Comments on: How lucky we are.

By: Semi Regular Libertarian

Semi Regular Libertarian — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 23:45:15 +0000

rog – spend some time at a university and you may come around to yobbo’s point of view. The problem was the anti Bush/Howard types thought buying a Naomi Klein book, watching bowling for columbine or getting ripped out of their mind DID make them intellectual.

PP – I thought the point was we were successful because we distrusted authority but we could really cock things up.

By: Peter Patton

Peter Patton — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:00:01 +0000

If anything the Hawke years revealed how silly the “intellectuals” really were. They had always looked down their noses, giggled and pointed, at those philistines who did not get that Donald Horne’s phrase/book The Lucky Country was meant to be “ironic.”

But the real irony was quite clear that yes Australia is a lucky country, because despite not having a laudable (or any at all) intellectual class – as other nations do/did – Australian democracy has overall produced a higher class of representative government.

By: Peter Patton

Peter Patton — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:48:18 +0000

I’m dying for this monumental archeological discovery of Olympian Intellectualism that was the Hawkeating reign! Pig’s arse, eh Bondy?

By: rog

rog — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:25:09 +0000

Yobbo has been sucking on the VBs for far too long

he says he knows how anti nutters think

maybe even before they think it

it’s called divine inspiration

thats what I think

By: Yobbo

Yobbo — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:37:29 +0000

You guys misunderstand. The anti-howard nutters thought being against Howard made them intellectual by definition. If you disagreed with them, then you were anti-intellectual. QED.

By: Pedro

Pedro — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:14:07 +0000

In a trackie and all John! the horror!

By: John H.

John H. — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:05:45 +0000

So those intellectuals who perceived that Howard was against their ideas are complaining about his response, and this after they continually whined about the Howard government? What publishing houses vanished under Howard’s cruel gaze?

What these critics of Howard are actually saying is: the Howard govt does not indulge us, will not give us as much money, is from the Dark Side, and worst of all he really likes sport.

By: JC

JC — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:51:02 +0000

Yes the Howard era was frightening in so many ways.

By: Peter Patton

Peter Patton — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:08:57 +0000

THR

What could you possibly mean by this?

It should be said, however, the the Howard Government coincided with a wave of anti-intellectualism which remains firmly entrenched to this day.

OK, let’s break this down:

1. Putting aside the alleged timimg, this “wave of anti-intellectualism” has no subject and no verb, so god knows what you are talking about. What were the obvious features?

2. You clearly think this ‘wave of anti-intellectualism’ being coeval with the Howard government was more than mere coincidence. So:

i. When did this wave first appear? Presumably things were much more intellectual before 1996, on what basis do you claim this?

ii. Even though there is no subject in this sentence, the closest one is “the Howard government.” Presumably you think it is the parliament that determines how “intellectual” a society is. This is a very dystopian assertion.

iii. So what coincided with the Keating government that was so “intellectual”? The Hawke government?

By: dover_beach

dover_beach — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 05:42:24 +0000

People in Mario’s on Brunswick St constantly looked over their shoulder before uttering any criticism of the Howard government while they openly read Chomsky, Green Left Weekly, etc. It really was THAT bad.