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Bangalow lawyer Owen Hughes successfully sued for sexual harassment
Junior/trainee solicitor Catherine Mia Hill began working with Owen Hughes’ Bangalow based law firm Beesley and Hughes Lawyers in May 2015.
The evidence showed that that he thought Hill was attractive, wanted to be in a relationship with her and that he communicated that to her.
Hughes offered to represent her in a mediation for her own family law matter, and she agreed.
Read more here: https://sterlinglawqld.com/bangalow-lawyer-owen-hughes-successfully-sued-for-sexual-harassment
Judge McGill SC goes out in a blaze of glory in appeal decision — Sterling Law QLD
Those who are familiar with civil litigation in the Magistrates Court know that it is an unfortunate reality that occasionally litigants will receive “rough justice”. This is often due to the lack of knowledge of civil litigation and/or the flippant attitudes of some Magistrates. This observation in no way is intended to criticise the vast…
via Judge McGill SC goes out in a blaze of glory in appeal decision — Sterling Law QLD
Claimant loses injury case for being out of contact to his solicitors — Sterling Law QLD
The facts The Claimant Warren Jonathan was injured in a motor vehicle accident on 4 August 2012. He subsequently through his solicitors sent to the CTP insurer RACQ a Notice of Accident Claim form under the Motor Accident Insurance Act 1994. The insurer confirmed that the form was compliant with Motor Accident Insurance Act requirements…
via Claimant loses injury case for being out of contact to his solicitors — Sterling Law QLD
Considering “The rise of white internationalism, from the US to Russia” By Jason Wilson
In typical leftist style Wilson uses an illustration that implies that the alt right are analogous to the KKK something that is rather too loaded and prejudicial.
During Hillary Clinton’s speech today attacking Donald Trump for his associations with the so-called alt right, she made at least one important point: that rise of the Right in the US is part of ‘a broader story ― the rising tide of hardline, right-wing nationalism around the world’.
The opening gambit of declaring the alt-right as “hardline” movement is like his illustration intended to set the notion that any alternative view is both bad and a threat to civil society.
Clinton squandered the moment somewhat by immediately pinning the blame for the far-Right surge on the ‘godfather of this global brand of extreme nationalism … Vladimir Putin’. Countering Trump’s ‘dark conspiracy theories’ with beltway-approved conspiracy thinking did not enhance her point about the international dimensions of the problem.
Tend to agree than in invocation of conspiracy theory is a bad idea because such things are generally the stuff of a fevered and over active imagination.
But even if Clinton’s point was blunted by opportunism, the Left needs to start thinking about the way in which the US-based alt right is intertwined with a broader far-Right resurgence in a number of advanced democracies, including Australia.
No the left needs to take a long hard look at itself and ask why are the policies, ideas and notions that they are cultivating being so soundly rejected by ordinary people and they have to understand that they do not have ownership of all virtue.
Although the origins of the alt right are in US-based far-Right circles, the man who coined the term – white nationalist Richard Spencer – did so under the influence of the European ‘Nouvelle Droit’ or New Right, and its leading figures, like Alain Benoist.
I don’t care about the origins to be frank
Spencer told me that he was attracted to those ideas because he and others were ‘deeply alienated, intellectually, even emotionally and spiritually, from American conservatism’. They were disillusioned with Republican interventionism, but also with what they perceived as a softening on immigration and race.
I personally find it ironic that lefties like Jason Wilson are so hot to trot for all sorts of indigenous people’s movements, like Our aborigines, or the native Americans, support “black lives matter” and any other sort of activism for ethically defined groups seeing them as either noble victims of oppression or fighting the good fight but as soon as a group has pale skin Wilson and his ilk see them standing up for their own identity as something pernicious. Its simply hypocritical and innately racist to endorse the rights for one group and denounce another for doing the same thing.
Along with the reactionary tradition that includes Nietzsche and Heidegger, Spencer engaged with the New Right’s ‘identitarianism’ – which links race and identity – and its hostility to egalitarianism and democracy. By defining America as an outgrowth of Europe, he was able to adapt the ideas to his own political context.
What hostility to either democracy or egalitarianism? All that I see from the alt-right are objections to special pleadings from Feminists and other left wing activists for special treatment by way of quotas and other forms of “affirmative action”. If anything the alt right is very much for true egalitarianism and true democracy.
This international circulation of ideas on the Far Right is not one-way traffic, nor has it stopped. ‘Cultural Marxism’, for example, arises from a conspiracy theory claiming that the Frankfurt School seeded the New Left and identity politics as a way of undermining Western values.
Its not a “conspiracy theory” its a description of the facts on the ground and Wilson is a without a doubt a practitioner of Cultural Marxism himself.
The theory was first pushed by Americans William S Lind and Paul Weyrich in the early 1990s, as they tried to develop ways to get Republicans to unite around culture war issues at Weyrich’s think tank, the Free Congress Foundation.
Where the understanding cones form simply does not matter because the core observations are absolutely correct.
It has gone onto be an organising idea for the Far Right throughout the world, including in Europe, where it showed up in the manifesto of mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik, and in Australia, where versions of the argument have repeatedly been made in mainstream venues, like the Australian.
Sigh. anyone would think form Wilson’s polemic that Brevik is an admired for the alt right or a source of inspiration but nothing could be further form the truth. and invoking here in this context is simple more of his trying to paint the alt-right as being innately bad and monstrous.
The Far Right and their ideas have been given a significant push by the great recession of 2008, the orthodoxy of austerity in Europe, and a slow recovery in the United States.
Economic upheavals do tend bring about changes in the polity
Adding fuel to the fire is one of the principal legacies of the West’s war in Iraq – the Syrian conflict and its 4.5 million refugees.
The war in Iraq may be many things but to suggest that it is something we can blame on “the west” utterly misunderstand that it and other wars in the middle east are largely a consequence the Jihadists and their propensity to Kill in the name of their God. this is especially so when it comes to the civil-war in Syria.
The refugee crisis has allowed a kind of ‘white internationalism’ to coalesce. The Far Right has not renounced nationalism, but it has foregrounded a whiteness defined in civilisational terms, and defined against the alleged threat posed by Muslim immigrants and refugees throughout the West, and by Latin-American migrants in North America.
Its seems to me that Wilson is a proponent of the ideas inherent in “Whiteness Studies” a rather vile ideology that defines bad as having White skin and a European heritage, further to that he pretends that the threat of Islamic imperialism is imaginary, but what else would we expect from a chap who thinks that there should be a borderless world? Frankly I don’t think that the issue in the US is about Latin American immigration as much as it is about unauthorized immigration that simply depresses the Labor market and imports unwanted workers into a USA that has enough of its own poor people.
When these ideas become entangled with social media, this transnational whiteness – or transcontinental Europeanness – becomes the basis of a new kind of political subjectivity, which allows theory-building, proselytisation, and other forms of collaboration across national borders.
Wilson like so many of the left yearns for the halcyon days when he and his left-wing pals totally dominated social media like Twitter and Youtube The alt-right may be late adopters of these platforms but they certainly have become quite adept at using them over the last couple of years . Frankly this has improved our polity. That Wilson thinks otherwise and that he ignores the fact that his fellow minions of the left have done the same sort of outreach he talks about here seems to have escaped his attention.
White, European heritage becomes a rallying cry to be deployed against anyone from the global south who would enter, or stay within the borders of any Western nation, against established non-white ethnic groups, and against the descendants of slaves.
Once again we see here the way that Wilson tries to stigmatize European culture and paint it in a negative light, even though he himself is a product of a very European cultural and intellectual heritage. likewise he is suggesting that alone among the globes ethnic groups Europeans are wrong to want to defend their culture and values against any challengers, especially if those challengers are brown in any sense at all. Finally on this point I have to mention his bizarre notion that Slavery is something unique to European history. Servitude and Slavery are as old as human civilization
The alt right’s memes make all of this easy to digest for the adherents of a movement with an intensive, socially mediated existence.
What does this mean???
Their IQ charts, and bogus crime rate statistics are a way of making the bogus ‘racial science’ that underpins their beliefs more easily accessible.
I am unsure what Wilson is on about with his reference to “IQ charts” or “racial science”
Alt right Twitter accounts are as apt to talk about an alleged ‘rapefugee’ crisis in Syria as they are to make arguments about racially determined IQ, or black crime rates.
I say SO FUCKING WHAT??? anyone on twitter can talk about anything they please but for the record the incidence of rape and sexual assault have skyrocketed in the wake of the waves of uninvited Muslim migrants into Europe and its not the European men who are committing these crimes
More generally, the shibboleths of white internationalism – Halal panic, sexualised racial anxieties, the notion of civilisational struggle, and primitive images of the other – are shared among Far Right actors across the west, and can be seen as readily as Reclaim Australia rallies are on social media.
What Wilson fails to get is that the world does have a problem and its very simple to understand both here and in other first world countries, Namely there is am imperialist ideology called Islam and its followers, while purporting to be mendicants in need, are actually invading and then once they have become established they set about subverting the very freedoms that enabled their entry until they manage to recreate the very societies they claimed to be fleeing. at first they demand halal food for all, then its a small step to demand a repression of our open attitudes to sexuality and gender equality.
Still, the cartoonish character of the online alt right – its memes and jokes, its clear links to nerd culture, and its disinclination (so far) to street violence – should not lead us to underestimate the potential danger here.
Nor should we ignore the very real danger of the monster that left-wing political correctness has become. We have thought policing and pressures to conform to the leftist ideals thrown at us continually through all of the mainstream media and the social media still has a preponderance lefties and oh how they howl if just one person or right-wing idea is voiced in what they consider is their territory.
If nothing else, a networked, globalised political racism may forge a more generalised, adaptable, and ‘shareable’ set of political concepts. In a time of overlapping crisis, we can’t allow white internationalism to become a durable response.
The alt right is NOT about or encouraging racism, and the many alt-right people engaging the BLM movement provide a perfect example of how the orthodox leftists like Wilson have simply lost the plot. Wilson and his ilk naturally assume that because they consider Black people in the USA to be “oppressed” then anything they say or do is both acceptable and should not be subject to any scrutiny and when BLM protestors call for cops to be killed or express clear racist hatred to white people its a case of “nothing to see here”. No problem with Black racism because they are an “oppressed” group and in the leftist mindset those not in a more disadvantaged social position simply can’t be racist to those who are socially better off. But the alt-right calling out real by the dictionary racism of groups like BLM is not the racism that Wilson suggests it is in this essay.
Wilson is of course going to pretend not to read this and he certainly won’t change his silly leftist ideas any time soon. After all he has built himself a career by sucking up to leftist orthodoxy. That is the true irony of the man because when I was a young person to be a true radical one had to be a lefty you had to believe in a a sort of collectivist future. Well those ideals have taken over the establishment and now to be a true radical you have to be of the alt right and become a libertarian, The difference between contemporary radicals and the radicals of my youth is that today the enemy is the misguided and willfully blind lefties that we all once so naively wished to be.
Cheers Comrades
Just now to jamesman
jamesman
It is not the liberal left that is the problem. It is the far right xenophobia, coupled with neoliberalism and climate skeptism that are ruining the world as we know it.
You could not be more wrong there used to be a dichotomy between the left and the right but now the political divide is between the authoritarians and the libertarians and some of the worst authoritarians are in fact the so called progressives who have thus far dominated the social media and who have been more than ready to dogpile any one who challenges their ideas or who refuses to endorse their orthodoxies. The reason that Trump is likely to win the US election is that the very people the authoritarian progressives have tries to silence are rising up and saying that they will not be ignored any more. The mane calling and attempts to shame people by calling dissenter xenophobes bigots or racists simply no longer works as populists like Milo are leading a a new surge of political engagement by people who have previously just looked the other way.
The progressive left have been trying for a generation to undermine the notion of the nation state and in the light of many wars between nations that had a certain logic to it but the problem comes form their rather loopy idea that all nations are equal in their social virtues and that all cultures are the same with maybe only some superficial differences. The cold hard light of political reality demonstrates that this is at best naive nonsense. There is simply no equivalence between a religiously motivated repressive totalitarian state and a mature secular western democracy. To denounce anyone who points this out as a “xenophobe” as progressives so often do is the height of stupidity. It also shows how weak “progressiveness” has become.
Finally we come to the issue of “climate change” which has largely been driven by the former communists who moved into environmental causes after the collapse of communism in the eighties, to them this cause is just another vehicle through which they hope to acquire global hegemony. and its a mechanism that many now pay lip service too but few really believe. Its also a mask for the real global problem of over population. But we are on the cusp of a rather radical solution to that which I expect to be some sort of global pandemic that will devastate the their third world in particular , I use to think it would be HIV/aids but now I think that it will be something more mundane that will piggy back on the growing resistance of Bactria to antibiotics, either way expect to see Africa, south east Asia the middle east and South America severely affected much more than the first world because well ordered societies will be better able to respond to such challenges than those which are corrupt and chaotic. The black death reduced some populations by 2/3 in the middle ages but we may see an even higher death toll because any modern pandemic will spread far quicker thanks to global air travel.
Any way I digress the point is that there is value in having the discrete entity called a nation where the people have more in common that they have that is different, the progressive idea of a borderless world has been a total disaster that has seen previously stable and cohesive societies import cohorts of people who have no desire to assimilate into the indigenous culture instead they have formed ghettos that give provide the breeding ground for nihilism and hatred for the host culture. Calling that out is simply entirely valid self defense rather than “xenophobia” and we will see more of it as the “progressives” are shown more and more to be in reality “regressive” and that their ideology is profoundly illiberal as a consequence.
Cheers Comrades
Jason Wilson can’t stand Milo Yiannopoulos
DePaul University Tour Shut Down by Protestors, Lead by Self-Styled Free Speech Warrior Milo Yiannopoulos
May 27, 2016
At DePaul, the self-styled free speech warrior and his fans once again did not prove to be as robust as their rhetoric. When protesters arrived they begged for the intercession of cops, and cartoonish redpill tough guy Matt Forney complained about being manhandled.
What would you expect any speaker to do if their event was interrupted? Get the audience to beat up the hecklers? You can’t have it both ways when the police are tasked with keeping order and they fail to do this it is reasonable to be less than happy about it.
Nevertheless, the event received the usual hagiographic treatment on Breitbart and the Daily Caller, and once again Yiannopoulos was able to portray himself as the alt-right’s courageous truth-teller.
Which begs the question “is Milo telling the truth here?” Personally I would say that he is but lets see if Wilson even explores that question here
He was fortunate, in a way. On his current US campus tour, alleged threats to his free speech, and the back and forth between Yiannopoulos and his antagonists have been the only thing sustaining interest in the whole enterprise.
Hmm lets see If you hive a hall or lecture space and have your ability to perform is compromised by “activists” then isn’t that by definition his free speech being denied?
I know because I attended a Milo event at which there was no left reception committee. When he appears unchallenged, the Milo show is the dampest of squibs.
At the University of Oregon, where I saw him, it was not clear that he was especially grateful for the platform, or the lack of interruptions.
“Your professors are cunts, on the whole,” he tells the mostly student audience in an almost-full auditorium, “limp-wristed, pacifistic, sandal-wearing weirdos.”
It goes on like this for hours – the epithets are relentless and the provocations artless. Without hostile interruptions, Yiannopoulos’s act, which unfortunately relies entirely on him speaking, is a one-note affair.
So much for Wilson as a reporter! So much for Wilson as the man with a handle on the online traditions of shit posting and mischief making .
The Oregon engagement begins, like the others, with a one on one interview. Tonight his interlocutor is the co-president of the local branch of Young Americans for Liberty, who are sponsoring the evening. Then comes an open question and answer session, and Milo finishes up by giving fans an opportunity to take selfies with one of the right’s rising stars.
Its a tour around many campuses and were it any other type of tour there would not be any complaint about it having a running order or even a script that if followed on any of the legs of the tour.
But right now, that’s a long way off. First, we have to wade through the redpill boilerplate that constitutes Milo’s political views.
“There is an assault in this country”, he informs his interviewer, “on straight white men”, waged by “middle class women and cucks.” In this case the latter is being used to describe male feminists, who “don’t need to be castrated, they’ve done it themselves.”
Moving onto rape culture, which he considers a myth, he asks, with a theatrical moan, “Is there anything worse than consent?”
Wilson makes no secret of his disdain for Milo’s opinions, as is his right, however he undermines his own argument here by not even exploring the possibility that Milo has both the facts and the truth on the side of his talking points here. Wilson simply accepts all of the feminist orthodoxies without a single question
These opinions are odious, of course, but in another way utterly banal. Most adults will find Yiannopoulos’s show exactly as transgressive as a dirty joke told by a racist uncle. He wants desperately to cause deep offence to the left, and with some campus-based comrades, he clearly succeeds. Others will struggle to muster an eye-roll. I’ve heard pithier put-downs of progressives on Australian bar stools.
Why are his opinions “odious” would be an obvious thing to follow the opening claim of this paragraph but instead of that Wilson goes for that old favorite of the progressive the ad hominiem argument. The thing is having watched a lot of Milo’s shtick in his you tube vids he clearly gets a good response to his talk, his interviews and debates all show him to be witty clever and generally amusing. He may not be funny to the cohort of Wilson and his friends but as they are among the targets of Milo’s sarcasm, satire and wit it would be surprising if Wilson and his friends enjoyed being so mercilessly mocked.
So why are all these other people laughing?
After all, even if you agree with this stuff, there’s not much here that’s new. Milo described the alt-right, for which he as a kind of spokesman, as a group which is “young, creative and eager to commit secular heresies”.
But anyone who’s ever listened to Michael Savage or Mark Levin, or even waited around in a small-town barber shop has already encountered all of this guff at punishing length. If there’s a difference, it’s purely a matter of presentation.
Students of the art of humor will tell you that there are only a handful of proto -jokes and all of the huge lexicon of laughs derive from this small seed, so its not always what you say as much as how you tell them Milo’s shtick works because he is a consummate communicator and his audience likes what he says. Wilson is simply unable to do likewise because of his own political baggage and intellectual investment in left wing progressive ideology.
His core politics are similar to those of the mens rights movement – he hates feminists and claims they’re waging a war on the *real* victims, men. But everyone on the American right pretty much agrees with this. He calls lesbians names and questions whether there should be further Muslim immigration. But these are not novel sentiments either.
On the subject of feminism this interview with Dave Rubin explains far better what it is about contemporary feminism that deserves scorn and strong criticism. Wilson’s vilification and character assassination is based on the faulty belief that Milo objects to the now achieved (in western countries) goals of first and second wave feminism.
For sheltered campus conservatives in provincial college towns, though, it all sounds terribly naughty, even revolutionary. Not because of what’s being said, which is “redpill” boilerplate, but because of who is saying it.
Has Wilson not heard of the internet?
In an irony whose full implications escape his audience – who are not, on the whole, well-attuned to such things – his identity is the only real value he adds to an otherwise bog-standard litany of complaints.
Its seems to me that Wilson can not cope with the idea that am man can be both Gay and conservative
The conservative ecosystem is variously populated by talk-radio mastodons; dessicated, reptilian columnists; and near-vegetative think-tankers with about as much charisma as their lanyards. In this Jurassic world, Milo can self-consciously promote himself as something disruptive and new.
For someone who claims to be a “reporter” his political allegiances are doing great deal of harm to his objectivity
Of course, he’ll say he’s also bringing glamour. But as has been pointed out, the guy dresses like something out of a “Hey, kids!” PSA, or Poochie.
If Wilson’s profile picture is anything to go by Wilson would not qualify as any sort of fashionista himself, that said though if one takes the time to review Milo’s various media appearances its clear that the man is actually quite good at dressing for the occasion, most serious events will see Milo wearing a well cut suit but on the current tour he can of course be more frivolous.
Tonight, in pink t-shirt, bling, gaudy trainers and lightly distressed denim, he looks like he’s beamed in from the “boys casual wear” section of a decade-old Macy’s catalogue. Only the buttoned-down Randroids who run YAL could think that his frosted tips and ostentatious indoor sunglasses are anything other than normcore-gone-wrong.
Its called dressing for the occasion Mr Wilson and playing the game of political performance. Frankly I would have thought that asocial media pundit such as your self would understand that all politics is a performance art-form then again I can’t help thinking that Wilson would be lauding any “progressive” using Milo’s tactics here maybe this explains Wilson’s clear rancor because he simply can’t get his head around anyone other than one of his fellow progressives being so able to exploit the social media the way that Milo so clearly does.
The really entrancing thing for America’s reactionary dweebs and young fogeys is hearing this from a gay, British man in his thirties, rather than say, Rush Limbaugh.
It means that for an hour or two, they can put aside their niche anxieties about creeping sharia, or who is using which public restroom, and imagine that they are part of something subversive.
What Wilson fails to understand here is that while his progressive cronies have long held the upper hand in social discourse on the campuses of first world universities to be a conservative and to be openly Gay about it IS a subversive act just as much as being a communist was for my own generation
The bonus is that even in making this pitch, he comforts his audience with the knowledge that they don’t have to take the political demands of other LGBT people seriously. He drops hints that deep down, he hates queers as much as they do.
NO there is simply not any hatred for “LGBT people” in play here Milo does not “Hate Queers” either on the surface or deep down. His take on is is quite sane and very grown up He enjoys being a homosexual is the bottom line
One of his biggest applause lines in Eugene was the moment when he distanced himself from other gay men, averring that “the worst thing about being gays is other gays… They’re just such fucking fags.”
Its called being self deprecating and taking the piss out of your own subculture that Milo both endorses and celebrates
It’s all a bit like music hall for young tories: marginally risque but ultimately reassuring. It’s conservative all right, but not in the edgy way Yiannopoulos imagines it to be.
If only Wilson could understand that Conservatives are allowed to have a place in the polity that is not just to be the butt of progressive ire, and what Milo’s “Dangerous faggot tour” is really about is pointing out that conservatives no longer have to be hiding in the shadows of campus life any more, they don’t have to remain under the dishonest heel of political correctness , kowtowing to the craziness of third wave feminist nonsense
In fact he’s just one of a long line of performers who exist to endorse the whole slate of garden-variety petty bourgeois prejudices. It’s dull work, I imagine, but there’s a steady market for those who can give it fresh nuance.
For now, he appears to be on a roll. From his start as a Breitbart writer and gamergate troll, he’s energetically barged his way into the dress circle of rightwing celebrity.
Those over tight progressive underpants are in evidence again with this claim mainly because I don’t think that an Ideological warrior like Wilson cannot imagine that any legitimate criticism of progressivism is possible. Nor do I think that Wilson has any understanding of Gaming or the Gamergate movement he so casually dismisses. I asked him on twitter if he was a gamer and his response was to try to chnage the subject. so my guess is that his opinions all come from the likes of Anita Sarkesiain and those of her ilk rather than him having any experience of the subculture or the experience of gaming
He now rubs shoulders with the likes of Ann Coulter, with whom he shares a performative, post-Trump antipathy to established movement conservatism. He’s successfully positioned himself as a member of the “alt-right”, a movement for which he drafted a manifesto which also functions as an apologia for the open anti-semitism and racism of that community.
Hmm I simply don’t see the antisemitism that Wilson is claiming, in fact most of the antisemitism in the western polity comes form the left in their apologia for Islam and the Jihadists.something that I have seen Wilson himself flirts with on twitter where despite me giving him ample giving him ample opportunities to denounce the inherent bigotry of Islam he could not bring himself to admit that Islam is hateful to Gays or women.
(During the evening, he retails the anti-establishment sentiments which are themselves now de rigeur on the right, saying that “the Republican Party needs to be torn up, burnt to the ground and rebuilt”.)
The hustle has been competent enough to secure the greatest reward that a bogus generational spokesman can reap: a profile in the New York Times magazine. And now, he’s on a US tour, bringing his fabulous brand of bigotry to America’s universities.
If there is one thing that is fabulous its the way that Wilson portrays anyone who offers a counter to the “progressive narrative” as bigotry, Question the Black lives matter narrative and in Wilson’s view its bigotry, Question the silly claim that one in five students will be raped and its bigotry, In fact its seems clear to me he is just over invested in the “progressive” orthodoxy and he is terrified of having to rethink any of that he just digs his heels in and calls people names because its
In Eugene, around 350 prople show up (at DePaul, Breitbart claimed there were 500, but they have a habit of talking their employee up). A solid three quarters of those in attendance were men. Given Milo’s obsession with detailing what he sees the failings of women – especially feminists, lesbians, and those who aren’t thin – it’s no surprise that his events are such sausage-fests.
Would Wilson care if a Feminist had a predominately female audience or would he disparage a majority female audience as a “vag-fest” or some other derogatory term of a cohort of women ?
Indeed, the passages of the evening in which he talks about the many women that he doesn’t like are one of the few times that a genuine emotion – disgust – rises to the surface of his camp repartee.
When he describes lesbians as “horrendous, quivering masses of horror”, described feminism as “cancer”, he’s practically spitting. It’s the kind of vituperation you don’t usually employ unless you’ve encountered a real threat.
Like so many on the progressive side of politics Wilson has no sense of humor and no understanding that the anti-lesbian shtick is all part of Milo’s performance. As I have found in my own interactions with Wilson to him its inconceivable that any thing that a conservative says or does will not have some malign intention or purpose. Essentially he lacks any generosity towards conservatives and only sees them as a class enemy to be denounced.
I don’t know, or much care, whether Milo Yiannopoulos’s own contempt for women is a mask for fear. But he certainly appears to be answering to the fears of his audience.
This is utter rubbish from Wilson there is simply no reason to think that Milo has contempt for women nor does it follow that the audiences at his Dangerous faggot tour do either.
The sources of this disquiet are evident in the queues for the question and answer session, and later for selfies. It’s very clear in these moments that Milo’s core audience, his most devoted fans, are bewildered, young, reactionary, male nerds.
Once again Wilson shows his contempt for ordinary young men who have not taken up the progressive orthodoxy. That my friends is the core of the contradiction with in progressiveism It claims to be about inclusiveness and diversity unless you are a straight white man then you will be eternally the subject of scorn and derision
You get the vivid impression when you hear them talk that their antipathy to feminism has bloomed out of a much more intimate kind of frustration with the opposite sex. Unfortunately, they’ve come to the world’s worst source of dating advice.
Could anyone be more arrogant or more disparaging at a personal level than this? this is claim is all just an ad hom fallacy writ large
During question time, men ask for and recieve counsel about how to deal with feminists challenging them in their personal lives, and Yiannopoulos commiserated with them about “the oppressive hegemony of social justice”.
Although I have not attended one of these events I have watched several on Milo’s and other you tube channels and this characterization of the Q & A session is simply wrong and the questions and comments are as varied the people who attend
The whole ritual does no more than try to reverse the polarity of identity politics, insisting that actually, it’s white men who are oppressed. And the only way he can really make this case is to talk about class.
Wilson is correct that identity politics is a big issue for those who attend however in typical SJW style Wilson willfully misunderstands the arguments that are in play here. The point is not to try to seize a better place in the oppression hierarchy fro “white men” as he contends, but to dispute the entire social analysis of “oppression” that underpins the SJW notions of identity politics that would demonize every one who is straight, white and male.
Thus, he talks about the “awful, awful, terrible, diseased, and damaged people lecturing and hectoring the working class” who have “rightly had enough of it”, and whose only hope of salvation is “President Donald Trump”.
Here I can to some extend share Wilson’s concerns about the virtues of Donald Trump however I think that Wilson is sadly not detached enough from his left wing obsessions to understand why Trump is popular. What that popularity boils down to is a rather refreshing refusal to kowtow to the conventions of Political correctness and if there is one thing that those on the right appreciate its anyone who will slash through the bindings that have come from identity politics and the deathly fear of giving offense, But to explore this topic in more detail I suggest that you go to this article which also looks at Milo’s Trump shows but it does so with a far more even hand.
The problem – apart from the fact that this is delivered in an upper-middle class British accent, and that his audience are mostly college kids – is that he’s not really offering the working class anything except the permission to dish out racial slurs and minimise rape culture.
To be frank I don’t buy into Wilson’s Marxist assumption that the audience are what would be “working class” or that Milo being English or “upper class” makes a blind bit of difference to cut though to his audience. This is an audience who have grown up with the cultural diversity of YouTube and they simply do not care about Milo’s accent. Now would college students be what we in Australia would call working class because they (or their parents) are all paying to go to the colleges and that takes enough resources to place those audience members well and truly into the middle classes
He boasts about the scholarship scheme he’s set up for underprivileged boys, but he has nothing to say about the economy except hints of support for a Trumpian economic nationalism.
Why on earth does Wilson think that Milo should be any sort of economist?
In another hackneyed move, Yiannopoulos posits the “Working class” not as a product of structural economic inequality but as another kind of political identity, one that expresses itself in salty language and low-level sexual harassment.
Here I can’t honestly do better than recommend the Why people love Trump piece I previously linked to because it looks at the subject free from Wilson’s arrogant disdain for Milo and his audience.
This is the kind of caricature you can only believe in if you don’t actually know that many working-class people. Like every other right wing hack, Milo absolutely depends on the angst of wounded identity, and its quest for an alternative victimhood.
I am rather fond of arguing for a certain generosity when you discuss politics, that sort of generosity would have prevented Wilson’s unshakable urge to demonize anyone who is snot singing from the progressive play book as he does here. The thing that Wilson seems to miss entirely here is that its not about seeking “victimhood” at all its about saying instead that the labels and characterizations of the SJW narrative are nonsense, broken and or wrong.
The working class he spins fantasies about are exclusively white, because like every right wing hack, his principal concern is activating white male resentment. This rhetoric was developed precisely to divide the working class, and to keep them in their place.
The problem for Wilson here is that Milo is not working from the Marxist lens that he himself see’s the world through. No is it about something as negative as activation of anyone’s resentment. Its all about saying that we are all individuals rather than just being elements in one group identity or another, its the classic libertarian positions that Milo is drawing on here, ones that value individual enterprise and self reliance. Sadly for a Marxist like Wilson this is just incomprehensible.
At one point Yiannopoulos offers something of a credo: “The only way to respond to outrage culture is to be outrageous”. It’s handy because it’s a good cover story for pursuing his real goal, which is no more or less than the getting of attention.
Milo makes no secret of his love of social provocation and were he of the left rather than the right I am rather sure that Wilson would find this behavior to be praise worthy because like a lot of lefties he thinks that social transgression belongs to his side of politics
But Milo Yiannopoulos is not outrageous, nor is he of himself especially dangerous. He’s just a wanker. When the Trump wave recedes, he may in time be regarded, along with the rest of the flotsam it deposited, as a curiosity. More likely, he’ll return to the mean and become one more right wing talking head in a perennially shallow talent pool.
Wilson is particularly humorless when it comes to anyone not from his own left wing tribe and here is a perfect example of his lack political generosity that puts him very much into the authoritarian left. Its obvious to anyone else that the title of Milo’s “Dangerous Faggot” tour is meant to be ironic and trangressive to the SJW tropes about the use of language as with the word “queer” Milo seeks to reclaim the word “faggot” here by taking what was a term of derision and making it something positive
The ideas he promotes are damaging, of course. He talks a lot about “the public square”, but the fruit borne of his adolescent attacks on feminism are likely to play out in more private spaces, where the most important negotiations about sex, consent, and equality happen.
But its not all of feminism that Milo rails against its just the man hating third wave feminism that has blossomed in contentment universities over the last couple of decades that actively seeks out offense and it is that brand of feminism that Milo describes as Cancer
God help the woman whose partner is a Milo fan. At the very best, she’ll have to listen to this horseshit on a loop. At worst, she’ll be living with someone who has the tools to rationalise selfishness, abuse, and even sexual assault.
Pardon me? Is Wilson really suggesting that being a Milo fan is tantamount to being a wife beater? a rapist even? How shallow is Wilson?
What’s perhaps not considered often enough how much damage this nonsense does to those men who take it seriously. For one thing, it allows them to put off the day on which they grow up, and realise that the women who won’t sleep with them aren’t persecuting them, but making the kinds of choices characteristic of autonomous human beings.
No Jason that is utter nonsense. Men who “listen” to the argument against the SJW tropes do not become monsters and its not at all about disaffection because these men can’t get laid. In fact there is no evidence at all that those on the right are any less successful at finding sexual partners than Wilson’s fellow lefties. Nor is he correct to assume that those men on the libertarian right don’t see women as anything less that fully autonomous individuals just like themselves That he thinks otherwise is actually a sad artifact of his own collectivist thinking.
So as derivative as this whole enterprise is, it may cause problems. What’s to be done?
DePaul’s progressives had one strategy – protest – which I do not plan to gainsay. That’s a decision for local activists to make based on what’s happening on their campus.
So left wing “protest goo”d in Wilson’s mind
There’s been more than enough hippie-punching in recent months directed at those who protest at public events that attract the far right, and I don’t propose to add to it. Protesting serves many purposes: publicly articulating common positions, building comradeship, and making claims or counter-claims on public space. There should be more of it.
Unless of course its anti SJW protest, then its bad and should be confronted.. Hmm OK
It’s true, though, that on those occasions like the night in Eugene, where he is not met by protesters, Milo seems forlorn. His schtick goes limp; he’s revealed as a one-trick pony.
When a young man, identifying himself as a feminist, spoke up against him, Milo whisked him onto the stage for an extended chat. Briefly, the evening was enlivened, though no one was enlightened, because Milo doesn’t argue in good faith. But he knows that the audience comes for the fireworks.
This bit of Wilson’s piece shows just how little this left wing warrior respects the core value of democracy which revolves around a robust exchange of ideas. That Milo is willing to engage with and debate his opponents is not just “schtick ” its an example of his confidence in his argument. Nor is it ever the case that democratic discussions ore as one dimensional as Wilson implies here. There is simply nothing wrong or awry for a polemicist to make their events entertaining with a little bit of drama. Wilson needs to lighten up a great deal.
Absent opposition, it’s harder to convince supporters that he’s bravely overturning PC shibboleths and taking it to the SJWs.
Not in the age of social media it isn’t even if the event at Portland was lacking in “fireworks” ( it has been the exception rather than the rule for the “Dangerous faggot tour”) all that it shows is that the SJWs there are rather less bolshie than at other universities on the itinerary
Perhaps the decision by students at the University of California, Irvine, to offer a counter-event to Milo’s visit offers a promising way to deal with this nuisance.
When it comes to the right, “ignore them and they’ll go away” is generally bad advice, but skipping the Milo show, and using it as to build something positive sounds like something that could also build the left ahead of the Summer of Trump.
Thus Wilson ends with whimper here rather than a roar but that is hardly surprising given that Wilson has done nothing but give us an an extended ad hominiem attack on both Milo Yiannopoulos and the young Trump supporters who have been finding the Gay man so engaging. To Wilson they are just the class enemy rather than men and women who have as much right as his fellow lefties to be involved with the issues and debates about their society. In fact Wilson’s piece is an almost perfect example of why Donald Trump is more than likely to be elected President. What we are seeing here is a whole movement of young people who are refusing to see that the SJW emperor is wearing a fine well tailored set of threads. They are trusting their senses and they are daring to speak the truth about the regressive left’s saggy arse that is in the breeze on so many issues, Things like the Myth of “rape culture” and other third wave feminist tropes are being seen clearly and actively denounced, Likewise the willful blindness about the ideology of Islam that I have found Wilson himself guilty of is something that more and more people are no long willing to accept, especially after the horrendous slaughter at the Pulse night club. Finally though I just want to say that this essay is not intended to be any sort of personal attack on Wilson himself I have brought this humble blog out of its hiatus in part because I want to demonstrate to Jason Wilson that I have read and understood his piece but mainly I wanted to substantiate my suggestion to him on twitter that the “Why people love Trump” is a far better piece of journalism than the missive I have been considering here.
Guardian comments 16-6-2016
uptherecrazies
For anyone without blinkers on the transition is already happening and it is being lead by a globalised market keen to continue making profits.
Yeah but most of that is hype led by spivs
There are no profits to be made on an exhausted planet too toxic to carry a consuming population.
To paraphrase a well worn adage, reports of the planet’s death are both premature and over sold
VenetianBlind
The unavoidable truth here is that the only way that humanity will stop using fossil fuels is when alternative technologies actually do the same job both cheaper and better
Renewable would be cheaper than coal fired energy where I live but the locals reject it because they read this sort of thing. The main problem is mindset, not costs. The costs for, again where I live, insurance for eg has skyrocketed. The cost of no action will hurt Australia far more than renewables. Already started.
Until there is a viable and cost effective way to store energy form “renewables” there will be no alternative to coal for our electricity. Your claim that its all about the mindset is utter nonsense as is the cost of “no action” claim you make here.
For a thing to be a crime it actually has to be against the law, using fossil fuels is simply not against any law, ergo its no crime
No matter how many time the Guardian publishes stories like this one we all know that the chances of this happening are so low that continued calls for such things are utterly pointless. What this article boils down to is a rather futile example of climate virtue signalling. The unavoidable truth here is that the only way that humanity will stop using fossil fuels is when alternative technologies actually do the same job both cheaper and better. Until then no amount of whining is going to make the slightest bit of difference.
SimonEsposito
I should say that I accept the bipartisan policy, even to the point of believing that this government’s ONE achievement in its whole three years was Scott Morrison’s management of the boat turnback policy.
They have had other policy successes
Specifically that, though. The management of Manus and Nauru, and the failure to achieve honorable resettlement outside Australia, is a stain on the national character.
Those in detention there have been given a rather perverse incentive to keep playing “blink” with the government by open borders activist who give them false hope that they may eventually be allowed to come into the Australian mainland that is why they don’t do the sensible thing and accept any resettlement option offered to them.The key to the policy was that Manus and Nauru and Christmas Island should
serve a short-term purpose – offshore processing. There seems to have been no interest in the most difficult part, regaining the trust of the countries that we have to partner with to resettle the legitimate refugees (and that includes Malaysia, Canada, and New Zealand). Abbott and now Turnbull and Dutton (and Joyce) can’t shut up with their offensive and reckless comments long enough to give Julie Bishop any clear air. (And was she ever even interested?) Bribing small countries, as Jeff Sparrow shows in this article, is not an honorable solution (nor a solution of any kind).
Yadda yadda yadda teh fact that the number of the detained cohort has not been increasing, so once this cohort have been encouraged to either accept what can be offered by way of resettlement or reparation the problem will be solved because there are no more boat people coming to replace them.
It’s probably reached the stage where any foreign minister who could pull it off would merit a Nobel prize or something (or the prime-ministership). But I can’t see it happening without the reset of a change of government.
Nah if the Labor party get back into office the problem would be quickly made worse because the people smugglers know how weak they are on this issue, especially if the ALP dog is being wagged by a Green tail as it was under the Rudd Gillard Rudd years.
The amount of private debt may well be some what illusory because it is bound to include the debt that those like yours truly carry each month because we pay for everything on our credit cards and then pay it off in full before the due date at the end of the month.
cookie2255
Fact – The Coalition will spend less on hospitals!!!! Education, NBN, Climate Change and anything that really matters to everyday people.
Its not the amount of money that is spent that matters as much as how big the bang for the buck spent is and on that the ALP record is utterly woeful. On top of that the ALP is simply running up too much debt on their “spendometer”
Walsunda
Religious zeal combined with hatred is a most pernicious thing.
Agreed, which is why I constantly question the apologia for Islam that so many from the left engage in .
The recently deported visiting British cleric shared your views re not hating homosexual people but still claimed it was OK to put them to death for displaying their sexuality.
I share NO views with that man I simply do not believe that there is anything “wrong” with being homosexual He believes that it is Hiram and that its “compassionate” to kill gay people.
As you said “The religious zeal displayed by Warministas is greater than I have seen from many Born Again Christians”, I don’t even know what a Warminista is or what their relevance is to a discussion on science.
Don’t feign ignorance Wal, you are better than that! I’m sure that you realize that “Warminista” is a sarcastic way of describing a climate change true believer that also includes a hat tip to the association with Marxism.
I met a born again Christian about this time of year over ten years ago while while walking to the bus about 4.00 pm. I was feeling very happy as I was on my way to collect second prize in a pub trivial pursuit competition – free food and drink for a nights viewing of the State of Origin.
We talked as we walked up the hill about my work and the joy of preventing disease. He told me I’d go to heaven as I boarded the bus at the end of one of those beautiful Brisbane “winter” days. I told him we were already there.
Agree with you about this place being “heaven” its a bit cold here on my mountain today but I’m sure that a hearty breakfast will easily make that endurable.
In response to photographofgeorge
photographofgeorge
I suggest you update your reading to the works and opinions of right wing politicians like George Christiensen and Cory Bernardi just to see how much animosity is reflected towards homosexual people even from our politicians.
I suppose you are one of those who think that opposing Gay marriage as the guys you cite above do means that they hate homosexuals. It doesn’t
If not in direct quotes, but in actions as well. Both Christians too. Homosexuals still face brutality in this country and it is frequently not from Muslims.
Really when was the last example of anyone in Australia killing anyone because they are gay? Heck we don’t even have the bashings of gay men (just because of their sexuality) that were common when I was a young man. You are delusional if you think that our attitude to homosexuals is as murderous as it is in places like Iran or any other Muslim country.
For your information the Catholic Church does not condone homosexual acts either, nor do many other religious organisations.
So what? They certainly don’t condone killing them either unlike so many Muslims do.
The point I make is that because a person like Manteen is said to be a Muslim, yet with no apparent links to ISIS, he should not be used to tar all Muslims with the same brush.
To become a Muslim all any one has to do is make the declaration of faith and I’m sure that all it takes to join ISIS is to declare your allegiance, Manteen has done both.
I directed someone to a page in the Guardian that tells another story beyond the Trump-style, Pauline Hanson-style interpretation. There have been frequent mass killings with automatic weapons in the US, none of which involved Muslims in the least.
I will give you one minor concession here by accepting that most of these nutters do have various motives for the things that they do. But I simply will not accept your implication that we should ignore the religious motives that are clear from this man’s actions
The main problem seems to be the easy access and availability with little scrutiny to military grade weapons that can cause enormous damage.
No that is nonsense, admittedly the USA has been awash with guns for the last century however as with Paris and Belgium it is the ideology of Islam that has obviously motivated both the targets and the timing of this atrocity.
But even then, Timothy McVeigh the ‘Oklahoma bomber’ for example, a decorated soldier returning from the first Gulf War, was responsible for the much greater amount of death: 168 people and over 600 injured.
Yep and I bet you would have been right up there objecting to his well deserved execution
He used a massive ammonium nitrate bomb not even bothering with a gun.
Something he would not be able to do today
Now silently considered a terrorist, you won’t see his case be used to tar all Christians with the same brush even though he was a Roman Catholic. We do not also blame Batman and all Batman fans for the gunning down of the audience in a movie theatre in the US because James Holmes saw himself as the Joker, to the point of making himself up to resemble the character in a motion picture.
Yadda yadda yadda
Most of these people including Manteen had mental health problems on a grand scale.
You see its only you who is suggesting that “all Muslims” are the problem I am questioning the ideology that motivates the Jihadists, I am citing the unrelenting misogyny of that ideology and its overt and unapologetic homophobia and no amount of your false equivalence with other far more benign religions is going to make the ideology of Islam less pernicious
In response to photographofgeorge
To go on about the guy being homosexual does not negate the fact that he both swore allegiance to ISIS and he was a a Muslim. Heaven in a hand basket what do you lefties have so much trouble simply admitting that Islam is the single most homophobic religion on the planet?
When polled about 80% of Muslims say that homosexuality should be against the law and that 11 Muslim countir4es have a death penalty for homosexuality.
In fact the most recent reports suggests that he was full of self loathing because he was a homosexual Muslim.
In response to Petunia Winegum
Sadly Petunia I need to work on being less of a socialist just a bit harder
31 points LNP, 11 Labor, and shame to say 5 fro the greens
The problem with this survey is that it has too few questions
WombatsRamble
To be more accurate, I’d say “there’d be no more deaths then there are currently
with prescription drugs”.
Which is still quite a bit, as there’s always going to be people who think “one makes me feel better. If I take five of them I’ll feel five times better, no matter what my script says”. Instead they stop breathing
Actually I would say that the problem is is really more about peopel taking various drugs at the same time and there being serious issues as a conse
BJWard
In fact the name Ward is on my birth certificate and so are the initials BJ. I’m widely known by those initials. Having had an unfortunate past experience from broadcasting my first name in another forum, I’ve refrained from doing so in this one.
And I bet that you have been ribbed about calling yourself “BJ” many times in the past” and some friendly ribbing was all I was intending with may comment. Because you have to admit that your screen name does bring to mind a hospital room for those unfortunate blokes who could not convince their lovers to be careful with their teeth.
To the rest, I’ll just say that we have probably already spent more on Turnbull’s 60th-rate lash-up than the original proposal would have cost. Not that the cost argument holds water, really. The taxpayer wasn’t going to be asked to pay for it.
I’m pretty sure that you are wrong about that. And who do you think has both put up the money and more importantly wears the financial risks of this project? The good old Aussie Tax payer that’s who.
BJWard
Can’t resist the ad hominem, can you? It is my name, however.
I very much doubt that the name “BJWard” appears on your birth certificate, thta said I only mentioned it because your screen-name does have some amusing allusions some of which are a little but unfortunate.
Why should the government have to make a “business case” for building vital infrastructure?
Because its too much money to work on some sort of vague hope that it will be affordable for the nation.
It’s self-evident, I would have thought, that if you’re going to build infrastructure, you do it using the most effective available materials and methods.
History teaches us that every time a government buys into a form of technology it ends up being superseded by something else. My brother has wireless internet in his small town that is pretty good and it suggets to me that wireless may well be Bette than fiber to the home
In the case of a modern communications system, that is by using fibre to the premises.
maybe . maybe not
What you are obliquely advocating, however, is the 21st century equivalent of the proposal to make all Australia’s telephone lines out of iron wire, because it was cheaper. Certain politicians 100 years or so actually tried to make that case, but were overruled by the more farsighted. Pity we didn’t have a few more such visionary people around to put Mr. Abbott back in his box when he first advocated the destruction of this project.
No what I’m saying is those who want Champagne and caviar are being unrealistic ion the expectations for a country the size of our own when its population is a s small as it is.
No my unfortunately named friend. It was Labor who promised everyone a champagne and caviar NBN when they could not make the business case even for the MacDonald’s version.
The thing is I already have a car powered by the Toyota engine form the same period BP and it serves me quite well. Which is kinda may point . Just ebciuase something is an old design don’t kid yourself that it can’t do the job just as well as a “modern” product.
Oh how can your forget who over promised and under delivered on the NBN in the first instance?
The 120 Y was and remains a damn good car with nice simple engine that almost literally runs forever, If the NBN can achieve that sort of sterling service it will serve us well enough,
Its not stupid at all to redirect said money to help the reef, what else would it be spent on?
And Labor’s scheme would have given us a worse result and bankrupted the country in the process, You may need fast internet to announce your bowel movements via social media But grown ups know that not everyone wants a Champagne and caviar NBN we will do quite well enough on a meat and potatoes version that we get sooner.
RonJB
Apparently even you don’t read what you wrote.
whay do you think that?
Or you prefer going straight to abusive comments, when you know you’ve been called out on your usual bullsh!t. I do hope you’re getting a good wage for all the partisan crap you write.
No my friend, what I do here I do for a love of the truth and a desire to bring light into this darkness…
Mark Harrison
Well considering we are talking about networking, well yes; it is, you know, kind of important to have some idea what you are talking about before offering an opinion.
I do have some idea as it happens
While wireless may well be an option for a micro-village (a pub, post office, garage and two houses) anyone with any-freaking-idea-whatsoever knows that this technology does not scale.
Well the town my brother lives in has quite few more than that, even though it does not even have a pub and the service is a great improvement over the satellite service they had before.
Seriously, go back to making whirligigs!
Actually at present I’m making foot-bikes
Walsunda
Most Australians live in the coastal strip between Melbourne and Brisbane.
That still does not make any difference to the problem of distance
Walsunda
“Labor have always thought with suburban minds”.
Though living in Queensland you are unaware that the world’s first Labor Party formed in Barcaldine in the state’s central west. Some foreigners never seem to integrate.
I have actually been there Wal sat under the famous tree and all, even so they stopped having any rural sensibilities at least 70 years ago.
Australia is the most suburban society in the world at present as rural and far western areas shed population for reasons to do with restructuring of the rural economy and despite increased urban lifestyle in the major population centres.
Sure I understand that, much of it was due to mechanization
So most people live in the suburbs and in a democracy elections are decided by most people or the majority. You need to get used to democracy now you live here.
I am more than used to democracy and I have been voting for as long as I have been legally entitled to do so.
RonJB
But by your own logic, it is wasteful to built phone lines, electricity lines and roads in this spread out wide brown land as well.
You must have failed basic geography and economics.
Mark Harrison
Tell that to my neighbor who can’t even get ADSL The problem is not service to the cities its service to the rural parts of the country\
Actually, you’re wrong there too (shocking, I know). Many suburban (even inner city suburbs) cannot get ADSL connections either. Or if they can, ADSL1 only. Greenslopes in Brisbane is but one example I know of.
My guess would be that there has been a pause on creating new adsl capability with the expectation that the NBN would be rolled out instead. More to the point if you live in Greenslopes you will still get the better broadband before any one in the country simply because they get more customers for the service per dollar invested. I’d also expect that with Labor’s shambolic record on the NBN before they lost office in 2013 that things would be worse had they continued to control the project.
As for rural areas, the copper infrastructure will be so degraded, the only realistic options would be fibre or replacing copper to put in a node. It is just too absurd to contemplate but that is what the NBN police in LNP central have dictated you will have.
On the contrary my brother lives in a small Queensland country town and what they have just had turned on is a town wide wireless service that gives him extremely good internet that is fast and offers substantial band width. This is clearly a technology that works and is more cost effective tech than running fiber to every house in that town.
If getting a reasonable NBN solution is important to you, voting conservative is voting against your interests.
The thing that you don’t seem to appreciate is that for lots of people having a Rolls Royce internet is a nice idea and something that they would want but they also understand (in a way that you tech obsessed latte sippers don’t) that the internet is not the be all and end all or something that will decide our vote. Both sides make grand promises for the NBN but the Coalition have a small edge on their ability to deliver.
Mark Harrison
as a maker of various things
“Maker” of what? Whirligigs? You obviously have no idea about networking from your comments.
I haven’t made any Whirligigs recently but if that was what you wanted I could do it. That said though you are mistaken in thinking that “networking” is the be all and end all of the modern world.
Mark Harrison
You do not understand the technology, at all.
On the contrary, as a maker of various things I understand it rather well.
aquaPura
A Ford, no problem, a model T Ford definitely.
The model T is was and remains a great example of providing adequate and affordable way of getting around the place. Frankly if the NBN under the coalitions can do as well then it will be a good day for the country.
In response to Gregory Shearman
Tell that to my neighbor who can’t even get ADSL The problem is not service to the cities its service to the rural parts of the country and we rural dwellers will be better off under the coalition scheme because we will get an improved service sooner than we would under Labor’s Rolls Royce fantasy that would always be just a little bit out of reach.
parsivalmontde
Wrong there buddy. I live in outer Melbourne. No where near the inner city.
Yet you tell us that you can get fiber to you home and you are still whining? Mate you may live in the outer burbs but you still don’t understand geography at all!
See my response to Hotspringer
Bet that you have never got out of your latte sipping inner city ghetto in all of your short life.
Hotspringer
New Zealand could do it, but even their right wingers aren’t as stupid as ours.
New Zealand has a Land area of 268,021 km² but Austrlaia has 7.692 million km² so which do you think would be easier to hook up to an NBN?
Come on you must be able to do the very simple calculations here.
Labor have always though with suburban minds and as such they simply have NEVER truly understood just how spread out the Australian people are over the wide brown land . I live on the fringes of the Brisbane area and there has never been any likely hood that I will be able to get a better broadband service and my neighbor can’t even get the ADSL service I enjoy because there are not enough “ports” at the exchange. NBN???? not likely for years here and its not hard to understand why, my road has only one house other than my own and that means that just the cost of running Labor FTTH would never be recovered by the subscription even if my neighbor and I both wanted the highest possible speed from the top plan, but most people who have been using the net fro a while settle for something less that the highest speed an the biggest bandwidth which means less revenue that Labor has ever modeled. The bottom line here is that we are a continent of what? 23million people? and if we were all closely packed like countries physically smaller with the same population the Labor scheme might just be possible but that is not us so all of those dreaming of the promised Rolls Royce solution maybe you need to have a more realistic aspiration for something in the Ford line up instead.
Follow the Link Wal I posted that comment there because the original thread was closed down.
Walsunda
“Because the biggest emitters like China and India” (for the moment ignoring the second biggest emitter) “are expected to increase their emissions rather than reduce them over the next few years and if there is any meaningful reductions then its going to take many decades to makes it happen”.
Just because something will take many decades to happen doesn’t mean you should not set out to do it. Especially when the outcome is so advantageous.
You are of course ignoring the dire warnings that unless the global emissions are drastically reduced immediately then things like the GBR are doomed. So don’t you see the gap between what you imply is the best case scenario (above) and what you have been told is necessary to “save the planet”????”doesn’t your liturgy tell us that we have to be reducing” net CO2 “emissions like yesterday?”
I have no liturgy. Because of your religious delusions by proxy syndrome you are projecting your religious delusions onto me a practical scientist who is sufficiently in touch with reality to know we can’t do anything about yesterday except learn from it and that what is important from this point in time on is what we do now and in the decades to come.
You certainly do have a liturgy and you also know I was being sarcastic about doing it “yesterday” to point out the urgency in your own emissions reduction mantra”It is simply not going to happen as your claimed cure says it must happen if we are to avert climate disaster?”
By it do you mean global net CO2 emissions reduction? What do you mean by my claimed cure? Do you mean curing global warming caused by the increase in global net CO2 emissions
by reducing net CO2 emissions? But if that’s the case you’re saying that reducing global net CO2 emissions is simply not going to happen as my claimed cure of reducing global net emissions says it must happen if we are to avert climate disaster, which doesn’t make sense.
I’ll lay it out in easy to understand steps:
AGW theory tells us that we have to reduce CO2 emissions
Global emissions are expected to continue to rise without any global reduction expected in the foreseeable future
Advocates like you keep saying that we are all doomed unless Australia on its own decides to reduce its statistically insignificant contributing to global emissions.
I say that the probability that there will be enough reduction in global emissions at any time time in the next thirty years (at least) to have any effect on the climate is so low as to be unmeasurable. therefore anything we do to reduce our emissions is at best an act piety and faith because there will never be any positive consequences for our action no matter how extensive it may be in our national terms.
Walsunda
“Unless that” (every person does their own experiments to independently verify every scientific discovery which would present time management problems) “is the case then you have to be basing your acceptance of ” (what science finds out) “on some sort of belief, faith even , in the work of others.”
You’re creating a false dichotomy for yourself here. Let us look at the terms you use and how they apply to this situation and the situation within religions.
No dichotomy at all as far as I’m concerned.
Belief has two meanings.
The first is an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof. We know through experience that the work of others exists so we have proof of its existence. So belief in the work of others does not fit this meaning of the word belief.
Wal with the greatest of respect you don’t get exactly how these essentially philosophical questions work. You simply can not argue as you do in in the bold above that we can know something “from experience” without acknowledging that such “knowledge” is in fact one belief and you expectation that something is proven is another. Your knowledge or understanding of any thing in the universe is built on, in the first instance, our senses through which we perceive the universe, and secondly through the intellectual constrictions through which we try to understand the world we inhabit and as we can not do every basic observation and experiment we accept the claims of others who have done the experiments and who have made the observations and mostly we do so without replicating those observations and experiments. That my friend requires an act of faith.
Secondly belief means trust, faith or confidence in someone or something. When I order a new shirt on line I trust that it be delivered. This trust is based on experience that the work of the courier exists and is true in finding my front door. Trust is probably a better word in this context as it avoids the semantic confusion that you are demonstrating.
But what do you trust those in the AGW industry above other voices about the climate? They have not actually delivered anything as substantive as the shirts in your example above, all they have delivered is a great deal of dodgy predictions and much doom-saying.
Faith also has two meanings.
The first is complete trust or confidence in someone or something. My trust in the online sales system and the delivery bloke is probably not complete but so far experience has shown that it works.
And you also have an almost unshakable faith in the talk of the AGW doomsayers even though their delivery record is a great deal less impressive than online shirt salesmen.
The second meaning of faith is defined as a strong belief in the doctrines of a religion. You can’t use this definition of belief to establish that the belief signifies religion without falling into a circular logic trap.
Utter rubbish!
Faith is simply a strong belief in something that can not be proven and as the AGW proposition can not actually be proven it can only be claimed and that means that to believe in AGW you have to rely on your belief in the arguments made for it and have faith that is proponents are correct.
So your contention that acceptance of what science discovers based on belief and/or faith in the work of others means that trusting the work of others based on experience is a form of religion is both as ridiculous as it sounds and is based on semantic confusion on your part.
No semantic confusion at all on my side here Wal, That said the religious zeal expressed by so many Warministas is greater than I have seen from many Born Again Christians .To communicate meaning other than rhetoric you need to concentrate closely on the meanings of the words you use. I do understand why this may be difficult for you.
Walsunda
Note when I talked about reducing net CO2 emissions above, I was not talking about just Australia reducing our net CO2 emissions. If we (all the people in the world) all reduce our net CO2 emissions with such measures as a price on net carbon emissions plus many other effective measures, we can in time make a difference to the concentration of atmospheric CO2 and and slow its current rate of increase in the more immediate future.
“the cure simply cannot work because at a global level it cannot be made to happen.”
Why not?
Because the biggest players like China and India are expected to increase their emissions rather than reduce them over the next few years and if there is to be any meaningful global reductions then its going to take many decades to make it happen if it happens at all and doesn’t your liturgy tell us that we have to be reducing emissions like yesterday? It is simply not going to happen as your claimed cure says that it must happen if we are to avert climate disaster.
Walsunda
When I say that “No religion is involved in the reality of the current global warming”; you say ” On the contrary if you look at how religion is defined it is very easy to fit the belief in AGW” (anthropogenic global warming) “into said definition”. However as anthropogenic global warming is a reality their is no belief involved. As the belief you are talking about does not exist you are talking about nothing. I can’t discuss something which does not exist with you. All your talk about belief is meaningless as science is based on evidence not belief.
So are you telling to me that you and every other person who has taken the AGW proposition on board as a truth has personally made the empirical measurements and done the necessary experiments to substantiate the AG#W theory? Unless that is the case then you have to be basing your acceptance on some sort of belief, faith even, in the work of others.
“I ask again what do you think we” (the people of Australia) “can do about it” (global warming due to net carbon dioxide emissions) “and please don’t say ‘reduce’ (net carbon dioxide) ’emissions’ ”.
Why when the problem has been caused by net carbon dioxide emissions do you plea with me not to say reduce net carbon dioxide emissions?
“because even if we” (the people of Australia) “were to become the worlds greatest” (carbon dioxide) “emissions reducers on a per capita basis it would not be enough”.
It would not be enough to do what?
According to the AGW liturgy the entire planet needs to make VERY big reductions in CO2 emissions and as such reducing our less than two percent of global emissions, even to zero is never going to be enough to make any kind of difference, it certainly will not be enough to avert the disaster predicted by your Profits
What profits are you talking about when you say “according to your profits would it?”
They are the spokes people for the AGW industry who profit form its millinarian predictions.
Walsunda
Note: Iain has religious delusions.
The only religious delusion in play here is your denial that for so many who espouse the AGW orthodoxy do so because it is their religion.
Walsunda
People have survived in Barrier Reef waters for up to 36 hours after their boat sank though the attentions of Tiger sharks did pose a problem. They were luckier in this regard than the Titanic passengers.
36 hours is hardly that long and as long has you have fresh water you could survive that long quite easily.
The pragmatic and practical way to ameliorate and in the long run solve the current greenhouse warming is by reducing net CO2 as Australia achieved when it had a price on carbon. As with the practical management any problem all factors contributing to the problem must be address. It is most unpragmatic and impractical to ignore the major cause. You have to be level headed and realistic about these things.
You are simply kidding yourself if you think that IS putting a” price on carbon ” is going to save the reef. We could go to zero emissions tomorrow and it won’t make the slightest bit of difference to the global level of CO2. What you claim as the cure simply can not work because at a global level it can not be made to happen.
Walsunda
Firstly I responded to your last missive at my blog
No religion involved in the reality of the current global warming and the contribution everyone makes to the net CO2 emission that cause it. Australians contribute like everyone else and on a per capita basis contribute more than the most, hence have a responsibility to to take effective and pragmatic measures to reduce their net carbon.
On the contrary if you look to how religion is defined it is very easy to fit the belief in AGW into said definition:
religion
rɪˈlɪdʒ(ə)n/
noun
noun: religionthe belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.
“ideas about the relationship between science and religion”
synonyms: faith, belief, divinity, worship, creed, teaching, doctrine, theology; More
sect, cult, religious group, faith community, church, denomination, body, following, persuasion, affiliation
“the right to freedom of religion”
a particular system of faith and worship.
plural noun: religions
“the world’s great religions”
a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion.
“consumerism is the new religion”
The definintions in bold all fit the AGW belief quite well especially when you add in the rather common “the end is nigh” doom-saying.
The Queensland state governments in the last seven years have run programs to protect the water quality of the southern two thirds of the reef from agricultural runoff and are planning further expansion of these regulations.
Well that is a good thing right?
These would have had little effect on the northern one third of the reef where the worst of this year’s bleaching occurred as there is not a great deal of agriculture north of Mossman.
So what could be done that night have any measurable effect within our lifetimes?
Even in the southern two thirds of the reef global warming and climate change; in the form of higher sea surface temperatures, greater extremes between drought and flood, plus increased incidence of extreme El Nino events; has a far greater effect on the reef both directly as well as exacerbating the runoff pollution problems. Ignoring the major problem is far from pragmatic.
I ask again just what do you thing we can do about it and please don’t say “reduce emissions” because even if we were to become the worlds greatest emissions reducers on a per capita basis it wouldn’t not be enough according to your Profits now would it?
kantonysen
What we are seeing now is what denier Agencies such as Heartlands, ALEC and IPA
have achieved. Stuffing up many coral reefs around Earth, creating temperatures difficult to withstand, causing damage to Earth’s air conditioner … the cryosphere.
They have achieved these matters; and more, by holding up adaptive and mitigation responses.
That is ridiculousness incarnate! Those on your side of the argument have out spent all of those institutions by many orders of magnitude so don’t blame skepotics because your fellow Warministas have proven to be utterly impotent at getting their ideas the intellectual hegemony you desire.
Scientists from ExxnMobil anticipated climate change in the 1970s; yet, ExxonMobil financed denier groups. There is a paper trail showing what scientists were saying, and a paper trail indicating ExxonMobil was resourcing denier groups. Fact.
If an idea is both good and true then it will withstand any counter argument that your ideology is still contested says that its arguments are not as strong as you might try to claim
ExxonMobil is being investigated by a number of Attorney Generals at present. Investigations had begun with the Attorney General of New York State. Fact.
So what?
A number of US papers have commented on this, as has the Union of Concerned Scientists.
So what?
RicardoK
Straw man, Iain.
No its simply the factual truth
Awesome water quality didn’t help the northern GBR this year.
The reason to focus on Water quality is not ever going to change the high water temperatures however it is the aspect of the problem that we can clearly make a difference to
The southern GBR was saved by a fluke pulse of cold, turbid water associated with ex-cyclone Winston.
So lets hear what you would suggest that we do to solve the problem, Just make sure that what you suggest can actuality make a measurable difference because the usual whining about our coal mining is no answer.
This policy is repainting the deckchairs on the Titanic.
Actually, to go with your Titanic metaphor its more like providing a few more lifeboats that will help save some of the passengers.
RicardoK
the government clearly has a most pragmatic approach to this problem, unlike you worshipers of the Green religion. We can have a real effect on water quality issues but even if we were to shut down our entire economy we can have no effect on global emissions, in fact Air travel produces more emissions than we do globally so grounding all jet aircraft globally would do a lot more for the global equation that this country ever could.
LorrieBelling
Why do liberal commentators always use juvenile language “spendometer” are we in primary school Ian?
Because Bill Shorten used the term himself and its actually such a gift to those opposed to Labor
Restoring all the savage cuts made by LNP is an honourable thing to do and is coming out of the $50 billion that Labor will not be spending on Corporate Tax Cuts to business which is not a priority at this point in time.
How precisely is it honorable to spend money that they do not have and to have absolutely no plan to pay off the national credit cards?
GrumpyOldDog
Where’s the money for those subs and corporate tax cuts coming from?
Not the issue here
And where does the money come to pay for negative gearing, middle class welfare, subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, running the Border Protection Force and the offshore gulags.
None of which is at issue here
If I hear one more time that inane comment about ‘where is the money coming from’ I will press the Report button. You guys have absolutely no idea about anything.
Citing Labor’s Shortencommings is not agianst the community standards here
You are a complete waste of space, oxygen, water, food and time!
None of which is the issue here either, just think mine might be the very vote that tips the balance against Labor….
Doncharles
No from Turnbull’s $50 Billion magic pudding!
I believe that this is worth repeating again:The thing about that magic figure is that even if we take labor at its word those so revenues largely occur outside the forward estimates but labor’s spend occurs almost immediately within the forward estimates! Labor have done a good job of deception with this claim and you have totally fallen for it!
Doncharles
No from Turnbull’s $50 Billion magic pudding!
I believe that this is worth repeating:The thing about that magic figure is that even if we take labor at its word those so revenues largely occur outside the forward estimates but labor’s spend occurs almost immediately within the forward estimates! Labor have done a good job of deception with this claim and you have totally fallen for it!
In response to mallorywasfirst
mallorywasfirst
It’s coming from the 50billion pay rise the LNP has promised their corporate buddies.
The thing about that magic figure is that even if we take labor at its word those so revenues largely occur outside the forward estimates but labor’s spend occurs almost immediately within the forward estimates! Labor have done a good job of deception with this claim and you have totally fallen for it!
Where is the money coming from again? Oh that”s right its straight onto the “spendometer”
That is the classic bait and switch nonsense Labor supporters are famous for, because surely you would have to admit that in the end we do not have a bottomless wallet to pay for labor’s promises here and if that tax cut was cancelled Labor would still not have enough money to pay for all of their promises wracked up on Shorten’s spendometer now would we?
Ozponerised
Rubbish. Priorities.
Sure, but how about you give some priority to the truth rather than ALP propaganda?
In your quest to endorse the Labor party you ignore the sad but true fact that health spending is very much a “how long is a piece of string issue” where even if we were to spend the entirety of our GDP on health there would still be calls for more money. We simply have to live within our means in our health spending just as we do in every other aspect of government expenditure. Because if we don’t our economy will collapse and then there will be NOTHING to keep the health system afloat.
You are talking utter rubbish about the proposed tax cuts for business, beside the fact that they start off far more modestly in the forward estimates than your block capitals suggest. In your quest to endorse the Labor party you ignore the sad but true fact that health spending is very much a “how long is a piece of string issue” where even if we were to spend the entirety of our GDP on health there would still be calls for more money. We simply have to live within our means in our health spending just as we do in every other aspect of government expenditure. Because if we don’t our economy will collapse and then there will be NOTHING to keep the health system afloat.
Reply to Walsunda
Walsunda
The worlds oldest and longest continually operating scientific institution has been located for 40,000 years in a large limestone cave.
Really what institution would that be? more importantly how may the wisdom of said institution be accessed?
As for flying don’t forget it’s your total per capita emissions that count not how you rack them up.
No Wal its the global total that counts not your personal emissions
I’ve never had a frequent flier point in my life.
Well I can be sure that you have more air miles racked up than I do
Do you fly home to England to see family or do you regard that as hypocrisy.
I have never returned to the land of my birth and as I abhor the idea of air travel I am unlikely to ever do so.
You’re the one who erroneously talks about jet travel as a major source of net carbon emissions not me.
According to this site the global aviation produces about as much emissions as our national total (2% of the global total) so if you can be concerned about our national emmisons then surely you can not ignore a part of the equation that is at least equal in significance to Australia’s total emissions?
With respect to my exemption from your devout concepts you say “No as one of the climate anointed, a scientist no less, there is a very great moral obligation to not only talk the talk but also to walk the walk”.
While I may often feel anointed by the Brisbane climate, as a scientist I am exempt from your beliefs as belief plays no part in my analysis and enjoyment of life.
No, your claim to be “above mere belief (paraphrase)” is in fact a type of belief and an article of your own personal faith in “science”
We all share a great moral obligation to reduce our net carbon emissions (walk the walk in your well used metaphor) as I have already done without trying too hard; and to understand the science that explains global warming (talk the talk) as you so demonstrably have failed to do.
The thing that your limited “science” education lets you down because you simply can not legitimately divide the metaphor as you attempt to do here. The metaphor is all about being consistent in your words and deeds, and as a heretic I am under no obligation at all to know or understand your own revered texts or your own special liturgical mantras
That someone such has you, whose belief system and habits prevent them from understanding the science of climatology, global warming and climate change, can achieve low net carbon emissions demonstrates how easily such a goal can be achieved.
You see I have a “low carbon footprint” because I respect the value of energy efficiency because efficiency gives me the pay off of a happy hip pocket nerve, any effect that I may have on the global climate change equation is entirely incidental, more importantly it has nothing to do with your faith.
Rational analysis of both objective and subjective reality have combined to produce a good existential outcome.
Hmm that sentence is so full of contradictions I think that you need to study a bit more philosophy but as a prerequisite for that study I suggest you first consider the meanings of the words above that I have emboldened.
