A NOTE ARRIVED last night from a reader, let us call him Mr
Spring Street, who took exception to this little blog’s eroded faith in
Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu’s intent or capacity to achieve, well, anything
worthwhile. It seems that politics is a team sport and, even if your side’s captain
has no idea to which end his squad should be kicking, those in the grandstand to
the right of the oval have an obligation to shut up, wave the team colours and barrack
for him anyway. A nice note, by no means abusive, it was in its way quite
flattering. It is nice to know that one’s thoughts are taken seriously enough to
be read, even if that consideration is but an overture to their summary
rejection.
Then again, perhaps the correspondent had a point – for such was
the thought which figured in the nightly examination of conscience as a weary
Bunyip drifted off to sleep. Perhaps, to quote a recent example, Baillieu
cannot be held entirely accountable for failing to respond with leadership and the bold stroke to the chaos that strangled Melbourne’s roads when the Burnley
and Domain tunnels were shut down, just in time for yesterday's morning traffic
peak.
But that’s the thing about One Term Ted, lovely bloke and
consummate gentleman that he is. One makes half a decision not to harp on his
deficiencies and the very next morning there it is, another example of what he
isn’t doing! This morning it is an
opinion column in The Walking Dead by a dancer called Jerril Rechter, now CEO of
Victoria Health, who has made the recent and shocking murder of Jill Meagher her
excuse to lament the low nature of all men, not the rather more narrow
demographic of Labor-appointed judges and magistrates who turn loose career
criminals and then shield their culpability behind the sub judice laws.
Late-night TV viewers, who cop more than their share of tax-deductible public
service announcements, will be familiar with Rechter’s schtick, which is of a
kind. Those who retire early will get the drift from the clip below:
See, if the Great
Bunyip hangs a pair of testicles (or even one) on the muscle-bound amalgam of idiocy
and thuggery that is your senior feminist’s conception of a typical male, that
carrier of the XY curse is a latent rapist by biology’s definition. Just water
the seed of violence with a little beer and an angry pistil will spring forth
to rear and twitch in the direction of any and every woman observed to be walking unaccompanied on a darkened
street. Years ago, when feminism was first in flower, the Parkville Asylum and
surrounding suburbs were plastered periodically with signs that captured the
mindset in five short words, “All Men Are Potential Rapists”. The message is a
little more polished these days, but the sentiment, bolstered by some very
dubious statistics, remains unchanged. Here
is Rechter’s gist:
Sunday's peace march in Brunswick went beyond a community's outpouring of grief; it was also a show of solidarity for a woman's right to feel safe, no matter where she is. It was heartening to see so many men take part.
The march was also a reflection of how more and more men now understand that they are instrumental in preventing violence against women.
They can stand up for equality, they can refuse to turn a blind eye to a mate's disrespectful behaviour, sexist joke, or thinly veiled threat hidden behind a distasteful remark at the pub, work, or on the footy field. It has to stop. These are the conditions that breed violence and harm women.
Get the picture?
Poor Jill Meagher is dead because Bill asks Bob if he has heard the one about
the lesbian who jumped from the Eureka Tower and landed on a parking meter.
Rechter is banging the same gong the left always whacks when a specific outrage
generates headlines: Don’t look at the actual incident, never that. Instead,
direct the debate and public focus to the general theme. There are more grants
to be garnered by this means and, best of all, the broadest of broad-brush approaches
precludes any standard by which the campaign’s success might be judged. In this
instance, making blanket generalisations about all men, not just rapists paroled in defiance of decency and common sense, is both meme and gravy train.
It would be nice to
think Baillieu appreciates this tactic and that he has some notion of how many
Labor holdovers, like Ms Rechter, he has retained in his state’s public
service, where they continue to operate as if the 2010 election never happened.
They are biding their time, cashing their cheques and waiting for the day when
the rightful, righteous party takes charge once again at the top end of
Bourke Street.
Meanwhile, Victoria's
judicial system remains an arrogant, slow, self-absorbed, crony-infested, immensely expensive citadel of incompetence populated by jurists who regard social engineering, not the public’s protection, as
their primary brief.
The Billabong’s
overnight correspondent opined that Victoria is not Queensland, and how a
southern-state version of Campbell Newman would be rejected by the electorate.
Be that as it may, we might as well have a Labor government in the Garden State
if the existing one is capable of nothing more than operating revenue cameras
and covering the mortgages of its embedded enemies.
UPDATE: Those who
bristle at the ad featured in the video above might appreciate this:
Don't dare laugh or Rechter will be seeking to have you charged as an accomplice in Jill Meagher's murder.
