The nation needs further accounts of its “Love Rat” Deputy Prime Minister like it needs another thermal coal mine. Surely, there is less than nothing now to be gained from scrutiny of the man’s alleged misdeeds. Hidden corruption is not the true problem with Joyce, or with most any politician. It’s the corruption in plain sight.
Joyce has hardly made a secret of his preposterous views. Still, much of our news media maintains a curious commitment to revealing some powerful secret. Dunno what they expect to do with the Shocking Truth, if it is true or is ever substantiated. Let’s say that we do learn he was led by the libido to a recruitment decision. The scales will not then fall from the eyes of a sightless electorate. Instead, we’ll be blinded just a little longer by the false light of commentators who have come to depict politics as the producers of The Bachelorette depict reality.
This Big Reveal, if it ever comes, will bring no benefit with it. Even if Joyce does go, the nativist Nationals will continue their perverse coalition with a pro-globalisation party and we will continue to suffer the poison of that compromise: more power to corporations, more racism.
That news media can continue to believe that voters will have their political views shifted through a shifted view of particular politicians is, to me, extraordinary. A majority of voters could not currently give a hoot for the small misdeeds of their leaders. Has no one paid any attention to Trump, who, we can be sure, would retain his not-so-miserable approval ratings even if it were revealed that he had acquired a new First Cat solely to shit on Nancy Pelosi’s head? No one really cares about what a politician does, so long as they appear to be fighting for a people yet to encounter the wage growth so often and so falsely promised.
Our progressive political commentators could describe those policies that have led in Australia to a median weekly income of $662 and a crisis of private debt. If they did that important work, then what Joyce did, or did not do, with his payroll would not remain their central concern. Perhaps these progressive commentators believe that a population facing housing stress and insecure work should just get over themselves and think morally, not materially. Perhaps, like conservative Tom Switzer, they refuse to concede that everyday lives for the many have become rather tough.
I don’t know. I just don’t know how progressive commentators can continue to “call out” Joyce, as they did last night on The Drum, yesterday in Fairfax and on the telly last Monday. You can understand why a political editor like Sharri Markson would persevere with the Joyce story. Over at the Daily Tele, they’ve long been careful never to reveal politics as what it actually is: life as it is experienced in a political economy. Progressives, however, should know better. They should be able to see politics as something much bigger than politicians.
But, they really don’t. Progressive column after column appears to question the ethics of politicians or the ethics of the press reporting on politicians. So rarely is that bigger question about our diminished, and documented, faith in the way our political economies are currently organised asked. Our progressive commentators have been so committed to “calling out” Joyce, or Bernardi or Abbott etc., they simply have no time to “call out” a long history of market-friendly policy that has screwed the many.
If you’re screwed — and plenty of us are — a Joyce figure appears as no more than a distraction. It’s a frank view of his political practice and not his preaching that could turn public opinion in this crappy era. People would vote for Beelzebub if they thought there were a fair chance he could restore a little material comfort. I mean, they did.
So, Barnaby’s a hypocrite. Big whoop. So was Julia Gillard. The day she gave her misogyny speech, one lauded by many of the very same progressive commentators currently “calling out” Joyce, her legislation that would affect the nation’s most vulnerable women passed in the Senate. Barack Obama cried for dead children and undocumented peoples, even as he ordered the deaths of more children and the deportation of a record number. Kevin Rudd cried for the Stolen Generation, even as he did nothing for the theft of basic liberties from Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory.
As for Trump? Well, he’s not so much of a hypocrite. He calls a nation devastated by US intervention a “shithole”, and our progressive commentators long for the statesmanlike hypocrisy of an Obama, who would have kindly called Haiti “developing”. Even as he, and Secretary Clinton, ensured that the minimum wage in that nation was kept low.
Politicians lie. It ought to be the work of our progressive journalists and commentators to enumerate the biggest lies, not the trifles. I’d speak of this refusal to truly examine politics and the lazy, staggering, self-involved hypocrisy of the progressive media class. I won’t. I might get “called out” online.
What is the point of being a Minister if one cannot do favors for friends and of course receive favors?
Disagree Helen.
Swinging voters are ignorant bogans who vote against their own interests. Its a vanity thing. You cannot reason with these people. They further harden the more you bombard them with facts contrary to their beliefs. This is the true Trump effect.
Lefties are obsessed with playing fair and by the rules. Holier than though bullshit. By doing this they will always lose.
It is positive that progressives are playing by News ltd rules and going ofter the weak (feral tories) with fury until they are disposed of. This is the correct tactic. Plenty of time for other issues.
“Lefties?!”
Where?
Plenty of time. Until 2050, at least.
Why 2050?
So, swinging voters vote against their interests, does this include when they vote for the ALP or Greens?
Sort of Helen.
Here’s the thing .
There’s degrees of awfulness in public life and on a scale of 1-10 our Barney boy is on a perfect 10.
He’s not just a hypocrite but a really nasty piece of work as well as a dud as BK has eloquently pointed out.
Joyce proudly proclaims to “believe in the legacy of Jo” direct quote.
That’s pretty compelling evidence.
Joh. Malcolm. Not sure which is worse.
Let’s call it a draw
Helen, I lived through the long 19 years of Joh rule and as bad as Turnbull is, at least I haven’t been arrested, dragged through the courts and fined, just for attending a protest rally.
So true. Growing up under Joh and thinking it was normal (i.e. not knowing any better), then as an adult looking back with horror.
Not yet.
I do absolutely understand that the hard repression of that era in Queensland was extraordinary. I know activists who came up in Brisbane. Actually, A LOT. JBP produced a great suspicion of the state.
The close surveillance under which we live now is relatively invisible. But, we have lost some very fundamental freedoms and 60 government agencies may learn the most intimate details about us thanks to the old metadata legislation. There’s a thing that some old leftists say along the lines of overt censorship being a better sign of wide political awareness. I tend to agree. People say, when confronted with the knowledge of warrant-less searches “I’m okay. I don’t mind. I didn’t do anything wrong.” They accept the condition of being watched. And don’t even seem to consider that they may have broken some little known law, or could easily be doing something now that becomes punishable in the future.
Censorship by corporations (Google and Facebook) means that anything deemed “Russian-linked” is very hard to access. We have a record number of prisoners. We have essentially lost the right to strike and poverty is on the rise.
I do understand what you are saying and I was recently talking to two folks in their seventies who remember when censorship was really censorship. They recall the Menzies attempt to ban communism.
We talked for a while about “which was worse”: an invisible set of conditions that arose to very effectively not only deny us rights but to even make many of us think that these rights had disappeared for our own good, or the old book banning.
The answer is, both things are bad. In different ways. But the former, obvious state was easier to fight against.
Imagine a Doc Evatt today. An establishment figure fighting for our basic freedom. Honestly, every time I suggest (with research, with reference to the non-findings of the Mueller investigation, with statements from those content providers deemed to be “too Russian”) that current conditions deny many access to material critical of states and corporations and use “election interference” (for which there is no compelling evidence found after an 18 month search, and with which only a few of the intelligence agencies claimed to endorse the Russia assessment are in accord) people send me actual emails, sometimes threatening, saying that I am against freedom and, oddly, that I endorse misogyny. Because, apparently, I love Putin in saying that the Russia threat may be overblown.
And, I’m hardly a Doc Evatt.
My point being, it is much easier to be considered a lunatic now than in the past for pointing out state interference in our lives and perceptions of the world.
SO. In short, yes and no!
Helen, I recommend you read John Birmingham’s excellent eulogy to the Bjelke Petersen’s after Flo carked.
Cracking summary of life in the deep north in those halcyon days.
Sure. The system is broke, etc.
Getting rid of BJ won’t solve anything, but heck, as far as schadenfreude goes, it takes some beating. Please let us have a little moment of enjoyment of seeing a red-faced, Catholic defender of family values and the sanctity of Holy Matrimony (Batman) twist slowly in the wind.
Mr S. I see your point. However. This seems to be the only pleasure or fuel for so-called progressives now. Such-and-such suffers some embarrassment, and it feels like a victory.
I recall that there was great celebration in 2013 when Mirabella lost her seat to an independent. I was not at all in the mood for celebration after an Abbott win and I felt that this was the start in Australia of utter compromise by progressives. “At least let us have this” they say. And they become satisfied only with minor victories that are, in fact, ultimately unproductive.
I do loathe these persons. Of course. I enjoy watching conservatives embarrassed. I just believe we place such faith in meaningless moments and we tell ourselves that there is an appearance of progress.
It seems as though “winning the battle but losing the war” might be perfectly appropriate in these circumstances.
Yesterday I watched a brilliant talk on TV when the President of Science & Technology Australia ,Professor Emma Johnston ,delivered the Science Meets Parliament Address to the Press Club on the topic ‘Australia’s Science and Technology on the World Stage’. I can’t find or STEM in media headlines today.
I was both thrilled and worried to hear Professor Johnston’s evidence and solutions for Australia to regain its place in the world of science .
At the same time Australia’s media was focused on the personal life of a rural political leader who has caused so many backward steps by denying scientific information and reducing financial support for science.
His avid supporters would do well to watch the National Press Club address which was non -political while full of evidence .
At last this leader’s personal inadequacy to live up to his preaching might encourage Australians to assess and expose the damage he has brought to our environment and scientific research. His personal family break-up is parallel to the loss and chaos in Australia’ scientific environment.
Julanne Sweeney