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HOWARD MANIA
David Marr uncovers the unbelievably sinister and terrible secret long concealed by John Howard’s family:
His mother’s church and his father’s service station have come to stand as markers of respectability, honesty and the Howard family’s deep roots in the suburban heart of the nation. To be the son of a service station proprietor allows John Howard to claim as a qualification for high office that he was and remains an ordinary Australian.
But Howard’s father had another life.
Read on ... if you dare! Meanwhile, the NSW Labor Party and its union friends won’t yield to John Howard’s nuclear agenda:
The Australian Workers’ Union has previously called for public discussion on the nuclear option but supported today’s [anti-nuke] resolution.
AWU NSW president Mick Madden said the Labor party had now come to a position on the issue.
“We are not participating in John Howard’s agenda,” Mr Madden said.
They will, however, allow terrorists to dictate their energy policy:
[Labor MP Anthony] Albanese said nuclear power stations could be targeted by terrorists as the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney has allegedly previously been.
“We already know that Lucas Heights has been a terrorist target,” he told the conference. “We know that nuclear power plants must be built near where people live and near to the (power) grid.”
“They would also become terrorist targets.”
Look for the ALP to issue resolutions opposing tall buildings, trains, buses, aircraft, restaurants, and bars. Extra bonus Howard-hating from The Age’s Farah Farouque, who quotes outraged gay marriage advocate Jackie Stricker:
Stricker, a private school teacher who was torpedoed into a public profile through her romantic relationship, turns the rhetorical screw: “When John Howard has met me, he’s looked extraordinarily uncomfortable. He’s never spoken to me, even when I was standing next to Kerryn. He didn’t even meet my gaze.”
Can one be “torpedoed into a public profile”? And how is a direct accusation some form of rhetorical device? Farah also seeks input on Howard’s opposition to gay marriage from Margo Kingston:
“Caesar Howard,” she says. “Yes, it’s a sensitive issue; yes, there are people of many opinions, but this is absolutely gutless and indefensible. The basic ‘liberal’ position is that whatever you do in your bedroom is private,” says Kingston.
And it remains so. Marriage is a separate issue.
Farah appears, at first sight, to take an unusually liberal view of things homosexual,for a Muslim.Then again,while she happily quotes various practicioners and supporters of the lifestyle,she doesn’t actually come out and support it herself.Perhaps she just saw the opportunity for a “win win”,a bit of Howard-hating combined with a bit of high profile homo-outing for the benefit of any of her Muslim readers who might not already have been aware of the predelictions of Kerryn,Jackie and Margo etc.
Talking about the stupid…
Today the Nine’s Sunday program were describing the claims that Zarqawi was still alive when American troops arrived and was allegedly pulled out of an ambulance and beaten to death by them as, alarming claims!
Meanwhile, over at the ABC, on a program called Asia-Pacific Focus, in a segment devoted to what prominent voices in the region were saying, footage of Michael Berg speaking in Delaware was aired…yet again!
Where next, Play School???Can one be “torpedoed into a public profile”?
Well, yeah, if you turn the catapult upside down.
Or date an Australian swimmer…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 11 at 12:43 AM • permalinkExactly what is Marr’s point?
In February this year, launching a book that celebrates his 10 years in office, John Howard once more harked back to the role of the garage in forming his fundamental values. He was myth-making again.
Is he saying Howard was lying? That’s clearly his intention, so why doesn’t he just say it? Because he can’t back it up? So why the story?
Deceitful slurs about the families of political opponents are all in a day’s work for Marr.
Posted by Captain Wacky on 2006 06 11 at 02:03 AM • permalinkSO if I grow my marijuana in my bedroom it’s all good and legal?
Posted by papertiger on 2006 06 11 at 02:17 AM • permalinkIt’s much worse than that.
I have in my possession certain official memos indicating that Howard didn’t turn up for service with the Texas Air National Guard.
Posted by Evil Pundit on 2006 06 11 at 02:19 AM • permalinkAbout two-thirds the way into the article, Marr writes:
“...several questions remain unanswered. It is not clear how they [the Howards] were recruited by Carpenters, whether the family ever expected to own these plantations or what they got out of putting their names to these deals.”
The “secret” of the Howard plantations is how the bloody hell this ever got published. If this is investigative journalism, then Marr is clearly the the Inspector Clouseau of the press corps.
Hanyu: agree totally.
As for Stricker, her views are in my opinion garden variety projection. Howard is a man who is comfortable in just about any social situation. This is one of his great strengths. Stricker on the other hand is neurotic, self-absorbed and attention seeking. It is far more likely that she felt uncomfortable in his presence given her pre-judgment of him and the unrestrained comments she and her girlfriend have made about Howard.
If this story is the best (worst?) Marr can dig up on Howard, Marr needs to get a life.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 06 11 at 03:31 AM • permalink#17 & # 19
You are both correct. As a Strayan gay man may I say that, 1: I’ve no prob with JoHo, nor his veto of gay marriage; which brings me to, 2: How could JoHo not veto it when never more than 20% of Straya’s gay population can ever agree on what form “same-sex marriage” should take, not to mention would even use it if it was legal; which brings me to 3: the champions of gay marriage are no more representative of a constituency than activists of any other anti-establishment cause. It’s all about them.
If we could just harness the energy from the head-wobbles of David Marr and Kerry O’Brien whenever they are discussing John Howard, there would be no energy problem.
BTW Does anyone remember, ohh, a few weeks ago, when the anti-nukes were saying there was nothing to worry about in having the nuclear debate because it is not economic and would take at least 30 years to get a power station up and running. They seem to be showing less and less confidence in this argument…
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 06 11 at 04:58 AM • permalink#14 - I have in my possession certain official memos indicating that Howard didn’t turn up for service with the Texas Air National Guard.
Let me save you the trouble, Evil. I can see what’s coming next.
I confess, right here and now before the assembly, that I failed to answer the nation’s call forty years ago. It’s true. I avoided conscription and never went to Vietnam.
I’m tired of hiding behind excuses. So what if I was only six at the time?Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 06 11 at 05:28 AM • permalinkIt is only a matter of time now before Marr puts two and two together and discovers that Howard is closely associated with someone who is well known amongst the left as being the embodiment of evil. This relationship may even have extended so far as to be sexual in nature.
I speak of course, of his long and close liaison with no other than Mrs Howard.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 06 11 at 06:10 AM • permalink#25: I think that “faux intellectual” would be a more appropriate tag, given his repeated attempts of to discredit his opponents with implied guilt by association, conspiracy theories and childish name calling. I’ve participated in high school debates that make the SMH’s opinion page look anti-intellectual by comparison.
Stricker, a private school teacher who was torpedoed into a public profile through her romantic relationship, turns the rhetorical screw: “When John Howard has met me, he’s looked extraordinarily uncomfortable. He’s never spoken to me, even when I was standing next to Kerryn. He didn’t even meet my gaze.”
That can’t be. Everyone knows private schools have a right-wing bias.
“He’s never spoken to me, even when I was standing next to Kerryn. He didn’t even meet my gaze.”
And even without clucking like a hen
Everyone gets noticed, now and then,
Unless, of course, that personage should be
Invisible, inconsequential me!Cellophane
Mrs Cellophane
Shoulda been my name
Mrs Cellophane
‘Cause you can look right through me
Walk right by me
And never know I’m there…Posted by walterplinge on 2006 06 11 at 08:13 AM • permalinkEvil Pundit — Oh, yeah! Well I have pictures of him running guns to the Khmer Rouge! In a hat! Top that!
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 11 at 01:45 PM • permalinkAs political hit pieces go, that one really sucked. It didn’t even have any sex in it.
But until the industry was ruined by American soya beans in the late 1980s, copra brought prosperity to the Pacific and made fortunes for the two Australian companies that dominated the trade: Burns Philp and Carpenters.
Just another reason why we’re hated.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 06 11 at 02:25 PM • permalinkWalterplinge #31—One of my very favorite song-writing teams.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 06 11 at 02:28 PM • permalinkSo the labor union was all for nuke power until Howard voiced support for it. Reactionary half-wits. I swear, the US and Oz are like mirror images of one another.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 06 11 at 02:33 PM • permalinkTo be the son of a service station proprietor allows John Howard to claim as a qualification for high office that he was and remains an ordinary Australian.
Let’s not forget Howard’s other claim to being an ordinary Australian, one never mentioned by the Left - his education at an inner-city public school, Canterbury Boys High.
Let’s not forget Howard’s other claim to being an ordinary Australian, one never mentioned by the Left - his education at an inner-city public school
contrast this with Marr’s education at an elite inner Sydney private school - SCEGS. The Howard family really does have humble origins, it’s not just some act put on for the public.
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 06 11 at 04:32 PM • permalinkThe fact that John Howard was educated at Canterbury BHS must really annoy the teachers’ unions.
One of the union leaders complained after a recent re-election of Howard, that the teachers were obviously not doing their jobs properly at school. They should be teaching the kids ‘values’ that got the ALP elected.
So how did such a successful conservative politician as John Howard slip through the state school filters?
One reason might be that Canterbury BHS is no longer the school it was in John Howard’s time there.
Our state-educated children live next door to it, but their kids go elsewhere.Bugger. I thought Marr was going to tell us all how Howard’s father was a Grand PooBah 33rd degree of the Freemasons and it’s nothing anywhere near as exciting.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 06 11 at 06:11 PM • permalinkNilknarf Arbed — Oh, come on, since when are Masons more exciting than coconuts?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 11 at 07:23 PM • permalinkWatch out Richard. Remembe that the Masons are one of the secret societies that make up the Neo-con International Conspiracy, along with others such as the Rotary Clubs. The jihadis are terrified of the Rotary Clubs.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2006 06 11 at 08:41 PM • permalinkRotary Clubs…? I hope, I really hope that that is a joke. Rotary clubs are Good, in every sense. In fact, the left strangely has no opinion on them. This is probably because they are living proof against leftist fiction; they’re conservatives doing charity and good works for the community.
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 06 11 at 08:54 PM • permalink“To be the son of a service station proprietor allows John Howard ...”
Marr misses the deep cover of the Howards.Service Station?
Those sinister things that the US built here at every major intersection??The Howards were bought, lock, stock and oil barrel, by Standard Oil back in the 40s!
Look for links to the Bush conspiracies, Davo.
#39. Actually in Howard’s day Canterbury Boys was a selective public school which turned out numerous public figures such as Justice Lionel Murphy.
I was born and bred not far from the Howard servo, which is now a panel shop. These days Dulwich Hill is swamped with inner city progressives, spilling over from Newtown. Neighbouring Earlwood, the Howard family seat, is affectionally known as ‘Girlwood’ amongst local lesbians.
Whenever I carried this crowd home in my cab, I used to make a point of identifying the Howard landmarks, with the silence-inducing comment, ‘You must be very proud living in the same suburb our beloved Prime Minister once did’. I don’t do it anymore - they never tip.
“I was brought up to believe that about the best thing you could ever do in your life,” [Howard} said soon after taking office in 1996, “was to start up a business with nothing, work your insides out, hope you earned a bit of money, and pass on a bit of it to your kids.”
So that’s why he became a lawyer and a career politician?
Re : The ACT’s “Civil Union” Act.
First, it’s very similar to legislation passed in the UK and several other not-exactly-known-as-hotbeds-of-liberaility jurisdictions.
It bends over backwards to say that it’s not marriage. It’s not even about marriage.
What it is about: Preventing repeats of circumstances such as happened recently. A gay man required consent by next of kin for surgery. His partner of 10 years (IIRC) was unable to give it : the next-of-kin was the estranged father, whose reaction was “let the bastard die”.
Very similar events have happened a number of times, it’s no “Urban Legend”, just a common pattern. A lot of parents think “better dead than gay” when it comes to their children. Honour killing, Western style.
Partners of 20 years or more have been refused permission to attend the funeral of their deceased “spouse”.
Insurance, probate, a whole host of strictly legal complications face de-facto same-sex relationships. There must be some way of formalising them.
The legislation used the shorthand “same rights as if they were married” to avoid a long, and perhaps flawed, list of rights, which could be and would be argued about in future cases.In short, it’s about human rights, not morality or religion.
It’s about giving the minority of people who have the grave misfortune to be born Intersexed, not quite biologically completely male nor female, the right to have a partnership with someone they are in love with. There’s more of them than you might think, perhaps ten thousand, perhaps thirty thousand, in this country. But they tend to keep this secret if they can, many people ignorant of medical science refuse to believe they can exist, and they suffer persecution both legal and social.
We don’t know how many there are, because the Australian Bureau of Statistics refuses to count them. They are arbitrarily assigned a male or female gender by a computer program, at random as far as I’m aware.
Don’t believe me?
The Australian Bureau of Statistics will allow those who self-define as intersexed or androgynous to note the fact in the 2006 Census, to be held in August.
“The ABS has no intention to force or coerce respondents to lie about their sex,” said Dave Nauenburg, the Director of Population Census Development and Field Organisation for the Bureau.
“My advice to intersex people is that they can complete the sex question correctly by ticking none of the boxes provided for the question and writing in the word “intersex” or “androgynous”.
Those who do not answer the question will have a sex assigned to them by a computer program [now that’s real progress!]. The ABS does not intend to keep statistics on intersex people from this census.
There’s another one-liner, that allows married people who have changed apparent sex to have their legal sex change without having to divorce. No matter what surgery a transsexual woman might have had, no matter what she may look like, legally unless she divorces she’s male. Then magically, she isn’t.
Yes, currently they have to destroy marriages to save them. All states and territories have similar legislation, except for the ACT. Until it gets vetoed.
Hey, I didn’t know any of this stuff 14 months ago either, and wouldn’t have believed such legal absurdities if anyone had told me.
Oh yes, and I sat next to Karryn Phelps in primary school. I have a high opinion of my own intellect (even if no-one else does) but she is at least my equal. Always was.
As a Liberal voter, I confess I’m disappointed with John Howard in this matter.
In the Big Picture, the Economy, the Liberation of 50 million people from Theocracies or Dictatorships, in the perennial fight against Moonbattery, he’s outstanding.
But in this matter, he’s got it wrong, and it’s hurting people who don’t deserve it. It’s against Liberal principles.
I hope he changes his mind. I hope that the readers here who support his action change theirs too.
In my experience, Right-wingers are often amenable to being pursuaded by facts, and well-put arguments, even if they find them unconvincing at first. Please do the research, and filter out both the “God Hates Fags” and “Gay Sex should be taught at Kindergarten” lunacy, and come to your own conclusions, as your consciences dictate.
Even if you’re mildly homophobic like me.
As for Churches - let them follow their own dogma, or conscience, or both. This isn’t a religious question, it’s a matter of law, justice, and common humanity.
“Gay Sex should be taught at Kindergarten” lunacy
It ceases being ‘lunacy’ when one of the largest school districts in the United Staes (New York City) assigns “Heather has two Mommies”. That actually happened. Therefore, why is this being spun as lunacy to be filtered out? Because it didn’t happen? It did. Because it doesn’t play well? Because the publicity of this fact is inconvenient? Yes, we
right-wingers’ do make decisions based upon facts. The assignment of that book is a fact. I’m not likely to forget that, and nor should I.As for these myriad tragedies; the parties involved should try consulting a lawyer. There isn’t a situation that you named that cannot be resolved by the establishment of living wills, and other contracts.
Srekwah : I’ll repeat some parts of the Civil Unions Act:
4 This Act continues the process of rationalisation by allowing 2 people who choose not to be married, or would not be entitled to be married, to enter into a legally recognised relationship that is to be treated under territory law in the same way as marriage.
...
Civil unions—general(1) A civil union is a legally recognised relationship that, subject to this Act, may be entered into by any 2 people, regardless of their sex.
(2) A civil union is different to a marriage but is to be treated for all purposes under territory law in the same way as a marriage.
Note 1 Marriage is defined in the Marriage Act 1961 (Cwlth) to mean the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.
Note 2 Territory law includes the common law (see Legislation Act, dict pt 1, def law
How many times must it be repeated : this is not marriage. It has no effect on the Federal marriage act.
As for children needing a mother and a father - that is a sore point, from a personal basis.
I’m Intersexed, and one of the rare few whose body changes over the course of their lives. Most such are men suffering 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, and until late puberty, appear female. But a few are women (albeit some are infertile rather than completely sterile as males) and change (incompletely) later in life, in their late 40’s.
I have a son, nearly 5 now. According to Medicare, I’m biologically female. More female than male anyway, even though I’m his biological father.
You can only imagine the difficulties this causes, even without the legal hassles.
General Rules and Approximations should be treated as such, and not enshrined in law as absolutes.
Blue Hen - this is Australia, where “living wills” don’t have the same effect as in the US,
And nothing will allow anyone who is sufficiently Intersexed to get married.
why is this being spun as lunacy to be filtered out?
Isn’t it Lunacy? Shouldn’t it be treated as such?
You misinterpreted my remarks. I believe that teaching homosexual sex, or heterosexual sex for that matter, before High School is Lunacy. That some advocate this just shows that there are some people who take tolerance of the different to Insane lengths. It should be taken exactly as seriously as the “God Hates Fags” Westboro Baptist Church, and shows that there are Loonies on both sides of the debate.
BTW “Heather has Two Mommies”, apart from the “Land Rights for Gay Whales” type Lefty illustrations, is a relatively harmless book IMHO. I have a copy, and hopefully my son will read it one day. But not for a while, I think “Thomas the Tank Engine” is more appropriate, even though both of his biological parents are now biologically female according to the medical authorities.
If you think “Heather Has Two Mommies” is about Gay Sex, heaven knows what you think of Noddy sleeping in the same bed as Big Ears!
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Marr’s expose yesterday was just plain batty.
It ranks right up there with the 9/11 conspiracy theories for imagination and lack of credibility.