Ladderite opportunists reject saviour

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Last updated on July 24th, 2017 at 11:26 am

Michael Duffy theorises that the dullness and selfishness of “ordinary people” brought Mark Latham down:

Latham discovered to his horror that most voters are not interested, that “the disempowered don’t really care” about politics …

The diaries even reveal that Latham came to regret promoting the cause of aspiration, because those people who climb the ladder of opportunity lose their concern for community.

My guess is that in the end it was not the politicians and the media but ordinary people who destroyed Mark Latham’s faith. He’d spent his adult life trying to save people who no longer want to be saved.

The lost election was merely the last step in this disillusionment.

Please, Michael. Get a grip. This is sickening.

UPDATE. Add Queensland Labor MP Craig Emerson to Latham’s pieces of work list:

Emerson – an untrustworthy piece of work.

UPDATE II. Melbourne Age reader Eli Nossbaum:

Mungo MacCallum’s ‘What if Latham had triumphed?’, surmising the utopia Australia would live in had Latham won, seemed to me at the time as typical leftist delusion. Now Latham has proved it so.

That piece was published on September 4. MacCallum has since had second thoughts:

Latham truly was the wolf in sheep’s clothing that his detractors had always feared … He fooled a lot of people, including me.

Just as well journalists aren’t responsible for electing Prime Ministers (me included, seeing as how I was fooled into voting for John Hewson, who turned out to be a sheep in wolf’s clothing. Another bullet dodged.)

Posted by Tim B. on 09/24/2005 at 11:40 AM
    1. Damn those stupid proles. Don’t know what’s good for ‘em.

      Civilize ‘em with a Krag is what I say. White man’s burden.

      Posted by Dave S. on 2005 09 24 at 12:47 PM • permalink

 

    1. Tim:

      You forgot to include the article’s punchline:

      Alan Ramsey is on leave.

      Is this the same Michael Duffy whom Radio National considers its token conservative?

      Posted by Jim Geones on 2005 09 24 at 12:59 PM • permalink

 

    1. Mark Latham’s career died for your sins.

      Posted by jic on 2005 09 24 at 01:09 PM • permalink

 

    1. According to Latham’s first wife, Gabrielle Gwyther, he would often put on Apocalypse Now after a rough day in politics. He knew some of its lines by heart. Watching it would refresh him, she said…

      Latham finds Apocalypse Now refreshing? Does “refreshing” mean something different Down Under than it does here in the States?

      Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2005 09 24 at 01:21 PM • permalink

 

    1. Just as well…John Kerry used Apocalypse Now as inspiration for how to phony up his career, and Mark Latham used it for recreation. I sense a new one-step test for lunatic politicians…

      Posted by PW on 2005 09 24 at 02:19 PM • permalink

 

    1. Dave S… “Civilize ‘em with a Krag
      Murder ‘em everyone,
      And return us to our beloved homes!”In the interests of global amity, I shall refrain from observing which of our current allies our boys in khaki were marching over when they sang that…

      Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 09 24 at 04:11 PM • permalink

 

    1. Apathy? No, I think it was more of a ladderal shift, to the other side of politics. You know, the one that says holding down a job and improving productivity is good for you, and the country. The ALP now has such a stink of class-envy, pandering to moonbat pressure groups, voodoo economics and dodgy foreign policy, that getting elected will be quite a challenge.

      Posted by blogstrop on 2005 09 24 at 06:29 PM • permalink

 

    1. Do you think this will teach the ALP types anything about the flakiness and self-destructiveness of their leftism, that by mouthing the shallow, tired cliches of class envy a vicious lunatic could get them to elect him their leader?

      Nah, me neither.

      Posted by Michael Lonie on 2005 09 24 at 07:01 PM • permalink

 

    1. It surely must say something about a country where the ordinary people don’t think they need to be saved.  Too bad the lefties don’t get it.

      Posted by RebeccaH on 2005 09 24 at 07:49 PM • permalink

 

    1. This is typical Leftist rejection of personal responsiblilty for anything – it pervades the workplace, it pervades their personally philosophy, it forms the basis of the existence.

      After all therer is no individual initiative in the collective mind set because they believe that all individuality is the result of conditioning.

      Decades of post-modernistic claptrap in our our education system along with the implementation of their non-responsibiility agenda has come home to roost.

      And be prepared for complete denial as Bernard Goldberg noticed in the US.

      Posted by Louis on 2005 09 24 at 08:03 PM • permalink

 

    1. The arrogance of this position is just so, well, (several words deleted due to being rude).

      I am an ordinary person and Mark Latham and Michael Duffy can kiss my big butt.

      Some people cannot spend their lives pontificating about politics because they are too busy living their lives.

      People also show they care by doing a range of things like volunteering and paying tax.

      Just because such activities don’t suit Latho and Duffy’s worldview doesn’t mean people don’t care about stuff.

      Get stuffed the both of you.

      Posted by Major Anya on 2005 09 24 at 08:59 PM • permalink

 

    1. This just proves Mungo is dumber than I thought.

      Seriously, Latham’s psychoses was there for everyone to see.

      Posted by Quentin George on 2005 09 24 at 09:00 PM • permalink

 

    1. The ladder of opportunity makes people forget the nipple of success.

      Posted by rhhardin on 2005 09 24 at 09:16 PM • permalink

 

    1. My guess is that in the end it was not the politicians and the media but ordinary people who destroyed Mark Latham’s faith. 

      There’s ordinary people in Australia?

      I thought only extraordinary people live in the Land Down Under!

      Isn’t it like, a law, or something?

      Posted by rinardman on 2005 09 24 at 09:17 PM • permalink

 

    1. To be fair to Duffy, he might be using the word “saved” in a facetious sense – more of a criticism of Latham that he would believe people needed to be saved, particularly by him. I haven’t read the whole article though so i’ll defer to others better judgement. i have found Duffy to be usually ideologically-sound according to standard centre-right protocols.

      Posted by Francis H on 2005 09 24 at 09:28 PM • permalink

 

    1. The little cartoon of Mungo in the Byron Bay Echo looks like he’s playing with his doodle.

      Posted by Young and Free on 2005 09 24 at 10:31 PM • permalink

 

    1. That’d be CRAIG Emerson.

      Posted by William Bowe on 2005 09 24 at 10:44 PM • permalink

 

    1. Latham’s would-be epitaph:  ‘I wanted to save politics and the world, but the politicians and the people failed me’.

      Actually, Adolf Hitler thought very similar thoughts.

      I really hope Michael Duffy isn’t doing a Robert Manne – maybe the ABC know their manne..

      Posted by Barrie on 2005 09 24 at 11:48 PM • permalink

 

    1. Krag-Jorgensen rifles? Interesting piece of gear, particularly that side loading magazine.

      It was the Messianic treatment that Latham was given by the media that convinced me he was not worth voting for.

      Posted by Wolfbane on 2005 09 25 at 12:10 AM • permalink

 

    1. At least Mungo admitted he was wrong. Better than many other “commentators” from all sides.

      Posted by Gruntled on 2005 09 25 at 01:18 AM • permalink

 

    1. #20. True. I was shocked to read that Mungo supports the U.S/Aust alliance as well!
      Now if Mango can just get over his pathological hatred of John Howard, his powers of logic and reasoning may return.
      (every day that John Winston Howard remains the P.M of Australia, a little bit of Mungo dies.. and that’s just so sad and unfair:(

      Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 09 25 at 01:42 AM • permalink

 

    1. True. He is an entertaining writer, much as I disagree with him at times. If he could get over this obsession he’d be a happier little Byron Bay-er

      Posted by Gruntled on 2005 09 25 at 02:23 AM • permalink

 

    1. I’ve even heard Mungo acknowledge in public that the Whitlam government may not have been terribly beneficial for the country, and probably deserved to lose the 1975 election. All right, bleeding obvious to even the most ideologically blinkered, but some lefties haven’t even managed to acknowledge that much.

      Posted by Jim Geones on 2005 09 25 at 02:53 AM • permalink

 

    1. It’s become a bit of a mungo love-in in this corner of the blog. Bit of a shock to the system.

      Guess I’ll just have another skug of white wine (the beer wasn’t cold and the red was corked) to get me through.

      Posted by Gruntled on 2005 09 25 at 05:56 AM • permalink

 

    1. I suspect Biff’s opinion of Emerson is motivated by the green eyed monster. After all, Emerson was wielding the sword in Julia Gillard’s direction and we all know how Biff was and still is infatuated with Gillard. Jealousy, pure and simple.

      Don’t know what it is that they see in her that they find remotely attractive. Perhaps it’s her massive ear lobes or is it the sound of her dulcet tones???

      Posted by TruthHandler on 2005 09 25 at 08:37 PM • permalink

 

    1. Duffy abc’s total conservative?-he was their “right wing Philip Adams”they said.

      Posted by crash on 2005 09 26 at 05:12 AM • permalink

 

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