<< GUNS DO GOOD ~ MAIN ~ JOHN PROFUMO >>
LABOR SELF-DESTRUCTION WATCH II
Labor’s Great Indoor Fight continues, now with the dramatic intervention of Kevin. We join our spirited combatants as they roil across Australia in a furious, hissing ball of loathing and contempt:
* Kevin emerges from deep hiding to offer his frank views.
* Big Bill makes fun of Julia’s hair and says the current ALP caucus is “the worst caucus I’ve ever experienced in my lifetime.” Kim wishes the bickering would end.
* Carmen thinks Kim should stand up for himself.
* Kim smells like death. Julia is walking all over him, and vengeful Simon wants to bring him down. Who might profit from this? Kevin!
* Julia only got to where she is because of Stephen and Marn. Simon is a hypocrite. Julia hurts Kim whenever she can. Julia likes people to think she is tormented by dark, sinister forces.
* Kim is going to meet Simon next week to see if they can be friends. Palooka’s gang is upset with Bill because Bill didn’t tell everybody he liked Palooka. “Enough of this,” says Kim.
* Bob wants everyone to stop being angry.
* Simon says it’s personal between him and Stephen.
Damm it Blair!!
You trying to put “Neighbours” and “Home Away” writers on the dole?
These scripts are tough....tough I tell you.
The stuff you keep putting out on the ALP....You couldn’t make that shit up.
Oh, wait!Posted by desert rat on 2006 03 10 at 01:27 AM • permalinkAs the Stomach Turns (h/t Carol Burnett Show).
At least here it’s just the Laborites. Of late, I feel like both major US parties are in danger of imploding.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 03 10 at 01:53 AM • permalinkAs Jim Hacker said in ‘Yes Minister’ - ‘Your opponents are in the other party, your enemies are in your own’.
BTW, I’ve been resident in Australia for ten years now, and while I’m politically aware in a vague RWDB hang ‘em, flog ‘em way, the internal politics of the Labor Party is still a big ugly mystery to me. Can anyone point me to a guide to ALP factions - who are they, what are they for, how do they operate etc? Of course, no need to reply if my suspicions that it’s all being managed by Messrs Rove, McEnroe and Wronwright are correct. Careless talk costs lives after all.
It’s like the 3,000 men three days gorefest - without the ‘men’.
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2006 03 10 at 02:33 AM • permalink#2 I’ve just pour myself a large bowl of choc mint M&Ms and I can’t wait for the next exciting episode.
-- Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2006 03 10 at 02:37 AM • permalink#13 - Hey! Woody was talented! The only thing Gillard has in common with Woody is they both have testicles.
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2006 03 10 at 04:10 AM • permalinkI wonder if Julia has slipped Mark Latham a year’s worth of horse tranquiliser in the hope that he won’t come out and re-endorse her at this delicate time.
On the other hand, she may still regard house-dad and camera smasher Markie as a valuable ally. That would really establish her Prime Ministerial credentials.
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 03 10 at 04:20 AM • permalinkCan anyone point me to a guide to ALP factions - who are they, what are they for, how do they operate etc?
See the wikipedia articles for Socialist Left and Labor Right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Left
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Right
Or, for an insider’s view, check out Andrew Landeryou’s blog.
http://andrewlanderyou.blogspot.com/
The whole thing is mindboggling.
Posted by Quentin George on 2006 03 10 at 05:03 AM • permalink#8 and #18 - It’s Jeux Sans Frontieres by Peter Gabriel
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2006 03 10 at 07:06 AM • permalinkAnd Reg says to Brian (in the company of Stan (Loretta), Francis and Judith):
‘If there is anybody we hate more than the Romans its the f**king Judean People’s Front’.
Posted by Flying Giraffe on 2006 03 10 at 07:11 AM • permalinkHow sad, how boring, how predictable.
The Gillard curtains question? Always check the eyebrow colour to know for sure.
Carmen Lawrence waffling on Lateline, snoorrre.
Howard must be laughing long and loud tonight.
Hey, where were you all? I went to the Fisk Fest at Macqaurie Uni, the main theatre was full, three overflow rooms full, a hundred more people standing outside, close to 2500 people in total, from 12 year old kids to 80 year old women.
I tried to be the single voice of dissent, but I was drowned out by the two minute long standing ovation at the end.
Gutless, you’re all bloody gutless.
All at home in your slippers watching Better Homes And Garden were you?
Pah!
Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 10 at 08:14 AM • permalinkLeftieLattelover: re #26.
My best friend went to the FiskFest at the ANU. Her reaction : he’s a demagogue, and a fine, pursuasive speaker. Had the whole of the audience ready to shout “Sieg Heil”, only in a Leftie kind of way.
Meanwhile.. a healthy Democracy needs a viable Opposition. Is the ALP beyond repair? Seriously, after the Latham debacle, it’ll be a long time before the system that produced that monumental train-wreck will ever earn the voters trust. It needs a public and publicised reform, one that’s convincingly non-cosmetic.
He’s good on facts (usually), he never lets those facts get in the way of his pre-formed perspective (US==EVIL therefore Anti-US==GOOD), and is a most accomplished orator.
Her opinion of him went up as the result. Oh yes, he’s still full of it, but he delivers drek so well prepared it smells delicious.
# 28 Actually, suprisingly enough for Fisk, a notorious anti-Bush venomist, he hardly mentioned the US at all.
He talked mostly of his 30 years of war reporting from the Middle East, and he was actually quite funny. From the way posters here go on about him, I thought he would be as depressing as a Pilger lecture. Quite the opposite. I was surprised by how much I didn’t know about the endless conflicts of the Middle East, and the true aggressors behind most of the slaughters.
Is that why you had to throw in the standard response to anyone who dareth mention Israel acts offensively, as well as defensively?
Again, where were you all? I thought there was going to be a ‘We Hate Fisk’ Nuremberg Rally, in a rightie kind of way.
You have all disappointed me with your inaction. For God’s sake, it was a free event! Couldn’t afford the bus fare?
Or was the ABC’s Collector program just too riveting to tear yourself away from?
I only went because I thought I woulld be amongst friends. In the end, I was amongst friends, new friends, lots of them, lefties, righties and moonbats aplenty. But everyone had a good time, amazingly enough, laughs even.
War On Iran? Not a chance, reckons Fisk. We’ll see soon enough.
Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 10 at 10:12 AM • permalinkOr, people have lives and value other things more than Fisk.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 03 10 at 10:42 AM • permalinkBefore the chuckling gets too out of hand, remember the mess the Liberals were in during their long years in opposition, right up to the ‘96 election. Labor didn’t see it coming. The Liberals were ‘in the wilderness’, ‘self-destructing’, etc. Being in a mess today is no guarantee of losing an election a year from now.
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 03 10 at 12:10 PM • permalink#30 Leftielattelover, protesting is more of a Lefty thing to do. I gave all that up long ago. These days, I don’t have a problem with someone, especially a well-known person like Fisk, giving speeches, whether or not I agree with what they say. But kudos to you for going along, checking it out, and giving us a report.
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 03 10 at 12:28 PM • permalink#8 Scott R
With apologies to Lou Reed.I was sleeping, gently napping, when I heard the phone.
Who is on the other end talking, am I even home?
Did you see what she did to him, did you hear what they said?
Just a Labor conversation, rattling in my head.Oh, my, what colour is her hair?
Oh, my, and who really cares?Just a Labor conversation, gossip all of the time.
Did you hear who said what to whom, happens all the time.
Who told porkies and who has said that Beazley’s on the nose?
Julia, Simon, bad repartee, everybody knows.Oh, how sad, why do we call?
Oh, I’m glad to hear from you all.I am brawling, yes I’m brawling to the 15th round.
For I know this night will kill me, if I can’t take you down.
If-I-can’t-take-you-down.#35 Daddy Dave, yeah I know, I wasn’t aiming at you there, my friend. I just seem to recall a couple of weeks of hardcore Fisk bashing and baiting going on around here, and there was much talk of going to the Fisk Fest and trying to shout him down or some such rubbish.
You remember, the talk of Fisk not being bashed hard enough around the head by his father, only a few days ago?
I didn’t really expect any RightImSoRight types to go along and cause disruptions.
Any Australians who think there is some sort of racial divide amongst the majority of youth would have been disappointed to see thousands of people with absolutely no animosity toward each other at all, gathered to learn some truth from someone who knows too much.
Really quite moving, actually. And a good sign for future harmony in this country, if some politicians could just shut the hell up about a situation that doesn’t exist, except in their paranoid, conspiracy-ridden minds.
Fisk was controversial, naturally, saying that considering the ceaseless slaughter of Muslims in the Middle East for the last few decades, it’s suprising the West has gotten off so lighty as it has - don’t start screaming, that’s not a direct quote. A summary of sorts.
War begets war begets war begets war...and so on.
I know why he cops so much hate-speech around here now, he knows the history of the Middle East inside and out, and he talks about it in ways that most people can understand (if incredible quickly, man, slow down!)
He said there would be no attack on Iran, from anybody, while there are so many Allied troops in Iraq, and the US won’t be able to pull out of there, without the help of neighbouring countries like Syria.
The NeoCon Dream is now a foul, blood-drenched nightmare, and even Daniel Pipes and Richard Perle are backing away from Democracy Now in Iraq. “Maybe later...”
They got their war, now they don’t want to deal with the hell unleashed.
What did that truth speaker say to Condi Rice when she and Rummy went begging for more war bucks yesterday?
“The blood is on your hands.”
A stunning piece of television history. That chilling dead air silence that followed…
It’ll take years to wash away those stains.
Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 10 at 01:25 PM • permalinkPerhaps it’s just me, but half of the content of LeftieLatteLover’s posts reads somewhat comprehensibly to me, while the rest seems to consist of hysterical non-sequiturs straight out of the fever swamp. The funny thing is that it switches back and forth almost with every paragraph. Time to lay off the meds a bit?
LeftieLatteLover, let me address your misconceptions in no particular order.
1. "He said there would be no attack on Iran, from anybody." at least once a year, Gerard Henderson does an article pillorying self-styled prophets (mostly from the left). For example, he will produce predictions that they made in the past and show how wrong they were. The moral: making predictions makes you sound very impressive, but it is foolish. People love to be told the future. resist the temptation.
2. "War begets war”. So you’re a Chamberlain, not a Churchill?
3. "The NeoCon Dream is now a foul, blood-drenched nightmare”. Tim linked to this a few days ago in the post on Jim Soorley. Well, who’s right and who’s wrong? do you have an opinion on the veracity of that report? Miranda Divide has already expressed her contempt for the link and its authenticity, so please feel free.
4. "Any Australians who think there is some sort of racial divide amongst the majority of youth would have been disappointed to see thousands of people with absolutely no animosity toward each other”
University-educated middle class people all hanging out together proves nothing.5. "a situation that doesn’t exist" please be more specific, and spell out what situation doesn’t exist, LLL?
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 03 10 at 03:47 PM • permalinkThanks, JAFA. Further to a general Fisk concern--last month, a mere month ago, there was snow on the ground and it was cold! Today I walked outside, and there was grass, and daffodils, and hyacinths, and the trees and shrubs were budding, and it was 81 DEGREES F!!!!! Obviously, a result of DU armament material from the Iraq war...I’m just sayin’...
#34 daddy dave
Before the chuckling gets too out of hand, remember the mess the Liberals were in during their long years in opposition, right up to the ‘96 election.Fortunately, that’s straight out of Howard Mantra 101. JoHo’s seen it all before.
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 03 10 at 06:16 PM • permalinkI find it hard to argue with Leftie Latte Lover on many points, primarily because they are incomprehensible…
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 03 10 at 07:09 PM • permalinkMargos Maid, LeftieLatteLover is either a poorly disguised troll or a wavering lefty - which is more likely. If that is the case, then LeftyLatteLover, we encourage you to expand your mind, but you need to read some of Tim’s backposts before you uncritically accept Fisk’s opinions about the Middle East. Check out the picture of the new house a couple of weeks back, for starters.
If on the other hand, you’re a troll, then beware, for Andrea is watching . . .Posted by daddy dave on 2006 03 10 at 10:43 PM • permalink37 - blood on their hands, oh yeah!
No blood on hands anywhere else in the world? No wrongs being done? Just those western democracies that need to be slammed?
The hell unleashed is not the average Iraqi, but hounds who want anarchy for the express purpose of ruining the construction of an alternative civil government. Latte is delusional, but that seems to be the preferred mode of argument for some.
The big achievement of those hounds just might be the use of overwhelming stand-off weapons in future. What other lesson would the failure of the Iraq venture send, apart from the convincing one that there are such nihilistic shits at large in the Middle east that swift regime destruction is essential, but reconstruction is not worth the bother in the face of those elements.
The more little latte’s who argue against the campaign in all the media, the more likely the failure of will might flow on to the failure of the Iraq reconstruction, and with that failure come consequences. Latte’s warm feeling of being right about everything might not last under the follow-on scenarios.right on blogstrop… like America is to blame for extremists entering Iraq across the Syrian border and going around blowing up Iraqis.
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 03 10 at 11:05 PM • permalinkThe NeoCon Dream is now a foul, blood-drenched nightmare, and even Daniel Pipes and Richard Perle are backing away from Democracy Now in Iraq. “Maybe later...”
Latte, you asked me (via email) to warn you when you stepped over the line. I think about now is the time. That statement of yours is nothing but hysterical nonsense, unless you are one of those people who believe that the World Trade Center was actually destroyed by the Zionist Conspiracy to Conquer the Entire Middle East and Steal It’s Sweet, Sweet Oil for Halliburton. In which case it becomes the deranged ranting of a drooling moron. You didn’t strike me as being so far gone.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 03 10 at 11:20 PM • permalinkAndrea,
That statement of yours is nothing but hysterical nonsense
Nothing new, though. “Controlled Demolition” now has as much sinister undertones as “Freemason” or *gasp* “Illuminati.”
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 03 11 at 12:48 AM • permalinkThis is off the posted topic but not so much from the direction the comments have gone. Anyway there is an interesting article in this month’s Foreign Affairs magazine. Basically it gives a history of the end of the occupation of Iraq by the Brits after the first world war. Basic gist was that the strong “Quit Mesopotamia” movement forced the Brits to leave prematurely. Chaos ensued and Iraq was condemned to military strongmen to control the various religious and cultural groups. It makes the obvious point at the end drawing parallels with that situation and the pressure for the Coalition to pull out of Iraq as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately the full article is available only to subscribers but you can read the first five hundred words and, if you’re desperate to continue, pay for the article.
Perhaps it’s just me, but half of the content of LeftieLatteLover’s posts reads somewhat comprehensibly to me, while the rest seems to consist of hysterical non-sequiturs straight out of the fever swamp.
PW — That’s because Risperdal has an expiration date.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 11 at 02:06 AM • permalinkGeez, people are sensitive here.
Maybe I need a ten point checklist written for me on how to think, how to feel and what to believe so I can continue to remain a part of this wonderfully democratic forum?
Actually, Daniel Pipes explained in great detail in The Australian and on Lateline, on the same day, coincidently, how he didn’t think democracy was shaping up too well in Iraq, and it might not be such a good time to expand the concept across the rest of the region.
He also stated, very clearly, why a civil war in Iraq would be of “strategic advantage” to the US. Iraqis would kill each other and not Americans. Pipes said this, it’s not a distortion.
It was a shocking thing to hear from someone I have admired since I first read his work and thoughts and philosophies in the months leading up to the Iraq War.
Fukiyama has pulled himself well clear of the mess in Iraq, but unlike Pipes he didn’t try and claim his original dream was corrupted, Fukiyama said NeoConism needs to be dustbined, period. These are not claims made by others, of dodgy quotes, these are from newspapers opinion pieces written by Pipes and Fukiyama.
That the moonbats haven’t leapt all over this disloyalty to the dream of Iraqi Democracy is incredible. That they both are now giving up, and retreating, is disgusting.
Pipes and Fukiyama wanted and pushed hard for a War On Iraq, now they don’t want to know about it anymore. Well, sorry, they cheerleaded this from the beginning, and got people like me convinced it was the right thing to do, and now they are betraying the ideals and the dream.
No, I’m not a troll. That is just paranoia, big time. You don’t want people here who say things you might not agree with?
Don’t shout bile at me, I wanted the War in Iraq to work, but I can’t pretend that it is working whne even Pipes and Fukiyama say it isn’t, and I can’t pretend that 30,000 civilians (Bush’s own estimate) did not die from whoever’s bullets and bombs in this poorly planned bloodbath.
By the way, when I signed up, I read that you were not allowed to vilify race, religion or call for violence against anybody. Why does this rule not apply, yet offending someone with a differing opinion cops a warning?
I love democracy, I want it for everyone in the world, and I want it in oodles here as well, but I also love peace more than war, and having read the transcripts of hundreds of Australian veterans from WW2, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq 1, Somalia (that are available to all on the Australian At War Film Archives), I can only come to the conclusion that peace does far more for the good of all than war does, 90% of those haunted veterans said war never solved anything. So I suppose they’re all moonbats, too?
Finally, finally, on the ‘Am I a Chamberlain or Churchill?’, Fisk read out a report Churchill wrote in 1937 where he spelled out exaclty what would and did happen following the establishment of the State of Israel, that there would be decades on bloodshed for all.
That was one of the factual revelations I was talking about that Fisk revealed to me. I will do more research because i want to know what people wrote and thought in the 1930s, there’s little in today’s media.
Sorry if this is too long, but being accused of perhaps believing in WTC/911 conspiracies really got me fired up.
I feel much better now, thanks.
So can someone write a ten point plan for how to think, how to feel and how to speak so I can remain a part of this wonderfully democratic forum?
I clearly need one. Right?
Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 11 at 07:37 AM • permalinkwanted the War in Iraq to work
It’s not a car, Latte.
Re: Fukiyama, is that the guy whose latest “ew, war is icky, let’s go back to the future!” book is getting panned? Anyone who could posit with a straight face that there could be such thing as an “End to History” is on my goofy, nod-and-smile-and-ignore list. And Daniel Pipes is a commentator, not the voice of God.
The rules of commenting are simple here. Don’t be needlessly rude. When something you write is pointed out as a tired old moonbattish canard, make a note to not repeat it unless you like abuse. I’d also advise you to peruse Tim’s archives; you may find that the ideas you think are fresh and stunning and new are actually old and moldy and have long ago been revealed to be nonsense.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 03 11 at 09:48 AM • permalinkI also love peace more than war
Latte, you may not believe this, but all normal, rational people love peace more than war. But that is not an argument against war. Most people love vacation more than work; magistrates love acquitting more than convicting; Florida grandmothers love sleeping through the night rather than getting out a gun and popping a total stranger.
I raised the Churchill/Chamberlain thing to get your opinion about appeasement vs fire-with-fire, but you dodged it with an irrelevant Churchill quote. The question is: in the current situation, what action is necessary?
You can argue military action isn’t necessary if you like, but you can’t argue by using that lame crap about ‘peace is better than war’. Well, you can, but you won’t be taken seriously.
btw on Iran, please consider the following things: the President of Iran has vowed to wipe Israel “off the face of the map”; and Iran is indisputably developing nukes. They admitted playing the Europeans for fools on the issue, too.Posted by daddy dave on 2006 03 11 at 10:10 AM • permalinkDon’t shout bile at me
the worst thing I can find in this thread about you is that you are ‘delusional’. oh yeah, I guess Andrea did describe one thing you said as “the deranged ranting of a drooling moron”, but you were going way over the top at the time. I still wouldn’t call it bile. oh and are you reading any of the links we’re throwing at you, or are you choosing to remain wilfully ignorant? If you’re such a fan of history, Francis H linked to a good article a couple of posts above.
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 03 11 at 10:22 AM • permalink
Page 1 of 1 pages
Members:
Login | Register
| Member List
We Aussies are so lucky to have the ALP to entertain us.
Sobering thought - these are the same people who decided Mark Latham would be the best of them to run for Prime Minister.