It’s not as if this is a partisan line of argument. If this was the story of a political leader of a party I normally supported, I would not support that party or that leader. Is the American electorate going to allow the whole ship to sink to make sure they hang onto the freebies Obama has been distributing? Not just shortsighted but actually fools if they are. But the ad should not be about getting the President to “show up for work”. It should be about why Obama must without any question be defeated at the coming election.
My thanks go Gab for finding this ad.
The gloves come off: Something of a bloggers call to war:
This campaign just got real. From right now until election day, no holds are barred.
The mainstream media has dropped all pretense of impartiality. Their behavior in response to the latest Mideast crisis was blatant, outrageous — and effective. When the world erupted on September 11 and the Obama administration groveled at the feet of our barbarian attackers, the major news outlets — knowing that this was a disastrous turn of events for the Obama campaign which could not be spun in his favor — decided the only solution was to brazenly change the subject to a fabricated peripheral side issue: that Romney had committed some kind of ‘gaffe’ by criticizing the government’s weak-kneed response.
As Obama’s dithering threatened to ignite a world war, a significant percentage of mainstream news outlets blared headlines like ROMNEY GAFFE DERAILS REPUBLICAN HOPES and ROMNEY WON’T BACK DOWN FROM FALSE CLAIM. Of course neither of these headlines (nor countless similar headlines over the past two days) was factually true: The only thing that transformed Romney’s rather mild criticism into a ‘gaffe’ was that the media itself declared it to be so.
So here’s the suggested mantra for the next seven weeks:
Change the Narrative.
Turn it up to 11.
My filter trumps their filter.
Do not self-censor.
Do not play defense, or even offense: just spike the ball, over and over.
Aim to convince strangers, not entertain friends.
This is not a drill.
Obama has now been reading My Pet Goat for 72 hours.
C.L.
15 Sep 12 at 2:59 pm
Do you find that the more our left-leaning politicians ‘care’ about the plight of the unemployed, sick, homeless, uneducated etc. in our midst, the less they seem inclined to do what we really expect from a national government – ie. protect and defend?
Ellen of Tasmania
15 Sep 12 at 3:37 pm
Another dumbarse OP by Steve. Where were you when George W. Bush took a third of his presidency off in over a thousand vacation days?
m0nty
15 Sep 12 at 6:13 pm
Yes, Ellen, the real issues are being subverted.
I agree Steve that in this ad the tag line should be ‘he hasn’t shown up for work, so show him out’.
Personally, in Australia, I am so sick of media spin. The latest one to get me really annoyed is the Weekend Oz Magazine’s Nicki Gemmell. This woman uses feeling rather than thought to write her columns, and this week’s is a lu lu of silliness about feminism and how she grieves for her daughters because female politicians like Julia Gillard are not given a fair go – about which, Nikki the thoughtless, I scream absolute bulldust.
Gemmell goes for outright toadyism and leftism – for example, claiming against all the evidence of Gillard’s duplicity and evasions in this matter that Gillard’s answers about ‘the Slater & Gordon years’ were an ‘exhaustive, witty, eloquent chastening’ of the media. She claims Gillard has been ‘belittled, mocked’ and OMG, get this – ‘ignored’. then the lu lu plus – Leigh Sales when interviewing Tony Abbott on 7.30 ‘courageously wanted to inject a little equality into the national debate; to be as hard on Abbott as she would ever be on Gillard’. This, if you have seen the interview and the howls about unfair interviewing and bias surrounding it, is an absolute travesty of a description given what happened: Sales’s unprofessional and partisan attack on Abbott in comparison to her generally easy treatment of Gillard. Gemmell then goes on to say that ‘For this, Sales was labelled a “cow” by Liberal strategist Grahame Morris’ – which again is a totally unfair representation of how and when and why Morris used this word.
Nikki Gemmell, you say it will be a long time before we ever see another female PM in Australia. It certainly will if such a one is ever like Julia Gillard. It is the person who counts, not the gender, and you should know and acknowledge this. You are a fraudulent writer, stuck in an inner-city enclave and putting a tired old spin about feminism onto the inept leader of the worst government Australia has experienced in generations.
She should go back to writing about sex. Feelings matter a lot more there.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
15 Sep 12 at 6:13 pm
Thanks for that link to the august politic365.com, Monty.
C.L.
15 Sep 12 at 6:56 pm
Oh goodness
Ellen is complaining about governments who care about the sick, homeless and unemployed because they are wasting their time doing this and not protecting us…
Protecting us from what Ellen? Are we at war?
Suggest you go make a donation for the sick, homeless and poor at yoiur nearest church on Sunday for such uncharitable thoughts – which is all they are.
I am getting a bit tired of selfish types. Tasmanian selfish types I might add. Not a good look when people whinge about the poor, homeless or sick.
Alice
15 Sep 12 at 8:55 pm
Not you Alice?
You’re generous?
What percentage of your income did you donate to the sick, homeless and unemployed last financial year alice?
What time did you give over to helping others free of charge?
Go on. Inspire us Alice.
JamesK
15 Sep 12 at 9:12 pm
I spent a bit of the past week doing such work Alice, visiting the sick (this one in a locked psych ward, visited twice, a very sad place from which she’s now absconded, but no police to find her as they legally must, because they are busy with rioting Islamic militants welcomed here by the boatload), the homeless (in public housing squalor where you can’t get anything fixed – a man and his little boy with a $450 CO2 tax electricity bill they can’t pay; I paid it) and the unemployed (my friend made redundant; I’m working on her resume and helping her with childcare when she comes down to stay with me). Due to a selection of personal relationships which belong in some way to me, I see first hand the end result of some of our bloated and trough-feeding ‘caring bureaucracies’ and chaotically organised ‘welfare programs’ and wonderful Labor/Green clean-energy-future ‘reforms’. I also stayed with some very wealthy friends with large beachside houses and very kind hearts. I spent some money on myself too, because I can. It wasn’t always like that.
So what is your real point towards Ellen, Alice? From the little I’ve gleaned, Ellen is a sympathetic and I think a good Christian woman. Ellen wants our governments to do first things first, not frivolously waste our taxes, so then there will be more left for real problems, like the ones above, when we finally get a group of adults in charge who can put some order in the current chaos.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
15 Sep 12 at 10:09 pm
Straight as it gets Liz.
Pickles
15 Sep 12 at 11:04 pm
I thought Letterman was a life long Republican.
Dan
16 Sep 12 at 5:32 am
James K – I donate a days work out of five for free to a charity every week and I make donations.
So get inspired yourself dickhead.
Alice
16 Sep 12 at 9:05 am
Lizzie – Ellen calls for “protection” and “defense” above the needs of the poor, unemployed and sick per her post above. As I see it if you want to find bloated bureacracies and wsteful spending you need look no further than the defense budget spent on a series now, of wasteful military interventions led by other nations Australia apparently hasnt got the guts to say no to.
The defence budget has been very well fed for many years now but particularly well rewarded by John Howard whilst budgets for teriary education were cut.
There are bloated bureacracies I agree but taking a partisan approach to where you “see” bloat in government bureacracies does little to help the poor, the sick or the unemployed either.
Visting one or two poor souls every week is very admirable Lizzie, as is your wealthy friends willingness to open their wallets, but too few do what you and your friends do and there are too many for it to make much of an impact. The problems need more than the private charitable efforts of people like yourself your friends and myself. They need a share of the government budget that is fair.
Alice
16 Sep 12 at 9:14 am
I do indeed, Alice, and that’s because I don’t believe that charity should be the work of government. My behaviour is consistent with my belief. I understand your view is different, and that’s where the debate lies, not in guessing someone else’s charitableness.
I am a semi-invalid myself, and not at church with my family right now for that reason, so perhaps I’m not as heartless as you suggest.
As I understand it, an attack on embassies is an attack on the country. Someone went to war with the U.S. and how did Obama respond?
Surely you would agree that a nation has the right and responsibility to defend itself?
Ellen of Tasmania
16 Sep 12 at 9:50 am
Alice, no-one argues about the fact that there are deserving people who need a fair share of the government budget. It is also true that many good people help where they can, and that families usually are first in line to offer to help (someone once said families are the best welfare system in the world; something I believe in strongly). The budgetary argument centres on what is a fair share, who needs it most, and why is it that so much of the funding is misdirected and wasted under socialist policies, which are so open to rorting and fraud.
Charities are organisationally better and more humane than government bureaucracies by the way, and could be used more effectively to deliver services.
Defence is vital to any society. It is always a ‘first’ cause, above all others and you would be foolish in this uncertain world to sit on your hands and deplete it. In real terms our defence forces have been starved for a long time of proper funding. Green initiatives, useless for any practical purpose, have flourished however. We pay for 2,500 people in a Climate bureaucracy in Canberra and no-one knows what they do on their inflated salaries. That’s waste for you. And just the tip of the (unmelting) iceberg. There is tremendous waste everywhere under socialist policies.
Ellen, I hope you are able to enjoy your Sunday in peace and love with your family. You once gave me a few words of kind encouragement when I needed it. Glad you came back to this thread as it is better you speak for yourself, as you have, to Alice’s earlier critique.
Free tertiary education was a large subsidy to the rich, Alice. There are still ways to get educated if you are poor and want to become better off. I know, because I did it.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
16 Sep 12 at 10:35 am
Lizzie
I agree with everything you say except I have one objection
Your comment
“why is it that so much of the funding is misdirected and wasted under socialist policies, which are so open to rorting and fraud.”
By the very nature of policies directed troward the poor, sick or unemployed – it doesnt matter – these are socialist policies because they consider the social needs of people who live amongst us.
I do not think these agencies any more subject to fraud, embezzlement, waste than othe government agencies such as defence and or policing. Waste afflicts these agencies just as much.
To suggest that agencies devoted to the poor, sick or unemployed amongst us are more prone to “waste” to me takes on the notion of an ideology not a factual observation.
It is well known that government agencies can be corrupted are capable of waste generation and corruption (right up to the Rserve Bank).
That is no reason to go without a government (for the private sector generates enough waste and inefficiency of its own – inefficiency and imperfection is a human condition).
Nor is
government waste any reason to deny the funding directed by governments to the less well off in society.
I find the alternative – leaving it to the kindbess of strangers an even poorer substitute.
Alice
16 Sep 12 at 9:42 pm
Ellen -
I do agree a nation has a right to defend itself but Australia has not been attackedsince WW2 and it seems we spend a lot of time defending other nations wars (rightly or wrongly)
Alice
16 Sep 12 at 9:45 pm
Anyway ladies (Lizzie and Ellen) – its been a very interesting conversation and I enjoyed it but must go to bed now (not young here!).
Look forward to next time.
Alice
16 Sep 12 at 9:48 pm
I think CWA meetings are more brutal than this thread since 8.55. Good work girls being able to debate without debasement.
Splatacrobat
16 Sep 12 at 9:59 pm
Yes it was a pleasure to read
Daisy
16 Sep 12 at 10:03 pm
I like CWA ladies. I think they wouyld do a great job of running the country btw.
Alice
16 Sep 12 at 10:06 pm
Hmmm…. nasty and small-minded
In terms of her charity, I suspect Alice lies thru her gums.
JamesK
16 Sep 12 at 10:45 pm
So Alice in Wonderland, it is “fair” to hold a gun to someone’s head to extract “charity”. From what I’ve seen of many welfare bogans they can starve for all I care. Plenty of booze, smokes, drugs, newer cars than mine and the most rubbish that gets put out every week.
Fuckin’ bleeding hearts. “They would feed the seed corn to the hungry children”.
Eyrie
17 Sep 12 at 8:22 am
Here is what he says about it: [on being called a non-voting Republican] “I believe I have voted for both Democrats and Republicans. Am I either one? Absolutely not. Ladies and gentlemen, I am an American.”
However, he pitches his show to suit his market, and in ultra-liberal too cool for school New York, that is Democrat aligned. Republican figures are usually made the butt of his jokes and he almost never maliciously jokes about the Chosen One.
Cold-Hands
17 Sep 12 at 8:35 am
So, until you go through the motions to participate in some useless Fabian exercise to make yourself feel bettter, you are a lesser person.
Alice, get off your horse. You come across as a condescending so and so. Most people can’t afford to take one day off a week to play volunteers. You should be so lucky.
Entrepreneurs, I’m sure one of the selfish people in your book, do far more for society than an army of so called volunteers in receipt of millions in middle class welfare.
Here’s a thought, maybe you could work that extra day and donate it anonymously to charity. Ah, but you wouldn’t get to put on a show for the little people.
Scott
17 Sep 12 at 9:31 am
Alice, if you trim the waste and rorting everywhere within government (and industry) there is more wealth and more tax available to address the issues of the truly needy without pulling the whole society down around our ears. You can also do more then to help people down on their luck to get on their feet again (or for the first time) so they don’t need government assistance.
I appreciate that you are an older person, probably retired, possibly unable now to work, and that you help out in a voluntary capacity and I think this is admirable so I’m going to support you here. I hope you had a good early night and slept well. I’ve done voluntary telephone counselling in my spare time myself and know that it can be quite gruelling (and also upsetting because you hear so many pain-filled tales of social fragmentation that in my view only new social and political values can solve, with better services the much needed band-aid).
At risk of sounding patronisingly like Julia at her worse, I also ‘understand’ where you are coming from: that you see all sorts of rorts everywhere and believe strongly in assisting the weak with as much unquestioned (rightful?) redistribution as possible. But I do think you are blinkered in believing that rorting the welfare system, encouraging slothful dependence and providing useless, duplicated and bloated ‘services’ within it is something beyond criticism. It isn’t. By the way, I don’t play my lady bountiful to the world; I help personally with friends and relatives and people who come into my ambit in other ways and I blog away for better policies. I also give to charities at home and overseas and have done so for years, even when I found it financially difficult, so that is my contribution and it is no more than many, many other Australians make. No one forces them to do so, and no one should.
I won’t come back to this thread because it is beginning to disappear into the internet timehole, but Open Forum is always available for further discussion.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
17 Sep 12 at 10:05 am