Democracy simply doesn't work

[Axver]

Boaty McBoatface: tyrants have crushed the people’s will | Stuart Heritage | Opinion | The Guardian

RIP Boaty McBoatface.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xop8QLIJCpY

 

It better be the RRS David Attenborough.

__________________

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"Mediocrity is never so dangerous as when it is dressed up as sincerity." - Søren Kierkegaard

Ian McCulloch the U2 fan:
"Who buys U2 records anyway? It's just music for plumbers and bricklayers. Bono, what a slob. You'd think with all that climbing about he does, he'd look real fit and that. But he's real fat, y'know. Reminds me of a soddin' mountain goat."
"And as for Bono, he needs a colostomy bag for his mouth."

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[Mack_Again]

man i didn't want to make you sad so I'll comment on here.



also, this is Stephen's response:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxcuhdIeO6M

[Axver]

Originally Posted by Mack_Again

man i didn't want to make you sad so I'll comment on here.

It's a thread on something not in America. Of course it's going to sink without a trace on FYM these days.

[Mack_Again]

Originally Posted by Axver

It's a thread on something not in America. Of course it's going to sink without a trace on FYM these days.

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.

[Kieran McConville]

Boaty McFuckface.

[Kieran McConville]

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.

[Kieran McConville]

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.

[Axver]

Originally Posted by Mack_Again

also, nobody made thread about Panama paper, wtf.

That genuinely surprised me. But I guess we'd have all posted "huh, yeah, we all suspected that" and not had much real discussion.

Originally Posted by Kieran McConville

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.

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.

[Kieran McConville]

Originally Posted by Axver

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.

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.

[Axver]

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.

[Mack_Again]

don't get me started on this weird conversation about 20 dollar bill

[Kieran McConville]

Originally Posted by Axver

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.

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.

[Kieran McConville]

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.

[Axver]

Originally Posted by Kieran McConville

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.

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?

[Axver]

Funny topic for a Boaty McBoatface thread, this.

[Kieran McConville]

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.

[Axver]

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]).

[Kieran McConville]

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.

[Axver]

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.

[Kieran McConville]

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.