Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston |
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Labor 76 Liberal 74
With the Mad Katter going to the Libs at the last minute, the last two hours have been hell.. a half-hour of speeches, one indie to Labor. The front bar's ready to throw something at the telly.Democracy's turned into vaudeville, it would seem.
Whatever happens next, Australian politics will never be the same.
Over to you.
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Postmortem - a mad hatter's tea party
This is worth listening to - you too Alan Curran.
Fiona: It certainly is, Justin Obodie. I wish their ABC would put a transcript up, too.
Progress 1 2 3
There are, it seems to me, three ways of making progress.
Murderous Savages?
Michael: "Don't blame the Christian pastor for the expected reaction of stupid and murderous savages."
Representatives of 'Christian' America are, as you read this, stupidly murdering lots of Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistand and Iraq in the belief that, if they kill enough of them, they will become peaceful and love America.
I know who the 'stupid and murderous savages' are. Don't you?
John, glad to see you are still here and still trying to make the world a better place. It's not easy, is it?
Okay
You've got me there. The attack on Iraq was by murderous savages of monumental self-defeating stupidity.
Our media
Might have to work instead of whine.
A moment of euphoria!
As as atheist I can't say 'thank god' but I am so glad that the Coalition didn't get back into power again especially given its mean ''Howard' backbone.
Hopefully consensus politics will dawn in Australia and we can get away from the anachronistic two-party system where bosses and workers fight each other with the bosses, because off their wealth, usually winning.
Members of Parliament should represent their constituents not the henchmen and women of their respective parties.
Mean backbone
Hi Daniel, funny how a lot of religious people seem to have a mean backbone isn't it?
Terry Jones, a pastor who plans on a Koran-burning rally on Saturday's 9/11 anniversary.
Wrong target
John, I'm not sure what you're implying. It is just a stack of paper. As Bloomberg points out, there's no great shakes here. Don't blame the Christian pastor for the expected reaction of stupid and murderous savages. Their conduct will tbe their responsibility, not his. The fragility of a religion that cannot withstand scrutiny and so must murder scrutineers invites mockery. They empower the pastor by their own absurdity. Without their assistance he would be powerless.
If they want to burn a copy of the New Testament in revenge against the pastor let them go ahead. He'll laugh, but he will be defeated, and won't do it again. That they can't make such a balanced response but go into worldwide murderous frenzies (if they do), turn into murderers because they are adherents of a murderous religion, will be a problem, and it's proper to ensure that it's their problem, and deny it all legitimacy, and respond to savagery with courage, not with a shrinking fear of giving offence.
And if they do respond that way he will do it again, or someone else will. He will have won. The way to respond to provocation is to ignore it. Many people of all religious persuasions are incapable of that, but the adherents of Islam are in great danger of discrediting their religion, and the pastor will have won.
I don't see a mean backbone here. No doubt the man hates Islam, but its adherents have invited that. It is a religion which of its essence hates other religions. There is still a woman on death row in Iran because proud mullahs who are in reality Islam's worst enemies defame the religion by their own savagery and cruelty. Surely, mockery of what deserves mockery is a constructive way forward.
Let's not have an inversion of values here.
Writing as another atheist. Not to deny the murderous history of the Papal religion and the Protestant murders of the Anabaptists, but they were in rather a different category, and we are talking about now.
Following your link I just noticed: ``Muslims in Afghanistan protested outside a mosque in Kabul Monday, chanting "Death to America" a day after thousands of Indonesians demonstrated outside the U.S. embassy in Jakarta.''
And the pastor hasn't done it yet!!!
Those people are not to blame. Muslims are victims, and those have been dragged into such organized demonstrations by purer, more powerful, more sinister, more violent protest coordinators who are delighted at the opportunity the pastor has provided. Similar demonstrations were organized in connection with the Danish cartoons. They are put-ups, phoney protests, but the organizers are murderers who have put on display the nature of the religion.
It is unfair to blame religion in general. This is a particularly nasty one. And it is certainly unfair in my opinion to blame the Christian pastor for the demonstrations.
Abbott is a nightmare
Abbott had no plan beyond doing nothing but stop all the good work that the ALP had started.
Stop school computers, buildings, roads, social housing, defence housing, stop NBN and so on.
Glee!
This is going to be a tumultuous parliament. With a Nat Indie on the cross-benches, and the Final Three likely to sail whichever way the wind blows, negotiating any legislation will need to involve wheels within wheels.
Australian politics has made its own bed, for a comfortable landing as it falls on its own sword.
Comfort on reaching land
A sword faller-onner would want a firm bed for the pommel. It'd probably also need quite a lot of practice without the sword to acquire the skill to tip over and remain straight on the way down. Maybe comfortable landing as it rehearses.
For the people not the lucky few
Listening to the two amigos, I think there is a complete difference in approach related to the type of electorate these represent, against Katter and his in-decline pastoral electorate way outback.
Places like Coffs Harbour have a great future, by contrast. Windsor and Oakeshott are not just trying to salvage something, as with Katter, which is Katter's obligation to his electorate, with its specific problems. The other electorates are provincial rather than outright rural and have more a stake in the future as bases for future population and economic growth.
It shows in the emphasis Windsor and Oakeshott on broadband, education, improved conditions for indigenes and more stable government - future issues - and this is the best result, of a bad range of choices the election result bestowed upon us, at least these are a little more forward-looking and may have a little concern at least for the country, overall.