The freedom of the press is the freedom to report. I suppose such freedom also includes the freedom to suppress but it seems to me a very different thing. Two examples today, one from Australia and one from the United States.
Here in Australia, there is an article in today’s Australian by Keith Windschuttle that deals with the Bess Price-Larissa Behrendt story that has not been mentioned in any of the Fairfax Press. I can attest to this since I have tried to talk to a number of people about the story who have never heard a word of it. As Windschuttle notes:
Fairfax editors regarded it as such a threat to their world view they imposed a nationwide ban on the story. Not a word about it appeared in the pages of The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian Financial Review or The Sun-Herald.
Meanwhile, in the United States Rush Limbaugh contrasts the media coverage when the price of petrol reached over $3 a gallon while Bush was President with the same media’s reaction right now as the price has risen to about $5 and is heading for $6 with Obama as President. In a transcript from one of his broadcasts titled “The News is Not Good for Obama” he makes the point that is relevant across the world:
So whereas individuals may be complaining, they may be feeling the pain of rising gas prices, they’re not seeing it in the media and so there’s no sense of shared experience. So if you are a person that’s been profoundly affected by rising gasoline prices you might think you’re the only one because you’re not seeing the pain-and-suffering stories. It’s just like we have an incompetent boob in the White House, and yet we continue to hear nothing other than how eloquent he is and how elegant and how much smarter than all the rest of us he really is. We just can’t keep up. In the meantime, we’re in the midst of an utter economic disaster. If this were a media that were at all interested in journalism, what they did during the Bush years, which was phony, made up, and exaggerated, all they would have to do was report the truth today. But they’re not doing it. So it remains a curiosity….
People somehow are reluctant to assume that what’s happening to them is happening to everybody else. They have to be told that it is. And if they don’t see it in the news and they don’t see it reflected by the media they may not think that it’s that widespread. So they’re not gonna run around and complain about it because they don’t want to be thought of as whiners. The bottom line is the media’s doing everything it can to make sure Obama is untouched by this.
Much of the media will resist saying anything that might harm a political leader representing a party of the left. These are the facts that make the politics of the world so precarious since the media will not create a storm of controversy about anything that is done by the parties they support. It will yet be the ruin of us.
Windschuttle risks court action taken against him by the “sex with a horse” activist.
Unfortunately, in the interests of Free Speech, Bolt is forbidden to comment:
Gabrielle
21 Apr 11 at 1:31 pm
Related at LP.
Mark B cites revelations of Andrew Wilkie’s former Nazi fetish as evidence that free speech can go too far:
And this at the home of Noel Pearson vilification:
Anti carbon tax protests and opinions critical of leftist orthodoxies are contrary to free speech… I’m sorry, I mean, ‘free speech’:
Frightening.
C.L.
21 Apr 11 at 1:32 pm
This is all true, and Fairfax definitely lean left.
But that’s how it goes. News Limited leans right, as our left-wing friends never tire of reminding us.
News organisations have bias, and will always have bias, and that’s okay, in the big picture.
As long as they’re not state funded, of course, because state funded bias is creepy and undesirable.
daddy dave
21 Apr 11 at 1:33 pm
Great piece by Windy. I didn’t know Bobbi Sykes was a phony Aborigine.
C.L.
21 Apr 11 at 1:55 pm
Contrary to your claim The Age did publish an article on Larissa:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/lockdown-and-labelling-has-failed-the-women-and-children-20110419-1dnbh.html?comments=21
It wasn’t leftist suppression by Fairfax but presumably an attempt to concentrate on the key issue – the case for the intervention. The stupid slur by Larissa is ugly but ultimately a diversion that makes shock jocks and the right wing rabble like Windy get aggro but which is basically unimportant. (To be clear too I strongly support the intervention and condemn Larissa’s comments).
On the second point. How did/do either George Bush or Barack Obama determine international fuel prices? Why would you think of criticising either leader?
hc
21 Apr 11 at 2:14 pm
Why isn’t the left protesting about Obama’s illegal war for oil?
C.L.
21 Apr 11 at 2:16 pm
The war(s), inflation, QE, no drilling in Alaska or offshore California…please tell us you think these do have links to the oil price.
.
21 Apr 11 at 2:25 pm
Contrary to your claim The Age did publish an article on Larissa:
hc cites one article that menitons Behrendt once, and as an apology, but does not produce the offending tweet, nor a link to it.
In the last paragraph, the
apologistjournolist states:Yep. A real hard-hitting exposé on Larissa.
Gabrielle
21 Apr 11 at 2:25 pm
“Contrary to your claim The Age did publish an article on Larissa”
Harry, I think if you read it you’ll find that it’s an op ed piece by Marion Scrymgour on why she is opposed to the intervention and specifically, the position that Bess Price has in respect to it. She alludes in passing to the Behrendt tweet but it’s not “an article on Larissa’ by any stretch of the imagination. Had any luck with searching for any that are?
Geoff Honnor
21 Apr 11 at 2:29 pm
“Much of the media will resist saying anything that might harm a political leader representing a party of the left. ”
What proportion of the English speaking media do Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner control? As far as I can tell, both these guys are happy for their companies to run entire alternative realities like CNN.
conrad
21 Apr 11 at 2:38 pm
mmyeah there’s not really an english word for the phenomenon… ignoring or making invisible, sink like a stone, none of these really describe the strategy.
Does Fairfax have much of a future anyway?
coz
21 Apr 11 at 4:02 pm
As much as I can’t stand the Age and other Farifax papers’ blatant leftwing bias, they are a private organisation and are entitled to choose not to report on some things because it makes their side of politics look bad.
Thankfully we have that evil rightwing Zionist Murdoch empire to actually tell us what happened on this occasion.
papachango
21 Apr 11 at 4:14 pm
It’s Fairfax’s right to be left-wing.
However it’s important to highlight and document their bias, because they try to pretend they’re not left-wing at all.
People who read the SMH think it’s totally neutral.
daddy dave
21 Apr 11 at 4:31 pm
after all, they have the columnists Gerard Henderson and Paul Sheehan (and Michael Duffy still? not sure), and of course, two right-wing columnists is enough to balance the entire rest of the organisation. it’s called balance.
daddy dave
21 Apr 11 at 4:33 pm
I was watching ABC news breakfast this morning and Green, editor for the Drum was reviewing the days paper. He defended fairfax, along the lines that fairfax wound’t think the Behrendt tweet was newsworthy.
And this clown edits a tax payer funded website!!!!
patrick of canberra
21 Apr 11 at 5:09 pm
that fairfax wound’t think the Behrendt tweet was newsworthy.
Same goes for Sparrow at the Drum who dismisses the coverage of the Tweetgate incident as “ridiculous”.
Image the outcry from teh Left if Price or Pearson had made the “sex with a horse” comparison to Behrendt.
It would be front page Fairfax fodder for weeks.
Gabrielle
21 Apr 11 at 5:23 pm
Daddy dave,
I know someone who used to work for Fairfax and she reckoned that the Guardian Newspaper in the UK was middle of the road.
That statement caused me to reflect that maybe Bernard Goldberg’s view that the lefties have a bias comes about from only fraternising with their own, and hence never ever get to come across other viewpoints in their daily social life.
Interestingly lefties never socialise with red necks, though rednecks are often invited to lefty social events.
The real problem is that the Fairfax lefties actually believe they are normal and that it’s us, the non lefties, who are abnormal.
Anyone who thinks the Guardian is middle of the road politically has serious problems with reality.
And socialising with the left is not for the faint hearted or thin-skinned – their automatic hatred of conservatives and mean spiritness is quite unpleasant to put up with.
Louis Hissink
21 Apr 11 at 5:28 pm
Over at the alleged Murdoch-run ABC’s Unleashed, far left-wing anti-Israel, pro white Aborigine, and all-round white person – Michael Brull – justifies his pro-Behrendt/anti-Price position by citing
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/97672.html
Who/what is this Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association outfit, and how much credibility should we accord it?
Well, given the context of this whole debate is about a white, upper middle-class, inner Sydney academic telling a black NT woman to get back in her box, people might find this photo of the Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association contributes more to the debate than perhaps KKKomrade Brull might have bargained for.
http://www.aida.org.au/board.aspx
Peter Patton
21 Apr 11 at 6:51 pm
Note also that said Report was published 15 months ago. Better than THR’s reliance on white Age journo’s article, written in 2008; but not much.
Peter Patton
21 Apr 11 at 6:54 pm
A contrary point of view:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/97686.html
Jarrah
21 Apr 11 at 6:56 pm
“Interestingly lefties never socialise with red necks, though rednecks are often invited to lefty social events.”
Contradiction much?
Jarrah
21 Apr 11 at 6:58 pm
Actually, the Windschuttle revelations are sensational. I’ve known about this complete scandal for years, let the REAL debates begin.
Peter Patton
21 Apr 11 at 7:07 pm
Over at Murdoch’s ABC, Jeff Sparrow has also Unleashed on the Behrendt/Price contretemps, basically copy and posted fellow white middle-class inner-Melbourne Trot, Michael Brull.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/97686.html
It’s been a big day for Sparrow, as he’s also published the ‘letter of support” to Marrickville Council from, NAOMI KLEIN.
F.F.S.
John Berger, writer, UK
Victoria Brittain, journalist and playwright, London
Judith Butler, Professor, University of California, Berkeley
Hedy Epstein, Holocaust survivor and peace activist, US
Chris Hedges, award-winning American journalist and author, US
Ronnie Kasrils, former South African government minister and African National Congress executive member
Naomi Klein, author and social activist, Toronto
Paul Laverty, writer, UK
Mike Leigh OBE, Director, Palm D’Or Laureate
Ken Loach, filmmaker, UK
Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Belfast
Miriam Margolyes, actress, London
Joseph Massad, Professor, Columbia University, New York
Cynthia McKinney, former Member of US Congress and 2008 Green Party Presidential Nominee
China Miéville, writer, UK
John Pilger, journalist and documentary maker
Sarah Schulman, Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, City University of New York
Clare Short, former UK government minister, London
Baroness Jenny Tonge, life peer and former UK member parliament, London
Salim Vally, lecturer, University of Johannesburg
Robin Yassin-Kassab, novelist and writer, UK
South African Municipal Workers Union
COSATU-led Coalition for a Free Palestine (CFP)
http://web.overland.org.au/2011/04/naomi-klein-john-berger-et-al-an-open-letter-to-marrickville-council/
Peter Patton
21 Apr 11 at 7:15 pm
“Marrickvile”
LOL. Freudian slip by Overland? Or in the original letter?
Jarrah
21 Apr 11 at 7:21 pm
Here is the same Harry Clarke who claimed that The Age had fully reported the Behrendt slur, only to be shown here as economical with the truth. At his own largely unread Blog, this is what he has to say about the mining industry which underpins quite possibly as much as 50% of Australia’s current wealtth:
” The mining industry lies about the real neutrality of mining tax reforms … Australian ferrous metal producers exaggerate (be exact=lie) about carbon tax impacts on their domestic production and on imports of a carbon tax – simply a pure lie – the industry may have problems from labour and other costs but these problems do not stem from an uncompensated carbon tax. These are simply all self-interested lies by self-interested liars who reside in the most hallowed sections of Australian society”.
Just like Mitch Hookes CEO of the Minerals Council of Australia (in today’s The Oz)?
To be fair to hc, it is clear he was drunk when he posted that rubbish on his Blog.
Tim Curtin
21 Apr 11 at 9:14 pm
hc
If you think that is the “key issue” raised here, then you are not very perceptive.
Peter Patton
21 Apr 11 at 9:33 pm
Note also that said Report was published 15 months ago. Better than THR’s reliance on white Age journo’s article, written in 2008; but not much.
I see that you’re still obsessed with your intellectual superiors. All evidence on the intervention demonstrates that it has been a disaster, and one that would have been made worse if local authorities had implemented Howard’s original plan for hymen spot-checks. Bess Price, whatever her credentials, is a divisive figure within the Aboriginal community, who is sometimes accused of speaking for others (just as you claim of Behrendt here).
Finally, I note that today’s Fairfax media had evidence of a child abuse ‘epidemic’ in white Australia. The crickets are still chirping.
THR
21 Apr 11 at 9:43 pm
THR, this is the first I’ve heard of it. You’re being a bit unfair: there’s nothing about it on the SMH front page. Are you talking about Richard Ackland’s article?
daddy dave
21 Apr 11 at 9:53 pm
THR, you’ve been making these claims for years. Quite a number of posters here, have tried to engage you on the topic, only to find out very quickly you were lying. You tried to backtrack by claiming you were privy to secret government data, that no-one else was, and you weren’t allowed to tell us about all the Toorak women living more abused lives than the women of Mutijulu.
Peter Patton
21 Apr 11 at 9:55 pm
I posted it on today’s open thread. And besides, there’s plenty of evidence out there:
http://www.clan.org.au/images/Access%20Economic%20Report_Exec%20Summary_FINAL.pdf
In view of this, why are Blacks singled out for particularly punitive measures? Couldn’t have anything to do with race, could it?
THR
21 Apr 11 at 10:02 pm
Well, you have a point. The reason – as you know – is that the situation was considered to be extreme. A crisis.
Was it that much worse than in the general community?
Was it extreme enough to warrant the intervention? Were there better ways to handle it?
etc.
We’ve gone around in circles on this several times. Unless you want to go on a joint field trip to Alice Springs and learn the truth for ourselves, there’s not much to add.
unfortunately hard, solid data is quite sparse and difficult to find.
daddy dave
21 Apr 11 at 10:08 pm
What are you trying to say? You simply don’t make any sense? Trying constructing a question that is, actually, you know, er, answerable? Subject, verb, object is always a good rule of thumb for the beginner.
Peter Patton
21 Apr 11 at 10:13 pm
Hilarious. He links to ANOTHER 2008 piece.
Peter Patton
21 Apr 11 at 10:14 pm
What’s hilarious, you poseur, is that you profess to be highly educated, yet you think a 2008 reference is outdated in terms of academic research. In almost every case, it isn’t. This is yet more proof that your blustering, imbecilic ‘intellect’ is yet to rise above the blog fodder of Akerman and Bolt.
THR
21 Apr 11 at 10:22 pm
Er, dude, check today’s date.
You started:
But your ‘evidence’ is from 2008, not “today”. Pssssttt, we’re in 2011, now. Try to keep up.
Peter Patton
22 Apr 11 at 12:49 am
“Unless you want to go on a joint field trip to Alice Springs and learn the truth for ourselves, there’s not much to add.”
I dunno… reading the reports and recommendations of those who have been there seems like an okay starting point.
FDB
22 Apr 11 at 12:55 am
“unfortunately hard, solid data is quite sparse and difficult to find.”
How about (1) definitely no worse than the average housing estate where everything bad tends to be around 10 times that of the general population; (2) probably no worse (or certainly not a lot worse) than the worst suburbs in Melbourne and Sydney, which is counded with (1) anyway; and (3) probably no worse than certain immigrant communities. Again that’s somewhat confounded with (1).
conrad
22 Apr 11 at 6:50 am
FDB: The Little Children Are Sacred report had lots of highly disturbing qualitative data, but didn’t for example put a number of the percentage of children being abused.
I haven’t seen such data regarding the intervention.
Bess Price claims that the UN investigator was led from intervention skeptic to invervention skeptic, and wrote the UN report based on the views of those people.
Conrad: those are plausible guesses and could be quite right. But is there publicly available data? I haven’t seen it.
daddy dave
22 Apr 11 at 7:54 am
In 2005, around 18% of people reported that they experienced physical or sexual abuse
before the age of 15 years
THR, in the open thread you linked to a piece that claimed that 1 in 5 children are sexually abused in Australia. The linked article provides a dud link. Now, here, you refer to a survey that includes physical as well as sexual abuse. I’d hazard the guess that of the 1 in 5 that experienced either physical or sexual abuse only 1 in 5 experienced sexual abuse, so the figure for sexual abuse would be 4% of children before the age of 15, not 18-20%, which is still appalling.
dover_beach
22 Apr 11 at 8:32 am
Yes, dover, the link was a dud, but this new-found love of evidence and scepticism was not in evidence when you (and others) took as given every claim made about Central Australian Aborigines. Your love of evidence also failed to preclude you from advocating evidence-free Interventionist ideas, like the notion that banning porn, destroying land rights, and having compulsory hymen spot-checks would reduce child abuse.
Again, one can only wonder why your scepticism is so selective.
THR
22 Apr 11 at 8:41 am
This is a misrepresentation on your part. Would you like me to post the relevant links again or would you prefer to continue ignoring them?
Abu Chowdah
22 Apr 11 at 8:44 am
Would you like me to post the relevant links again or would you prefer to continue ignoring them?
It’s not misrepresentation. You actually bungled the content the other day. Howard and Brough initially argued for the forced medical checks; due to concerns among Aborigines and medical professionals, they were dropped from the policy at the eleventh hour. Nonetheless, they give us a pretty good idea as to what is meant by ‘Intervention’.
THR
22 Apr 11 at 8:47 am
Following on from Conrad’s estimates, it occurs to me that welfare ghettos, not culture, may be the primary cause of rampant child abuse.
If that’s true, you’d expect to find similarly high rates in remote communities outside of Alice Springs as you would in Melbourne housing estates.
daddy dave
22 Apr 11 at 8:50 am
I couldn’t support forced medical checks, but they were dropped, as you say, “at the 11th hour.”
What, in your opinion, is the single most egregious part of the intervention, as it is implemented? (or maybe the two worst)? I’m not looking for a “gotcha”, I’m genuinely curious. No laundry lists, please.
daddy dave
22 Apr 11 at 8:53 am
The worst thing about the Intervention is the idea that longstanding problems within a community can be magically fixed by arbitrary, punitive, dehumanising measures. From this general error, all of the specific errors flow.
THR
22 Apr 11 at 8:56 am
but this new-found love of evidence and scepticism was not in evidence when you (and others) took as given every claim made about Central Australian Aborigines
New-found love of evidence? Sorry, but it has been an on-going romance since puberty. The rest of what you say is also rot, I’ve never given unconditional support to the Intervention but carry-on, anyway.
dover_beach
22 Apr 11 at 9:04 am
Correction:
The worst thing about the Intervention is the idea that longstanding problems within a community can be magically fixed by
arbitrary, punitive, dehumanisinggovernment measures. From this general error, all of the specific errors flow.Agreed.
dover_beach
22 Apr 11 at 9:07 am
Yes, yes. But what is the worst “specific error” in your view.
I’ll tell you one that’s relatively benign: forcing welfare payments to be used for necessities.
daddy dave
22 Apr 11 at 9:11 am
I’ll tell you one that’s relatively benign: forcing welfare payments to be used for necessities.
It doesn’t force anything, and the selectiveness of its implementation raise concerns about racism.
THR
22 Apr 11 at 9:15 am
I agree with that. They should have called it a ‘pilot welfare program’ or something.
daddy dave
22 Apr 11 at 9:18 am
The appropriate question to ask is what would you practically do in the circumstances? I often find that students in tutorials are good a criticising practical measures but god-awful in coming up with any.
dover_beach
22 Apr 11 at 9:23 am
“Conrad: those are plausible guesses and could be quite right. But is there publicly available data? I haven’t seen it.”
Some of the guys I work with have a map of Melbourne which has things like SES, crime rates, welfare recipients etc. . At a guess it’s probably from the ABS (or perhaps a combination of AIC or DOCS data), so there’s definitely stuff out there.
conrad
22 Apr 11 at 9:23 am
The appropriate question to ask is what would you practically do in the circumstances?
It’s a fair question, but onl on the condition that one acknowledges that it’s actually better to do nothing than to implement hand-fisted government interventions that have actually made things worse (entirely in keeping with expectations).
THR
22 Apr 11 at 9:27 am
We’re not a million miles apart on this, THR. It’s too authoritarian for my liking. However,
1) Unlike you I’m not convinced it’s “made things worse” – especially when there is at least one high profile aboriginal on the ground who says it’s made things better
2) I’m not against welfare quarantining.
3) when you’re on long term welfare payments you’re going to be in for some government meddling. The solution is to solve the welfare dependency, not leave them alone with their fortnightly payments to do as they wish.
Genuine welfare recipients shouldn’t care about quarantining because most of their payment goes on rent and groceries anyway, so it would make no difference to their life at all.
(btw the correct expression is “ham-fisted” not “hand fisted”. I have no idea where it comes from)
daddy dave
22 Apr 11 at 9:38 am
‘Hand-fisted’ was a kosher slip.
THR
22 Apr 11 at 9:39 am
True, THR, but the problem is that we were not “do nothing” before-hand; we replaced a ham-fisted intervention with another arguably ham-fisted intervention.
dover_beach
22 Apr 11 at 9:46 am
No content was bungled. Read and comprehend. Link here.
Abu Chowdah
22 Apr 11 at 4:44 pm
“The measures include introducing compulsory health checks for all Aboriginal children….”
The aim of the health checks was to “…identify and treat health problems and any effects of abuse.”
Mal Brough, press release, June 25, 2007.
http://www.antar.org.au/node/126
THR
22 Apr 11 at 4:56 pm
Political spin/speech writing. The authors in the link above are health care professionals and they clearly spell out the situation. Read it again. You’re not normally this beholden to conservative political spin.
Abu Chowdah
22 Apr 11 at 5:04 pm
They are direct quotes from Brough. The term ‘compulsory’ is his. The rest may well be spin, but the coercive nature of it is signalled unequivocally here.
THR
22 Apr 11 at 5:07 pm
No one’s denying it’s coercive. It was an emergency.
What is wrong is your salacious spin about hymen checks, and dropping various names that you attempt to link with your inferred slur. Just argue the facts and leave out the creative writing, on this issue at least.
Abu Chowdah
22 Apr 11 at 5:10 pm
Creative writing? Brough was speaking about forced health checks, specifically in the context of an alleged emergency of sexual abuse. If he wasn’t signalling something about hymen checks, what was he trying to convey? Something about the flying doctors service?
The most generous reading of this is that Brough was trying to talk up a ‘tough’ government response (i.e. forced checks) for political purposes.
The least generous reading is that Brough and co actually intended to implement these checks, until they received pressure from medicos and lawgivers, and Abbott quietly dropped the matter a couple of weeks later.
THR
22 Apr 11 at 5:20 pm
If this and a few other stories are to be believed, perhaps the less generous interpretation is the more correct.
THR
22 Apr 11 at 5:27 pm
Abu Chowdah
22 Apr 11 at 5:36 pm
It has taken much work to explain to Aboriginal communities that these were the same checks that were already being done by ACCHSs.
The checks by the ACCHs were not compulsory, and not targeted specifically to filter out abuse, sexual or otherwise. There’s no lefty spin here, Abu – Brough and Howard went for the nuclear option, and backed down after realising that they were proposing wholescale sexual assault.
THR
22 Apr 11 at 5:38 pm
I doubt it. Likely they signed off on a strategic health policy but weren’t aware of the granular details. Once Leftie spin exploded and generated widespread fear and mischaracterisation they dropped it because it would have been an albatross.
Can’t say I blame them. The ALP, GetUP etc are brilliant at white-anting, fear-mongering and implying slurs.
Abu Chowdah
22 Apr 11 at 5:48 pm
Likely they signed off on a strategic health policy but weren’t aware of the granular details.
Forced checks of sexual abuse are a little more than ‘granular’. And the Interventionists only had ‘much work’ to do with Aboriginal communities because of their initial press releases, threatening compulsory checks. Brough and Howard dug themselves into a hole on this, quite without the help of the ALP, GetUp, or anybody else.
THR
22 Apr 11 at 5:52 pm
You expect the PM and the Minister to know the exact operational detail in a policy? Get real.
Abu Chowdah
23 Apr 11 at 4:03 am
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/indigenous-disadvantage-awaits-some-tweet-sorrow/story-e6frg71x-1226043509074
Abu Chowdah
23 Apr 11 at 4:18 pm
Noel Pearson:
Where she is coming from is where most black and white people of her inner-city intellectual milieu come from. She can hardly be condemned for holding views that are de rigueur in progressive society and politics.If anything, one could be dismayed at the fact her intellectual and political framework is not different from the legions of like intramural thinkers of her profession and class.
The progressive nostrums that inform the views of those who have gone on to set up the Northern Territory intervention as the next evil windmill that must be tilted are well known and tedious. The ghost of John Howard must be kept alive to give a raison d’etre to a group of inner-city rebels desperately deprived of a real cause.
It is passing strange to me that people could choose to prosecute a politics that is aimed against some great evil they perceive in the world, rather than some great good they seek. I would think it a waste of time to reactively position against what someone else has proposed or done, rather than defining what one proposes to do instead. But, alas, this is the nature of this politics.
Abu Chowdah
23 Apr 11 at 4:24 pm
They really need to ignore these white carpetbaggers like Heidi Lavarche; they are only making the plight of the Aborigines even worse.
Peter Patton
23 Apr 11 at 7:24 pm
THR insists that Noel Pearson is not credible, as he is not an Aborigine, but a Stalinist.
Peter Patton
23 Apr 11 at 7:25 pm
THR begs the NT blacks to listen to white private school males like Smears, Sammy Sparrow, and Chris Graham, like he does himself.
Peter Patton
23 Apr 11 at 7:27 pm
THR insists that Noel Pearson is not credible, as he is not an Aborigine, but a Stalinist.
He’s both. Logic isn’t a forte, is it Patsy?
THR
23 Apr 11 at 7:35 pm
THR begs the NT blacks to listen to white private school males like Smears, Sammy Sparrow, and Chris Graham, like he does himself.
You really are quite obsessed with me. In any event, NT blacks have clearly and repeatedly rejected the disastrous intervention. The only people still pushing it are political opportunists like Pearson, and twisted sados like yourself.
THR
23 Apr 11 at 7:36 pm
THR, rest assured, darl, I am not obsessed with YOU are a person. It is just I no longer socialize with people who actually still have the religion like you do. And I have told you before, as far as I am concerned, “you” are no more and no less than what you print here. That is, I am communicating with a “Happy Revolutionary”.
Peter Patton
23 Apr 11 at 8:00 pm
But it was the takeover by people like you that led me to leave the left. The day, ‘race’ took ‘class; as the main political dynamic, was the day I said ‘toodles’.
Peter Patton
23 Apr 11 at 8:03 pm
But it was the takeover by people like you that led me to leave the left.
I doubt you were ever a part of it. Anyway, with your opinions, you belong on the right.
The day, ‘race’ took ‘class; as the main political dynamic, was the day I said ‘toodles’
Actually, race has never overtaken class as the ‘main political dynamic’ as a general rule, and there’s no evidence that you give a fuck about class, (or anything else, for that matter).
I really can’t understand why you hate Aborigines so. Let’s face it – Howard, Brough, and Pearson implemented a disastrous ‘Intervention’ that was rejected by those subject to it. They ignored the recommendations of the Little Children and, for the sake of political expediency, enacted a series of jackboot measures that would be utterly unthinkable in the context of white populations. The ‘Interventions’ in question have no logical or empirical basis, and one can only conclude that they were enacted to win votes and to collectively punish black folk.
Nonetheless, you endorse all of this shameful business in toto, and your only real concern is the skin colour of the Intervention’s critics. In other words, you are a troglodyte and a racist, and one who prefers fantasy to fact. You are morally and intellectually well below the calibre of everybody else here (Mark L excepted), so it’s hardly a surprise to see you regularly sermonising and talking up your supposed expertise.
In any event, you are so far beneath contempt that I won’t waste further time arguing with a pathetic creature like you until you can lift your game. A good start would be arguments that don’t proceed on the basis of your opponent’s skin colour.
THR
23 Apr 11 at 8:23 pm
And yet the record here on the cat shows I have lauded many, many black people, while you have lauded none, except white people, with dubious claims to aboriginality, long lost in the mists of the dream time, was these more Kylie Mole than Coonardoo carpetbaggers are promoted way beyond their talents, and attachements to the the real people facing the real issues. I’M the racist? You have the ethics of a Marxist.
Peter Patton
24 Apr 11 at 12:44 am
And a stunning exemplar of the genus Marieke Hardy.
Peter Patton
24 Apr 11 at 12:44 am
The Fairfax press has ignored a story by Keith Windschuttle? And those Pinko Doctor’s Lattes are shamelessly spruiking Obama uncritically?
This is serious. We could find ourselves in a situation where the media is a concentrated apparatus that routinely manipulates information and disseminates govt propaganda shamelessly. We could even find that the Fourth Estate no longer fulfils its political role, forgets the distinction between advertising and news, maybe even truth and fiction entire.
Gulp! It’ll be pretty bad if any of that happens.We might even end up being compelled to support a war on false pretences or something.
Adrien
24 Apr 11 at 8:26 am
You’ve got it slightly arse-about, Adrien. Keith Windschuttle wrote on a story that the Fairfax press ignored.
But you’re right, the sky isn’t falling in. As several of us have noted, the Fairfax press have the right to be as selective biased and one-eyed as they like. However they should expect to get called on it from time to time.
daddy dave
24 Apr 11 at 11:14 am
THR’s response to Abu Chwodah’s citing an article published in The Medical Journal of Australia, co-authored by The Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance?
Why he cites YET AGAIN his white, middle-class Trot buddie, Chris Graham, with no qualifications at all, except THR’s other class ally – Sammy Sparrow – published Graham’s clearly more authoritative views about Aborigines.
Peter Patton
24 Apr 11 at 5:55 pm
If not Overland, then WHERE could THR have got his Chris Graham debunking on the medical profession. Why, from Women For Wik of course? And who might they be? Actual Aboriginal Wik women? Er, not quite.
http://www.whatsworking.com.au/WomenforWik/who_are.html
Peter Patton
24 Apr 11 at 6:03 pm
Mind you, Professor Lynn Meskell looks like a dominatrix and I for one like to imagine she was only wearing a black cardigan for that photo.
Va Va Voom!
Abu Chowdah
24 Apr 11 at 6:08 pm
Abu
That is EXACTLY what I thought. I imagine her as one of these “full service” sex therapists.
Peter Patton
24 Apr 11 at 6:37 pm
I see you’re still trying to refute factual information on the basis of skin colour. In other words, you’re still a degenerate racist incapable of rational argument. Keep trying, Patsy.
THR
24 Apr 11 at 6:45 pm
If Sophie Rudolph is representative, I don’t have an issue with this NGO:
I am a non-Indigenous teacher and student. I have had the privilege of learning from Indigenous Australians in a number of places, most recently in northern Thailand through work with Indigenous Knowledge and Peoples (IKAP) in Chiang Mai. Indigenous Australians are strong, dignified, intelligent human beings who have the capacity like all humans to establish robust, healthy, productive communities which serve their specific needs. The role of the government is to support them in this.
I am proud to stand with fellow Australian women committed to lasting social justice for all Australians and urge other women to show their support for Women for Wik.
Abu Chowdah
25 Apr 11 at 12:17 am
Shorter Peter Patton:
“THR…THR…THR…THR”
Jarrah
25 Apr 11 at 1:05 am
Mind you, it’s clear THR gets a bit of a “war woody” out of it all.
Abu Chowdah
25 Apr 11 at 1:38 am
Be careful Jarrah. I think I am well and truly done with the hapless THR – just a few nips and tucks left, I’m afraid. So I might seek new amusements, such as YOU!
Nah, that would be no fun at all. Just rewarming some of the lamer shards of the THR scrapbook; minus the ‘Melbourne’ references. 
Peter Patton
25 Apr 11 at 4:14 pm
Though you are a Marrickville Green…Nah, still same same.
Peter Patton
25 Apr 11 at 4:17 pm
Abu
Cor blimey. Fair suck of the sav, china. You’ve put me off me tea!
Peter Patton
25 Apr 11 at 4:18 pm