The Dump is:
For posting comments that don’t get up at the Drum, and for having a pleasant, mirthful or enlightening off-topic discussion.
It’s not for personal abuse of other commenters.
Please do that somewhere else if you must.
Play nicely or piss off.
However, why doesn’t a poster add a link for us to read and comment on here, much quicker. Maybe we can do a bit more bagging here, not that I speak for the moderators, yet.
NB: Being tiresome and boring, racist, sexist or just plain creepy is not playing nicely.
———-
The Pig’s Arms exists because a dozen or so years ago our other favourite playpen – the ABC’s Unleashed blogsphere started to go off. Like a sack of prawn heads in the sun. Something had to be done.
Moderation was taking forever. Comments seemed to be rejected randomly – outrageous ones appeared and reasoned ones were pinged. When they released the Drum / Unleashed ….. things actually got worse !
So many pieces from professional writers appear with no obvious merit. And the moderation has become, to put it frankly, appalling.
As a former contributor and a commenter, I was deeply disappointed at the plummeting quality from our pre-eminent media empire. And I resented so many challenging or dare I say, witty or funny posts in which we’ve invested seconds of our precious time – getting the chop.
So here, for all our benefit – is an open slather blog. Copy and paste your best rejected comments here for posterity. Does not matter whether you’re posting on the Guardian, First Dog on the Moon or wherever else.
And sprinkle pointers to the Pig’s Arms amongst your comments. Let’s try to rescue some of the old faithful.
Cheers,
Emm.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
“Conservative cabinet minister Eric Abetz says Australia should not legalise gay marriage because no Asian country has adopted marriage equality.
And Senator Abetz says the issue should be rejected out of hand because Opposition Leader Bill Shorten supports change.”
Is this sick making … or what !
LikeLike
How the fuck did we end up with such a backward buch of arse holes?
How did we let them all crawl out of the primal sludge where they lived all of their lives?
Is there a human left in the country to clean up the place? Is there a Hercules to sweep this Augean Stable of horse shit and horse piss?
Fuck, I sure hope so before we get drowned in this stinking sludge!
LikeLike
We sure do need a Hercules. Liberals were always arseholes. They have sunk to new depths. Seems like Labor is drowning.
LikeLike
When Darius, the Persian King marched against Greece in 494BC with almost a million strong army, he asked the leaders of each city as he approached it for symbols of its surrender, some earth and water.
City after city did so and submitted to the indignities and tortures imposed by the conqueror.
The Athenian leaders down the road saw this and were in turmoil. Should they also do the same, submit to Darius, or accept the subsequent catastrophe?
Speech after speech (all of which were recorded by the historian Thucydides) were made with the most profound passion but in the end they decided to stand up and protect their nation. That nation was no bigger than some 100,000 people, including slaves.
The ratio was comparable to today’s march against Greece today.
History shows that Darius and his son, Xerxes, ten years later with similar military strength, were both shamed abjectly and made to rush back home with their tails wiping their soiled bum holes.
Don’t tell me these same Greeks can’t tell these loudmouth thugs from that uncleaned toilet that calls itself Brussells!
Don’t tell me THAT!
LikeLike
Tim Wilson is a dipstick. So is Paul Kelly:)
LikeLike
What drugs is Paul Kelly on these days?
LikeLike
Something the interferes with reason.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Appalling. Freedom Commissioner – didn’t think so. Kelly is just way past it and always was frankly very average.
LikeLike
Tim Wilson should be dis-citizenised!
This is a real Orwellian Govn’t. Orwell and Macchiavelli conspired to concoct this govn’t:
A misogynist as minister for women.
A xenophobe as minister for foreign affairs.
A hater of asylum seekers in charge of asylum seekers
A hater of free speech in charge of communications
A hater of human rights in charge of human rights
A hater of the poor in charge of the budget
A hater of the sick in charge of Health
A hater of Education in charge of Education
Orwell in real technicolour!
LikeLike
Thank Zeus for the likes of Anne Aly and Lawrence Krauss!
Tanya chewed her words just too much for my liking. My hopes for her are slipping with her every appearance.
LikeLike
Good comments Ato. Yes, I was disappointed in Tanya. Wish I could figure it all out. Effing depressing.
LikeLike
Vivienne, George…Unfortunately, today, being in the Labor Party is similar to being stuck between a rock and a hard place for a true socialist politician. I’m sure that Tanya is one of them. But the right wing elements of the party who sold their souls to the devil are at the controls. If only there was a real socialist/people’s political party…. Mr Whitlam must be rolling in his grave.
LikeLike
Yes, having Wilson as the human rights commissioner is like having a fox running a hen house. IPA stooge.
LikeLike
It was as though the Tim Wilson and Paul Kelly were parroting their bosses lines. Wilson disgraced his position with his idiotic comments. Kelly sounded line Murdoch. Turnbull on Insiders sounded stupid as well, couldn’t answer legitimate questions.
That fool Ciobo thought Q&A’s reply last nights reply odd and lacked logic. Pot and kettle Stevie boy. I had the misfortune of being abused some years ago at at a friend’s significant birthday on the Gold Coast by him. He’s irrational, lacks intelligence and appears to have the IQ of a borderline moron. It’s a sad indictment on this country that he;s a minister or has a role of any importance.
LikeLike
I guess why Abbott and the lying Liberals get so upset about Q & A has nothing to do with their faux outrage at last week’s program. It is because the ABC give equal opportunity to all sides and at every chance the Libs have they show themselves up to be complete moronic nasty arseholes. They want the show shut down because the public get to see and hear the truth. Can’t have that.
LikeLike
One by one almost every stock exchange is sinking!
Drowning!
That a small country like Greece can bring this about to a world monetary system shows just how rotten this system is.
Let it rot fully and let the next system that comes out includes the vagaries of humanity and human needs in its calculations.
Let them give it a beating heart and a broader mind.
LikeLike
Stupid isn’t it.
LikeLike
A referendum for the Greeks next Sunday.
Merkel gave Tsipras a most onerous, totally unacceptable, insulting document to sign. A document which had increased the original demands manifold. A document concocted with the purpose of destroying Tsipras’ credibility and Greece’s integrity.
But Tsipras is an undeniable genius!
Absolutely a genius!
None of the brutal thugs in the merkelzone is worthy of wiping his bum.
I was watching ERT TV live -all bloody night! again- which had a huge panel discussing every little breath that was coming out of the meetings.
The view that Merkel’s crap was a slap and a kick to Greece’s face was irritating the hell out of everyone on the 7+ constantly changing members of the panel and thoughts of a referendum were discussed.
It is indeed fantastic news and it is a classic case of “give them enough rope and they’ll hang themselves!” Which is what I and a lot of the panelists on every show I saw in Greece were thinking, though with less and less confidence on its success as time wore on.
Tsipras-Varoufakis proved them right. What gems these blokes are! What a mind and what determination!
The tricks of shysters died with the shysters!
A real, garland worthy hero!
The scum that made up the Merkelzone are not worthy of wiping his bum!
Their meanness and idiocy did what meanness and idiocy know best: to backfire and hit the mean idiot with all its might!
Merkel is dead! Schaubel is dead, Juncker is dead.
The whole corrupt cave of usurers and barbarians are dead, which includes the thugs in the previous govn’t.
Now is the winter of their discontent and the summer of the blossoming hearts in Greece!
A referendum will determine once and for all the will of the people and the referendum will be phrased as simply as it should: Yes or No to Merkel’s brutality. I would be shocked if the answer comes out as Yes.
But even if it does come as Yes, 6 months later when the german monopoly money once again runs out, he’ll do the same, and the same again after that until Merkel’s face is ground to death in that shit!
Long live Greece! Long live Tsipras!
Sunday is not too far away!
LikeLike
Extremely interesting times hey Ato.
LikeLike
Absolutely, Vivienne!
The zoners were upping the stakes every night until they got to this edge of the cliff. Tsipras turned around and the zoners are now scrambling not to slip and fall over into the abyss.
The last statement from Tsipras included the words, “We will not negotiate the dignity of our people.”
The opposing political forces are seething and frothing at the mouth!
LikeLike
Funny how when the banks make a bad call they must be bailed out. Greece should tell them to get effed.
LikeLike
I think that all but one of the banks are about to be shut down, one left to be private and one will be public.
The biggest screamers and barkers and terror mongers were the bankers. Squealing like stuck pigs. They didn’t mind hearing the sounds of the people dying the death of a thousand cuts which they were making.
This is schadenfreude at its sweetest!
LikeLike
Some things a funny at times and you have to wonder whether they know what they’re writing. This little exchange on the “In defence of the ABC”
Waterloo Sunset DD 2016:
26 Jun 2015 2:49:22pm
That’s a fair question.
Originally from The UK, I found that SBS, has been the most impartial channel. And I like it because it addresses International issues.
I have suffered the reverse of ‘not watching’ The ABC. I have tried and tried, but every single interviewer, journalist, or commentator seems to have an agenda of scorning, scoffing at, and belittling The Right side of politics, in a way that I have never gotten (one can say that now), used to. It’s not a patch on The BBC.
If they behaved more like Jenny Brockie, I would be more attracted.
To understand this, you would have to have been brought up with (and had access to) more Intellectual frame work, such as The BBC.
I am sure that sounds intellectually pseudo, but I cannot explain it any other way.
Alert moderator
Algernon:
26 Jun 2015 3:45:10pm
I think you nailed your comments generally. Pine away.
Alert moderator
black belt:
26 Jun 2015 4:20:51pm
“I am sure that sounds intellectually pseudo, but I cannot explain it any other way.”
Always good to see someone finally coming to terms with themselves.
Alert moderator
John Coochey:
26 Jun 2015 5:05:43pm
Waterloo, you speak the truth.
LikeLike
Couldn’t get any comments up on that topic. Got to single ones elsewhere. Dog walker remains totally bonkers.
LikeLike
I had the same problem on Cassady’s blog Couldn’t get a look in. Mine were only single lines.
Why on earth you you describe yourself as a pseudo intellectual.
LikeLike
I haven’t looked at the Drum for a couple of days. had to go back and look at the Walkerofdogs2016’s comments. Intellectually pseudo?? The poor bugger couldn’t finish high school!!
LikeLike
I would have once though he was being self deprecating. The problem with that is that he writes this sort of stuff every day.
This one encapsulates him really. I’m English, Everything about England is far superior to Australia. Australians aren’t very bright unless they are Liberal voters. I’m australian when I want to be. I’m not that smart.
LikeLike
He reminds me of plenty of Poms, who left school to work in a cake shop at the age of fifteen, moved overseas, then spend the rest of their lives berating those around them with an air of superiority. I must admit that I know a few Australians who are like that!
LikeLike
I wanted to tell him to go back to where he came from.
LikeLike
One of our neighbours when I grew up came here in the mid 60’s. Nice people but always put this above their station. He was a fitter and turner, though he’d say he was an Engineer, which to be fair he became some years later. She was a shop assistant (in a cake shop) who claimed to be more. To be fair to her she was a lovely person one of the nicest people I’ve known. Ended up owning an antique shop. Dad had a retired bank manager friend from Manchester who’d visit these shore occasionally. When introduce the first comment he made to mum privately was “shop assistant”
She died earlier this year and at her funeral the talk was about money and David Jones. Oh we lived in Hornsby, they were the only ones to live in Wahroonga (we all had Wahroonga exchange phone numbers).
I’m not being to hard on them, apart from the airs and graces they were warm and friendly people.
LikeLike
Can’t get a look in at the Drum. WTF.
LikeLike
Jean did get a couple up. No one argues with me anymore. Stuffed Olive must have really got up their throats. I try to talk in a different voice. But I’m just getting one liners up.
LikeLike
Got none up on Barrys today got two up on the Scott one though but two missed out. The Doggie led with its jaw though.
LikeLike
I’ve wondered this week why the SMH would come out and say that Shortens leadership is untenable. We know the Fairfax Chairman is a card carrying member of the Liberals. Even the Murdoch press are seeing this an overreach.
I watched Insiders today where he spoke with Barry and it seems that he negotiated a good deal on the road project. 13 flexible RDO’s instead of fix and training. Everyone seemed happy. There maybe some other questions he needs to answer at the Liberal party witch hunt. It’s a sad state of affairs when they go after his ex wife as well. He should speak like that more often instead of the spin doctor shit he normally goes on with.
Also watched The Killing Fields today (I’m out most Tuesdays). Who would you believe. Rudd plays television quite well. I’m sure all parties are telling their side of the story and embellishing it wherever they need to. What I did get out of it though which I had forgot was Fairfaxs role in the downfall and the delusion of journalists that somehow they are players in it.
The other part was Turd, on some of the snippits, he’s blurting the same slogans 6 years on. Also this witch hunt wasting at least $80m of tax payers money has the potential to be a train smash for him. The went after Gillard and there was nothing untoward. If its the same for Shorten (which is the whole reason for this witch hunt in the first place). Surely this would weaken Turd even though he’s weak already.
I suppose the one thing out of The Killing Fields it demonstrates the Labor party talking about themselves even though its historical. However is it any wonder that traditional Labor voters are looking to the Greens or elsewhere to cast their vote.
LikeLike
Gillard and Rudd should not have agreed to do this doco. What were they thinking. Forgetting about Abbott and all the bastard cherry picking he would do. I’m sure Shorten has nothing to hide and that it is just the smear of the idea that any money ‘earned’ by a Union has to be crook, has to be dodgy. For shit’s sake – it is all rubbish. Good deals and lots of cooperation.
LikeLike
Rudd can’t help but to talk about himself forever the self promoter . I guess Gillard has to get her side straight. No they shouldn’t have agreed to do it now. Five or ten years time perhaps.
I think this part inspired witch hunt has the potential to bite the Liberals on the bum. What on earth has it turned up, HR Nichols society members allegedly rorting $1.3m of HSU funds without any recollection. Whose champion is that going to bite in the long term.
I’d be surprised if Shorten as much if anything to answer.
LikeLike
I didn’t think Rudd was a shit in the beginning but I do remember an entry in Latham’s Diaries referring to Rudd and turns out Latham was spot on.
LikeLike
It is a classic case of the “Prisoner’s Dilemma,” Alge.
Ferguson gave each of them that choice: to stay silent or to betray the other. They both took the worse of the two choices and so both came out worse off.
But Ferguson revealed much more than what these two were like in Govn’t or what they thought of each other.
The greater value of the series, I thought, was in the opening of many more doors in that hall of power and watch what goes on inside. And that revelation isn’t pretty to either watch or to contemplate. It’s a swamp of bile and hatred and manipulation and… well, anything but people doing the work they’re elected for. And if I were to contemplate even deeper, then I would not be able to escape the thought that this soup of shame is being boiled behind all the doors in all the halls and chambers of our Parliament: Labor, Liberal, Nats, Greens, Pups and independents.
We have come to a very shameful pass, Democracywise.
PS: On the Prisoner’s Dilemma see here how yanks explain this very simple paradox. No wonder idiocy is so prevalent in that mental abyss!
LikeLike
Bloody ridiculous,turn the tap off at 5:45.
LikeLike
This is a different ABC we have now. The old ABC has disappeared. I’m not allowed to reply to racist right-wing-nutters for some reason!
LikeLike
I have only made the odd, short quips, which haven’t got up.
LikeLike
I did a couple of those last week in incognito 🙂
LikeLike
I got 3 or 4 up on Cassidy using most of my maiden name. Tried a few elsewhere with no success.
LikeLike
I put a few up on the “I took my AFL scarf to the SOO. More a baiting of AFL followers than anything else. They’re a touchy lot those Victorian AFL followers they lead with their jaws. They don’t like been told that Rugby League out rates AFL on TV, the game is better suited to TV, nor do they like hearing that Origin is the most watched sporting event every year or that more watch the league grand final than the AFL.
Really I don’t care, I watch three to four games of League a year on TV and about the same AFL. Nor have I attended a game in 20 years.Netballs what I watch most of because that’s what the family plays.
Tried to point out that both League and AFL were both provincial sports but the mods didn’t like that.
LikeLike
The discussions are getting sillier and sillier and some of the articles are rather ‘off’. Being on the border we are swamped with bloody AFL as well as the local footy teams and all their hammies and injuries during training make up half the bloody news. We are getting State of Origin and mercifully since one of the local news reporters is a champion Netball player we are getting local netball frequently. But the local rag still has 25 photos of men playing footy and one of the netball women.
LikeLike
Our recent trip to WA, we found the media tries to emulate their Victorian cousins as far as AFL is concerned. Fremantle’s Nick Fyfe seems to get all the news, poor bugger can’t pick his nose in public I bet with out the press reporting the scandal. In Perth and I suspect Melbourne I don’t think they get how provincial this wall to wall coverage of sport and one in particular is.
Sport has its place but there are more important things.
LikeLike
Poor bugger didn’t realise the cameras were rolling – just trying to clean himself up using whatever to hand. Camera person should have shown discretion. Unnecessary.
No music.
LikeLike
But at least the pub’s home page with latest First Dog on the Moon is brilliant. Reflects my current state of mind.
LikeLike
Nailed it didn’t it
LikeLike
Absolutely. Also, seems to me that the SMH is actively campaigning to get rid of Shorten.
LikeLike
Described is position as leader as untenable, based on what. On the surface it looked like he negotiated a pretty good deal. The problem is we have this witch hunt, a gross waste of taxpayers money RC set up of partisan political reasons. I suspect when he fronts the RC we’ll find another damp squib.
I think he’s the wrong person to lead the Labor party, however he’s the leader. The next election should be unlosable for Labor yet there appears to be forces at play here to ensure that the worst PM ever gets another term. I don’t think the country can afford that. Turd is taking the country back to the 1850’s not the 1950’s.
What amazes me that the SMH never went after Turd when he was opposition leader yet there is more than enough evidence that he was never fit to be PM, and that he used the legal fraternity to ensure he was clean. Liberals lie they are a party of liars its in their DNA.
LikeLike
Algy, I haven’t come to a definite thought … but … I’m thinking Labor needs a new leader. Shorten is not cutting through regardless of the RC into Unions stuff. The Libs are very good at setting up shonky stuff and then making a very very big deal of it and shouting slanderous stuff. They won’t stop doing this. It was stupid of Labor not to hit back when it had a chance to have a proper RC in to the Wheat Board bribes (for instance). The Abbott government is actually killing Australia.
LikeLike
I agree about Shorten it should have been Albo. Though he’s prone to error, having handed Bennelong back to the Liberals in 2010 by promising the Parramatta to Epping rail line. Shorten would have to go of is own accord.
Shorten when he speaks from the heart is very good, instead he’s beholden to the spin doctors who make him sound confected. What he says most the time is good but has to through in those stupid one liners.
Agree Turd is killing the country, he’s Lee Kwan Yew’s white trash of Asia writ large. A lot in the Liberal party think the same thing but are too gutless and perverted to power to do anything.
LikeLike
You know who wrote this
17 Jun 2015 4:03:56pm
I am a Capitociolist, and know full well that jobs provide welfare, just as they did when we first foraged and then farmed.
Labor are a regressive force in the job making universe, so need to be avoided in Australia.
I replied with this
I thought you were an artist, WS, you know of the BS variety.
“Labor are a regressive force in the job making universe, so need to be avoided in Australia.” Explain how. Unemployment is higher under this excuse for a government than it was under the previous one. Business confidence was as well, now they’re thinking recession with a government without any ideas.
Abbott came to government promising to be more Jakarta than Geneva. I’d suggest he’s more Joadja than Jakarta.
Was it posted?
LikeLike
The Mods again ha Algernon?
LikeLike
Lovers of Gillard and the ALP in general may wish to go and read Ellis’ “nothing to see here,” translation of Ferguson’s “Killing Season.” It’s a masterpiece of spin.
No wonder he’s their speech writer.
It’s here: http://www.ellistabletalk.com/2015/06/17/and-so-it-went-fergusons-the-killing-season/#comments
LikeLike
I read it. Have just watched ep.2. Ellis actually was not a Gillard lover. As to whether or not it harms Labor, remains to be seen. I just wish the Liberals were more interesting for Sarah to a doco on but I guess few would turn up to any studio. Gutless wonders.
LikeLike
Yes, I remember Ellis’ constant misogynistic bards on the Drum; which makes his hypocrisy today even more blatant.
Personally, I liked her very much as a deputy but couldn’t cope with what I thought were thought bubble policies, once she became PM, especially her puerile love for America and her staunch speech favouring the most brutal regime on the planet, Israel.
And I certainly thought that knifing Rudd was very nasty, not only for her and Rudd but for the whole party. I listened with much attentiveness to Maxine McKew at the time and wonder why she was included in the doco.
Had they read Julius Caesar and so what had happened to the conspirators from the day after the assassination, perhaps they would have thought twice before plunging the knife.
Even so, I am still of the view that Rudd signed his death warrant when he showed outrage at the Mossad agents’ stealing the Oz passports while Gillard was in Israel extolling the sublime virtues of one of the most brutal regimes on the planet.
The rest was mere pawn movements.
I also cannot believe that the movers didn’t know that knifing Rudd meant, unequivocally, the knifing of the party. They knew only too well what the consequences would be and worked to it.
I have a feeling that the Libs will be Sarah’s next doco, though, as you say, these shits would be very reluctant, indeed, to show themselves and their putrid brains on public TV.
LikeLike
For me it comes down to the fact that I am appalled that Rudd and Gillard and the others agreed to do the doco. I don’t think I have learnt anything I didn’t already know enough about. Rudd always thought he was infallible and still does.
LikeLike
So nice to see the voice of the 1920’s being fed a smorgasbord of shit sandwiches on Q&A tonight. Amazed shes not trying to throw people out .
LikeLike
I thought her quite repulsive. She abused Gillian Triggs who carved her up. Nice to see the audience slap her down as well.
LikeLike
The audience was very restrained in not booing the very nasty Bronny.
LikeLike
She didn’t get it. She just burped the same tired party lines. So out of touch.
LikeLike
Most hateful and disgusting woman on earth. Vile in every way. Pity the focus of the event was the bloody Magna Carta because it ruled out anyone asking about her behaviour in Parliament as the worst Speaker ever. Not just the worst actually, she just does not to the job.
LikeLike
I thought the way she answered the questions was unconscionable for someone in her position. She is meant to be impartial even at those events yet she wanted to play gutter politics. Like her boss shes not up to the job.
LikeLike
For “Claire”, in case she pays us a visit:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/11673989/Syriza-Left-demands-Icelandic-default-as-Greek-defiance-stiffens.html
Syriza Left demands ‘Icelandic’ default as Greek defiance stiffens
Greek premier Alexis Tsipras threatens Europe’s creditors with a “big no” unless they yield on debt servitude
The radical wing of Greece’s Syriza party is to table plans over coming days for an Icelandic-style default and a nationalisation of the Greek banking system, deeming it pointless to continue talks with Europe’s creditor powers.
Syriza sources say measures being drafted include capital controls and the establishment of a sovereign central bank able to stand behind a new financial system. While some form of dual currency might be possible in theory, such a structure would be incompatible with euro membership and would imply a rapid return to the drachma.
The confidential plans were circulating over the weekend and have the backing of 30 MPs from the Aristeri Platforma or ‘Left Platform’, as well as other hard-line groupings in Syriza’s spectrum. It is understood that the nationalist ANEL party in the ruling coalition is also willing to force a rupture with creditors, if need be.
“This goes well beyond the Left Platform. We are talking serious numbers,” said one Syriza MP involved in the draft.
“We are all horrified by the idea of surrender, and we will not allow ourselves to be throttled to death by European monetary union,” he told the Telegraph.
The militant views on the Left show how difficult it could be for premier Alexis Tsipras to rally his party’s support for any deal that crosses Syriza’s electoral ‘red-lines’ on pensions, labour rights, austerity, and debt-relief.
Yet they also strengthen his hand as talks with EMU creditors turn increasingly dangerous. Talks between Greece and its EU creditors fell apart once again on Sunday, leaving a final decision on a default to eurozone finance ministers.
Mr Tsipras warned over the weekend in the clearest terms to date that Greece’s creditors should not push him too far. “Our only criterion is an end to the ‘memoranda of servitude’ and an exit from the crisis,” he said.
“If Europe wants the division and the perpetuation of servitude, we will take the plunge and issue a ‘big no’. We will fight for the dignity of the people and our sovereignty,” he said.
It may soon be too late to push any accord through the German Bundestag and other EMU parliaments before June 30, when Greece faces a €1.6bn payment to the IMF. The interior ministry has already ordered governors and mayors to transfer their cash reserves to the central bank as a precaution, but even this is not enough to avert default without a deal.
Yet an official document released this evening in Athens appeared to throw down the gauntlet. “The government reiterates, in no uncertain terms, that no reduction in pensions and wages or increases, through VAT, in essential goods – such as electricity – will be accepted. No recessionary measure that undermines growth – the experiment has lasted long enough,” it said.
European officials examined ‘war game’ scenarios of a Greek default in Bratislava on Thursday, admitting for the first time that they may need a Plan B after all. “It was a preparation for the worst case. Countries wanted to know what was going on,” said one participant to AFP.
The creditors argue that ‘Grexit’ would be suicidal for Greece. They have been negotiating on the assumption that Syriza must be bluffing, and will ultimately capitulate. Little thought has gone into possibility that key figures in Athens may be thinking along entirely different lines.
Tasos Koronaki, the party secretary, said on Sunday that attempts to split the party will fail. “The government will not enter into any agreement that is not accepted by the parliamentary group. We are more united than ever,” he said.
Finance minister Yanis Varoufakis told Greek television that his country cannot accept an “unachievable fiscal plan” and warned creditors that the minimum damage from Grexit would exceed €1 trillion for the European financial system.
Syriza’s Left Platform has studied the Icelandic model, extolled as a success story by the International Monetary Fund itself.
“The Greek banks must be nationalised immediately, along with the creation of a bad bank. There may have to be some restrictions on cash withdrawals,” said one Syriza MP.
*************
“The banks will go ape-s*** of course. We are aware that there will be a lot of lawsuits but at the end of the day we are a sovereign power,” he said.
*************
Deposit outflows from the banks are running near €400m a day and could at any moment turn into a national bank run. This is alarming in one sense, but it has advantages for Syriza hard-liners.
The immediate problem is landing in the lap of the European Central Bank, which has had to raise its emergency liquidity support (ELAs) for the Greek banks to €83bn. The ECB is ever further on the hook.
While Greek citizens are hiding their money in mattresses or parking it in foreign accounts, the wealth still exists and could be used to replenish new banks in the future.
“The more the deposit flight goes on, the easier Grexit will be,” said one Syriza MP. “It is a trump card,” said another.
Syriza has a strong ideological motive to strike at the financial elites. They view the banks as the nerve centre of an entrenched oligarchy that has run the country for more than half a century as a family business. Forcing these institutions into bankruptcy provides cover for a socio-political purge, best understood as a revolution.
Iceland is a tempting model for Greece, but the parallel can be pushed too far. The Nordic country seized control of its three big banks – Glitnir, Kaupthing, and Landsbanki – when the crisis span out of control in late 2008.
It wiped out shareholders and defaulted to foreign creditors – including British and Dutch retail depositors – setting off a storm of protest. Britain’s Labour government briefly invoked anti-terror legislation. The governor of Iceland’s central bank showed this reporter a document listing his institution along side al-Qaeda on the global blacklist, calling the British move “18th century gunboat diplomacy”.
Iceland’s internal banking system was rebuilt from scratch under state control with public funds equal to 30pc of GDP, and was shielded by capital controls. The boards were sacked. Some executives were prosecuted.
The banks kept their old names to maintain continuity for local depositors but they were essentially new institutions. Iceland gradually recovered and has since racked up impressive growth. Contrary to apocalyptic warnings, a 50pc devaluation proved to be part of the cure. The krona has since strengthened slightly against the euro.
However, Iceland has a very different society and economic structure. Quick stabilisation was possible only because the IMF and the Nordic countries stepped in with a $5bn rescue package.
Greece has already exhausted its IMF quota in the two failed rescues of 2010 and 2012, and is now at daggers drawn with the Fund’s team in Athens. Some Syriza leader are demanding the head of Poul Thomsen, the IMF’s programme chief.
They accuse him of working in cahoots with the oligarchy and pushing austerity beyond economic logic. The latest demands include a rise in VAT and pension cuts together worth 2pc of GDP by 2016, amounting to a pro-cyclical fiscal squeeze in an economy already in depression.
Tensions reached breaking point last week when the IMF pulled out of talks and flew back to Washington, though part of frustration is with the European institutions. It is hard to see how Greece could turn to the IMF for friendly help if the crisis leads to rupture. Much would depend on the quality of European statesmanship, and on how much political capital the US was prepared to spend sorting the problem out.
The IMF’s view is in any case complex. It has warned EU officials behind closed doors that it will not continue to take part in Greek loan programmes unless the creditors accept a serious reduction in Greece’s public debt burden.
While Greece’s interest costs are just 2.5pc of GDP at the moment, they will jump to nearer 5pc in 2022 when the current debt deal expires. There is a high risk that the country would then be bankrupt again with little to show for a decade of austerity and depression.
Mr Tsipras faces a critical choice. If he accepts creditor demands, he may lose a large bloc of his own party and have to rely on the establishment parties to push the deal through the Greek parliament.
Such a course of action would render him a Greek version of Britain’s Ramsey MacDonald, the Labour prime minister in the 1930s who enforced austerity and became the socialist figurehead of a Conservative national government.
MacDonald never overcame the accusations of betrayal by the Labour movement. He died a broken man.
LikeLike
Bit old but very interesting…
By Takis Fotopoulos
Global Research, January 16, 2014
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-real-causes-of-the-catastrophic-crisis-in-greece-and-the-left/5365013
LikeLike
6. Concluding remarks
The crucial, therefore, issue arising is the following one: can a small Euro-peripheral country like Greece afford not to implement the policies of neoliberal globalization today? Or, should, (as the present “Left” suggests), the millions of unemployed and poor wait for a radical change in the balance of forces in the EU and the Eurozone, so that a new pan-European Left government proceeds with the ‘progressive’ reforms suggested by its supporters? Alternatively, should they better wait for a new socialist revolution in order to proceed with genuine socialist policies, as suggested by the dwindling anti-capitalist Left? My sympathies would of course be (as have always been) for an anti-systemic Left, as it is the only one which struggles against its full integration into the system and the NWO. Yet, it is obvious to me that, today, this Left is no less millenarian than the integrated into the system “Left”, and as such is equally useless to the victims of globalization, who every day lose even more their hope for any better future, many of them increasingly resorting to suicide.
Under these conditions, it is clear to me that only if a country broke away from the internationalized market economy and pursued a policy of self-reliance, it could retrieve the necessary degree of economic and therefore national sovereignty, so that it is the people who will be determining the economic process, i.e. which economic and social needs are met and how, instead of leaving this life-and-death issue to ‘market forces’ and the Social Darwinism they inevitably imply. This, for a country like Greece would imply the need for the creation ‘from below’ of a Popular Front for Social and National Liberation[16] (instead of relying on the professional politicians of the “Left” or of the Right), which will formulate a program for the radical changes needed to achieve the short term aim of restoring full social control on all markets, unilaterally cancelling the Debt and all related legislation imposed by the Troika, as well as a unilateral exit from the EU. Although socialization of the banking system and of the de-nationalized industries, particularly those covering basic needs (energy, water, transport, communication, etc.) will be necessary even at this early stage, yet, the medium-term aim will have to be economic self-reliance, so that the basic needs of all citizens are met through the rebuilding of the economic structure according to social needs rather than according to market demand. On the other hand, the issue of the systemic change, i.e. whether Greece would be in the future a state-socialist society, an Inclusive Democracy,[17] or a radical kind of social democracy, will be determined by the people themselves at a later stage once the present crucial problems concerning their survival have been sorted out..
In fact, Greece will not be alone in such a struggle against the NWO and neoliberal globalization. Not only the peoples in other countries in the European periphery and beyond would follow its example when they realize that there is a way out of the present catastrophe, HERE and NOW, but also the peoples who already fight against neoliberal globalization would also join the common struggle against the New World Order of neoliberal globalization. In fact, this struggle is already intensifying from Latin America (Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, et. al.) up to the Eurasian peoples of the ex-USSR, and the peoples in the Arab countries (I do not of course mean the pseudo-revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt or the engineered insurrections in Libya and Syria),[18] who shed their blood everyday in the struggle for their national and social liberation.
LikeLike
From Richard Wolff
Lousy job prospects got you down? Deep in debt? Welcome to 21st century capitalism. The dominant ruling class has one mantra: More for Me, Less for You. That has certainly proven true. Workers’ incomes have gone flat while the rich have gotten richer. Maybe Desperate Housewives should be replaced with a series called Desperate Workers. The global economic crisis continues to take an enormous human toll. In many ways, Greece has become the symbol of an economic system in disarray. While banks were bailed out, the people of the cradle of Western civilization were subjected to an EU German-directed austerity program. While banks were bailed out, the people of the cradle of Western civilization were subjected to an EU German-directed austerity program. The bad joke is the Bundesbank has done today what the Wehrmacht was unable to do in World War Two. Greece is on its knees. But the Syriza Party is resisting diktats from Brussels and Berlin and offering hope to beleaguered Greeks.
Richard Wolff teaches at the New School in New York. The New York Times called him “America’s most prominent Marxist economist.” He is the author of numerous books including Capitalism Hits the Fan, Democracy at Work and Occupy the Economy with David Barsamian.
http://www.alternativeradio.org/collections/spk_richard-wolff/products/wolr010#
LikeLike
Oh the humanity! It is sad to see in some of the comments that the deaths of innocent people are necessary to protect our way of life which is based, according to them, on cheap oil consumption in the western world. Psychopaths the lot of them… the mod included.
LikeLike
article: ..military presence in Iraq by Mike Stekeete
Joeblog can post 14 comments, and I, only 2. The moderator won’t allow me to respond to him! Funny that!
LikeLike
Algernon, they must have a right-handed coffee-boy on duty today. That’s why yours and Viv’s didn’t get up. 🙂
LikeLike
Two up at the end of the day hph, nothing offensive in any of them.
LikeLike
There is nothing offensive in yours, Viv’s and Big M’s and still rejected. The mind boggles? I can understand some of my comments are not showing up because they are sarcastic yet sarcasm from the our rivals are allowed, or even from dipsticks such as Ben Nallay. Also I don’t understand why the article about Murdoch is posted so late on Friday evening to end up closed with just one comment? Why not wait until Monday to post this article and allow people to comment on it. It’s an interesting topic. I’m sure there will be a few articles about him next week but the mods are dikheads sometimes.
LikeLike
I hope they visit here and read my comments and know how I feel about them. Dipsticks! 🙂
LikeLike
I’ve said that before. Ridiculous putting up a good article at the close of Friday. Idiotic really.
LikeLike
Is Alexis Tsipras another Solon?
by
George Theodoridis
This first appeared on “Table Talk: Bob Ellis on Film and Theatre”
http://www.ellistabletalk.com/2015/01/26/the-three-worst-things-the-liberals-did-yesterday-179/#comments
Almost two and a half thousand years ago, another man in his very early forties was given all the tools necessary to fix a problem almost identical to the one that Alexis Tsipras, the new Greek Prime Minister and head of the SYRIZA party is facing today. Alexis will be 41 in July this year.
He was born in Athens and he, too has just been given all the tools he needs to fix the problems of today’s Greece.
The other man was Solon and he, too was born in Athens, in 638 BC, a city which in today’s language would be called a country, a nation even. Solon’s Athens was awash with tyrants, elites, pseudo nobles living the life of entitlement, usurpers of thrones and positions, land grabbers, money lenders who charged what interest rates they liked –outrageously usurious more often than not- and who, as repayments took members of the debtor’s family as slaves, at times selling them overseas.
Oligarchs and cleptocrats filled the social pond and their slime rose thick to the surface, stopping every nourishing sunray from reaching the poor beneath.
There was abject poverty for some and wealth in overabundance for others. Athenians were turned into slaves in ever increasing numbers and often sold to merchants overseas. Families were broken up and scattered throughout the known world. There was money leaving the country and what goods were available for trade in Athens were unaffordable for the greater number of people so the lack of sales, in fact made them even more expensive.
Solon, a man well respected for his wisdom and sense of justice was asked to do something about it and, in order to achieve this he was given unparalleled powers: “the powers of an autocrat,” says Plutarch. What Solon would say would become unquestioned law.
Solon’s real area of interest was poetry and a poet is a social observer, an observer of people rather than of numbers, that is that type of numbers which form the domain of accountants and economists.
Because there are two types of numbers: those that the accountants need, mainly to count wealth and those numbers which the scientists need, mainly to understand the ways of the world. The numbers that Pythagoras used for example or Archimedes, or Einstein.
Poets will scorn accountants with quite some vehemence and will love the scientists with equal vehemence.
Solon, then looked not at Athens’ economy so much as he did to the structure of her society. What economic reforms he brought about were more social and moral ones, rather than a long scroll of lists that mentioned assets and liabilities and bottom lines.
It is not about the economy he said but about society. “It’s the society stupid” he would have corrected Clinton had he known him
It’s about the society and what keep society together is morality: a sense of virtue, of justice of equality; and it is from that thought that he proceeded with the task.
First, he erased all bar one of Draco’s very austere laws. It was this austerity that had brought the intolerable living conditions in Athens. The criminals, the greedy, the gluttonous, the oppressors, the useless.
Off with the laws of austerity!
Then he sat about evening out the civil right of the citizens so that the Parliament (called Ekklesia) would not be ruled by the rich and noble thugs. The poor would also be allowed to vote and to stand for whatever office they cared. More importantly still, they could hold the office bearers to account and punish them –severely, if needs be- if they behaved criminally. He brought back all the Athenians who were sold overseas by making those who sold them to buy them back.
He made it illegal to use people as debt collateral. Redistributed land. Put a cap on interest rates. Abolished exorbitant dowries. Made legal action available to anyone. Made accurate the weights and measures. Cancelled all debt in the country and in that he included himself by cancelling the debts others owed him, which by Athens’ money it was quite considerable, somewhere between five and fifteen talents.
And he did many other such things which collectively were called “Seisachtheia” the shaking down, the shedding of debts.
The laws were carved on cylinders and placed throughout the city.
Then he left Athens and went off for a long walk around the planet during which he stopped and talked with fellow poets and philosophers and kings, one of whom was Croesus King of Lydia who, challenging the sin of hubris boasted of his enormous wealth. Solon thought him to be an idiot and told him not to count his happiness chickens until he breathed his last breath. Croesus threw him out of the palace thinking that Greeks must all be fools. Not long after, however, Croesus’ son was killed in a tragic accident, his wife killed herself and then he was invaded by the Persian Cyrus who, after the battle which Cyrus won, placed the foolish king on a pyre… I’ll leave that story there since all Greek stories are huge journeys that require a good pilot and plenty of time.
That was Solon and that was a country called Athens, over two and a half thousand years ago.
When Alexis Tsipras looks around his country these days, he sees that what ails it is quite the same thing that ailed Solon’s country. The same austerity that was put together by previous law makers, the same type of criminals that drained the society of its morality of its rights to justice, its rights to speak on equal terms as the pseudo nobles and the entitled and the usurpers of thrones and positions, of the shameless money lenders and land thieves, of the same enslavers and oppressors.
Alexis Tsipras is a well read man. One who knows his history well and one who knows where to look for solutions. And as I read him, he too, is more of a poet than an economist. More a man of Literature than of ledgers and lists of assets and liabilities and bottom lines. He is more moved by the suicides –one man a week the last four years or so- than the pleas of the economists around him. It is these things that will determine his actions and these actions will be very similar to those of his ancestor, Solon, who, a traveller called Pausanias the Geographer, some seven hundred years later included him in the list of “the seven sages of the world.”
Alexis Tsipras will fill our eyes with pleasant sights and our ears with pleasant sounds but the thing which will give us much more pleasure will be the sights and sounds which Mz Merkel will have to make, as she concedes, despite the protestations of her brutal and unconscionable advisers, that the reason why Greece and half of Europe is in the pits of despair they’re in, is largely her fault and the fault of her country’s bankers.
She will stutter as she will try to explain away the enormous debt she still owes to Greece through a loan Germany took out from the National Bank of Greece during the last days of WWII. A loan her clever lawyers refuse to discuss.
She will stutter to respond to Tsipras’ observations that the reason Germany got out of the financial mire she was in after the great war was because the loans she received from the rest of Europe were very much conducive to a good and quick recovery and an aid to her current prosperity. Would she be so ungrateful now as not to give equal treatment to her current debtors?
And she will no doubt stutter also as she will try to explain to her people that the reason that Greece’s debt, or that of Spain, or that of Portugal must be cancelled (she might use the euphemism “forgiven” to gain some humanitarian kudos) is because, firstly they are immoral, secondly, illegally drawn, thirdly they are unproductive, even to Germany and fourthly, Germany’s own financial problems will not be alleviated even if the debt were to be fully repaid. Greece, she will argue, is better off inside the Eurozone tent and using Euros than outside it using drachmas and trading with Russia, China or Iran.
And there will be a whole lot of other things which Tsipras will say to Mz Merkel and to her short sighted and brutal advisers, through his Finance Minister, the wonderful Greek-Australia, Yanis Varoufakis.
Varoufakis will show Mz Merkel that there are many ways of skinning a cat, or repaying a loan if that is what they must do. Easier interest rates, longer time to pay it off. Spread the money throughout the economy and not give it back to the bankers. Re employ the sacked government workers, open the national broadcaster again and let it be free to say what it sees, as it was before the triad of fools before him closed it down, etc, etc, etc.
Solon left the country after he wrote his laws, to avoid hearing the whining and winging of those who lost money.
Alexis Tsipras will not be able to leave the country and he will have to stay and listen to whatever sounds emanated from the streets of his country.
Solon’s laws cleared out hard, stony paths that headed towards Democracy.
Will Alexis Tsipras be another Solon and clear out paths that will bring back this Democracy to Greece?
LikeLike
The final stages of the negotiations are taking place as I type with the Troika of banks and the Germans in particular are warning that this is the end of the game and Greece better cough up what moneys she allegedly owes. The language has become quite solicitous of anger and many in Syriza are angry, indeed.
They are angry not only with the Troika but also with Tsipras himself who, they say is taking far too long, appeasing, rather than giving the enemy the bottom line, which is, in effect, “fuck off, we owe you nothing. You want us to stay with the Euro, fine. Fine also if you don’t!”
Tsipras is playing a game that the Merkelzone is not interested in playing, that of giving your enemy enough rope for them to hang themselves.
The next few days will be crucial.
But I thought this many times.
In other news, the National News medium ERT TV and Radio have returned to air with almost all the sacked staff re-instated. This has shot the chagrin gauge of the Opposition (who had closed that medium down and sacked all those workers) to volcanic temperatures.
Expenses like this -and a whole lot of others- cannot be sustained if Greece has any intentions of meeting the next instalment of the alleged debt.
One might cautiously conclude that “things are looking up in Greece” at least for the moment.
LikeLike
Big M, looks like someone complained to the moderator:)
LikeLike
I haven’t been back, but believe you. Some comments are disgusting, yet stay, others are cleverly rude, and gone in minutes or hours.
LikeLike
This made me laughing O.L. as well…
Waterloo Sunset DD 2016:
10 Jun 2015 2:57:05pm
When can we have a poll on unbiased journalists that we liked to see articles from in The Drum?
Reply Alert moderator
R Supwood:
10 Jun 2015 4:31:28pm
You’d feel comfy with dickheads like you, but it wouldn’t be intelligent; just greedy or selfish.
Reply Alert moderator
LikeLike
Thanks, hph, there were a few good replies, but Supwood nailed it!
LikeLike
Mine didn’t get up. In fact nothing did.
LikeLike
Yesterday, I had zero out of six.
LikeLike
I’m getting all or nothing this week. Two yesterday none on Tuesday and Wednesday, a dozen or so on Monday.
LikeLike
Got a couple – one under one name and one under the other. Mods knocked off around 11 am and still out to long brunch/lunch. Good articles up and as usual they go off walkabout.
LikeLike
Yes I’ve posted five today not one of the has got up. In fact one I commented on got pulled down.
LikeLike
Got a couple up. More knocked back though. Not spending much time on it anyway. Just did a check now. Using new pseud more often and changed email address too. Not exactly paying dividends. Have a lovely weekend.
LikeLike
It wouldn’t take much to convince me that the interview between Joe Hockey and Michael Brissenden of ABC’s AM was a play of the Theatre of The Absurd genre and that Hockey played the role of an idiot, desperately looking for a village.
And that Tony Burke’s performance was a supporting comedy act.
“Joe, you’ve lost touch with reality,” ejaculates Brissenden.
“No,” says Joe. “Just my village. Do you know where it is?”
“Mr Hockey, people can’t afford to buy a house any more.”
“Yes they can! They’re buying them from Hong Kong, they’re buying them from America, from Israel… Everyone is buying Australian houses!”
“Except the Australians!”
“Well, that’s because they don’t look for good jobs with good money. They go and get shitty underpaid jobs like teaching and nursing and…”
“What do you consider good jobs?”
“Jobs like mine, for example, or like Rinehart’s, or Murdoch’s, that sort of job I mean. And do you know why these jobs are a little rare these days? It’s because of Labor and the Greens. They brought in the Carbon Tax and…”
“Mr Hockey, will you get rid of Negative Gearing?”
“Bite your filthy tongue, Brissenden! Negative Gearing is what’s made this country great! It brought investment into the housing market!”
“Fine for investors but not so fine with the average teacher or nurse!”
“They should get a better job, like -”
“Yes, you said. Politicians like you and Gina Rinehart. Mr Hockey thank you!”
“Hang on, Michael I didn’t say that the rents would go up-”
“Which would make the investors even happier. Mr Hockey we have to leave it there. Thank you!”
—
“Mr Burke, welcome to RN Breakfast.”
“Thank you Michael.”
“Mr Burke, will you get rid of Negative Gearing?”
“No, Michael, we don’t behave like caged animals as does this Govn’t. This Govn’t -”
“So what will you do Mr Burke, to ease the terrible problem of the escalating prices of housing?”
“We will have an inquiry, Michael. We will not just do anything that enters our brains, like the Govn’t is doing -”
“Yes, yes, Mr Burke but what will you do, exactly? Renowned economists say it is Negative Gearing that created this bubble in the price of housing.”
“And we shall have an inquiry, Michael and if that is its finding, then we shall have an inquiry to see if and how we can avoid taking such desperate measures. The ALP loves foreign investment and it thinks that Howard was right in praising the rising prices of housing. It makes people richer.”
“Yes, some people.”
“Listen Brissenden, you ABC commie -”
“Thank you, Mr Burke, I’ll take that as praise and we’ll leave it there!”
Two comedies in the one morning from our politicians. What more do we want?
LikeLike
Labor has to pull its finger out. Pissing off a lot of people.
LikeLike
It’s bloody painful watching them, Vivienne. Like watching a very slow train about to drive itself over a cliff. The driver is deaf and quite possibly dumb also.
Hope is constantly depleting.
I don’t think I’ve ever had to deal with such political exasperation.
I got an email from Cathy McGowan the other day. Raised my spirits no end even though she has nothing to do with the ALP or the Greens. That’s how desperate one can get with this mob!
LikeLike
The local idiots think Cathy is Green/ALP. You wouldn’t believe (well, yes you would) the rot people write about her in the local rag.
LikeLike
From what I gather, she’s a breath of fresh air in this stale, suffocating political atmosphere of factions and counter factions and no genuine policies for the country.
More power to her right arm.
LikeLike
Making an estimation through the “social media” Gillian Triggs has received literally thousands of nominations for the “Australian of the Year Award.”
She has stirred in my Martin Niemoller’s most memorable thought:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
So I’ve lodged my own nomination as well.
To the question “why?” I answered thus:
“She is a strong and vocal advocate for and a defender of human rights wherever these rights are violated.
Her tenacious and courageous stance on the treatment of humans in refugee camps, in particular, is an inspiration to everyone and a motivator, if a motivator were needed, to stand up with equal tenacity and courage against those who bring about these violations.
Gillian Triggs, Human Rights Commissioner, has done her job title and the Australian public proud not only by pointing us to the abuses of human rights in the refugee camps of Manus Island and elsewhere but also to the fact that politicians are now stepping well outside the circumference of their responsibilities and are entering with too alarming an alacrity those responsibilities allocated to Law and Justice by all progressive societies.
This is a warning that needs to me made in the most vigorous terms and to be heeded by all of us. It is not a warning that will ever be made by a politician.
If the integrity of the word “Democracy” is to be measured by any guide, that guide should be the clearly defined separation of powers.
And if the integrity of the word “fair” is to be measured by any guide, that guide should be how we treat those who ask for our help.
The URL for the nomination is:
http://www.australianoftheyear.org.au/nominate/
LikeLike
This year, if anyone at all is worthy of this award, it is Gillian Triggs who had a most strident campaign lodged against her, for just doing her job; and the attack is against the Human Rights Commission itself. Govnt’s don’t like examination and this lot, a collusion of the two majors, relish it even less than any other so far in Oz’s History.
They did the same with Dr Michael Vertigan, the first commissioner, to whom they had offered an overseas post as a bribe to shut up.
We are going through a process of turning Democracy into a female eunuch, disabled of all its most vital qualities and abilities.
The new MO for this govn’t as was in Greece until the current crop arrived, is silence and darkness, central autocratic rule, totalitarianism and stripping of passports and citizenship through confected fear.
We should be afraid of all that.
LikeLike
100% spot on Ato.
LikeLike
Brian Burdekin, not Michael Vertigan… suffering from vertigo of high delusion, I think!
LikeLike
I see mods at The Dump are up to their usual tricks today. Might need to change the name for a day or too.
LikeLike
Actually haven’t done too bad. One only not posted. I’m really surprised how many who post seem to lead with there jaws.
LikeLike
Yes, I just visited Drum and saw you did well. I’m getting more and more pissed off with it all over. Same bloody discussion, same defenders of Neg Gearing, the rich and same repeated lies by the usual suspects. Doesn’t matter whether it is housing, budget lies, politics, environment etc. I honestly wonder why they bother with moderation – just let all comments go up. They let so much shit through anyway. And, the biggest whinger about being censored by the ABC has a huge number of comments up.
LikeLike
Nearly fell off my chair laughing at this:
Waterloo Sunset DD 2016:
08 Jun 2015 12:01:23pm
It hasn’t worked anywhere else, and too much public house produces slums.
Whatafruitcake:
08 Jun 2015 3:59:25pm
That’s right louwater only poor people need to sleep under bridges.
LikeLike
Which public house is he talking about?
The reply is a beauty.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Typical bloody dunny minded thinking.
LikeLike
Sloppy with his English and typing. Public Housing. Not a pub as in England.
LikeLiked by 1 person
heh, heh
LikeLiked by 1 person
Turnbull talked in pious tones about “the genius of Democracy.” He said that its genius is not in that the people -the demos- has all the power, “that is tyranny,” he pulpitised, fire and brimstone shooting violently out of his eyes. The genius of Democracy, he said is that the govn’t empowers the people but restricts them in the Parliament. (The words might not be exactly these but they are, I believe close enough).
The fact that the listening audience -a hoard of journos- did not let out a loud gasp of shock at his words is a very telling indictment of their servility to the politicians and, perhaps worse, their ignorance.
Had I not been certain that Turnbull, in all of his wide reading had not come across the meaning of the word, I’d conclude that he spoke in ignorance. But I don’t believe that. I believe he knows exactly what the word means and that he spoke so as to make a case for another sort of tyranny, the tyranny of politicians, the tyranny which he hopes the people will allow him to conduct.
Politicians not only like himself, or his boss or any one of the ministers who consult with the people -the demos- so rarely before they foist a decision upon them that they are, indeed, tyrants.
What was Ruddock and what was Morrison, and what is Dutton, if not tyrants? What is Bronwyn Bishop? What is Julie Bishop? What was Howard? Let us dismiss as utter self serving rubbish Turnbull’s view that the people can be tyrants but not the politicians!
No, Turnbull is being disingenuous. He knows full well that the word Democracy means nothing more than “power” (cracy) “by the people” (demos). Nothing more, nothing less.
What is implied -and one must cast one’s mind back to the days of its birth, under Kleisthenes (ironically a tyrant of sorts himself) when the people were, indeed, encouraged, if not urged to participate in the discussions regarding the affairs of their city-state, Athens; what is implied with this term is that there are three -at least- ingredients to this dish: Equality, Information and Honesty, on the part of all concerned in that decision making process.
The people should have equal rights -in speech, at least and in access to information.
The people should be given all necessary information regarding the decision they need to think upon and,
The people must be honest in all aspects of that deliberation. Given the right information, honestly, and applying the results of that deliberation honestly.
The politicians, in fact were part and parcel of “the people” and knew what their compatriots wanted and how to get the necessary information to make a proper decision.
Democracy might be a tyranny but it is a tyranny -and a responsibility- of the people, of the complete citizenry and not of a selected few who decide in leaky cabinets what they should do to the people, for their own, political and personal interests.
Democracy is not Democracy if it is conducted behind closed doors by single short sighted, immoral, stupid men or women. It is conducted out in the open and all decisions are made by the majority of all the people. They will wear the consequences of their own decisions.
That, Mr Turnbull is what Democracy is about. Decisions made by the people, informed and honest.
Yours is glaringly a tyranny.
LikeLike
Yes and yes and yes to all that. I personally have never liked any of this confidential/secret stuff – in govt or in documents (can’t show you because it’s a private matter between us and a private company – bullshit). What’s to hide. When I was on Council we had in-committee stuff and then open stuff. It was ridiculous. Not that we had a lot of public in the gallery (seats at the back). One newspaper reporter would turn up for some of the time. But there was never anything which needed to be keep out of the public eye.
LikeLike
And he was also a laundromat for zionist money. He and Hawke. I’ll see if I can find the link to that article.
LikeLike
Why am I surprised? Oh, I’m not! Looking forward to the link.
LikeLike
No surprise there. He painted sand dunes green to sell blocks of land too.
LikeLike
Alan Bond is dead. A man who owned 10% of the nations debt once and put WA on the map. Some will mourn I suppose.
LikeLike
Bob Hawke comes to mind. Well, at least Bond wasn’t in politics such as Reagan and Thatcher.
LikeLike
You reckon hph, plenty of
Western Australians would think otherwise. This is a bloke who played politicians like a drum and gave him what he wanted for a song. He was a thief and a fraud.
Hawkey played him like a smart politician does. Packer was the same
LikeLike
He was a failed ‘businessman’ – he was an asset and cash stripper. Reading the comments on the Drum. No great loss. Best forgotten.
LikeLike
Yes, I know he was a crook. My sense of humour. 🙂
LikeLike
Vivienne I was trying to be a tad respectful. The right wing has gone into faux pity overdrive. BTW I wrote the same thing but thought I’d better be polite
LikeLike
Yes and that is what I try to do too. Well you did say above here – thief and a fraud! I do get a bit over-reactive on some things. In our local rag on Joan Kirner’s death there were a few disgusting posts. I took the so called editor/moderator to task, to no avail unfortunately.
LikeLike
The WA link has had me intrigued. He was polarising there some thought the zon shon out of him others saw him for what he really was. To be a fly on the wall there today.
LikeLike
Mum and dad investors got 10 cents in the dollar when he declared bankruptcy. He managed to build a twelve million dollar house when he was released from prison, and married a young blond. Yes, great businessman, great family man, great entrepreneur. Just as much an arsehole in death as in life.
LikeLike
Will they offer the family a State Funeral
LikeLike
I asked this at the Bum…no response.
LikeLike
Most mine didn’t get up. Least he took his porridge . Many of his contemporaries fled overseas. I’m surprised that clot who runs immigration today didn’t proffer an opinion. Demonstrated clearly today on two occasions that he was born with two bums.
LikeLike
I spent a large portion of the 1980s working and living in Western Australia. I know all about this bum and other bums such as Holmes a Court & Co. In those days Perth had more millionaires per capita than any other city in Australia. And even today Perth has the highest population per capita of self made millionaires in the world. I met some of them at the conferences and exhibitions (mining, eng & constr industry.) One thing I learned in those meetings for sure is that I would never buy a used car from ANY one of them. All crooks.
LikeLike
hph, Mrs A grew up in WA, we were married there. I’ve worked there (in Perth) for a period and spent a lot of time there with family and friends. I agree with you in your summation. They can be a deluded lot. We spent some time there last month. Love watching the local news if only for its delusion. GWN news is a great laugh (and now available on youtube). We managed a tornado in Dunsborough (we spent three nights there) which cause damage. What damage well a tree fell on a shed and tractor. Damage bill a whopping $20k. Your average car accident causes more than that!.
Or the report into the ten worst roads in the country (I’m surrounded by or live near 5 of them. WA has one. But not to be outdone. in ten years WA will have 7 of the 10 worst. The planning minister there rightly dismisses that but not the news.
Colin Barnett, the state wants him gone but there is precious little under him to take over. Sniffer Buswell had brains apparently (not according to the late ma-in-law, he was her local member), just had problems with chairs and driving into parked cars when pissed. He’s building Elizabeth Quay to rival Circular Quay in Sydney. The problem is that Perth only has one ferry service from Perth to South Perth.
Bondy polarised them, some thought the sun shone out of him forgetting he owned the debt equivalent to $1000 for everyone in the country without the means to pay it back. Many others saw him for the spiv he was.
LikeLike
I spent one day there in 1957. Remember a huge lake which turned out to be a river. That’s it.
LikeLike
I quite like WA vivienne though not a great fan of Perth. However I do find the prevailing attitudes quite provincial.
They try to out Victorian the Victorians withe the AFL. Though the fo try and present some news other than the dockerd and the eagles.
LikeLike
I have friends who moved there a few years ago. They are now on the East coast somewhere near Bermagui. While in WA, Perth, they were horrified at the water waste. Sandy soils and sprinklers running non stop for not much result. Actually the marriage busted up while there and so they sold up newly built home and came back east. All I remember is the Swan River which I mistook for a bloody great big lake.
LikeLike
Vivienne, Perth sits on top of three aquifers where they draw most of the water from. They rely less on ground water as a result. With sandy soils it filters back down well that’s the plan. The water from the aquifers is full of minerals hence the red staining see around the place. I actually like the bloody big lake. Compare that say to the creek running through the middle of Melbourne, even the Parramatta River at Parramatta has more charm.
Perth is a lot bigger nowadays that it might have been in fact its twice the size it was when I first was there in 1986. They’ve had to build desal plants as well to keep up with the water demand. During summer you can only water two days a week.
Even with the dryness of much of WA I don’t think they get the water thing and the waste. Mrs A grew up around Margaret River. An enchanting place when she first took me there and the win industry in its relative infancy. On subsequent visits you could start to see little parts of what made it magic fall away. We were there two weeks ago, the place has been wrecked by Perth millionaire bogan money. the charm of the place has gone. That charm still exists fortunately in the towns and villages of the area. Margaret River though is a good thing destroyed.
Mrs A took me to the Jewel cave when we first visited there. It had this beautiful reflective pool in it. We went there maybe 15 or so years later. The surrounding area had gone from cow and sheep farms to wall to wall vineyards. The pool had gone and the water table had dropped about 2 metres. Those at the cave couldn’t understand why.
LikeLike
Algernon, we have only been to WA once. We quite liked most of it. There seemed to be plenty of forward planning, with that combined highway/passenger rail progressively heading south from Perth, and new suburbs not evolving until infrastructure, such as service stations, shops. etc, being constructed (yet the locals want ‘Sydney style’ toll roads built!). Mrs M was quite ill while we were in Busselton, and received first class care, including an email to her GP with all of the lab/imaging results, from a tiny, state run medical centre.
I agree about Margaret River. We went there because some of Mrs M’s favourite wineries are there, but everything is so bloody expensive, and the wineries seem to expect tourists to be looking for $100 bottles of wine. Wineries in the Hunter valley have been pulling out vines because of oversupply. I expect the same will happen in WA.
LikeLike
We quite like WA too and would consider retiring there. However where we finally retire will depend on the kids.
Mrs A’s folks moved from their little farm to Bussleton and lived there for about 10 years until the Father-in-Law died. He received good care there in his final days. The would have to go to Perth for specialist treatment. The hospital there has increased significantly in size we noticed recently. I wondered about combining the trains with the major roads. I remember when the freeway had traffic lights on it and the traffic jams north of Mandurah. The smartest thing was building the train line there and taking the traffic off the road. Unfortunately as Perth heads further south that road is starting to choke. Far more common sense building the infrastructure first unlike Sydney where the LNP wants to build roads that will do nothing at enormous expense. A toy train that doesn’t connect to the rest of the network or a light rail that will bring the city to a standstill.
At least they might be building public transport but it must work. If they funneled the money they’re spending into public transport they wouldn’t need to build the road that wouldn’t work. The only necessary road they are building is the Northconnex.
Don’t know that the Western Australians will get the oversupply thing with the wines.
LikeLike