong supporter, consistently… of industrial relations reform. Its only criticism of the government is that it might not have gone far enough.” …I think editorially and on the Op Ed page, we are right-of-centre. I don’t think it’s particularly far right, I think some people say that, but I think on a world kind of view you’d say we’re probably pretty much where The Wall Street Journal, or The Telegraph in London are. So, you know, centre-right.
It is precisely that “generous” “broadly supportive” “right-of-centre” tilt that people are responding to when they see Newspoll reported the way it was this week. For the editorial to deny that any such tilt exist seems disingenuous. So I think the editorial is ill-conceived and way off the mark in singling out Peter Brent in the way that it does. His site largely confines itself to interpretation and in doing so, provides a great service. The idea that he can’t comment without the editor of The Australian ringing him up to say they are going to “go” him is disturbing. Still, I think it is fair to say that News Ltd, including The Australian, has opened itself to comment and criticism from its readership more so than Fairfax, the other major news organisation. They have embraced readers comments and “blogs” more fully, and this site alone is evidence of that. So while most News news stories and columns allow reader comment, the same is not true of Fairfax. You can, for instance, comment on Dennis Shanahan’s and Paul Kelly’s columns, but not Michelle Grattan’s or Gerard Henderson’s. But having embraced such an approach, they have to accept that not everyone is going to agree with them or buy into their particular take on a given issue or, indeed, their own self-image. The Australian is, of course, completely free to defend themselves, but it might also pay them to reflect on why so many people see them as the “government gazette” rather than just dismiss nearly all such criticism as “a waste of time”.
Take today's MX (ok, maybe it doesn't qualify as "media", but bear with me) - half the front page is occupied by a headline which screams "PM gun scare". Anyone expecting a juicy story about a foiled assassination attempt would have been disappointed.
The so-called scare involved a man who was in Launceston (where the PM wasn't) wanting to get a free flight to Sydney (where the PM also wasn't), while in possession not of a gun, but of various gun parts. He placed these parts on the counter and patiently waited until the police arrived without threatening anyone.
So how does this all add up to "PM in gun scare"?. Apparently the man said that he wanted to go to Sydney to see the PM. That was sufficient to create a headline screaming of gun scares. Fear not only wins elections, it also increases circulation of newspapers, so if it doesn't exist, it must be created, no matter how ludicrous and irresponsible the creation is.
For the last few weeks, when reading any online newspaper I just felt like shouting - get that stupid girl out of my face! Enough already - do we have to have those vacant-eyed photos and meaningless snippets about Paris Hilton every day? What's so damn interesting about a young idiot who behaved like a young idiot and landed in jail for a few days. It's not news, so stop pretending that it is.
Well, it appears that Mika Brzezinski, a presenter on MNSBC has also had enough and demonstrated her displeasure in a very public way - by ripping up, shredding and attempting to set fire to stories about Hilton, which supposed to have been presented as a lead news item of the day.
If anyone else is annoyed at the endless Hilton mania, here's the video - good for getting satisfaction by proxy.
These days The Australian often reads like it is edited by the Liberal party. Today's editorial regarding Labor's IR policies is no exception. The backhanded compliments to Labor for "fine tuning" its IR policy do little to disguise the fact that the Australian apparently believes that the only way that Labor's IR position is going to be "acceptable" is if it mirrors that of the Liberals. The arrogant attitude that the only way that thinking of "the left" can be respectable is to become the same as ideology of "the right" was revealed in previous the Australian editorials.
This misleadingly complimentary editorial is perhaps more dangerous than the previous diagnosis of non right-wingers as "psychotic". Let consider the following statement:
The elephant in Labor's IR room, however, remains Ms Gillard's pledge to scrap AWAs. The Australian accepts collective agreements may be a beneficial safety net for low-paid workers. We accept that collective bargaining should be a right for those who seek it, but we fail to see the need for intrusion into the lives of highly paid workers who want to enter an individual non-union contract. To us, the Government's no-disadvantage test for workers earning less than $75,000 a year appears to be a reasonable compromise.
Let's forget for a second that the government doesn't have a "no-disadvantage test" - that's the test that it scrapped when it introduced WorkChoices. What it did introduce is the so-called "fairness test" (which is unlikely to remain for long should the government win the next election). Not only is the operation of the test uncertain, it is unreviewable by either the employer or the employee (except via the High Court). What is "fair" is decided by a government agency and there are no avenues for appeal or review. A right is not a right at all if it can't be enforced.
It is good to know that the Australian accepts the right to collectively bargain if an employee wants it, but that acceptance does not address the problem that employees face if their employment is made conditional on signing an AWA. The right to collectively bargain is meaningless if an employee has to chose between waiving that right and unemployment.
What the Australian editorial also seems to overlook is that, with or without AWAs, there is nothing stopping an employer and employee negotiating an individual non-union contract which is more favourable than award or collective agreement. What is objectionable about AWAs is that they can be used to undermine award or collective agreement conditions because they prevail over those agreements. Ie. AWAs remove the safety-net. An individual contract cannot prevail over collective agreements, but it will not stop "highly paid workers" negotiating more favourable conditions than the award safety-net.
The apparent reasonableness simply serves to conceal the disingenuousness of the stated position. The need to abolish AWAs stems not from "demands of unions", as the editorial suggests, but from the need to protect workers, especially vulnerable workers from exploitation. It is about our rights in the workplace.
By the way, yesterday I had the good fortune to attend a function where Julia Gillard gave a speech discussing, among other things, the impact of AWAs in the workplace, especially the impact on women. It was a very impressive speech and I'll do one or more posts about it in the next few days.
In a post yesterday I contended that the government (with the help of right-wing commentators) has manipulated public discourse to stigmatise expressions of opinion adverse to their ideology. The post contained a few examples from the day's newspapers.
Well, how about some more evidence from today's papers:
First, there's Wilson Tuckey, a Liberal party MP from WA. Tuckey came out with wild claims that unions would intimidate people into voting Labor and were "going to kick their door in and threaten their kids" and would "start elbowing the Liberal and Greens and other how-to-vote card workers" outside polling booths. "There won't be enough police in the countryside to protect them." he ranted.
It is incredible that Tuckey (who incidentally is famous for threatening to run over a union official) can make these sorts of statements without arousing public outrage or earning a reprimand from the government. That is because this sort of conduct has become entrenched in public discourse. When the electorate has been conditioned over the last decade into believing that dissent is an act of evil, this sort of baseless, hateful rant ceases to astound. It is ok to portray a legitimate democratic activity of lobbying as something dark and evil - doesn't matter that the assertions are ridiculous, doesn't matter that they are not backed up by a single fact or the most minute shred of evidence, never mind that Tuckey predicts the unions will engage in very crude public unlawful behaviour at the same time that Howard is complaining about the sophistication of their campaigns. Liberals don't need to be consistent to be a great tool for inspiring fear.
Not to be outdone by Tuckey's paranoid rant, the ultra-conservative commentator Piers Akerman had a few gems of his own. I have previously written about the depth of Akerman's delusions and so it is no surprise that the prospect of ACTU lobbying against the government (ie exercising its democratic rights) sent Akerman's conspiracy theorising into overdrive. His article, creatively titled "Bully boys and bodgie barbecues", is a prime example how far the conspiracy discourse has come.
Just consider Akerman's language:
"Union HQ has authorised its stormtroopers to zero in on the nearly quarter of a million members who live in marginal seats - and work on them to ensure they vote the union line.
Using computer programs rather than the brick-through-the-window terror favoured by groups such as Hitler's Nazis, Stalin's communists and Mao's Red Guard, union activists have been told to home in on church groups, faith organisations and family members."
Wow - in two sentences a legitimate democratic activity of lobbying has been compared to military operations, terrorism, Nazism, Stalinism and the worst excesses of Communism.
The fact that unions know the details of their members (Akerman seems surprised by the fact that unions would know the details that the members themselves volunteer to their union) suddenly becomes a threat: "We know who you are and we know where you live, we know how many are in your family and even if they are entitled to vote."
Hmm, every time I receive promotional mail from the Liberal party or have a lobbyist call at my door, I'll have to feel really threatened too. They obviously know where I live and who I am and that I'm entitled to vote. Never quite saw it that way before, but when the Liberal party pre-election propaganda arrives, instead of putting "return to sender" on it and dropping it back in the mail box, I'll take it to the police.
But sarcasm aside, how has it become acceptable for democratic activity to be portrayed as "an affront to democracy"?
Why is initiating an actual discussion about government policy offensive, when spending billions of taxpayer money on misleading advertising isn't?
Reading an editorial such as the one published today in the Australian, I am starting to wonder whether it is preparing to merge with the Herald Sun.
The offending editorial is titled Reality bites the psychotic Left - not the sort of title that foreshadows a well-balanced piece of writing. The piece (which lacks a byline) states that "the Left" (which is conveniently left undefined throughout the article) is collectively suffering from thinking "marked by distorted perceptions of reality", which we are informed is the dictionary definition of psychosis.
Quite apart from the fact that the definition of psychosis might involve a bit more than the author asserts, those of us with left-leaning ideologies should wait before running off to the local psychiatrist for a course of anti-psychotics. We may be forgiven for asking how is it that our unnamed writer managed such an extraordinary mass-diagnosis.
Well the first paragraph of the article starts with:
"FOR evidence, if any more were needed, that the intellectual Left has become completely divorced from reality, turn to page 14 of the latest edition of The Monthly, where Clive Hamilton describes the therapeutic effect of bushfires at Christmas."
Given how this is the first line of the article, one might say that its not so much that more evidence is needed, but that any evidence at all would be an advantage. It would certainly be more than we normally get from those on the right of the political spectrum.
And here's the statement that is supposed to be the evidence: "As the orgy of spending reaches a climax we begin to wonder whether we have become decadent. The firies who battle the elements on our behalf remind us of our 'true' selves."
If you are wondering how this is evidence of anything, let alone a serious mental illness that the author asserts afflicts the Left, you are not alone. One does not even have to wonder whether the statement was taken out of context, because even if it was, it still says nothing to support the writer's conclusion.
But wait, there is more damning evidence! Apparently, Hamilton's Australia Institute does such completely irrational things as believe in "a vast corporate conspiracy to stall action on climate change, accuses David Jones and Myers of "corporate pedophilia" and claims that Australia is becoming an increasingly authoritarian state where dissidents are silenced."
As to the "corporate pedophilia", we are not told that this phrase related to statements that some advertising eroticises children and that "children are increasingly being portrayed in clothing and posed in ways designed to draw attention to adult sexual features that they do not yet possess”. We are also not told that David Jones responded to this by filing a SLAPP lawsuit alleging breaches of Trade Practices Act. The case has not yet come to hearing and it thus may be slightly premature to attribute this statement to psychosis. Those of us who recall the advertising that they see, may already think that the statements made by the Australia institute are not at all divorced from reality.
The author goes to some lengths to attempt to refute the third point concerning silencing of dissidents. The "thesis" he rejects was set out in a book titled Silencing dissent. I will set out the author's argument, to avoid misstatements:
This last thesis … would seem difficult to sustain at a time when the marketplace of ideas has never been so crowded. In newspaper opinion sections and magazines and on radio and televisions and increasingly online, Australians are engaged in intelligent conversation about the issues of the day great and small. Blogs and internet chat rooms have given everyone a seat at the debating table. Technology has lowered the barriers to publishing. A host of new periodicals online and in print including The Monthly, New Matilda and The Australian's own Australian Literary Review are providing new platforms for discussion while established journals such as Quadrant and the Griffith Review are reaching new readers and providing a home for new writers. The queues outside venues at this year's Sydney Writers Festival, record attendances at similar writers festivals around the country and new events such as next month's Adelaide Festival of Ideas are public expressions of a confident, mature democracy in which informed debate flourishes.
We are not told what the "thesis" of Silencing Dissent is, and with good reason, because the book does not assert that Howard closed down publications or had bloggers arrested. The author of the editorial dismantles an argument that he himself constructed, but not the arguments in the book. Such approach is obtuse at best and deliberately misleading at worst.
The means used by Howard of silencing dissent were far more sophisticated than closing down publications. I have mentioned a few in a previous post, but they include abolition and silencing of Senate committees (post 2004 election), sacking and/or silencing senior bureaucrats, stacking the board of the ABC, withholding funding from left-leaning groups and organisations (either directly or indirectly, such as with Voluntary Student Unionism legislation), bullying and silencing academics (which should get even easier, now that Howard forced the universities to put everyone on AWAs), prosecuting whistle blowers, vilifying opponents under the cover of parliamentary privilege, the list goes on.
Interestingly, Silencing Dissent alleges that the conservative publication The Quadrant was strongly supported by the government. Ironically, the editorial author uses its success to suggest that Howard government is not suppressing left-wing views.
Oh yes, and one of the methods used by Howard government is repeated suggestions of a vast shadowy conspiracy called "the left". We can still see it now in the government's rhetoric about unions. But we see exactly the same sort of an assertion in this editorial.
The author has created an undefined, homogeneous entity called "The Left", which apparently lacks any internal distinctions and shares one characteristic - all its members are insane. The only way that we can know who these "Left" nutters are is to distinguish them from the Right - those sane people who write editorials in the Australian.
I will not bother with the rest of the article, which contains unsubstantiated and unsourced assertions of ideological standing of people who the author can't even identify. But what is his solution:
The way forward for the Left in Australia is to acknowledge that the politics of the outsider is an adolescent phase and develop soundly based, intelligent arguments that will earn them a place at the table of national debate.
In other words - join us - become part of the Right. Develop arguments that we agree with and we'll then call them "soundly based" and "intelligent", rather than completely misstate them and call them insane. The only reality is our reality, the only ideology is our ideology, everything else is psychosis. Don't you get it - if you are Left, its just not Right!
Please excuse the vent - but how many more Paris Hilton going to jail/Paris Hilton in jail stories do we have to endure? Really, who cares what she wore, who she drove to jail with, what she ate for breakfast, what the size of her cell is, etc, etc, etc. This is a girl who drove like a maniac, while on probation for a similar offence and who got pretty much what she deserved. Does the media have to waste our time and torment our senses with endless stories about Paris. Aren't there any real news they could report in the space taken up by the description of Paris Hilton's cereal? If not, then how about some safe driving tips?
Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it. - Robert Frost
Wyn: The Age sucks. It is basically the Herald Sun for the other side of the political fence.
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Dave Bath: I haven’t ever noticed IPA types defending hard-won freedoms (that have no-one’s “chin” nearby) like the right to a trial, the right to know the evidence against...
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