Democracy simply doesn't work

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Axver said:
It's a thread on something not in America. Of course it's going to sink without a trace on FYM these days.
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thread about tough retirement situation in Japan kinda left some trace which faded very quickly, so yeah I guess you're right.

also, nobody made thread about Panama paper, wtf.
 
We could have a thread about our new paper currency update... drumroll puleeze: they put a slightly older-looking portrait of the Queen on it, in place of the one they used to have. And added some colourful bead things.
 
Actually our paper money is relatively non-partisan in its imagery, when you think about it. No bills with John Curtin or Menzies on them, even though, in a different country, such a thing might have come about quite naturally.
 
Mack_Again said:
also, nobody made thread about Panama paper, wtf.
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That genuinely surprised me. But I guess we'd have all posted "huh, yeah, we all suspected that" and not had much real discussion.

Kieran McConville said:
Actually our paper money is relatively non-partisan in its imagery, when you think about it. No bills with John Curtin or Menzies on them, even though, in a different country, such a thing might have come about quite naturally.
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I love that we've managed to get a university named after an ALP PM (Curtin University, and the University of Western Sydney came very close to being Chifley University), but none after a Lib. Though I suppose Deakin fits in the liberal tradition, if not the Liberal tradition.

And the whole drama about the five dollarydoo note is such a storm in a teacup. The thing doesn't even look that bad when you see an actual photo of the real thing rather than that strange scan with the transparent parts on a blue background.
 
Axver said:
That genuinely surprised me. But I guess we'd have all posted "huh, yeah, we all suspected that" and not had much real discussion.



I love that we've managed to get a university named after an ALP PM (Curtin University, and the University of Western Sydney came very close to being Chifley University), but none after a Lib. Though I suppose Deakin fits in the liberal tradition, if not the Liberal tradition.

And the whole drama about the five dollarydoo note is such a storm in a teacup. The thing doesn't even look that bad when you see an actual photo of the real thing rather than that strange scan with the transparent parts on a blue background.
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Yes well, like many such dramas, it's really not anything at all.

Deakin University, sure. That's about as close as you'd find, and it's from so early in the history of the commonwealth, 'founding fathers' dreamtime as it were.
 
Can you even imagine working at a Menzies University anyway. It'd be a fucking hellhole of IPA stooges trying to tell you that Menzies would've wanted this or that, despite the fact his conception of liberalism and their arse-backwards neoliberalism are two different beasts.

But by god do they need that cult of Menzies because otherwise they've got nothing other than a graven image of John Howard, and that's worth about $2.50.
 
Axver said:
Can you even imagine working at a Menzies University anyway. It'd be a fucking hellhole of IPA stooges trying to tell you that Menzies would've wanted this or that, despite the fact his conception of liberalism and their arse-backwards neoliberalism are two different beasts.

But by god do they need that cult of Menzies because otherwise they've got nothing other than a graven image of John Howard, and that's worth about $2.50.
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The cult of Menzies doesn't get invoked all that much anymore, it seems to me. He has significantly less resemblance to the modern party - significantly less - than Reagan does for the GOP. So really, it is the $2.50 Howard option. That's what they've got.

The Liberal Party doesn't do grand elder statesmen. Malcolm Fraser left the reservation (or they left him), Menzies himself quietly ended up a DLP man, Gorton they pretty much forgot he was still alive until 2001 or something, McMahon, well, whatever. All they've got is John Howard and even he must grit his teeth when he shares a stage with freaks like Tony Abbott.
 
All that said, I gather that there is something (a website, probably not an actual building) called Menzies House, which despite the genial sounding name - you almost expect Dame Pattie to drop by with scones and crustless sandwiches after tennis - is pretty much what you described, a hellhole of pale, sicklied IPA stooges leafing through their tomes of Ayn Rand and Friedrich von Hayek.
 
Kieran McConville said:
The cult of Menzies doesn't get invoked all that much anymore, it seems to me. He has significantly less resemblance to the modern party - significantly less - than Reagan does for the GOP. So really, it is the $2.50 Howard option. That's what they've got.

The Liberal Party doesn't do grand elder statesmen. Malcolm Fraser left the reservation (or they left him), Menzies himself quietly ended up a DLP man, Gorton they pretty much forgot he was still alive until 2001 or something, McMahon, well, whatever. All they've got is John Howard and even he must grit his teeth when he shares a stage with freaks like Tony Abbott.
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Yes, I guess it was with the demise of Howard that we also had a serious weakening of the cult of Menzies. Whatever may be said about him, Howard was still in the Menzies tradition more than he was not. Abbott - absolutely not. Turnbull would be if his party did not want him to be, and that says it all.

The whole Fraser thing remains unbelievable. Could you imagine any prominent Liberal of today's generation openly campaigning for a Green?
 
It is rather.

What's even funnier is that I believe Fraser when he suggested that he remained what he was. He wasn't a lefty, he was actually a (liberal-ish) conservative. He was just out of step with the new breed. As will we all be, at some point.
 
I think he at least fudged the truth there. Would he have opposed Medicare now? No. What did his government abolish? The first go at Medicare.

But in broad terms, yes, the party left him rather than the other way around. Hewson was probably the last Liberal leader with more than just a passing affinity for the Fraser era - and to think the election he lost was a mere ten years after Fraser blew it against oh-shit-not-Bill-Hayden (surely the ultimate political blunder, and not possible today [look it up, non-Australians]).
 
Yairs... it'd be interesting to inter his corpse and quiz him on Medicare (my guess, all conservatives were reliably opposed to anything like it back then, and he probably quietly changed his tune substantially in the years since).

Actually Hewson was really the first flush of the full-blown zealot wing of the Liberal Party. I know, I know, it doesn't look that way. He's socially liberal enough. But his economic plan straight out of Reagan/Thatcher central casting, his US-style razzamataz like some creepy US pentecostal preacher... oh yeah, Hewson was the real deal.
 
Fair point re: Hewson. I think even he has stepped back from some of the positions he advanced in 1993 - you can tell he thinks Abbott & Friends are complete morons. And even in 1993 I'm not sure he was the most hardcore of the bunch.

But it is easy to possess a nostalgic glow for him because he had Actual Policy and tried to defeat Keating in our last election to go much deeper than your average soundbyte.
 
1993 was an election for the ages in some respects. Hewson's failing was he didn't quite realise what showbiz looks like. Against some of these latter day Labor leaders, he'd have won, and won comfortably.
 
Keating - like Hawke before him - was a rare politician to combine policy with soundbytes.

A fucking drover's dog, as they might say, would've wiped the floor with Latham. Well, maybe not when Latho first got the leadership, which is the scary thing, but once we got to know him and his propensity for insanity, yes.
 
One, we're starting to learn all too well, is more than enough.

I miss 2011, when Latho was this slightly awkward but generally amusing joke. Now mention his name to an ALP hack and they'll vanish in a puff of smoke.
 
Oh god that's a bad memory. Perhaps the first major sign of the lunacy to come.

I think he was working for 60 Minutes. Shame they didn't send him to Beirut rather than Tara Brown. Could've left him there without bail, though that'd be mean to the people of Lebanon. They've been through a lot. They don't deserve Latho.
 
Don't y'all fellas know that this here forum is about AMERICA?


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference
 
Axver said:
Oh god that's a bad memory. Perhaps the first major sign of the lunacy to come.

I think he was working for 60 Minutes. Shame they didn't send him to Beirut rather than Tara Brown. Could've left him there without bail, though that'd be mean to the people of Lebanon. They've been through a lot. They don't deserve Latho.
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Bob Hawke briefly worked for 60 Minutes too. Great, great pedigree, that show.
 
I can only assume that ol' Bob's big scoop was a story on bums who sacked their employees after the America's Cup.

digitize said:
Don't y'all fellas know that this here forum is about AMERICA?


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference
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Is AMERICA located somewhere around the corner from Murica?

Because I think both are secretly under the control of STRAYA and its prime minister, an aggressive stoner koala wearing a big boot.
 
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