What's what?

you warming up for straya day lostdoggy?

just a few sleeps to go and you can don your boardies & straya flag & sing the house down trying to remember the words to khe sanh after knocking down a slab

maaaaaate ......

Having trouble deciding on my favourite lettuce for my straya day salad.

floyd wrote:

you warming up for straya day lostdoggy?

just a few sleeps to go and you can don your boardies & straya flag & sing the house down trying to remember the words to khe sanh after knocking down a slab

maaaaaate ......

Sounds good Lostdoggy .

Have a good one cobber.

Yeewwww.

Shatner'sBassoon wrote:

"To commemorate the cancellation of The Bolt Report, on Sunday, let's all have a minute's intellectual silence. "

Lest we remember...

http://thevine.com.au/entertainment/tv/bolt-report-axed-10-best-worst-bi...

Good riddance

Funny line about the "intellectual silence" though I reckon it's an error of judgement to view Bolt as dim-witted or not an intellectual. He is - at least in my eyes - though he comes at matters from a particular viewpoint. I think Bolt is sincere about his stance against racism, equality for all etc, and also in his general willingness to move the debate forward. Yet his mistake is being blind to the prevailing culture that's far from equal and privileges some while hindering others. Equality is a wonderful aspiration but we'll never get there without changing the status quo.

A few months back Richard Cooke wrote an op-ed piece on Bolt that was the best I've read in a while. Cooke is a tad unfair though I imagine if it was a longer piece he'd explain his way around the deception, minor as it is.

Don't give it the TLDR, it's worth reading to the end:

Bolted down

“How could I have failed so completely to convince so many people that I am actually fighting exactly what I’m accused of?”

That’s the question Andrew Bolt asked his readers last year, after the Aboriginal academic Marcia Langton accused him of being a racist. She later apologised, but the episode rattled Bolt so badly he stayed out of the office for a day. He is, after all, a dedicated anti-racist.

In the wake of the Paris attacks, Bolt has suggested a cut in the number of Muslim migrants, a call he has made a number of times before. He has also recommended not taking African immigrants for the same reasons: failure to integrate, propensity to criminality.

This – let's be frank – is an unusual position for an anti-racism campaigner to take. It’s difficult to think of anyone else who describes themselves that way advocating racialised immigration quotas. But what makes it especially unique is how it sits against the rest of Bolt’s personal philosophy.

Elsewhere, he deplores those who harp on the difference between colours and creeds. They, he says, promulgate the “new tribalism” and “new racism” that threaten to tear us apart. Colour-blindness is key. This is why constitutional recognition for Indigenous Australians is racist, for example, as is Adam Goodes talking about colonial dispossession. Because it puts them apart. Creates division.

Strangely, this colour-blindness disappears when non-whites or Muslims commit crime. Then, for some reason, it becomes vitally important to talk about race, and restrict migration on the same basis. Bolt fulminates against judges who anonymise Muslim names in their judgements, or newspapers that fail to print racial descriptors of perpetrators. The old tribalism, the old racism, seem to be exempt from Bolt’s criticism.

Perhaps it’s all about culture, a word Bolt prefers (partly because it is more “optimistic”, he says). It’s reasonable then to talk about the cultural element in Islamist terrorism, the same way it’s reasonable to talk about the role of tradition in the Catholic paedophilia scandal. That seems fair enough. Except Bolt described the latter conversation as a “great onslaught of hate” in the media, “a witch-hunt”, “a hate campaign against innocent Catholics”, an attempt to “destroy the sanctity of the confessional” and “tear down the structures of the church”.

It’s difficult to see clearly through the colour-blindfold, but it’s almost like there’s one rule for one set of people, and another rule for others.

I am not a fan of hunting through website comment sections, then smearing writers with their contents. “Nut hunting”, it’s called, a name that shows how easy it is, and how pointless. But the readers of Andrew Bolt’s blog express sentiments so pervasively vile that their sum is unignorable. Five minutes’ reading will be more than enough to get the flavour (remember, too, that it’s moderated –  the juicier turds have already been skimmed from this sewer).

One example has really stuck with me. It’s a comment from a reader called Herb, a former colonial resident of Papua New Guinea. He’d often enjoyed watching colonial riot police at work in the 1960s:

Driving back from the town to the airport I often came across and watched ‘the Police Boi Riot Squad’ at work… The Police Bois laid into anything over their shields with enormous ferocity, arcing their batons from near the ground … The ‘boinks’ were the police bois giving a massive clobber on the skulls like slamming two wooden blocks together …

Herb was writing in at the time of the Manus Island riots. And, like so many of Bolt’s readers, longing for yesteryear.

If the refugees fronted a Police Boi riot squad anywhere near as disciplined in earlier times, they would for sure clobber those thin middle eastern skulls …

Perhaps the reason that it's stuck with me is that Bolt decided to publish it on his blog, in full. “Detainees met a PNG police force that hits back” was the headline.

“Reader Herb gives background to the violent police response to the Manus detention centre riot,” was the introduction. Background.

So how did Bolt's anti-racist readers respond to this image of a baton clobbering a “thin middle eastern skull”? (Why mention the thinness unless to imply breakage?)

With outrage? A re-assertion of love for their fellow man? Like this:

“Boink Boink Boink Boy thats a sound i would have liked to hear”
“What a marvellous description of well organised well disciplined squad”
“That’s how riot squads used to work in western countries too, until the touchy feelie brigade took over”
“Thankyou PNG … Well done, well done.”

I wonder how it would feel, to start an anti-racism campaign and find it polluted with these kinds of sentiments. There you are, just trying to provide some “background” to an event, and find this neutral communication violated by extreme sentiments like this.

I wonder how it feels to look around and find virtually no people of other races in your camp, apart from a few eccentrics and turncoats. To hold a position on the Stolen Generations that requires breezily invalidating the testimony of thousands of people (but only for their benefit, of course).

Of course we can’t know. But I do remember the feeling I had reading this poem in Quadrant.

The jeering, gloating ring of youths
Closed in around a solitary boy,
Teasing and taunting him
Because he was black
The boy staggered from a blow,
The yells grew louder,
Humiliating and bewildering the boy
The colour of his skin was a cause
For ridicule
I wanted to help him
But fear sealed my mouth,
Held me back.
And soon I was yelling with the rest.

That poem is called ‘Fear’. The poet is Andrew Bolt, age 13.

It's not related, of course. Just some background.

Bolt's anti-racism is fighting the brave fight against the appalling racism he sees everywhere against
the white man.
Those darkies - all that bringing up of colonial thefts and murders, all those complaints about white men controlling all the wealth, all those requests that the white man should give something back. It's racism pure and simple according to Andrew Bolt, and he for one is prepared to fight this racism to protect the oppressed white man.
Andrew Bolt - Our Champion of the Overdog.
What a guy!

Stunet, what was the deception you referred to?

I have to say, it's either a remarkable lack of self awareness or brilliantly calculated thinking that would drive Bolt to ask himself that opening question. Given he's trying to redefine racism and rejects current interpretations and applications of it, those that everyone else uses, I suspect it was written to foster his story line of the modern (professional) victim.

benski wrote:

Stunet, what was the deception you referred to?

I don't think it's fair to use a poem, irrespective of when it was written, to highlight Bolt's current political stance. Who's to say 13-year-old Andy wasn't employing irony? Or that he was even the boy in question "yelling with the rest"? Perhaps it was a statement against group mentality?

Poetry uses many tools and it's a bit unfair to appropriate it without context. Cooke tries to excuse it by saying it's "background", which may be so but it's slightly disengenuous.

Fair comments Stunet … As you say, I don't believe he was a racist and his conviction highlighted the difficult interpretation of 'racism' by many - even the Human Rights Commissioner.
The strength of our freedom and rights can often be shown when there are people like Bolt and how the community responds. Personally, its really about incitement to violence, that needs to be challenged.

Ah yep, fair enough, I see what you mean. Hmmm. I found the poem quaint but largely irrelevant because I think the legitimate point we can take from Bolt (if we take him at face value) is that we may all have the same ideals or goals but just have different views on how we get there. He strays into petty culture wars that render him fairly useless to genuine conversation I think, but that's one thing we can take away from his claims, if taken at face value. The poem probably just establishes the ideal not the way we get there.

But...having said that, I think it's probably fair to use it because I assume Bolt published it in the mag as an adult not when he was 13. If so, then he's wanting to use it to demonstrate a range of things, and since he is adept at using the "I'm not saying racist things, I'm just saying" approach to commentary, I have no problem with someone using the same to mock him. Particularly when I suspect he was trying to use his childhood ideals to establish his non-racist chops.

If it was indeed published when an adult, Bolt chose to list his age at the time of writing which again strikes me as wanting to make some hay from his youth. Since Bolt would know the interpretation of a poem is up to the reader, I think his deliberate release of it and statement of his age makes it fair game. But that is of course based on the assumption that it was published as an adult. And the best I can find, "Bolt’s first published work was written when he was aged 13" is decidedly ambiguous!

Anyway, whatever just musing. The piece by Crooke was good but I'd have preferred a bit more from Bolt's writing rather than the nut jobs therein. I mean we don't judge you by sheepdog's comments ;-)

Ha ha ha...many good points Benski.

wasn't bolt a staffer for bob hawke?
so where and when did his politics take a massive turn to the right?

Barrie Cassidy worked for Hawke, thought Bolt was previously a public servant at DFAT.

Andrew Bolt's main fight against racism is his offence at the very modest special assistance available to eligible aborigines seeking higher education.

Bolt was relaxed and tolerant about thousands booing Adam Goodes and shouting racist epithets, but when Goodes did his own aboriginal haka to proudly affirm his aboriginal identity, Bolt was deeply offended at what he saw as an insult to him and all whiteys.

This is what Bolt thinks makes him an anti-racism crusader.

A good read, Shatnerd. Though too long for this mob surely?! Confirms what I always thought. Bolt's a cunt. And an un-original one at that.

Murdoch's Fox news in the US and his Sun in the UK have had muppets like him forever. The funny part is Bolt and his ilk would have the majority of their fans euthanized if push came to shove.

Turkey's voting for Thanksgiving. What's Mal up to these days?

Ah well, we can just hope little Shorty is able to put few words together. He has just sacked his spin doctor. Union problems, what problems ... Not for duck and weave Shorty.

more golden humour from tones

Hey SB,

you despair at this? I rejoice!

if this is as good as the conservative brains trust can throw at the world than conservatism is dead.

the exponentially growing hispanic vote will see hillary in the big chair soon enough no matter what the good ole boys in the south or the fucktard capitalists in the land of milk and honey do.

the razor sharp ultra right have been voted out all around the world and if it wasn't for the man in the $5,000 suits getting the job here abbott would have been slung out too.

Rejoice SB a new golden era is near ....

SB...we all live in little boxes, little boxes all the same. I maybe white, I maybe black, I maybe brown but does it really matter - maybe to you. I maybe left, I maybe right , I maybe even centre (of what I don't know). Does it really matter. Who cares about US politics, who cares about Sarah Pallin. Maybe you do.

tonybarber wrote:

SB...we all live in little boxes, little boxes all the same. I maybe white, I maybe black, I maybe brown but does it really matter - maybe to you. I maybe left, I maybe right , I maybe even centre (of what I don't know). Does it really matter. Who cares about US politics, who cares about Sarah Pallin. Maybe you do.

are you serious tones? shirley you must realise how uncle sam influences our daily life

"As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” - H. L. Mencken

More reading. Go on, it won't hurt you. In fact, quite the opposite.

https://newmatilda.com/2016/01/07/why-are-we-still-working/

I would but I'm too busy working.

Ha ha!

Ohh...

somehow addicted to money

Some how, some where. We all forget about the other side. We love, we consider, we care.
Yet we continue to ditch into the 'perfectionism'

And everyone else east is just thinking
http://9gag.com/gag/aA1D5eE

A day off. To have a drink and/or to have a think? Who's discombobulated? Google that! https://newmatilda.com/2016/01/26/the-worlds-most-popular-website-just-r...

I'll tell you who's discombobulated .

People that think it's avant garde , critical thinking to come to the realisation that the blackfellas were fucked over.

That's who.

I'm with you blowin.

Stu, Bolt is not dim-witted, but is not an intellectual, not by any stretch. And then there is the fact that there is a whole other class of people who are far smarter than intellectuals, but they haven't been given a name yet, so that puts Bolt somewhere down the 3rd of 4th rung of intelligence, at best.

He is a careerist though, and basically conforms perfectly to the polemicist writer's manual, just writing shit that he knows will get a reaction, while be blithely stands apart from his words saying 'just saying' and related BS to disown his own words and the power he has been gifted.

He appeals to the worst of humanities proclivities (google that TT) :-)

It's an opportunist approach to life, unhindered by self-awareness, ethics, compassion, humility or any of the other finer aspects of life. He is a cartoon, a comic delusion, a caricature of a human being, an outline with no inner being.

But he isn't dim-witted, just a neanderthal, with apologies to any living neanderthals.

I'm glad you threw in that apology Batfink.

I was starting to furrow my really, really prominent brow.

Shatner'sBassoon wrote:

Barbie boy, I dunno if that is your take on the opening song for the telly show WEEDS, or some kind of free-style Billy Joel?!

You may be right...you may be crazy...

And Palin/Trump may just be the lunatic you're looking for!

That weeds song is a cracker . " if tomorrow never shows ....... "

As for everyone's thoughts on today .
We need to stop looking back , and just make sure we do the right thing going forward .
First step would be to drop today's celebration , change the flag and go on and continue celebrating every other day .
" We the people ..... "

Blowin wrote:

I'll tell you who's discombobulated .

People that think it's avant garde , critical thinking to come to the realisation that the blackfellas were fucked over.

That's who.

I don't know what it means so maybe I'm discombublated but from what I can see, that is still avant-garde thinking in Australia. Fair few people I know think the opposite.

We can be a good bunch about most things but many of us can also be a bunch of empathy free, thoughtless pricks.

Love youse all though. Happy day today. Whatever you call it.

When I saw First Dog on the Moon's cartoon on the Guardian today blowin the first person I thought of was you? Hope your having a good Australia Day mate ;)

bout sums it up except for the fact our 1st fleeters / settlers absolutely loved their fellow cobber coz there was little or no alternative so lets all man up and openly admit we were founded by a pack of poofs, just don't call me bruce ok!

southey wrote:

As for everyone's thoughts on today .
We need to stop looking back , and just make sure we do the right thing going forward .
First step would be to drop today's celebration , change the flag and go on and continue celebrating every other day .
" We the people ..... "

Well said ... Easier said than done. Maybe just celebrate Anzac Day and as you say, every other day. At some point the past needs to stay in the past.

Anzac day and all the frankly embarrassing Gallipoli bollocks isn't the past? Jumping up n down and celebrating this date, the 26th of January, isn't fucking embarrassing? You're a fucking moron buddy, at best, or at worst a fucking skite.

........ nah, there is nothin I can add to dat TT, good work

talkingturkey wrote:

Anzac day and all the frankly embarrassing Gallipoli bollocks isn't the past? Jumping up n down and celebrating this date, the 26th of January, isn't fucking embarrassing? You're a fucking moron buddy, at best , or at worst a fucking skite.

Well, TT do want a national day ? Any day ? Which day ? I'm no skite, I didn't go to Gallipoli or Second World War or Vietnam (nearly though) or East Timor or Palestine or Iraq or Afghanistan.
Yeah maybe the 26th January is not a good choice.

Heard today on the radio a suggestion for a national day .... thought it was a good idea.

Lets celebrate the day all of these three things are enacted into law:

(1.) Full national recognition of the First Nations into our constitution.
(2.) Australia becomes a republic.
(3.) Australia has a new national flag removing the Union Jack (my suggestion is the Eureka flag)

Now that would be a day worth celebrating and one to be proud of.

As for Anzac Day / Gallipoli I personally don't see the point, if any battle should be remembered surely it should be how the Australian Army heroically defended the Australian mainland on Kokoda.

it seems it's time to sort this shit out, especially if we have to sit through this tedious and pointless republic debate again, which it appears we're about to. may as well make it more than a pointless gesture this time. which means incorporating the stuff floyd and turkeyman are on about.

we can't seriously get rid of Australia day, even though it has becone an embarrassing cringey kind of day. but we cannot continue to celebrate on the 26th January either, being the anniversary of the invasion it will always have loaded meaning to aboriginals, amd we really need to be more inclusive in designing these events.

don't really care for the constitution either way but if that's important to aboriginals fix it, what's the fucking argument seriously?

change the date, that's a given, a promise k rudd bailed out on apparently.

change the flag, yep, but not to any of those lame examples in that recent uni srudy, you couldn't design more tastelss, meaningless and contrived examples if you tried. that fuckwit on channel 9, ben forman or something, reckons we can't change the flag because "the yooth have decided with their tattoo's" fuck the yooth, they're a bunch of tasteless morons, as they've proven. we don't need to finance a bunch of overpaid designer's and academics either, we have a perfectly fitting beautiful design already, just replace the union jack with the aboriginal flag, fitting, beautiful, and inclusive.

and if we're gonna face all this shit, well face the diprotodon in the room and deal with a treaty. every other country has done it. then maybe we can move on from this painful pointless history wars debate that is just pushing stuff backwards, southey is right, need solutions, and ro move forward, enough is enough...of everything

gotta agree with the Gallipoli anzac obsession as well...embarrassing and barely relevant while we ignore numurous other significant battles, I just don't get it

For the young ones. Fighting in wars has a deep meaning for many Aussies that war involved. Given that most (if not all) from the First World War have moved on then a possible stepping stone would the end of the Queens reign. This will have meaning for those involved in the second World War. Lets face it, we don't have an idea of what sort of republic we should have and how the leaders are elected, so there is a bit to go yet. Change will come and its hard to see why hurry.