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Last updated on June 6th, 2017 at 02:23 am
Former Latham, Crean, and Beazley speechwriter Dennis Glover – nice CV, pal – addresses media bias:
Open a major newspaper on any day of the week and you will find Labor has few friends in the world of print.
Oh, please … if Mike Seccombe and Alan Ramsey were any friendlier to Latham, they’d be Robert Bosler. Feel the love in this news report of the ALP’s doomed forests policy. And, when the chips are down, the ALP knows it can always rely on old Phillip Adams.
Contrast the assessments Mark Latham gets from the Left with the assessments John Howard gets from the Right. Right-wing commentators almost invariably defend the Coalition and slam Labor. Even former Labor ministers, staffers and national secretaries seem to spend as many of their precious column inches attacking Labor’s present political strategy as they do attacking the conservatives.
Labor has a present political strategy? What is it?
This is perhaps inevitable and even desirable – one of the strong points of the intellectual Left is its independence of spirit, something we’d all be worse off without. It seems, though, that virtually no one will defend the modern Labor Party. In my opinion, as someone with a foot in both the intellectual and political camps, this is a seriously underestimated problem for both.
Beware the self-professed intellectual. Glover next blows a few hundred words on the failure of Leftist columnists to cheer loudly enough for Labor:
The contrast with the Right and its relationship with the Howard Government could not be starker. The Howard Government is far from ideologically consistent. Somewhere in Australia a right-wing intellectual sits bitterly disappointed at Howard’s betrayal of conservative flagship ideas—small government, low taxation, opposition to middle-class welfare—it’s just that she’ll seldom say so.
Why would we feel betrayed? Howard’s policies on tax, government size, and welfare have always been centrist; he promised no conservative paradise.
By holding their fire on Howard for his betrayals (but never his sleights—he never offends his backers), they’ve let him get to the position where now, with a Senate majority, he can implement his real ideological agenda and make it sound like common sense. Perhaps the revolution is only just beginning.
This victory is partly because right-wing commentators have led public opinion. They’ve helped Howard mould the times.
Glover explains the devious means by which this victory has been achieved:
The process has been simple and open. Starting as pseudo-academic articles in Paddy MGuinness’s Quadrant and the IPA Review, ideas travel down the intellectual food chain via broadsheet opinion columns, to the Melbourne Herald-Sun’s Andrew Bolt and Sydney Daily Telegraph’s Piers Akerman and on to Sydney-based radio broadcasters Alan Jones, John Laws and others.
Like a brood of baby crocodiles flushed down a suburban toilet, these ideas have taken a subterranean journey through the sewers and emerged fully formed on main street, to devour the unwary. Listen to the punters from marginal electorates on talkback radio, read the reports of political focus groups, talk to your cab driver; they’re all repeating the opinions, boiled down to a populist essence, of some right-wing intellectual.
Paddy and the IPA will be disappointed; despite their apparent massive influence, we still have high taxes and large government. Glover’s brilliant plan to counter Australian conservatives will entertain US readers:
Liberal America has now started to counter-attack in a way that may promise eventual success. Although it did not get a John Kerry win this time, it will help create the preconditions of victories in the future.
Former Clinton chief of staff, John Podesta, has established a new organisation, the Centre for American Progress, that is neither think tank nor media outlet but an attempt to both create ideas and disseminate them via the popular media.
Other liberals have turned into successful populist commentators, publishing humorously written political books, such as Al Franken’s Lies and the lying liars who tell them, that had a simple aim—getting George W. Bush out of the White House.
Still others have become hosts on new liberal talkback radio networks. Mike Moore (who now sees the errors of his ways in helping undermine Al Gore in 2000) has used Hollywood to reach out to millions through his committed, but populist, documentaries and books. Sick of being part of the problem, American liberals are becoming part of the solution.
Dennis Glover, whose speeches have helped Labor lose four consecutive elections, thinks the monster FrankenMoore will fix everything. Some intellectual.
- Glover, too, will be disappointed to learn that baby crocodiles don’t actually do that. He’s just repeating the fanciful stories, boiled down to urban legend, of his hated right-wing American foes.Posted by Aaron – Free Will on 2005 01 14 at 01:05 AM • permalink
- Somewhere in Australia a right-wing intellectual sits bitterly disappointed at Howard’s betrayal of conservative flagship ideas—small government, low taxation, opposition to middle-class welfare—it’s just that she’ll seldom say so.
Like the ability to defend yourself? Using a firearm?
Both have disappeared in Howard’s era with little more than a whimper, yet both are signature traits of modern election campaigns in the US.
I guess I’m one of the conservative regulars scoffing at why Howard’s abandoned the traditional position on this matter. You know – have whatever you like, as long as you don’t harm yourself or others…
That said, there’s still about 750,000 law-abiding target shooters in Australia wondering why their freedoms are curtailed every time some unlicensed nutcase with an unregistered gun decides to commit a crime. Our rights are defined by the degree of depravity they exhibit in their crime.
Witness Port Arthur. The US have been trending towards ‘concealed carry’ for the last 10 years, up from 10 states in 1990 to over 34 states now. Imagine what might have happened on that terrible day if someone other than MB had been armed and been empowered to defend themselves or their family.
The US is seeing vastly different outcomes but sadly, we are not. It’s becoming the rule rather than the exception that states with ‘tough gun laws’ are the ones with the highest violent crime, like Washington DC (US murder capital 14 of the last 15 years).
http://www.claytoncramer.com/gundefenseblog/blogger.html
And 10 years after banning ‘assault weapons’ and ‘high capacity magazines’, we’ve done exactly the same in 1996 and 2003. The fun part is that the US law enshrining this expired and was not renewed because it was widely acknowledged there was no downward impact on crime. The US, in this sense, are about 10 years ahead of us in realising this. There’s been no massacres with AK-47’s since, nor any high incidence of ‘large capacity magazine’ crime, much to the chagrin of the “Million Mom March” crowd, who numbered somewhere around 2,500 at their last outing. Funny, that.
Witness the home invasions, robberies, attempted murders, assaults, carjackings in NSW here:
http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/all_media
To the major parties, we’re ready to send our votes your way in exchange for some sensible gun laws and sensible customs regulations. Call us.
- “Like a brood of baby crocodiles flushed down a suburban toilet, these ideas have taken a subterranean journey through the sewers and emerged fully formed on main street, to devour the unwary.”
So disagree with these enlightened folk and your ideas are like vicious maneaters slithering up from the sewer? And then they expect us to vote their way?
Their arrogance, elitism and condescension knows no bounds.
Posted by Gary from Jersey on 2005 01 14 at 07:47 AM • permalink
- Since when, Dennis Glover, have the Intellectual Left had a reputation for independence of spirit? To the contrary they habitually gather around the stale talking points of Refugees, Reconciliation an Australian Republic, oh and David Hicks too.
I hope these rugged individualists can at least come up with a new script and leave Mark Latham and Labor alone as Dennis hopes for in 2005. Even so, I fear the same notes of shame and blame will be repeated ad nauseam to those of us less gifted to appreciate these true visionaries.
Perhaps the Australian Left will borrow that fat socialist weasel Mike Moore to, as Democrat activist Ben Affleck hopes enervate it’s base.
- I’m deeply amused that he looked at the massive outpouring of liberal hysteria in America but completely failed to notice that the 2004 election inspired record voter turnout that resulted in George W. Bush winning by a much larger margin than the did in 2000. “Part of the solution”, indeed.
Reminds me of a relative of mine who lived most of his adult life overseas and recently returned. He loathes Dubya and regards Dick Cheney as the Antichrist, but asked me: “Is it just me, or have the Democrats gone COMPLETELY INSANE since I left?”
- youngy, they could have tried, oh, I dunno, running a campaign based on electing somebody instead of throwing somebody else out.
Still, they came pretty close despite not actually having a candidate, a platform, or any ideas aside from “Dubya stoopid, tax cuts baaaad.” Maybe if they’d dumbed it down even more they would have reached all those voters they so despise.
But I’m sure that, having so painstakingly explained to those inbred redneck NASCAR watching morons in Jesusland how idiotic they are, they’ll do just fine next time. Heck, they’ve almost won me over… a few more vituperative sneering screeds from the Virtual Reality Based Community and I’m there.
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2005 01 14 at 05:51 PM • permalink
- Lab Rat,
I assume you answered “yes, they have gone completely insane” to your relative’s question. All the nutjobs who were in the closet during the period of sensible liberalism during the 50s and early 60s came slithering out since then and have not been put back in the bottle yet.Posted by Michael Lonie on 2005 01 14 at 05:55 PM • permalink
- I don’t think anyone should discourage Dennis Glover’s idea to import John Podestra/Michael Moore/Al Franken-type Democratic Party tactics to Australia.
After all, look how successful those tactics were in the USA.
– Republican presidential candidate won by 4,000,000 votes.
– Republicans increased their numbers in both the U.S Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives.
– Republicans increased the number of state legislatures they control.
– Republicans increased the number of governorships they hold.
Damn, that is one brilliant strategy the Democratic Party came up with. We should all hope the Australian left copies it, right?
Posted by David Crawford on 2005 01 14 at 06:31 PM • permalink
- Reminds me of a relative of mine who lived most of his adult life overseas and recently returned. He loathes Dubya and regards Dick Cheney as the Antichrist, but asked me: “Is it just me, or have the Democrats gone COMPLETELY INSANE since I left?”
It’s progress of sorts (no pun intended) when even the people most sympathetic to the Dems’ cause start noticing that the inmates are running the asylum. Any bets on when the Democratic Party finally fractures? Post-2006 midterm elections is looking good right now.
And a quick logic nitpick:
Former Clinton chief of staff, John Podesta, has established a new organisation, the Centre for American Progress, that is neither think tank nor media outlet but an attempt to both create ideas and disseminate them via the popular media.
“It is neither A nor B; it is both!” And that guy was a speech writer? I’m oddly reminded of Kerry’s “If you believe, as I do, that America’s best days
are ahead of us, then join me tomorrow and change the direction of America” gaffe.