Hmmm .... just had a look at the 'petition', and it strikes me as odd.
The tone of the comments are strange as well (or am I slow), for example: "more. To now hear previously highly professional journalists and news readers spouting liberal party political propaganda without critique, all the while painting Labor in the poorest light, in spite of its many very real successes - acknowledged worldwide - is painful, and democracy is the poorer.
There are no people more easily outraged than Leftists. They are so accustomed, over such a long time, to see, hear and read nothing on the ABC but their Leftist views that even the occasional dissenting voice fills them with rage and provokes this laughable abuse of the ABC for turning right-wing and anti-Labor. They don't want more Leftist views they want only Leftist views.
In his wildest dreams, George Orwell couldn’t have imagined that the left would become such a movement of jackbooted fascists, abandoning the working class as bogans to attack individual liberty, especially in government, where it has become the voice of conformity and censorship in government and private media. Here the left is actually complaining about minority dissenting opinion against the leftist hegemony, demanding that nothing but the left’s official line be uttered by the state news media’s opinion websites – the Third Reich without the violence of the Brown Shirts, although the GetUp reservists stand ready to take up the fight in the streets.
The battle does not end with the defeat of the Gillard Marxist Liberation Front, but begins. I hope there is a thrilling human element to your summer soul burnout these past few weeks, perfessor. Come and go as you please and we’ll enjoy whatever you’ve got whenever.
Tom, I beg to differ. Orwell saw it all and knew where the left as going. His appraisal of Stalin's mischief in the Spanish Civil War in Homage to Catalonia made him an outcast with the lockstep left. Animal Farm could not find a publisher at first and his reporting in The Road to Wigan Pier was so gritty and so accurate, the left detested it for not casting downtrodden workers as pure, blameless victims of rapacious capitalism.
As a sometime BBC broadcaster, he would have been appalled by the groupthink -- to use an Orwell-inspired term -- at the BBC and our very own nest of mates and nepotism, the ABC. You are right about that.
He knew where the 'organised' left were going and slated communist ideological propaganda and modes.
But Tom's point I think is probably more about the disaffection Orwell would have felt for the leftist double-think and group-think apparent in the everyday life of the middle class left today, the blinkered vision of a Green and Gramsci'd world of thought control and anti-humanistic behaviour that, paradoxically, they do not see as any moral equivalent to the old-style communism of the past. They do not see this vision as carrying all of the evils of communism: but it does. Frighteningly so.
I left a comment on their petition signed as Josef Stalin.
"I am sick and tired of the IPA polluting the ABC airwaves with facts. We must unite and silence free speech in Australia, sentence all IPA followers to a 6 months goal in the Gillard Gulags (once they are free of illegal refugees.) Free speech for the comrades only at the ABC. Let Right Wing Conservatives rot in Hell!"
I'll be spending some of my "precious" time analysing just how many signatories thought this ambiguously named petition was about the ABC being too lefty.
I certainly thought so at first glance.
My spouse reckons the left will be mounting an "ABC is Liberal Biased" campaign in all its absurdity.
Hmmm .... just had a look at the 'petition', and it strikes me as odd.
ReplyDeleteThe tone of the comments are strange as well (or am I slow), for example:
"more. To now hear previously highly professional journalists and news readers spouting liberal party political propaganda without critique, all the while painting Labor in the poorest light, in spite of its many very real successes - acknowledged worldwide - is painful, and democracy is the poorer.
Terry, I also did think some of those comments were satire.
DeleteOh, dear!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the alert, Prof. I believe Adolf Hitler has now signed the petition.
ReplyDelete:)
There are no people more easily outraged than Leftists. They are so accustomed, over such a long time, to see, hear and read nothing on the ABC but their Leftist views that even the occasional dissenting voice fills them with rage and provokes this laughable abuse of the ABC for turning right-wing and anti-Labor. They don't want more Leftist views they want only Leftist views.
ReplyDeletePedro of Adelaide
In his wildest dreams, George Orwell couldn’t have imagined that the left would become such a movement of jackbooted fascists, abandoning the working class as bogans to attack individual liberty, especially in government, where it has become the voice of conformity and censorship in government and private media. Here the left is actually complaining about minority dissenting opinion against the leftist hegemony, demanding that nothing but the left’s official line be uttered by the state news media’s opinion websites – the Third Reich without the violence of the Brown Shirts, although the GetUp reservists stand ready to take up the fight in the streets.
ReplyDeleteThe battle does not end with the defeat of the Gillard Marxist Liberation Front, but begins. I hope there is a thrilling human element to your summer soul burnout these past few weeks, perfessor. Come and go as you please and we’ll enjoy whatever you’ve got whenever.
Tom, I beg to differ. Orwell saw it all and knew where the left as going. His appraisal of Stalin's mischief in the Spanish Civil War in Homage to Catalonia made him an outcast with the lockstep left. Animal Farm could not find a publisher at first and his reporting in The Road to Wigan Pier was so gritty and so accurate, the left detested it for not casting downtrodden workers as pure, blameless victims of rapacious capitalism.
DeleteAs a sometime BBC broadcaster, he would have been appalled by the groupthink -- to use an Orwell-inspired term -- at the BBC and our very own nest of mates and nepotism, the ABC. You are right about that.
He knew where the 'organised' left were going and slated communist ideological propaganda and modes.
DeleteBut Tom's point I think is probably more about the disaffection Orwell would have felt for the leftist double-think and group-think apparent in the everyday life of the middle class left today, the blinkered vision of a Green and Gramsci'd world of thought control and anti-humanistic behaviour that, paradoxically, they do not see as any moral equivalent to the old-style communism of the past. They do not see this vision as carrying all of the evils of communism: but it does. Frighteningly so.
Both Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin have signed this petition. With such luminaries supporting this proposition, it will surely succeed.
ReplyDeleteAhhh....Ummmm....Perfessor, I think we might be a tad over enthusiastic here. Y'know, they might not see the irony, and take us at our word?
ReplyDeleteIs it just me who doesn't get this petition? I really dont, can someone enlighten me please?
ReplyDeletePersonally I think the ABC as it has now become is not clean-up-able. Give it away - it should walk into the sunset, arm-in-arm-in-arm with Fairfax.
I left a comment on their petition signed as Josef Stalin.
ReplyDelete"I am sick and tired of the IPA polluting the ABC airwaves with facts. We must unite and silence free speech in Australia, sentence all IPA followers to a 6 months goal in the Gillard Gulags (once they are free of illegal refugees.) Free speech for the comrades only at the ABC. Let Right Wing Conservatives rot in Hell!"
- Josef Stalin
I'll be spending some of my "precious" time analysing just how many signatories thought this ambiguously named petition was about the ABC being too lefty.
ReplyDeleteI certainly thought so at first glance.
My spouse reckons the left will be mounting an "ABC is Liberal Biased" campaign in all its absurdity.
Forward into the 1920swith the Beloved Comrades,fight anti soshalismi in every way !We are the fewcher comrades!onward into the past with the alp!
ReplyDelete