politics
Get Your Mao On (IV): Criticism and Self-Criticism
This is a short one that’s been a few days coming.
Kevin Rudd cussed.
KEVIN Rudd has had another expletive-riddled brain explosion - this time directed at Labor’s faction bosses, including three women MPs.
The outburst, which left even the hardened ALP operatives who witnessed it shocked, occurred two Mondays ago.
…
According to sources Mr Rudd said: “I don’t care what you f***ers think!”
He then went on, singling out Senator Feeney declaring: “You can get f***ed”. Before asking in regard to the printing allowance issue: “Don’t you f***ing understand?”
Sources said this was only a part of what was a much more detailed expletive-riddled verbal attack on the faction leaders.
Chairman Mao schooled.
…some comrades ignore the major issues and confine their attention to minor points when they make their criticism. They do not understand that the main task of criticism is to point out political and organizational mistakes. As to personal shortcomings, unless they are related to political and organizational mistakes, there is no need to be overcritical or the comrades concerned will be at a loss as to what to do. Moreover, once such criticism develops, there is the great danger that within the Party attention will be concentrated exclusively on minor faults, and everyone will become timid and overcautious and forget the Party’s political tasks.
Emphasis mine, hypocrisy Milne’s.
(Not, of course, that Glenn Milne, whose writings are a cancer on responsible journalism, is my or anyone else’s comrade).
Fiscal Chips
English spelling has a horrible, intractably broken, historically perverse system of spelling. We all know it. The American know-it-all Benjamin Franklin knew it.
Goodness knows my spelling isn’t always perfect, and I can’t fault Senator Fielding for spelling “fiscal” wrong:
Recently, Senator Fielding has frequently mispronounced “fiscal policy” as “physical policy”. Speaking to journalists this morning he was questioned about the mispronunciation.
“I’ll make it quite clear: fiscal, F-I-S-K-A-L,” he spelt.
It’s one of those words that probably is set for ESL students as anti-malapropism spelling practice exactly because of the easiness of confusion. Physical/fiscal; he knows what he meant, and so do we.
Being unable to spell without error in front of a media pack, like a seal or an awkward, embarrassed North American child, is not a skill that should be expected of our representatives. It’s quite a different thing to be a bad speller, which is nothing discreditable, as to be an unskilled, confused, lazy thinker and a terrible, terrible political tactician, which is something to be regretted in a minor party Senator. A bit of dignity wouldn’t go astray either.
Here I Sit, I Can Do No Other
I sit upon my bottom as my mind begins to ache,
I ponder what has happened just a week ago to date.
It seems like just a dream and not the real state,
But when I open up my eyes I know it’s no mistake.
So what’s the use of pondering, if nothing is at stake,
Just get on with living and laugh, not contemplate.
——Northern Territory MLA Gerry Wood, 20 August 2009
Rhyming “ache” with “date” in verse about bottoms? That’s quality right there.
If you ask me it’s (as they say) pretty dope lyricism; if you added an 808 drum track and had an MC rhyme it in the style of Run DMC or the Beastie Boys c. 1990 you’d get the crowd fist-punching in no time. Well, maybe.
Mr Wood’s parliamentary poetry received a brief clap from a lone member of the Legislative Assembly.
Philistines.
Monday Fairfax Hero!
The new-media work experience kid who put this graphic together is officially today’s Fairfax Hero, a new Stoush.net site feature which will henceforth involve me posting things I’ve idly observed in the Fairfax almost-Press.
So sleazy you can carve him. That is all.
Beefgate Widens
News today that the inadequacy of the Stroganoff portions at Parliament House is a bipartisan concern, and a considerable embarassment to both parties, with urgent late-night cross-bench meetings producing a united voice for change. Apparently, previous media reports omitted to note that Labor’s John Murphy was not the only MP to take issue with the catering:
Immediately after Mr Murphy had spoken, the National Party MP for Riverina - Kay Hull - added her own complaint, describing the “quality, presentation and availability of food” as inadequate.
Mr Hockey approached Ms Hull in the chamber to reprimand her, but according to witnesses Ms Hull told him to “f… off”.
If Joe Hockey tried to tell me what to do, I’d tell him to “f… off” as well, so, you know, Kay Hull is ok with me.
Talks are continuing with the catering staff to resolve the issue.
Dirty Deals Done Divinely
Bang a gong, it’s on, in the Christian Democrats in NSW. In a journal entry worth reading in full, here is an eye-opening sentence from the Rev. Gordon Moyes:
Rev Fred Nile in his President’s Email., No 8 July 2008 wrote after quoting Romans 13:1-4): “I must respect the NSW ALP Government as “divinely constituted” and that to rebel against the Government “is resisting God’s appointment”.
Cluster Up
Getup irritate me. I’ll make that clear from the start. As a died-in-the-nylon-wool-blend leftie this admission comes with some difficulty as they do mean well, are organised fairly cleverly, and generally side with the angels. They shit me, despite this, because they habitually simplify and misrepresent.
They’re against cluster bombs and in favour of the international treaty eliminating their use. Fair enough, so am I, so are lots of people. The premise of their campaign, however, is that the Australian Government is stalling on the treaty because wants to protect their own “cluster bombs”, despite the UK having “reversed” their position to protect their “own weapons”. To put it mildly, this is not the situation.
Children of the Left
From the 1960’s through the 1980’s, those of us in the US Army Special Forces, along with our interagency partners, successfully stunted communist-sponsored insurgencies throughout Latin America. One of our prouder moments was in 1967, when Bolivian solders, trained, equipped and guided by Green Berets and the CIA, captured and killed Che Guevara.
…
Today, we see the Children of the Left, now adults, (whose parents were disenfranchised or worse) finding their voices in Argentina, Chile, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and elsewhere. As a result, Latin America is increasingly drifting towards building new economic, diplomatic and military relationships, diminishing US influence in the region.
Get Your Mao On (III): Relations Between Officers And Men
Our comrades must understand that ideological remolding involves long-term, patient and painstaking work, and they must not attempt to change people’s ideology, which has been shaped over decades of life, by giving a few lectures or by holding a few meetings. Persuasion, not compulsion, is the only way to convince them. Compulsion will never result in convincing them. To try to convince them by force simply won’t work.
I don’t know why “ideological” has to be an epithet in these post-normative days of universal middle-class entitlement mentality. I was brought up on my parents’ knees to understand ideology as an identifiable system of beliefs or a worldview which prompted measurable behaviour in a society, nothing more and nothing less.
Get Your Mao On (II): Contradictions Amongst The People
Recently there has been a falling off in ideological and political work among students and intellectuals, and some unhealthy tendencies have appeared. Some people seem to think that there is no longer any need to concern oneself with politics or with the future of the motherland and the ideals of mankind.
Plus ça change and all the rest of the French deviationist cliché. It’s not the Chairman’s fault that we’re made to imagine politics as a leadership race of inconsequence and personality, and if our Parties compete in an arena of mediocrity, subsidised homeownership and baby production. At least we have moments of sublime insanity to keep us entertained (if also repelled).
Sadly for him, and Morrissetti-ronic for me, Gerard Henderson agrees with Zedong. The Conservative intellectual tradition in Australia really is pretty moribund—moribund in the arse, an unkind person might say.
So… intellectual dormancy. What’s the big fella’s solution?
To counter these tendencies, we must strengthen our ideological and political work. Both students and intellectuals should study hard.
Thanks Mao. That was useful.