Inquisitor General Abbott

Inquisitional Mischief by Warrigal – and a share of the Bullshit

From developments today, we can clearly see what happens when there is carelessness in the handing of the chemicals in the darkroom.

Against the prevailing play, the great inquisitor, the big tomato himself, has hit the overdrive button and miraculously eclipsed the great Malester.

I was looking over past political posts and I notice how convincing Julie looks as a faithful sidekick.  Now she’s really going to have to put the boxing gloves on and get on her bicycle.

And our old mate Joe the Hock has graciously eaten of the humble pie and joined the ranks of the Brendans and Mals with a new seat up in the nose-bleed section of Parliament – so expertly kept warm by the world’s former third greatest Treasurer.

Tony Abbott at his press conference today is alleged to have said that he will introduce parliamentary uniforms in keeping with the status and power of relevant LNP parliamentarians.

He said, “I grew up in a regimented environment and prospered well in the uniformed cloisters of Riverview where boys of good Catholic character were systematically rogered then sent to play rugger in the rain. Those that survived thrived. I’ve always thought well of a man in uniform since those days.”

“Pell’s Man in Hell” or the “Catholic in Canberra”, as the sometime altarboy and erstwhile pugilist likes to be called, has had a very special uniform run up just for him. It includes an overly snug genital gusset with internal spikes so he can atone on the run. It also includes a snappy little mitre inscribed, with a nod to “Apocalypse Now”, (the notion not the film), “Death From Above” which is how our wannabe Inquisitor General likes it.

Abbott is convinced that should he get the search and seizure powers he’s looking for, he’ll “have more power than the old Egg Marketing Board”.

This seemed to make him very happy.

So where to from here ?  Several instances of Tony being put in the pound until the medication takes effect, followed by a massive electoral defeat followed by a closely fought leadership battle between Christopher Pyne and Bronwyn Bishop’s hairdresser ?

Who knows ?  But the term “bizarre” has grown a huge new meaning.  I’m interested in how many Libs who cross the floor on ETS are not going to come out after they see the great Inquisitor.

Patria Nostra

Digital Patriarchy by Warrigal

Wikipedia says that “Paternalism refers usually to an attitude or a policy reminiscent of the hierarchic pattern of a family based on patriarchy, that is, there is a figurehead (the father, pater in Latin) that makes decisions on behalf of others (the “wife” and “children“) for their own good, even if this is contrary to their wishes.

It is implied that the fatherly figure is wiser than and acts in the best interest of its protected figures. The term may be used derogatorily to characterize attitudes or political systems that are thought to deprive individuals of freedom and responsibility, only nominally serving their interests, while in fact pursuing another agenda; and when the pursued agenda is directly against the interests of the individuals then the result is oppression.”

As a kid growing up in a trade unionist family, my DNA was shaped by a healthy disrespect for authority.  Not so difficult to understand for a working class family that had been living under Ming the Merciless for 5 years before I hit the planet.

It was to be a massive feat of endurance.  The conservatives stayed in power not because of their wonderful command of the good ship Australia (nor perhaps because of a protracted period of post-war prosperity and growth), but because the opposition parties – the ALP and then (and I use the term “opposition” very loosely) the DLP managed to spend a mind boggling 23 years in the wilderness through factional in-fighting and by having an essentially talentless leadership and front bench.

To be fair, though, Pig-iron Bob – and later his acolyte John Winston, masterfully exploited the pathetic ALP schisms and successfully painted them as a cretinous rabble unworthy of the trust and support of the Australian people at the polls.

A glimpse of any footage of Menzies shows him to be the massive, self-assured father of the nation that he understood himself to be.  The price of certainty for the Australian family was a stultifying wooden half-arsed English bland sameness.  Not so much groundhog day as it was groundhog year.   England lite with more sunshine.

But Pig Iron Bob took us from England Lite to a new and equally obsequious position  – that the Rodent (or Menzies Lite)  made concrete in the second conservative empire – namely the position of being the Side Kick to Uncle Sam.  Not just any Uncle Sam, but the maddest, most moronic demon president delivered unto the modern world. Or perhaps more accurately his secretaries of State and Defence.

Now it seems to me that we’re going around the loop again.  A slightly different loop and the shoe is on the other foot.

We have a massively popular figure head prime minister.  He has a team of marginally competent ministers – fulfilling the standard role of not particularly achieving a lot, but keeping the lid on the country and keeping the prime minister and the party off the front pages.  Mostly.

One should not forget that this in itself is no mean feat.  In a world that constantly threatens to explode – a planet groaning under the weight of too many people and not enough food, water and renewable natural resources, creating a nation society that mostly does not starve and (for the vast majority) can get up in the morning comfortably predicting that nothing catastrophic will disrupt their morning cappuccino – is a passable result.  But it comes at a cost that looks remarkable familiar.  Remarkably Ming-esque.

And we have all the other key ingredients for a paternalistic society.  An Opposition in total meltdown.  A pack of talent less egoists with no cohesive ideology and no viable leadership.  The conservatives in Australia, it’s fair to say, are as fucked as Labor was in the Ming Era.  And moreover they seem just as likely to stay there for years to come.

Interestingly enough, Kevin Rudd has  a lot of the other key ingredients that Menzies and the post-Ming conservatives enjoyed too.  A hostile Senate – always good for getting nothing much done.  Loony balance of power Senators.  Does anyone remember Senator Albert Fields ?  How incredibly resonant is Steve Fielding !  I find obtuseness and religion a very dangerous mix.

But now we have Kevin Rudd’s mastery of media manipulation – spin doctoring par excellence with the bogeyman of Communist trade unionism well and truly laid to rest.  A new right wing Labor era.  You bet !

The Australian family has never been in better shape.

Well, except that the family values so vehemently proselytised by Howard and Rudd alike are in free-fall in so many families – with both parents working to survive economically and their kids either working their guts out to get a decent HSC for the privilege of getting onto their own gold-plated BMW treadmills – or dropping out with a quiet bong behind the boy’s weather shed.

It’s lucky we have such a wonderful father.  Roll out the barbie, the banana chairs and cricket and footy on free-to-air.  We’re in for the long haul.

Status quo until the waters of global warming start lapping the safe Labor seats of the western suburbs.

Tell us what to do next, Kevin.

Story and Mischief by Warrigal

Farmer Rudd called all the farmyard animals into the barn for a good talking to.  This farm has gone to the pack under the old farmer.  I’m going to make it all better!

He handed out tasks to all the animals and it fell to The Little Red Hen to produce the farmer’s “Education Revolution”.

“Who will help me put this revolution together?” said the Little Red Hen. “Not I.” said Farmer Rudd.  “I’ve got more important things to do and a number of photo ops to attend”

“Oh…”, said the Little Red Hen, “Well, I better get sitting on this thing!”

Yes children, even in the best fairy stories your most favourite characters sometimes get the poopy end of the stick.

Sadly after two years in government all that the Little Red Hen has been able to do is lay an egg.

The Larry, Mo and Curly Joe of Australian Politics

Digital Surgery by Warrigal

As the deadline for the climate change debate looms large, conservative politicians are, by their deliberations, proving that finding a sensible response to climate change is definitely more difficult than brain surgery.  Unfortunately, instead of recruiting rocket scientists, they unwittingly rolled up their sleeves and enlisted the assistance of the notorious space cadet Steve (Curly Joe) Fielding.

After a prolongued search for an idea, the best that the Three Stooges of Australian politics could come up with was “Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk”, prompting Penny Wong, the Minister for a Double Dissolution to suggest that at a time when the environment was calling for a massive transfusion, all the conservatives could come up with was type E negative .

In late breaking news this morning, Larry was quoted by the ABC as saying “”If after about four years you continually deal with unnamed sources in the paper and those unnamed sources say that the source of all their problems in life is you, then you say if you want to make yourself public and you are at the appropriate level, I’ll leave,” he said.

The lack of an anaesthetist would leave the coalition in an extremely painful condition, except that there is no evidence that Curly is capable of feeling pain and on the contrary it appears that he is routinely completely insensate in the Senate.

Sources close to Mo Heffernan were also struggling to find a pulse.

Yirrkarla Primary

By Warrigal Mirriyuula

There’s a kerfuffle going on at the moment up in The Northern Territory and like a lot of things Territorian it seems this one is also a fundamental disconnect between the whitefellas and the blackfellas.

You see, as part of Rudd’s much-spruiked but as yet unseen Education Revolution it has been decided, in consultation with the NT Parliament, that the kids of blackfellas are effectively illiterate because English is their second language and they don’t do so well on standardised tests used to determine literacy in white schools. Hardly surprising you say and of course you’d be right.

Age appropriate tests in their indigenous languages shows the kids to be just as bright and eager to learn as white kids in eastern schools. Funny that.

So what’s the kerfuffle about? Well it’s now been decided that the previous policy of bi-lingual language classes will be scrapped and all indigenous children will be taught in English exclusively for the first four hours of the school day. For those students for whom English is entirely foreign, and that’s lots of NT blackfellas, there will be indigenous interpreters to help students with little or no English skills. Not so radical you might say, given that if those kids want to integrate into the broader Australian society they’re going to need substantial English language skills.

Early indications however are that in those schools where this policy has already been implemented the children are voting with their feet. By the end of those four hours the classrooms are almost empty. In those schools, which are resisting the introduction of the policy, attendance is up

Where the children are taught in their first language and English is only taught after the kids have a sufficient grip on the grammar, vocabulary and narrative development of their own language, the literacy outcomes for both their own languages and English are improved significantly with students fluently using both their own language and English better. Sounds “win/win” to me.

So why, as Professor Charles Grimes and The Australian Society for Indigenous Languages suggest, has this anti intuitive course been charted. Beats the shit outa me, and the good Prof. too. Apparently it also caused Marion Scrygmour, The former NT Education Minister, some trouble. She admitted to Dr. Brian Devlin of Charles Darwin Uni.’s language department that the policy was made too quickly.

She said, ‘Look, I fucked up’,” Dr Devlin reported, but apparently not so badly that this dumb and damaging policy be dumped and the former bi-lingual process be reinstituted.

” I think what she was referring to is that there was a lack of consultation beforehand and that the application of her four-hour English directive of October the 14th had many unintended consequences.”

“It had certainly put her offside with traditional Indigenous people out in the communities.” the good Prof went on to say. Scrygmour is an indigenous woman herself, so this just gets curiouser and curiouser.

There is a groundswell of opinion suggesting that there are many factors not related to education including health and home conditions that affect school results.

“You could say as a ballpark figure that 80 to 90 per cent of the kids at this school would have a hearing impairment of the middle ear, infections or perforated eardrums at some time in their school career,” said the acting principal of the Lajamanu school, John Lane.

“The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People says that Indigenous people, minority people, have the right to decide the way that they have their own education, including the role of their own language in that.” Says Prof. Grimes. Pity policy makers haven’t read that declaration recently.

As any one who has ever had to learn a language will tell you, learning a foreign language is difficult because you have to understand it by deconstructing your understanding of your own first language. If, however, you have little or no understanding of the structure and dynamics of your own language, learning another will be effectively nearly impossible

At this time there are very few surviving indigenous languages that are used in a traditional cultural and social setting on an everyday basis and most of these are in the NT. Recent studies have shown that at this time indigenous languages are just managing to hold their own against English, but there can be no doubt that if this “English First” policy continues the number of languages and the speakers of those languages will decline.

As well as being comprehensively ill informed, this policy is simply racist. It’s more “pillow softening” and seems to assume that indigenous languages are somehow second rate. It constitutes a fundamental attack on what it means to be indigenous in this country. It is Orwellian in that it seeks to limit and control the language tools available to describe the complex relationships in indigenous society and the relationship between indigenous society and the broader Australian society. Something which their own languages do very well, certainly better than English ever could.

There are many aspects of indigenous life and experience, religion and cosmology, let alone their prodigious understanding of Australian ecology, that simply cannot be translated directly into English without losing depth and complexity. Should the day come when there are simply no indigenous speakers left we will all, whitefellas and blackfellas, be forever and irrevocably separated from that experience and cosmology, that understanding. Its meaning and utility will be lost forever.

The indigenous people of this continent have, over more than 60K years, made Australia penetrable, open to understanding and it is in their languages that the last vestiges of that understanding are to be found. To allow this policy to contribute to the continuing decline of indigenous diversity and self expression would seem an act of the most heartless and stupid “ethnic cleansing by neglect”, and the very people so cleansed would have no means to critique their circumstances, except of course in English.

What would it then mean to be a blackfella, if you had no way of accessing the fundamental tools that make that meaning real and define who you are?  By making English the de facto indigenous language we are saying that there’s nothing worth saving and keeping in any of the remaining indigenous languages struggling to be heard against the white paradigm; and that’ll break blackfellas hearts all over again, all over the country.

Like I said, it just beats the shit outa me.

Poodle loses face in shadow cabinet reshuffle

Warrigal gives Pyne a pounding….

Well, it was red faces all around in the shadow cabinet pack this weekend as the alternative government’s latest parliamentary tactic unravelled.  Sources close to the Opposition Leader revealed that his desire to “find out how Kevin does it” had been mistranslated by the shadow cabinet into a plot to infiltrate the Rudd household by insinuating another dog therein.

The plan apparently was for the member for rolling over and having his tummy rubbed to bound up to Kevin and …. roll over and invite Kevin to rub his tummy …. and then follow him home.   All went well until the Rudd’s cat Jasper took exception to an additional canine in the fold.  Jasper was quoted as saying ” No more f*cking mutts under my roof, Dad”.  Which suggests that the Prime Minister still needs to be more particular about his choice of words in front of the pets.

As the poodle bounded across the lodge linoleum, Jasper sunk his claws into its trailing bits, resulting in a sudden loss of face….. and another sudden loss of face…. and a third loss of face with the Opposition leader denying all knowledge of the plot and mumbling something about Godwin Gretsch.  Dissenting witnesses insisted that the Opposition leader was in fact complaining about testicular discomfort.

Poodle breeders were aghast and accused the member for  rolling over and having his tummy rubbed of lowering standards.  This point was echoed by the Opposition whip who rolled up a newspaper, smote the member for rolling over and having his tummy rubbed on the muzzle and told him that if he ever made another poodle in the shadow cabinet, it would be off to the vets for the big sleep.

Dogged Neocon numbers men are reportedly circling and sniffing arses in search of a new leader for their pack.

Suspected Australian Political Jihadist Walid Tokay

Please note, this is a fake politician – Digital Mockery by Warrigal

In late breaking news, our freelance Pig’s Arms Middle East correspondent Armin di Nihill reported this morning that a senior figure sought by the APF – Sheik Walid Tokay has reportedly been arrested by Saudi Super Secret Spy Society (SSSSS) agents when he tried to infiltrate the Saudi cabinet.

Apparently Sheik Tokay was only discovered when he threatened to cross the floor and vote against his own party on a matter of conscience.  This was unprecedented in Saudi politics.  Not crossing the floor – because there is no other side, but actually having a conscience.

More surprising was the revelation that Sheik Tokay is also embroiled in an emerging scandal referred to in the Saudi official media Al Wankar as the “Money for Wheat Scandal”.  Al Wankar cartoonist, Effdog Moon says that details are sketchy at this stage, but there has been a suggestion that an un-named boat person has been photographed by the SSSSS exchanging a brown paper bag suspected of containing hard currency – for a box of Wheatbix.

There is also a suggestion that Effdog Moon was in fact merely drawing his own conclusion and the photograph was simply a supermarket transaction.

Please forgive me – I can’t help myself……  Another First Dog Cartoon from Crikey.  Subscribe, if you can.

A Manne Makes His Move - but will he trouble Kevin ?

Digital Mischief by Warrigal

With speculation about the Liberal leadership running red hot, and with the Pig’s Arms patrons openly complaining about Malcolm’s poor performance, rumours about Manne making a leadership challenge are refusing to go away.

Some in the pub have, in the past suggested than Manne lacks the ticker – that he’s just an amiable glass picker-upper, a hedge trimmer for the Hell’s Angles (bikie geometricians) and a wedge runner for granny.

Others have said than Manne lacks judgement and that he should never have gone to help out Maddy in Emmjay’s Zephyr.  Nor should he have pushed the Utegate Affair involving Danny so hard.

More surprising was Merv’s insistence that the UPL (United Publicans League) should adopt a pro-active stance on alcopops as the the pre-eminent solution to climate change.  And when he elected to stake the pub licence on his judgement, it was fairly obvious to the imbibers of Trotters Ale and the pink drinks that there was trouble brewing at mill.

It was revealed today that Manne’s twin, Joe, has tired of sharing space on the front bench with Mal and (given Joe’s jumbo suit profile), there’s no surprise that he’s wriggling a bit over disquiet on the back benches and across the road in Rosie’s Tattoo Emporium and House of Pain (no charge for extra pain).

When people pledge undying support for their leader, they are speaking posthumously without a doubt.  So was it Joe or was it Manne who pledged undying support for Malcolm ?  Is it a smokescreen ?  Are Joe and Manne identical twins ?

What IS interesting however is the sudden retirement decision of Pistol Pete (drink till midnight, pistol dawn) Costello.  He said that “we’ve found our new candidate, and we’re ready to roll”.  Emmjay was saying that Pete must have meant “roll the leader”, as opposed to “roll the dice” but granny said she thought that was the same thing.
Either way we get snake eyes.

So what if Manne does become the new leader in a shadow cabinet reshuffle stuff up, or whether they get it right and Joe takes the poisoned chalice is still a matter of pure guesswork.

Will Merv give up the pub for his old mate Malcolm ? Does Manne really have a brigadier’s baton in his knapsack, or does he in fact have a nap in his hackey sack.  Sorry, did I say hackey sack ?  I meant “Hockey sack”.

Sorry, I meant “sack Hockey”

Arrr, hell.  Loyalty is so hard to come by these days, don’t it ?