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Last updated on March 6th, 2018 at 12:31 am
What is it with Australian historians who can’t spell or write or think? Here’s Monash University historian Nick Dyrenfurth at Leftwrites:
I had just returned from a day in Berlin punctuated by the spectacle of watching messrs Marx and Engels (the statue versions of course) descent into a ‘left tourist’ site at the so-called Marx Engels Forum …
Downtrodden I was then pleasantly suprised to recieve news of this Left Writes endeavour. I really hope this venture is a successfull one – which forms part of the ongoing oppositional critique and perhaps more importantly the mapping out of a new Left politics …
Maybe I am foolish optimist but I think this political moment holds the promise not of conservative long term hegemony but of the seeds for a counter movement. There is a ‘far away train passing us by’ – a popular yet dormant movement, who, though not inclined to the old slogans and rhetoric of the Left that is past, are desperate for an alternative to the conservative politics of materialism and individuality. As much as some on this site might despise them, there is something in the writings of people such as Mark Latham and more recently that of Clive Hamilton who …
To hell with this. I should have bolded the entire post. Of course, one of Nick’s research interests is language.
UPDATE. Leftwrites senior beak Jeff Sparrow complains:
It’s one thing to engage in a debate; it’s another thing to spend all day exchanging insults about Nick Dyrenthfurth’s spelling …
Er, it’s Dyrenfurth, Jeff.
- From Revolutionary France to Crappy Cuba, all these lefties can’t ever think straight. Full of delusions, full of crap, they fart when they speak with ideas full of shit.Posted by Wylie Wilde on 2006 07 04 at 12:15 PM • permalink
the mapping out of a new Left politics
To do that, they’d have to invent an entirely new economic model to replace state planning, which was such an abject failure that it doomed socialism.Can these people come up with such a model? I think not. They can barely come up with a sentence.
Posted by James Waterton on 2006 07 04 at 12:31 PM • permalink
There is a ‘far away train passing us by’ – a popular yet dormant movement, who, though not inclined to the old slogans and rhetoric of the Left that is past, are . . .
error in subject/verb agreement
What is it with Australian historians who can’t spell or write or think?
Well, clearly, Tim, they don’t have you and your loyal readers on the job.
- Maybe I am foolish optimist but I think this political moment holds the promise not of conservative long term hegemony but of the seeds for a counter movement. There is a ‘far away train passing us by’ – a popular yet dormant movement, who, though not inclined to the old slogans and rhetoric of the Left that is past, are desperate for an alternative to the conservative politics of materialism and individuality.
This is a pitiful jumble of mixed metaphors, idiosyncratic grammar, sinful syntax, and cul-de-sacs of partial thought, bunged down by a “historian” who looks strangely like Woody Woodpecker.
“There is a ‘far away train passing us by’ . . .” That’s right, bub, and you and your Marxist chums are running along yapping at the tail-lights on the caboose, soon to be left standing motionless, bristling, tired and panting heavily from your pointless exertions.
movement . . . are
. . . an error unless this is an instance of British treatment of a collective noun.
Nah, “error” seems more likely, in the error-ridden context.
- a popular yet dormant movement…
Yeah and taking a crap is a “popular movement” too, except when its dormant, in which case it’s damned uncomfortable!
Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 07 04 at 01:04 PM • permalink
- I would have flown to Berlin to watch Messrs. Marx and Engels (the statues of course) descend into large piled of gravel. Where’s a US Marine with an Armored Recovery Vehicle when you need one?Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 07 04 at 01:58 PM • permalink
- piles, not piled… oh, hell, it’s a thread about grammar and spelling, who’ll notice…?Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 07 04 at 01:59 PM • permalink
- far away train passing us by
I happen to have one http://rhhardin.home.mindspring.com/night.train7.ram from 1:30 in the morning, complete with somebody, probably the “who,’’ banging on an iron pipe, probably trying to escape from Siberia.
(21 minutes, a whistle at grade crossings every couple of minutes)
- What do you want, good grammar or good moonbattery?
Did anyone else sense that it was rather strange to have a devotee of Marx and Engels denouncing materialism? I guess there is good (Leftist) materialism, where all the goodies go to the commissars who know how to use them properly, and bad (capitalist-rightist) materialism, where the masses get some of the goodies too. From each according to his abilities, to each according to what Nick Dyrenfurth and the commissars think they should have.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2006 07 04 at 03:31 PM • permalink
- #15: Him speak ‘em strange English; like bongoman, maybe learn by reading labels of bottles washed up on desert island. Paco think Nick lose pith helmet, get brain fever from sun, pray to dead gods Marx and Engels, but them no hear; them too busy raking coals in Land of Underground Volcano where dead bad mens go. Nick, him go crazy, by ‘n by, stick lotus flowers in hair, eat dirt, get ‘em Phd. Fit ‘em right in with other wise men around council fire at Monash.
- Downtrodden I was then pleasantly suprised to recieve news of this Left Writes endeavour.
Ease up, people. The poor man is oppressed.
And we all know oppression leads to depression. And depression leads to regression. And regression leads to…..well, in this case, cognitive dissonance.Or, it could just be a case of moonbattery.
- Maybe he thinks spellchecks are a right wing conspiracy to control our minds.Posted by Torontosteve on 2006 07 04 at 04:47 PM • permalink
- this reminds me of an english teacher at school – she had terrible english, which I found baffling (by all accounts she was a great teacher though, weirdly enough).
OT: is it may 1945 again? the germans seem slightly upset about something.
Posted by benson swears a lot on 2006 07 04 at 05:33 PM • permalink
- University faculties are full of idiots like this. You HAVE to believe this crap or they won’t employ you in higher institutions.
Look at Sheila Jeffries from the University of Melbourne. She has written papers arguing that plastic surgery should be on the United Nations list of “Dangerous Practices.”
- You need to have a really impressive intellect to believe that the workers are the fount of all wisdom, and that those who have the abilities to transcend the working class are to be torn down.
This is the mentality that embraced communism – it is alive and well today and is getting another round in the ring as the ALP and ACTU tag team leap from the ropes onto the nasty government/business team.
You might, if blessed with such a brain, also believe that employers are monstering good employees rather than desperately trying to retain them in a tight job market.
If you are a historian like this one, you might think an oppositional critique is a noble cause, to be embraced for its own sake. You might not be able to spell hegermoney, but you know it’s bad!
- Yes, we must get rid of all that individuality. I can understand why this bozo is against individualism. A useful idiot is always uncomfortable being responsible for himself. Someone might judge the fact that he’s an incompetent dweeb who couldn’t survive on that blob of a mind he’s created out of the brain nature provided.
Ushie, I know you haven’t been feeling well as it is. I worry about your eyes bleeding, reading stuff like this.
#27, Daphne, unfortunately your observation seems to apply to the US as well. I feel sorry for those teachers who are honest and hard-working. They must feel like Sisyphus must days.
- He’s been to the Julia Gillard school of political writing. Here’s Labor’s well-known spinster reported in today’s The Australian at the launch of Reconnecting Labor.
“It is said if sharks don’t swim they die, but if progressive forces don’t debate ideas, then they may as well die.”
Er, right, whatever, Julia.
Posted by walterplinge on 2006 07 04 at 06:43 PM • permalink
- OT but it is reported that North Korea has test fired four missiles.
Looking out my window, the protests have been slow to start, but I expect the streets to be full of peace activists any time soon. Man, Helen Caldicott is going to be angry about this!
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 07 04 at 06:59 PM • permalink
- Why would someone who supports the working class (well, purportedly, anyway) want a PhD? Isn’t that a sign of intellectual classism or something? Doesn’t it distinguish him in some way or other from the wisdom of the masses?
Is he also an upper class twit?
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2006 07 04 at 07:07 PM • permalink
- “the monstrous social realism of the ‘TV tower’”, “and shooing away the ignorant masses”. Jesus H. Christ.
I don’t know who “Ulrich Schnauss” is, but I wouldn’t accept the apology.
Posted by G Hamid USA on 2006 07 04 at 07:07 PM • permalink
- There is a whole generation that missed out on a pedagogic education in English where one learns grammar and spelling – many of them now occupy positions in universities.
I can’t think of any other language which has committed suicide by throwing away its basic grammar, on the grounds of liberating the language from “patriarchal” or “elitist” concepts, in the way that happened to English in the 1970s. Dyrenfurth’s writing shows the consequences.
- Margos Maid
it is reported that North Korea has test fired four missiles
6 the latest from U.S. sources….One long range Taepodong-2, disintegrated shortly after launch, 3 Scuds and drum roll please…2 No-Dong….YEAH I can’t stop fucking laughing either…but it’s true.
U.S. response should be…stop Wal Mart (anyone else for that matter) from purchasing ANY goods from China for 6 months to 1 year.
- #25 Benson
Hmmm… not half as upset as we in Oz were when a similar thing happened to us. Wonder if the Italians cheated again?
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 07 04 at 07:32 PM • permalink
- #37 I would suggest we send Helen Caldicott to North Korea…then John Kerry…Phillip Adams…Cindy Sheehan…etc
One a week until the Great Leader changes his mind.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 07 04 at 07:34 PM • permalink
- OT I know, but a reported troll sighting down in the Slugs thread. Wants to piss on Independence Day by highlighting a GI arrested for a capital crime in Iraq. Be sort of like going over to Kos on one of their holidays (Earth Day or April 15th) and bringing up the inconvenient fact of 100 million dead. An amateur troll to be sure (Bongoman), but still a good troll spanking is good clean fun and a noble endeavor on this uplifting holiday.Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 07 04 at 07:58 PM • permalink
- saltydog — But if you’re going to demand absolute, comprehensive and unrestricted personal ‘liberties’ AND demand the universal embrace of ‘diversity’, the only way to make those demands work is to ruthlessly eliminate all traces of individuality so that no one really WANTS to do anything different…Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 07 04 at 08:00 PM • permalink
- sorry, thats the Heads Covered thread. I got all excited.Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 07 04 at 08:02 PM • permalink
To hell with this. I should have bolded the entire post.—Tim Blair
Yikes!
(quickly removes bold jar from font cabinet, locks it in Karl’s bottom desk drawer)
Posted by wronwright on 2006 07 04 at 08:03 PM • permalink
- I know Cid, but trolls just never drive around much anymore. Ya can’t get hurt if you’ve had all your shots!Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 07 04 at 08:21 PM • permalink
a popular yet dormant movement, who, though not inclined to the old slogans and rhetoric of the Left that is past, are desperate for an alternative to the conservative politics of materialism and individuality.
There’s the explanation: they don’t have a real religion, and they intend to force their substitute for it (socialist politics) on the rest of us to hide from their spiritual problems. I’d bet this fellow is the sort who fears that the President wants to impose a “theocracy” on America, too – no doubt blind to the irony that he uses political life in order to resolve his own existential issues.
- Jaysus wept. “the Left that is past”?? “The past that left us?” … this past march, perhaps? The left that doesn’t like individuality–exsept in speling.
Heartening, though, that he sees hope for a new “counter movement.” Idiots usually aren’t very good at predicting stuff.Posted by bonjour triteness on 2006 07 04 at 09:17 PM • permalink
- #33 Margos Maid:
But of course North Korea has the absolute right to defend itself from American imperialism! Just like Cuba – if it were not for the US-led sanctions, it would be on the forefront of the standard of living stakes, easily surpassing the evil empire (i.e. US) itself. Just look at all the doctors and hospitals they have!
Therefore the only demonstration you may see from the “progressives” will be in support of comrade Kim’s People’s government and against the Bu$h crime family.
/moonbat
JPb
- Leave poor Nick alone. He is most likely suffering from this.
He needs professional help.
Posted by The (WHMECDM) President on 2006 07 04 at 09:59 PM • permalink
- Oh Nick, not that it matters, but here.
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
Sir Winston Churchill
- Streets are empty JPB, so you could be onto something there.
Correction to a previous post: Mr Google points out that Kim Jong Il is actually known as Dear Leader, not the Great Leader (that was his dad) – it’s an easy mistake to make. Though to my mind, Kim Jong Il does bear a striking resemblance to the King(“I’m so ronery, I could die”).
Another potential strategy for North Korea would be an air-drop of portable DVD players and Korean language copies of World Police…
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 07 04 at 10:08 PM • permalink
- Anzac Day Supporters = Islamic Jihhadists
I posted this (a little too late in the thread) on the post about James Lileks, so I’ll give it another go. The article about Anzac Day is beneath contempt, but I urge you to read it anyway.
“O/T – Strange events at Sparrow Castle. Comments on very recent articles by Kath White on the great organic food conspiracy (poo-food, unions and elites) and on the AEF survey (More Astroturf) have disappeared. Worse, so have the articles. Worse again, so has Kath. I hope she is alright.
But Rowan Cahill has emerged in her place. The multi-skilled Rowan is a writer, historian, teacher and agricultural labourer and he’s not at all happy about the popularity of Anzac Day. Not at all! It’s a conspiracy of course and the people behind it are no better than others that the right roundly condemn – “When it all boils down, there is a sense in which there are only a few degrees of difference between those who promote the Anzac legend, and the Islamic jihhadists who groom youngsters to become suicide bombers”
Would like to comment but I’m banned, along with RMac, MFloss and JamesW by the look.”
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2006 07 04 at 11:39 PM • permalink
..One long range Taepodong-2, disintegrated shortly after launch, 3 Scuds and drum roll please…2 No-Dong….YEAH I can’t stop fucking laughing either…but it’s true.
To minimize North Korea’s difficulties with their missile program, the Dear Leader announced today a crash program to develop the first fission hand grenade…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 07 05 at 01:13 AM • permalink
- 67. richard mcenroe
Slander and lies about the dear leaders missiles will get you nowhere.
Tap-a-dong-2 failed because the fellow whos job it was to sit in the nose cone and hit the two atoms together was weak from hunger and fell asleep.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 07 05 at 02:00 AM • permalink
- I notice both Nick (Woody Woodpecker – nice one BTW) Dryrenfurth and Rowan (Anzac is Jihad) Cahill have both listed themselves in the Australian Public Intellectual Network so I suppose they must be intellectuals. What pretentiousness. What a wank of an organisation. You’d pay money to make sure you weren’t in it.
Would the average Australian worker have anything in common with these clowns?Posted by Whale Spinor on 2006 07 05 at 03:28 AM • permalink
- Here’s what I put in his comments section:
Unbelievable that there are still shills and apologists for socialism today, operating, apparently, in polite society. The intellectual proponents for white supremacy and Nazism are quite rightly considered a lunatic fringe shunned by decent society, but communists can teach our kids?
Would this be the same communism that starved, shot and worked to death as slaves about eighty million people? The same one that wrecked half the globe and consigned millions to abject poverty? The same one that stockpiled nuclear weapons and threatened the free world with annihilation? The staggering, mindless machine that constantly threatened war at it’s neighbors, overthrew and subverted vulnerable third world democracies and ground humanity to a pulp under it’s wheels as it staggered from one appalling historical calamity to the next?
I’m trying to stay polite here but sometimes I weep for the unassailable, invincible and endless idiocy of our ‘intellectual’ class. Here is a man, living in a modern, democratic, affluent culture that allows him to spend his life pursuing his petty academic interests, journeying to Germany to pay his respects to Marx and Engels, the fathers of the gulag, the execution squad, the mass grave. The term ‘Useful idiot” doesn’t even do him justice because with the sordid collapse of his fascist sugar daddy (to the vast rejoicing of it’s slaves) he’s not even useful anymore.
This guy is as ‘Historian’?? God Almighty. And you wonder why this country detests intellectuals and keeps voting for Howard.
It was up for an hour then deleted, replaced by a smug “Historical Troll deleted” message. You can almost hear the pathetic little shit thinking “Take THAT, enemy of the people!”
- #72 Amos,
Well said. I particularly liked “fascist sugar daddy”, and I’m going to use it in my next conversation.Posted by Daniel San on 2006 07 05 at 04:32 AM • permalink
- Here’s mine, posted 1850 AEST. Won’t last long –
“#80 Will Anderson – I think the idea of comments is to offer constructive criticism.
I have no interest in criticising the content. It is the turgid stuff of the Soviet and the cold war, long forgotten and of no interest to 99.9% of the population. But the standard of the spelling and grammar in the article is absolutely appalling. It beggars belief that the author could list in his bio an interest in language. Perhaps it’s one other than English.”
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2006 07 05 at 05:08 AM • permalink
- My entry in the barrel-shooting:
Judging from the rapid-fire deletion of “troll” messages (which are being republished elsewhere anyway, ‘natch, so everyone who cares can see that most of the deleted posts were perfectly on-topic, if perhaps a bit vigorous in their choice of words), you guys here at Left Writes aren’t really up for this whole “exchange of ideas” thing that intellectuals so pride themselves on, I take it? What a shame…I can’t say I agree much with what you have to say, but I’d respect you a heck of a lot more if you at least bothered to defend your positions against factual criticism, rather than ran for the delete key all the time.
If this was a right-wing website, such practices would be denounced as suppression of speech by you, I suspect.
Well, I’m off to uni classes, let’s see if my post is still up when I’m back in six hours.
- Next try:
Hmm, I liked it better when (for two minutes or so) my previous post was replaced with “Troll deleted” rather than eradicated completely. I take it that too many troll-delected’s are starting to make this thread look bad? I’ll repeat myself…for shame that you feel it necessary to go to such lengths.
Will this post beat the previous deletion record of 8 minutes? Stay tuned.
- BTW, calling Dyrenfurth a “historian” as the article footer does (as well as Tim in his intro) is probably several steps too far…he’s not listed on Monash’s Staff page, but does figure prominently on Current Student Research Projects in the School of Historical Studies.
Just another clueless grad student, in other words.
- There needs to be a major intellectual offensive in this country against communists and totalitarian ‘intellectuals’. Why are these vermin allowed to stand unopposed? Where are the counter-voices? It’s frustrating.
It’s not like there’s not plenty of ammunition to destroy them with, namely the utter moral bankruptcy of their murderous ideology and it’s complete and total failure to do anything but create massive famines, industrial-grade state murder programs and universal, stone-age poverty. Oh, and continuous warfare against anyone who tries to live free in their own countries.
They have more blood on their hands than the Nazis, so what the hell? We don’t tolerate Nazis, why do we tolerate these scumbags? It’s madness.
- This cartoon sums up university literacy.Posted by Humblogger (the Younger) on 2006 07 05 at 05:57 AM • permalink
- Here’s mine folks. Aren’t these Australian Public Intellectuals just doozies –
(From Ahab at Leftwrites)
“A troll wrote:
“It is the turgid stuff of the Soviet [sic] and the cold war [sic], long forgotten and of no interest to 99.9% of the population. […] It beggars belief that the author could list in his bio an interest in language.”
Quite!(From moi)
Soviet [sic] Soviet – “One of the popularly elected legislative assemblies that existed at local, regional, and national levels in the former Soviet Union”. Note – “One of”. So singular is fine, [sic] becomes sick.
You might be correct about “cold war”, although I don’t know why. Incorrect terminology, didn’t happen, incorrect spelling, poor grammar? Please explain(this was deleted after a brief showing)
(From moi)
I responded to Ahab’s comment, but you have of course deleted it. Probably because it made him look rather silly. You really don’t have much idea do you? The very act of criticism terrifies you. Never mind, the threads will be published elsewhere.Posted by Whale Spinor on 2006 07 05 at 05:57 AM • permalink
- “There is a ‘far away train passing us by’ – a popular yet dormant movement, who, though not inclined to the old slogans and rhetoric of the Left that is past, are desperate for an alternative to the conservative politics of materialism and individuality.”
One ‘train’, one ‘movement’ so therefore, following a hardly pedantic grammatical convention called ‘subject/verb agreement’, ‘ARE desperate’ should be ‘IS desperate.’
The real horror of the thing only becomes apparent when you’ve picked out the knots.
- I find LeftWrites to be rather depressing. It could be a good decent leftist site (there are some, Mark Bahnich runs a beauty), but they appear to be of the species that cannot stand the thought of actual debate on issues, or of having their beilefs challenged.
Their world must be a fragile place, but they do themselves a disservice by refusing to engage anyone or enagge in substantive debate outside rtheir comfort zone.
What is left, but to mock such a poverty of intellect? Sad how far the left has fallen.
MarkL
Canberra
- MarkL – LPers are woefully misguided, but most of them aren’t stupid. Contrarily, Leftwrites boasts dullards of the highest (lowest) order. I’ve never seen so much dim-witted thought clustering in one spot before. Bar Webdiary. And Kos. Shouldn’t forget Loewy. Oh, crap.Posted by James Waterton on 2006 07 05 at 07:52 AM • permalink
- I wrote a post in the Jeff Sparrow thread about the Guy Rundle/Pamela Bone story.
When I checked back today, it was gone. So I posted this:
Interesting. I posted here the other day and my own, and one other comment, are now deleted. Not just deleted via “Removed by Moderator” comment, but ‘disappeared’ totally into the ether without a trace.
I’m not so concerned about my own comment – I think I added a fairly antagonistic tone, so fair cop I guess. Plus I’m thick-skinned anyway.
But the other post (by a bloke called MarkL I think) was quite polite as I recall, but still disagreed totally with Jeff Sparrow. It too has been spirited away unseen into the never-never.
This does not say much about a belief in Freedom of Speech around these parts. Is that important to you?
If you regard this as a ‘personal blog’ for no other purpose than recreation, then I guess that’s harmless. But if you are trying to use this as a genuine forum, then I would suggest to you this is very counter-productive.
Sitting in a circle agreeing with like-minded folks may be gratifying but it will never amount to anything. If you actually want to make a difference (to anything!), at some stage you are going to have to engage with people who currently disagree with you.
If you want to see how a site with biased moderation dies a slow and withering death, check out http://www.webdiary.com.au . Originally set up by Margo Kingston, it nows glides slowly, inexorably (but shrill-ly!) towards oblivion.
I’m not sure I should have bothered to type this as I fear this comment too will be shortly bound, gagged, and abducted, but what the hey.
This post lasted less than 10 minutes before deletion.
Dear Jeff Sparrow – You are a autocratic Stalinist censor and a cunt. Have a nice day. 🙂
- “There is a ‘far away train passing us by’…. and my legs have been chopped off after I thought my deep knowledge of Marx and Engels would stop it….
If your looking at the caboose you missed your lift.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 07 05 at 08:00 AM • permalink
- #ekb87 Decorum please – See You Next TuesdayPosted by Whale Spinor on 2006 07 05 at 08:02 AM • permalink
- Let’s see how long my post at Leftwrites lasts:
“Nice comparison to the Islamic Jihhadists, Rowan. I agree that the Anzac Day March should include demonstrations of beheading in order to impress the littlies to go and fight the good fight”
It’s post number 125 but is only the 4th post showing – as #117 from Texas Bob says – where are the others?
Posted by Jack Lacton on 2006 07 05 at 09:02 AM • permalink
- A rather nice person of independent thought was hoping from rail to rail along a railroad track singing out 21! 21! 21! with each jump.
Another person came along and saw this. This person being of the left and prone to needing to be told what to think and how to act decided to follow the rather nice person. The lefty began hoping from rail to rail and also singing out 21! 21! 21!.
A far away train came barreling at them along the track. The rather nice person stepped off the tracks and gave passage to the train.
The lefty, being totally consumed with her new action and chant failed to notice the train and…got splatted.The rather nice person then leaped back up onto the nearest rail and resumed hoping from rail to rail. This time however singing out 22! with each hop.
- Jack Lacton – I’m glad you read it. I mentioned it at #65. The rest of their stories are drivel, but you can at least debate them. The Anzac article however goes beyond drivel, it disgusts me. Perhaps that’s what they want. They’re never likely to have an impact politically, so they excite themselves with snide comments at the expense of 100,000 Australians who died in defence of their country. And against the temerity of people who might, on one day of the year, show some gratitude for that sacrifice.
BTW – your post and Texas Bob’s are still there. Perhaps they’re out having a latte.
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2006 07 05 at 10:03 AM • permalink
- I suspect that their numbering system for posts is the problem. Ie, comment 125 is the 125th comment on the blog in total, but the 4th on that particular post.
That being said, what a bunch of sanctimonious sods. This post in particular made me want to bring up my dinner:
We were picketing outside a trade conference at the Grand Hyatt, back in the nineties, denouncing the horrors of Indonesian rule. Business types in suits waltzed inside, ignoring us. But hey, our pal Ramos Horta did stop to talk. “Thank you very much,” he said. That was all he had time for, before going inside to spend the rest of the day hob-nobbing with the international bourgeoisie.
I always thought old Jose was an astute judge of character.
Posted by Humblogger (the Younger) on 2006 07 05 at 10:04 AM • permalink
- Great Origin result and have had a few too many shirazzzz’s, but put this on Leftwrites Anzac day critique. No more from me on it, I’ve said enough, it’s just that it really got up my wick.
Mr Cahill,
Last Anzac Day when I marched, children were holding signs saying “Thankyou”. Not mass produced signs handed out by lobby groups, just simple ones on cardboard in their own handwriting. Nothing glorifying war, just “Thankyou”.
You are a historian and lament that “Anzac Day has become a popular celebration and representation of Australian values”. Perhaps you should attend a dawn service or read Prof Geoffrey Serles (Monash Uni) comments on who he believed to be one of Australia’s greatest historians. Why not read the final paragraphs in the last of that historians six volumes about WW1. Then you might understand what Anzac Day is about and how it shaped Australia and New Zealand. Written in 1942 by Dr CEW Bean-Twenty-three years ago the arms were handed in. The rifles were locked in the rack. The horses were sold. The guns were sheeted and parked in storage for other gunners. The familiar faded-green uniform disappeared from the streets.
But the Australian Imperial Force is not dead. That famous Army of generous men marches still down the long lane of its country’s history, with bands playing and rifles slung, with packs on shoulders, white dusts on boots, and bayonet scabbards and entrenching tools flapping on countless thighs – as the French countryfolk and the fellaheen of Egypt knew it.
What these men did nothing can alter now. The good and the bad, the greatness and smallness of their story will stand. Whatever the glory it contains nothing now can lessen. It rises, as it always will rise, above the mists of ages, a monument to great hearted men; and, for their nation, a possession for ever.“a few degrees of difference between those who promote the Anzac legend, and the Islamic jihhadists who groom youngsters to become suicide bombers”.
Are you really serious?
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2006 07 05 at 11:21 AM • permalink
- Leftwrites boasts dullards of the highest (lowest) order. I’ve never seen so much dim-witted thought clustering in one spot before.
Surely you meant dim-witted non-thought. Or maybe dim-witted emoting. Calling it dim-witted thought is an insult to perfectly fine dim-witted thinkers everywhere, however.
- ekb87’s comment quoted at #96 makes me wonder just how sycophantic (or how close to Sparrow’s “in” circle) one would need to be to have a critical comment actually survive for any period of time. That post by ekb is a model of civility and still it got the boot. What’s the emotional age of these people, 7?
Maybe you should have just called him a Stalinist cunt on his own site, after all.
- If it’s a new collective we’re turning to, I should give fair notice: I’ll be significantly downgrading my skills, which are manifold, and upgrading my needs, which are few.
Apropos to this discussion is a Boston Globe interview with Berkeley linguist Geoffrey Nunberg who thinks the Democrats’ only problem is that the right controls “the basic language of politics”: Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism Into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show
And here, fwiw, is my offering to the troll deleted god:
A “new left politics”, you say? And what exactly will be “new” about it?
That’s your problem, you know, my progressive friends. Your ideas are old and hackneyed, tried and failed. No, there will be nothing “new”, only the “old”, stylishly dressed for contemporary sensibilities perhaps, but recognizable for what it is nonetheless. Your challenge is to present ideas long ago rejected couched in language to make them appear all shiny and new and palatable to a proletariat that, in the collective, considers itself an aggregate of unique individuals.
Well, good luck with that. Especially if you’re planning on using woefully inadequate wordsmiths like Mr. Dyrenfurth to spread the word.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 07 05 at 01:00 PM • permalink
- Okay, guys, we got a real humdinger here.
I think I understand the point this dolt is attempting to make (trying to draw parallels between evil missile-launching USA and – surprise, surprise – North Korea), but it’s rare to find such a fine piece of Swiss logic, even at a leftist site. I never thought I’d stumble upon a site that publishes articles which make Loewenstein’s stuff look good. LinkPosted by James Waterton on 2006 07 05 at 01:32 PM • permalink
He has been languishing in the UK countryside the last little while, but was tremendously cheered by the 2 million strong anti-war march in London in 2003 and was (coincidentally) living in Bethnal Green and Bow when RESPECT claimed that seat for the Left.
It gets better – the author’s a member of the George Galloway fanclub!
Posted by James Waterton on 2006 07 05 at 01:35 PM • permalink
If Nick (ha-ha-ha-HAH-ha!) Dyrenfurth is a typical scribler, the cite is really nothing but a support group for would-be kommisars.
True, but it’s turned out to be a source of great fun, if only temporarily.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 07 05 at 02:19 PM • permalink
- 109, Kyda Silvester,
Oh, well done.
115, Paco,
ha-ha-ha-HAH-ha!
My reaction exactly.
Hell, you can’t take something like that guy seriously when there are true wits around.
The real indictment here is against the university that has allowed someone at his skill level to advance into a PhD program. “Government” money must be footing the bill.
- #117: Good catch, Arnie. Maybe we’re really not talking about a PhD, as traditionally understood. Perhaps we’re talking about some Monash specialty: say, the “pusillanimous hybrid degree”. Or maybe they just got the letters mixed up. I bet he’s really studying for the DPh degree (Dryocopus pileatus, honorary). It sureseems to fit.
I notice both Nick (Woody Woodpecker – nice one BTW) Dryrenfurth and Rowan (Anzac is Jihad) Cahill have both listed themselves in the Australian Public Intellectual Network
They enrolled themselves?! You can write yourself up for this thing? Someone has GOT to post a link…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 07 05 at 08:31 PM • permalink
- blah, blah, blah outcome, in relation to, engaged in the conversation, anti bullying campaign, history.. what’s that.. which version or ideology are we going to pretend to agree on?
Crickey, what ever happend to the word “pog”?
New jobs for Sheik Halalii..
because he dosn’t want to go on centrelink as the brother/Pakistani Islamic-members took over the council and will not pay him.
*Convert and become a priest.
*Join Hillsong.. They’d love to have you work there.
*Host Family Feud (Bert won’t mind)
*Become Prime Minister
*Work at Centre Link to help find jobs for people who can’t find work.
*Become Allah.
descent into a ‘left tourist’ site at the so-called Marx Engels Forum. All around me people posed for snaps and clambered all over the larger than life duo – who seemed to stare out mournfully at the monstrous social realism of the ‘TV tower’ in the East. At this point I felt like reaching to their defence and shooing away the ignorant masses
You’re getting ahead of yourself, comrade! That’s what we do *after* we overthrow the capitalist oppressors!
Posted by James Waterton on 2006 07 05 at 09:03 PM • permalink
- Oops! I was deep in “left-think” and read that as “shooting away”. I believe that’s what they call a falsehood that belies a deeper truth, or something.Posted by James Waterton on 2006 07 05 at 09:06 PM • permalink
- #119 – “They enrolled themselves?! You can write yourself up for this thing? Someone has GOT to post a link…”
Here you go Richard. Fill your boots. Become an Australian Interlexual
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2006 07 05 at 09:32 PM • permalink
- Whale Spinor — How many times has Bruce from the University of Wooloomaloo signed up…?Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 07 05 at 11:23 PM • permalink
- RMc – don’t know, but Rowan (Anzac is Jihad) Cahill got a bit carried away when he did a copy and paste into his bio as an Australian Intellectual. Managed to put it in twice. Just to reinforce his credentials I suppose.Posted by Whale Spinor on 2006 07 05 at 11:41 PM • permalink
- #117
Perhaps it’s a bronx cheer (that’s a raspberry to you Queen’s English types), a suitble response to Nick’s own pretentious twaddle.#124
The Bruces are paragons of intellectual seriousness by comparison to Nick. “Those are all footballers, Bruce.”Posted by Michael Lonie on 2006 07 06 at 12:03 AM • permalink
- Sheesh, he called the Berlin TV Tower an example of “monstrous social realism”? That may be strictly true in the architectural sense (though you could apply that to almost any sky-scraper), but generally “social realism” implies “not actually liked by ordinary people”. I can assure Nick that’s definitely not the case here, as the Tower is quite popular with both tourists and Berliners alike.
- TimT — Imhotep… or Tim Blair… Imhotep… or Tim Blair…Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 07 07 at 02:00 AM • permalink
- One more attempt at using the cluebat:
You know, if I was advising you to get a real job (and it would certainly be an appropriate suggestion for the oodles of PhD candidates and other would-be academics that contribute here), I suspect I would be “moderated” into the ether. Well, this post will put that to the test, I suppose.
You may want to rethink exactly which group comprises a cult here. Cults are often characterized by an unwillingness or even inability to deal with differing viewpoints, you know.
I don’t really expect that post to last any longer than the others did.
- I cannot believe the amount of bile directed at an innocent, though hurriedly (yes, there were spelling and grammatical errors) put together piece.
As this will be my first and last post on this site, I will only comment on this piece of anonynmous filth:
‘They have more blood on their hands than the Nazis, so what the hell? We don’t tolerate Nazis, why do we tolerate these scumbags? It’s madness.’
Posted by Amos on 2006 07 05 at 05:41 AM • permalink
Dear Amos,
My family was murdered and displaced by the Nazis. How dare you compare my political beliefs (by the way I am member of the ALP – hardly a far left organisation) with Nazi atrocities. You are a sick and twisted person.
Posted by NICK DYRENFURTH on 2006 07 07 at 11:15 AM • permalink
- You really don’t know too much about Communist/Marxist/Socialist atrocities, Nick, do you? Well, you’re still young, still plenty of time to learn about ‘em, I guess.
Incidentally, neo-Nazis generally don’t think there’s anything wrong with their beliefs, either. That erroneous self-assessment doesn’t make them any more okay than it does yours.
- #133 I cannot believe the amount of bile directed at an innocent, though hurriedly (yes, there were spelling and grammatical errors) put together piece.
It is not an “innocent” piece if you are defending the creators of communism, which has caused more death and misery in the last century than even Nazism could manage.
And perhaps next time you should take more care with your spelling and grammar, and not hurry so much, if you wish to be taken seriously as a historian and academic.
- Oh, Nicky, you’ll be back. Not under your own name of course but we’ll see you again.
Can’t wait for the “Return of Nuck”
You sanctimonious, self important, illiterate twerp.
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 07 07 at 08:35 PM • permalink
- This is what I put in their forum. Hope they take heed, go to Cuba, burn their Aussie passports, and stay there for life.
Comment by Lenin Lover
July 9, 2006 @ 2:34 pm
Weep, my brothers. John Howard is going to win the next 5 elections. And after that more to come. Meanwhile, he will dismantle the system of Federalism and swallow up the gloriously run Labor states, like Queensland for example. Time to pack up our bags and head for Cuba! Run flee there where we can all live in the one free land.
Posted by Wylie Wilde on 2006 07 09 at 12:37 AM • permalink
- ”..Would this be the same communism that starved, shot and worked to death as slaves about eighty million people? The same one that wrecked half the globe and consigned millions to abject poverty? The same one that stockpiled nuclear weapons and threatened the free world with annihilation? The staggering, mindless machine that constantly threatened (# see Below..#) war at it’s neighbors, overthrew and subverted vulnerable third world democracies and ground humanity to a pulp under it’s wheels as it staggered from one appalling historical calamity to the next?..”
Which current global power does this sound like?? CLUE: Substitute capitalism for communism.
(# from Above..#)
As opposed to the World Power that has 700 bases O/S in approx 130 countries and has, since WW2, interfered in the internal affairs of the following countries..
Australia, Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, Mexico, Chile, Granada, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador, Zaire, Namibia, Lebanon, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Bangladesh, Iran, South Africa, the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Iraq, Cambodia, Libya, Israel, Palestine, China, Afghanistan, Sudan, Indonesia, East Timor, Turkey, Angola, Mozambique, and Somalia.
etc
etc.
etc..??
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