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Bob Ellis: it’s time for a national Liberal voter register
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There are three plain ways you can tell a Liberal voter from an ordinary, decent human being. One is they deny their emotions. Another is they suppress a lot of relevant information. The third is they refuse to admit they’re a Liberal voter. “My vote is between me and my conscience,” they say. Or “I’m a swinging voter”. Or “I used to vote Labor but I’m considering my options”. Ask them which Labor candidate they voted for and they have no idea. Overt Liberal voters are few and far between now. Try selling “Liberal and proud of it” T-shirts on the Mosman ferry for a dollar each and see how you do. They deny their emotions always. “Not angry, disappointed,” they say upon being sacked and humiliated, “disappointed at not being able to continue to serve the Australian people as I have in the past. I was hoping to do so in the future but it seems it is not to be.” (This is translation means, “I want to rip his throat out. I’m looking up scandal on him and intriguing to overthrow him. Sack me, will he? He’d better watch his back.”) They suppress information in subtler ways. Dissident opinion is quietly removed from the Op Ed pages, and Miranda Devine retained. Letters critical of Gerard Henderson never published. Inquiries into Alan Jones’s departure from Kings discouraged. Suburban newspapers are bought up by Murdoch, and radio stations by Singo, which toe the Liberal Party line thereafter. The Liberals know now, you see, that they can’t win any public argument, the facts are always against them, so what they do — if they can — is turn off the dissidents’ microphones. They downplay, as news, the AWB scandal, in which, if you recall, Alexander Downer didn’t remember the 298 million dollars that went to Saddam Hussein. They ask no apology from John Howard — even now — for calling Barack Obama a friend of terrorists. They suppress close-up photos of boat people, knowing this would humanise them, and show instead far-off images of them looking like crawling insects waving their feelers. They call David Hicks a “confessed terrorism supporter” instead of “torture victim”. They make no criticism of the interrogators who told Mamdouh Habib his wife and children were dead. They avoid all public debate (Gerard Henderson has repeatedly refused me one for 20 years; I am too barbarous to share a stage with, apparently), preferring to snipe from the sidelines, often with considerable skill. And they rarely discuss the issues, preferring to blacken or trivialise their opponent’s character. “Bleeding heart.” “Old-style, clapped-out 60s leftie.” “Chardonnay socialist.” “The Commentariat.” “The latte-sipping elites.” If they can’t find a flaw in your argument, Mark Twain said, they will soon find a flaw in your character. They simplify their opponents into handy, belittling cartoons. Kim Beazley the timid, lazy glutton. Paul Keating the vulgar foul-mouthed groper of royalty. Bob Brown the kooky impractical foggy idealist, though he’s never been wrong about anything thus far. Bob Ellis the untidy, shambling eccentric, my 20 years on arts committees and my 30 years as a prize-winning moral essayist and playwright omitted. Germaine Greer the crazed bag lady, though she’s the most impressive public intellectual since George Bernard Shaw. And so on. They squeeze you down to a grumpy prattling muppet and kick you aside contemptuously. They do it because they can. They command the column space, and the airtime, and they can. I’ve noticed lately another trick they have, which is when on panels to state the obvious at stupefying length. Peter Hartcher, lately on stage with me, revealed with evident astonishment that in a faraway country called — let me see — what was it? oh yes — Australia, an election of both Houses of Parliament took place in — let me see, what was it? — 2007, in which the two main political opponents John Howard and … Kevin Rudd were vying for the Prime Ministership of that country; and it seemed for a good while that Kevin Rudd had at least the initial advantage, being younger than Howard, and Howard, paradoxically, being older than Rudd … And all the while I was busting to talk, and I couldn’t, because he was stating the obvious and eating up time that could have been thoughtfully or contentiously employed by a non-Liberal voter on ABC television. Howard did this all the time, and Ruddock made an art form of it. “We must deny the terrorists,” Margaret Thatcher famously said, “the oxygen of publicity.” And the Liberals have learned well the many ways to do it. Piers Akerman, for instance, on The Insiders. The suppression of relevant information. It’s what the Liberals do. I think we should begin “outing” Liberals, and by this new McCarthyism shame them out of public life. We could call it the Register of Liberals, and post it on an ever-expanding website. It can’t be libellous, can it? Makes you wonder. |
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27 Comments
Worse than the usual garbage! Why does Crikey allow this sort of unbalanced tripe.
Look Bob, I’m no Liberal, but I’ve experienced your drunken rants up close in the lovely bars of Kingston and the idea of ‘outing’ people is as vile as your breath.
We don’t ‘out’ people for their religious or political views. I thought you of all people would know that.
Just because people disagree with you (and let’s face it Bob, you have not said/written a worthy thought since July 1987) is no reason to tar all non-Labor voters as agreeing with Howard and his ilk. Just like all Labor people don’t think Julia Irwin is the face of peace in the Middle East!
Please, can someone find Bob Ellis a relevant job - obviously Kevin Rudd (unlike Beazley) doesn’t provide Bob with an old couch in which to snooze off his afternoon (liquid) lunch.
Can we ‘out’ Australian windbags?
Well, Bob, I for one welcome your return from the wilderness! With all the hard right bigotry masked as ‘mainstream opinion’ published by legacy media outlets (many of whom can’t seem to shake the spectre of Howardism) it’s refreshing to see some eloquent opinion from the Left. I’m way over your detractor’s narrow minded interpretation of egalitarianism as anti-intellectualism. Booooring!!
But, in the interests of balance…what make you of Krudd’s defence of 1st class airline travel for his ministers and their staffers with the pathetic rejoinder “Little Johnny did it!”? Hardly the stuff of vintage socially conscious Labor governance is it?
Congratulations Bob, for another of your fearless pieces. Sorry Graeme Lewis, but Bob Ellis ought to be chiselled into history as one of our national treasures, if he isn’t already.
The insidious and cynical progress in Australia’s recent past of the avoiding of spade-naming in political and public affairs has led to this Babel-like confusion, where in a not dissimilar manner to Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty character, who famously said “When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean-neither more nor less,” it appears that those in power will manipulate the truth to serve their own ends, whatever the cost.
Ellis is a good example of a public intellectual who hasn’t been gulled or hypnotised by the grubby process of seduction via the honey-traps of access, flattery or reward. Long may he write.
Julie Posetti, you’ve misplaced the apostrophe in ‘detractors’. Evidently there’s more than one, and from the fatuous bilge disgorged above it’s not hard to see why.
“Fearless”, Grant Cowell? Come off it. If I wrote an anti-Liberal diatribe with Labor in power federally and in all but one state, and felt comfortable enough with my audience to address them as ‘we’, I don’t think I’d be quaking in my boots, either.
@markduffett Thanks for the edifying correction. Yes, I meant detractors’. Evidently I prefer “fatuous bilge” to soulless pedantry.
Well, actually I support what Bob says. At least you three don’t get the added insult, “oh, yes, but you’re a mum, of course you don’t like seeing babies bombed”???WHAT? Does that mean you’re a shit because you do, I feel like responding? You making excuses for wanton murder, brutality and using phosphorous bombs that melt babies in their mothers’ arms? Why is it only ‘chardonnay lefties’ who object to these things? Why doesn’t Peter Hartcher tell the truth about why Afghanistan has been bombed and destroyed? Just so the US can build a pipeline from the Caspian sea via Afghanistan to the west for the $16 TRILLION of oil and gas. That the Bush Administration told the Taliban, Pakistan that they were going to bomb them in October 2001, as their duchessing of the Taliban hadn’t worked. Started with Clinton, kept on by Bush/Cheney and their mates in the oil business? Funny how I’ve read about it, but Peter Hartcher and others still peddle the bullshit about Al Qeada(haven’t heard about them for a while - has the Taliban taken them over too?)
Put CIA + Drugs into Google, and do the same with Afghanistan. Read who’s making money out of the poppies in Afghanistan. Ask Rudd why he’s also allowing our military to bomb the already impoverished people of Afghanistan. And then there’s Sharmon Stone, dragging up the nonsense of Afghanis sitting in front of their Plasma TV’s nudging each other with a wink and a nod about the relaxed laws under the Rudd govt.(They’re living in bombed buildings, or out in the elements or walking around trying to get used to their artificial limbs, caused by us or our ‘mates’ so they can try and support their families?) And 96% of asylum seekers arrive by air anyway! How’s that for a rant Walter?
As for Julia Irwin? I’d support her brand of peace over Kevin Rudd’s any day. Funny how the Palestinians are always reminded of their ‘responsibilities’ but Israel can ignore at least 100 UN Resolutions to date; have nuclear weapons but don’t allow inspections; aren’t members of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty(Iran is) but they’re allowed to do as they please, including using prohibited weapons against innocent women, the elderly and babies! How the US can supply them with billions of dollors of “weapons of mass destruction” every year, without a blink or a nod, but David Hicks is called a supporter of terrorism - even the US Military agreed, that he’d never threatened another human, let alone used a weapon - didn’t supply any either.
Or maybe it’s getting angry when a sole parent(usually a woman) is harrassed and had her money cut off for not disclosing her full income(even though she rang them 4 times) but those rich bastards can steal billions in unpaid taxes, but you don’t hear the shock jocks getting stuck into them. How about you 2 upholders of human values checking out how much this govt and Howard’s spent chasing after both types of ‘crooks’? Big difference, HUGE! And, why are some of the riches private schools keeping ‘mum’ about their millions in the bank, but will still hold their hands out for more $$’s this year, while a state school runs another raffle for gym mats or library books? Why is Turnbull so uptight about rich bastards not getting Medicare funds, so they can go and have cosmetic surgery or whatever?Let’s not get angry at the cancer sufferer having their surgery put off, yet again? Could Bob be angry about that? How thin skinned he is, truly?
Perhaps like me, Bob is just pissed off with the cow-towing to the US’s revolting actions due to its energy and foreign policy being intrinsically linked, and he’s sick of the crap! I am! They’ve either invaded or interfered with over 40 countries since the end of WW2. I suppose you think Al Qaeda is in Somalia? No, it’s oil and gas that’s the motivation there too! And I’m sick of people like you two, who obviously don’t bother to find out the truth, otherwise, you’d be angry too! Perhaps you feel you too have a ‘divine right’ to be; far more important than the lowly ones like Bob and I!(incidently, Bob doesn’t know me from adam, or eve in my case?)
And Bob, I gave up watching Insiders a good while ago. Piers Ackerman is too much for me, particularly on a sunny sunday morning! He’s just obnoxious!Andrew Bolt is in the same boat! Miranda and Gerard?I read the first few lines/paragrah and then usually sigh and turn the page?Just more of the same ‘guff’! I can do without it these days!
Dear Oh Dear… Save us from the confused ramblings of a once talented and insightful commentator who has now even been sidelined by his own people, who now prefers to “snipe from the sidelines” determined to “simplfy [his] opponents into handy, belittling cartoons”!!
i’ve stopped watching insiders and the rest of the abc news and current affairs shows (which is most of them) that pander to newscrap. why must i listen to the likes of dolt and akerman vomit and fart all over us for a second time round. ellis is right about what they are doing and the abc just encourages it. whatever happened to indendent news and views from the national broadcaster? it’s decision to become newscrap is why rudd should have defunded it to the extent of the annual cost of news and current affairs. abc news and current affairs no longer serves any useful purpose - it simply regurgitates newscrap day in day out.
“why must i listen to the likes of dolt and akerman”
Because I have to listen to the likes of David Marr. It’s called ‘balance’. Get over it.
As someone who has never been a liberal voter and definitely not a conservative, I have to say this is ridiculously over the top, paranoid and basically poor.
To call bullshit on just one issue, I would estimate that 80% of responses to Gerard Henderson’s Tuesday column (when it’s not mind-numbingly boring) are negative.
Liz45 - I’m just taking a stab in the dark here luv, but I’m guessing you and reality are strange bed fellows?
Let’s be clear here, when Bob Ellis said let’s out all Liberals (in the article above) … that was really his code for let’s go ape over Palestinian autonomy, the CIA, Iran, that frumpy English woman with the good voice, Ben Cousin’s ‘bird’, Medicare funding, two referees in the state of origin, what’s replaced ‘Dirt Game’ on the ABC, Julia Gillard’s purple embossed jacket, cancer sufferers and the ideals of a Sunday morning.
You left out: Dafur, the Tamil Tigers, the Bulldogs being stripped of 2 points, British MPs’ rorts, the problems with my iPod, the over funding of cancer compared to say mental illness, the intercene war in Gaza and the subjegation of Kurds. And don’t the Dragons look good this year Liz45?
Bob i am a proud liberal voter and more than happy to be listed on a register
although think you may be a paranoid leftie commo that is stuck in the past
the suppression of relevant information is not something that liberals do
however modern laborites do something much worse called spin which doesnt suppress information but twist it for their own benefit
I thought it was hilarious. And funnier because it is all true, even the made up parts. Here I am in Crikey with Mr Ellis and Mr Rundle. Mum would be so proud.
Reading some of these comments I am surprised to learn (forever naive and hopeful) that some people still read G.Henderson. Does anyone actually go back to A.Bolt’s hideous website after the first visit? Although it is reducing the amount of watchable material, the benefit of the digital age rescues me from an excess of Henderson, Bolt, Ackerman, Sheridan, Planet Janet, Devine et al., because I record them on my PVR and then can fast-forward (it’s either that or throw the remote through my expensive plasma). I’m with Bob Ellis. I thought it might be me, but these discussion shows are getting poorer, and I think we know who is to blame. Even Paul Kelly on Insiders — he may try hard to be less overtly a Murdoch lackey — but my god he is so booooring. Even though that American blowhard PJ O’Roarke who is well past his sell-by date, at least he was less boring than the above named, and he really stuck it to Jules on qanda. Surely there is a better quality right-winger out there, or in fact (no, surely not) is it that at this point in history when the idiocies of the neo-cons is so transparently revealed, that the only ones left willing to stand up in public in the Emperor’s clothes are the ..(self-censored expletive) (intellectually lame ideologues).
poor Bobby, still whining, grow up.
Thanks Liz45 for wrapping up everything in a nutshell. I wholeheartedly agree with your words. Piers Ackerman and that sycophantic dolt, Bolt, turn my stomach too. To begin with, those two have never been right about anything…ever. Saddam never had WMD, but we had clowns like these to sell it to us…global warming and climate change is not happening…just ask those two, they’ll tell you all about it. Why not John Pilger for a change? Or Paul Barry?
Always ready to lift the tone of the debate, our Bob. Like a senile relative at Christmas, farting and drooling away in the corner with a party hat on, you don’t know whether to laugh at him or feel sorry or just sort of turn away in embarrassment. Say Bob, why not give us that joke about Penny Wong’s sexuality and racial heritage again? Must be five minutes since you dribbled that one out. Or how about another misogynistic spray at Julia Gillard. Carn, you know you want to. You make even Mark Steyn look credible you buffoon.
I can’t imagine Bernard Keane being so immoderate above.
As for the wicked Libs, takes an ALP machinista to know them I would say. The general thesis from Bob Ellis here could be applied to the ALP’s approach to the Greens this last 18 years or so: Censor and monster where ever possible.
After 4 years at close quarters on a Labor Left dominated council one became attuned to the tag team caucus choreography which too often resembled barely any relation to evidentiary reality. What mattered was the ALP caucus perceived corporate self interest. And so the argument was constrained. Quite souless I thought.
Indeed one ALP councillor lent me book by Ken Livingston - If Voting Changed Anything They Would Abolish It. How cynical eh?
Which philosophy of getting and holding power is a critically important aspect of the current pro coal policy settings of that ‘wonderful workers party’ the ALP. They will probably never get it - that some jobs are not worth having - ever. Mining coal is almost certainly one of them.
Oh I should have added that if you drive along Victoria Rd in Ryde, Sydney and look at what used to be the building that used to include John Howard’s electorate office you will notice a giant banner advert about treatment for ADHD, anxiety, depression. That kind of thing. How apt.
Simply magnificent.
Keep it up Bob - your ranting makes reasonable people want to vote Liberal again. Tell us about how good Gough was next.
” Walter Slurry
Posted Tuesday, 2 June 2009 at 3:50 pm | Permalink
Liz45 - I’m just taking a stab in the dark here luv, but I’m guessing you and reality are strange bed fellows?”
I wish! Unlike many who follow the US line via the commercial news media, or the Murdoch papers, and shamefully, the ABC and SBS, I’m most aware of reality!
You have yet to take issue with what I said, or provide proof that I’m incorrect. I await your most learned response/s?
Glenn Brandham-Thanks mate! It’s good to know that some people aren’t conned by the bullshit of our compliant media. When it comes to journalists in this country, our news media ranks about 67 out of 100 for honest reporting of FACTS! People like Hartcher and others just parrot the war mongering, conservative, capitalist, worker stomping status quo - usually straight off the press from the US and/or its allies. Sickening!
As for the ALP? Rudd’s response to the democratic vote re Tasmania’s selection of a Senate candidate for the 2010 Federal election is disturbing! Just because he’s a staunch trade unionist, has been fined under the hideous ABCC, that makes this bloke an unsuitable candidate. Kev said he has, “no chance and Buckleys”. A fine upstanding adoption of democracy in action. Kev, it’s not up to you, and it’s none of your business - get over yourself! It’s their vote and their business! Next thing you’ll be calling on Cuba to adopt democratic selection of candidates and a national vote by the constituents of that country? But at home???
I love John Pilger. He’s earned more recognition via international awards for his journalistic courage and commitment; something that most so-called journalists in this country don’t even know about, let alone ponder on independent and fearless commitment to the truth!
Long may he seek the truth and tell us what it is!
No that was definitely me above and I’m amused anyone would think that was immoderate. I was barely warming up.
And don’t get me started on John Pilger.
Why not Bernard? John Pilger is the only person who informed me about the horrendous and hideous abuse of the people in Diego Garcia? Our media, with the recent exception of PM hardly mention/s it? (For those who don’t know, the Brits handed over Diego Garcia to the US in order to house their navy and a suitable spot to load their filthy bombs etc, the people were virtually rounded up and marched off their homes to lives of pitiful poverty and misery. They’ve won the right to resume their lands etc, but the wonderful democratic British govt won’t comply with the legal direction. Fancy that?)John Pilger has integrity and is not afraid to take a risk re his reporting. I also recall the documentary he did on Cambodia and Pol Pot? He’s also ‘lifted the lid’ and told the truth about our own racist and revolting actions of over 200 years, and sadly, how little if anything has changed in recent times.
Or perhaps I automatically made the mistake of thinking the worst?Perhaps he’s a champion of journalism to you, your mentor perhaps? I recall an interview with Tony Jones on Lateline a couple of years ago, and I was appalled and ashamed by his absolute rudeness to John Pilger. But then, there was the revelation re NT sexual abuse, and the bloke who ‘blew the lid’ and what the truth revealed, and then I realized he was just as bad as the Telegraph so-called ‘journalists’ and I rarely watch him now either. I refuse to be a masochist and watch Bolt or Abbott or ?? on Q & A?Of course, if your brand of journalism is to repeat the official and ‘safe’ line and keep your journalistic nose clean, then I can understand, that journalists like Seymour Hersch and John Pilger, and sadly, too few others (except maybe some brave ones in Israel and Al Jazeera - (those who the US haven’t murdered yet (in Iraq)of course!) I forget the numbers of murdered journalists - is it 30 or 60, perhaps I’m getting confused with trade unionists and/or doctors). How many stories like this have you covered Bernard? Why don’t you publish the essays and articles by people like these journalists?
As Honest Abe (allegedly) said, when told his most successful general in the Civil War was a drunk, “Send a case of whatever he’s drinking to the rest of the generals”. Rather Bad Bob Ellis drunk than Krudd sober.