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Last updated on March 5th, 2018 at 01:45 pm
Bob Ellis rants against the fascistification of The Bulletin. Oh, and he also accuses Kerry Packer of murder, a claim I can’t recall hearing from Bob when Packer was alive.
Speaking of Packer, please send me a note if you can’t find a copy of The Bulletin’s tribute edition. It’s sold out in many places; we’re arranging new supplies.
(Via Ellis editor Raff)
UPDATE. Damian Penny grades Mr. Ellis’s work. A little too generously, I think.
UPDATE II. Bob doesn’t know his Lebs from his beach trash: “young flag-draped skinheads in Cronulla smashing headlights with baseball bats … ”
- I jst sent you an email Tim – I have access to 8 of them
RC
Posted by Christian Bin Laden on 2006 01 04 at 09:04 PM • permalink
- That article’s not quite bad enough to be funny, so it must not be a parody.
It reminds me of something V. S. Naipaul said in Beyond Belief. He had some pretty scathing things to say about Western progressives, who would fly off to the newest workers’ paradise with return airline tickets in their pockets.
Posted by The Sanity Inspector on 2006 01 04 at 09:28 PM • permalink
- One of the awful thing about trying to maintain a left-wing headspace once one has reached 30 is the never-ending revelations of how god-ordinary one’s youthful left-wing heroes inevitably turn out to be.
In the case of Ellis, his conspicuous presumption, barely leavened by his inability to reason or employ logic, was outed to me as a monumental fraud LONG before I turned 30.
Let’s just look at the first 2 sentences. The first statistical claim is made with no source, which makes his 4 deaths per day from terrorists as valid as ALL his derriere-derived dicta. But then in his second claim, he uses that well-known collector of data on the pros and cons of capitalism – the OECD? No. THe Economist? No. The IMF? No. Live Aid! Que?
I can just see Bono and Bob Geldoff with their Excel spreadsheets, epidemiological models, and issues of Science According to Bob Ellis (SABE). SABE thinks AIDS, famine, civil war by backward loons is CAUSED by “Capitalism.”
Memo to SABE. Please re-write article correcting error of first draft. To whit, 24,000 children per day were killed in 2005 due to a LACK or ABSENCE of Capitalism.
Good luck.
- I could barely read that article, even the headline and inset made me sick… what a load of BS. Bob Ellis needs a smack in the teeth. A child has more common sense and dignity than this excuse for a writer with his cornflakes-provided degree in journalism.
And yet no War on capitalism has ever been suggested by any Western leader, or even any Communist leader
No war on capitalism has been suggested by Western leaders because it is not necessary. At the worst, no sane leader would destroy her/his market, foreign or domestic.
Soviet Communist leaders saw a war against capitalism as inevitable. They weren’t just suggesting it- they were preparing.
There’s plenty of food to feed all of Africa, the problem isn’t capitalism, its corruption.
It’s also interesting that Ellis discusses corporatism in comparison to Mussolini’s Italy- I believe the Greens advocate a corporatist policy claiming the unions deserve a greater say in the managing of Australian affairs. Thanks for your warning Ellis, another reason to vote Liberal/GOP.
There is no greater threat to humanity than Halliburton
Ellis is an uneducated fool who should be kept away from children. No wonder Packer ‘showed him contempt’.
- #8 I’m sure you’re quite right, but I couldn’t muster the energy to finish, let alone analyse his crass calumny. What does it say about the editors of this rag that they could print such drivel? I mean Ellis is a joke – he makes poor, wasted, wine-soaked vagrants traipsing the footpaths, jabbering and arguing with themselves, seem positively lucid and rational. For a newspaper to print this stuff is to abandon any pretence it has credibility or value. The Byron Shire Echo is the equivalent of The Picture magazine, except instead of naked women it publishes full-frontal morons. Frankly, I prefer the girlie pic.s
- – anthony27
I resisted reading the rant, so was able to appreciate in full the new PETA ad. My opinion is: They’re fabulous!
Posted by Dave in Chicago on 2006 01 04 at 10:28 PM • permalink
- Phillip Adams was tasteless enough to suggest that when Gough dies and ascends to heaven that God will sit at his right hand.
They cannot afford sub-editors at the Byron Bay Echo – Bob really needs help. It is sad to see a writer who could once empathise quite well with his fellow Australians (he once wrote a very good monologue on Success, harking back to what was once considered success in life, in simpler days) go so badly off the rails.
- Byron Bay – hmmm. So how do they become effluent enough to live there, in their nouveau-riche architect-designed weekenders on acres? Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. But that’s arty left gospel for you. You is all sinners! Repent! There’s a meeting here tonight! Sorry – make that a play about boat people. Pay us to harangue you.
- Getting upset over anything that Bob Ellis has to say is a bit like attributing sentience to those nasty, slimy, smelly, yellow bits of muck that sticks to one’s shoe if one is stupid enough to walk in the gutter. Anything that Ellis has to say is really beyond any thinking person’s contempt – which is probably why the ABC and other half-witted media sources drag him out from under his rock when things are a bit slow. Personally, I’d squash him under my boot without even thinking except for the fact that a couple of years ago the ABC broadcast a special which involved Ellis and Les Murray on a half-baked sentimental journey. Up until then I’d really enjoyed Murray’s verse, but after seeing Murray playing the fool to Ellis’s puppet master I’d grind the boot heel into Ellis with a great deal of pleasure. I’m still not sure how the hell Ellis conned Murray into doing that show but (for me) Big Les lost a lot of validity
- What is he talking about, capitalism killing 24,000 a day or whatever through land mines? Land mines? Where the hell is Citibank or McDonald’s planting land mines? Or is the mere fact that the Korean DMZ has them all capitalism’s fault, since we’re preventing the socialist government that South Korea should have from coming to fruition?
By the way, whenever somebody mentions Halliburton I stop them and say “So what’s so awful about Halliburton anyway? Can you name one thing they’ve done?” And of course no one can, they know nothing about them except that the name is parroted so incessantly.
- There has been a war on capitalism ongoing for decades, now. It’s called anti-globalism, and environmentalism. Both these overlapping gangs groups are doing little else, and their efforts always taking place in comfortable, democratic countries of the West. Rarely will you see a war on capitalism taking place where capitalism is denied the people, like Cuba or North Korea.
- To follow on from #24, when was the last time Bob was at all relevant or right about anything? 1996?Posted by WeekByWeek on 2006 01 04 at 11:38 PM • permalink
- If one were to blame America for most of this, and I think one can…
Ah, yes. Eevil Amerikkka, killing and eating at least eight million babies a day. Much worse than the Holocaust. (Which, of course, didn’t actually happen.)
If one were to think Mr. Ellis a nasty, sour-faced old queen, and I think one can, one need only look at his picture. Enough said.
- Hm.
Judging by the picture, you’d think Ellis would be more concerned about meeting Packer again while Kerry’s still pissed.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 01 05 at 12:21 AM • permalink
- I saw the picture of Ellis, and it’s caption. I barely made it to the end of the first sentence. I just now woke up from the coma induced by the intellectual stagnation inherent to the column. God, I’d shovel shit with my bare hands before reading that sort of tripe again.Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 01 05 at 12:34 AM • permalink
- #30 nic, I’ve no doubt you are right. The din will be terrific. I just hope Howard is still PM when Whitlam does go – that way the comparison between the dribbler’s dismal record and Howard’s will be unavoidable. Sure, I know the leftards will say Goof did great and Howard turned Oz into Nazi Germany, but, to the average joe, recalling the Australia of Whitlam will be as cringe inducing as turning up an old photo of oneself in flares. Or a droog haircut.
- My only coherent thoughts after reading suck prissy pissyness was. If his face is that wrinkly and saggy what would his poor denuded ballbag look like??
He must have 2 dicks, you couldnt get that stupid just playing with 1.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 01 05 at 01:57 AM • permalink
- slammer
You got it in one, straight from the “big bumper book of how not to get your ass sued off”.
It has been saidthat Bob pays young phillipino rent boys to bugger his flabby, flatulent sphincter. I of course wouldnt stoop to repeating the rumors that he once ate a baby. Nor that he was caught in the act of sexual congress with a goat.
Nup wouldnt want to say that at all.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 01 05 at 02:23 AM • permalink
- Other people here have said they lose brain cells by reading the Bobster. I start to read him and get a serious ‘does not compute’ kind of pain in the head – I never finish the article.
To Tim and all those of you who go where I do not go, I salute you.Posted by Deo Vindice on 2006 01 05 at 03:10 AM • permalink
- Ellis is a particular bugbear of mine. In the late 90s his surreally stupid writings on economics for a major newspaper were alternatively a source of mirth and ire in the job i was in.
He is ignorant, makes facts up seemingly at will, draws quite astoundingly long-bows in logic and is all to ready to accuse any political enemies of crimes ranging from murder to genocide with no evidence but the tortured conspiracy theory rolling around in his head.
Most people who ranted like Bob would be dismissed as a crank, but, all too typically of the left, as he supports the “right-side” and had some success (years ago) as a screenwriter, he is beyond criticism and any transgressions are excused as Bob being “passionate”. Leftist idiots can always seem to be excused by their “passion”.
- Stevo. I was going to send him a nasty letter – not a death threat, just a nasty letter…
I really wish you hadn’t sent me his site, I went browsing through his essays: Check out this gem:
Saddam Hussein, David Hicks And Thought Crime.
And now there is David Hicks—guilty perhaps of volunteering to fight, and training to fight, for a legal recognised government against an invading army—as Orwell did in Spain in 1936, blah blah blah, I’m a pretentious wanker, blah blah, he may be executed for it.
- #52… Paul, what a good idea – a quietly jovial phalanx of funeral attendees. I will join you mate and we shall retire for a palate-cleanser afterwards to celebrate the fact that the wanker has indeed truly popped his clogs, and no longer on the public tit.
#49 Anthony27 (did you escape from Logans Run? ha ha) – no contact details for Ellis that I could be arsed finding, but I can tell you he parks his beige Volvo 740 on one of the hairpin bends at Palm Beach.
I’m suprised that he has not developed his own personal transportation device that does not rely on evil capitalist fossil fuels… that might make him – gosh – a… hypocrite.
Anyhow live in hope that a bus cleans him up one day… there are no footpaths on that stretch of road.
- Bob single-handedly keeps the local Palm Beach Cellars in business, so he is tolerated. The usual lefty paradox: a staunch anti-capitalist living (owns his house) in a neighbourhood where a small block would be a good 3 mill land value only.
Bob makes me think of some of the more looney blog commenters from extreme ends of the political spectrum who spout their wisdom while seriously intoxicated. Only Bob gets paid to do likewise.
I hope the Packer family sue his scruffy arse for trying to perpetuate old discredited slander for a few cheap points. What, has he got another crap book coming out?
Although on balance I think Tim Blair’s occasional links are the only times the likes of Bob and Mungo get any significant coverage. They might still be influencial in the funded arts community, but who else gives a fuck about them?
I’m sure Patrick Cook would be horrified to have a creep like Bob Ellis praise him.
Posted by Hamish McFootpath on 2006 01 06 at 03:01 AM • permalink
- re update 2…
Pleased to see the Brit cricket commentator damping down Aussie racism recently by remarking that most comments had been made in Afrikkaans?,a language that 99.9% Aussies would not understand and probably 50% have never even heard of.
Also that there were only “1 or 2” commenters who were speedily ejected by security,once identified.
V.S Naipaul -good author and coined the term “multi culti”.Raised in the West Indies and of Indian extraction I think.
Page 1 of 1 pages.
That article by Ellis shows that collectivism is truly alive and well. According to Ellis we are all slaves of society that have no right to live for our own sake. If you have more than your neighbour you have no right to keep it as their need trumps the fact that you earned it and you must hand over your excess.
Show me a country that has poverty and I’ll guarantee that there are substantial barriers to setting up private business and massive encroachments on individual freedom. Socialism keeps people poor. Ellis is more responsible for the any deaths through his advocacy of socialism rather than blame the true creators of wealth in our world, the people that make the things that humanity want and need driven by their desire to get ahead.