- Fruity Gordo
- Aug 5, 2013
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Neurotic, Impotent Rage!
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This is completely half-cocked fantasy. Tirade said nothing of the sort. I will not turn these arseholes into 2D villains for the safety of my own self-righteousness, when I know drat well they carry around a set of half-examined justifications like every other idiot on the planet, and neither should you. Never be so afraid of a person that you need to unperson them, that's where they went wrong. Don't do the same.
I'm still in conference mode, this was basically the entire thrust of ACOSS' advice on how to approach advocacy about the budget. Every single person has a story, everyone has experienced or knows someone who has experienced serious disadvantage and those who aren't psychopaths have had no choice but to empathise with them. Like it's loving obvious as poo poo to someone like me who came into the industry young in this century that the best way to force people to empathise with the people you're advocating for is to either encourage them to tell their stories or, if they can't yet, ask them if you can tell their story. Then, after a few stories are heard, THEN you back it up with stats and ask the people you're petitioning how many similar stories they know of. When you depend entirely on stats you just encourage abstraction and you actually make it easier for people to use the kind of craven reductivism which prioritises economic growth over social justice.
I still think that this government is full of psychopaths, but they don't matter as much as the electorate. Only about 1% of people check the right amount of boxes on the psychopathy checklist. I loving hate Tories but I agree that it's not particularly useful to dehumanise them, since it means that absolutely nothing we do as advocates will work because we won't be advocating as if we're talking to and about other human beings.
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Jun 12, 2014 16:22
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- Adbot
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ADBOT LOVES YOU
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Jun 7, 2024 06:24
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- Fruity Gordo
- Aug 5, 2013
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Neurotic, Impotent Rage!
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FYI the post above is basically me at my most tolerant and it loving pisses me off that there's even a need for the kind of work most of us at that dumb conference do.
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Jun 12, 2014 16:29
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- ewe2
- Jul 1, 2009
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The only way you can reasonably make the claim that the liberals are not as villainish as cartoon characters at this point is if you make the claim that they possess a level of stupidity and incompetence that would never make it into a cartoon due to being far too unbelievable.
Dude, if you want to be just like them but differently, that's the way to go. Now you're just saying that anyone who doesn't see things in exactly your terms must be on their side, that's ridiculous. My argument here isn't about them or what they are or what they do. It's about how we are and how we go about opposing them. Don't throw away your principles because they did.
Look at this way, what happens if they win the next election? What will you really do then? What's the real likelihood of Labor rolling anything back substantially should they be returned to government? Are they not as cartoonish as the Libs by omission?
I won't be surprised if it gets worse before it gets better. I'm more worried that people will be so frustrated that they take 'kill you are self' literally, or storm Parliament or whatever and burn poo poo down. That's not a good result either. I'm sorry this world won't give you neat and tidy answers to problems, that's just how it is.
All I know to do is, present a positive idea, now matter how lame it is. You go in the way you are, they can oppose that. You've got to be the side people want to join. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
what a load of bollocks
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Jun 12, 2014 16:35
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- Gough Suppressant
- Nov 14, 2008
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I'd prefer it if you didn't project onto me small-l liberal values of non-violence and tolerance towards the intolerable thanks.
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Jun 12, 2014 16:47
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- DAAS Kapitalist
- Nov 9, 2005
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Jackass: The Mad Monk
Don't try this at home.
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Nothing will change with the Liberals while the Murdoch press continues to dominate Australia's media. When the Liberals can pick up the majority of the major newspapers in the country and see support for their cruel policies and support for the dehumanisation of their target groups it affirms their world view, normalises their radical positions and mentally shields them from other criticism. It will take two years of solid campaigning to get an alternative message out to ensure that the current polls carry through to the next election. The real problem is that Labor aren't up to the job.
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Jun 12, 2014 16:48
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- Fruity Gordo
- Aug 5, 2013
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Neurotic, Impotent Rage!
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Dude, if you want to be just like them but differently, that's the way to go. Now you're just saying that anyone who doesn't see things in exactly your terms must be on their side, that's ridiculous. My argument here isn't about them or what they are or what they do. It's about how we are and how we go about opposing them. Don't throw away your principles because they did.
Look at this way, what happens if they win the next election? What will you really do then? What's the real likelihood of Labor rolling anything back substantially should they be returned to government? Are they not as cartoonish as the Libs by omission?
I won't be surprised if it gets worse before it gets better. I'm more worried that people will be so frustrated that they take 'kill you are self' literally, or storm Parliament or whatever and burn poo poo down. That's not a good result either. I'm sorry this world won't give you neat and tidy answers to problems, that's just how it is.
All I know to do is, present a positive idea, now matter how lame it is. You go in the way you are, they can oppose that. You've got to be the side people want to join. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
These bits I bolded are really loving unfair and pretty bloody inaccurate, though. There's nothing unprincipled about lashing out in anger against people who do monstrous things and calling them monsters. You can do that when you don't have your advocate hat on. You can work professionally in community services and try to have constructive relationships with pieces of poo poo as an advocate, and then on the weekend get bashed up by the cops at an action. It's not inherently dehumanising to occasionally call people who do monstrous things monsters because we're not making public policy on the basis of our anger.
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Jun 12, 2014 16:49
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- ewe2
- Jul 1, 2009
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These bits I bolded are really loving unfair and pretty bloody inaccurate, though. There's nothing unprincipled about lashing out in anger against people who do monstrous things and calling them monsters. You can do that when you don't have your advocate hat on. You can work professionally in community services and try to have constructive relationships with pieces of poo poo as an advocate, and then on the weekend get bashed up by the cops at an action. It's not inherently dehumanising to occasionally call people who do monstrous things monsters because we're not making public policy on the basis of our anger.
I'm not against people being angry about it, I'm just not into becoming like them only with a different slogan, and I get the impression that's where a lot of this is going. Many people in this thread do make a positive difference, and my argument isn't with them. It's with those who think if only we overthrow the evil ones, things will be better. I don't think that happens, but I've already been told my responses aren't correct enough so I'm going to shutup.
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Jun 12, 2014 17:38
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- Kegslayer
- Jul 23, 2007
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Nothing will change with the Liberals while the Murdoch press continues to dominate Australia's media. When the Liberals can pick up the majority of the major newspapers in the country and see support for their cruel policies and support for the dehumanisation of their target groups it affirms their world view, normalises their radical positions and mentally shields them from other criticism. It will take two years of solid campaigning to get an alternative message out to ensure that the current polls carry through to the next election. The real problem is that Labor aren't up to the job.
I don't think Murdoch is to blame for our lovely government policies though. The government, be it Labor or Liberal pretty much govern by polls and focus groups. If your ordinary Australian gave half a poo poo about not torturing asylum seekers compared to say negative gearing or estate taxes then we'd have a completely different set of policies.
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Jun 12, 2014 18:53
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- Fruity Gordo
- Aug 5, 2013
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Neurotic, Impotent Rage!
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Oh right, I thought you were talking blanket dehumanisation, my bad. I get where you're coming from, LF and its offsite reincarnations I was involved in modding had a lot of people who had corporate jobs and did no volunteer work and refused to donate to charity because ~~ZIZEK~~ and were full of violent rhetoric. We got rid of them because they were just loving toxic.
I don't think MUYB's posting comes close to that poo poo though. His post that sparked this:
Okay there are a couple things going on here. Firstly you seem to be coming from the point of "how would you convince someone to your side of a policy debate" where as I coming from a "this is what I sincerely believe" point of view.
If you want to talk in terms of convincing, firstly I believe that you can not convince someone like Scott Morrison or tony Abbott because they already know the arguments and facts and choose to ignore them because it benefits them personally to do so. I actually 100% believe that senior liberal(and labor) party members are willingly sacrificing asylum seekers(and Australia given the cost to both our budget, international reputation and moral fibre as a nation) on the altar of personal ambition.
You mention understanding your enemy as being important. That is precisely the point. If you are attempting to convince the liberal party that their policies are unjust and immoral then you have already lost because they know and they don't care.
If you are talking about convincing other people then there's a couple of things at play. I don't state the arguments I would use elsewhere when posting because it's redundant as most people here are well informed as to the facts and don't swallow whatever news limited feeds them.
When engaging people elsewhere you basically have to use baby steps and repetition. I have after months managed to get my mum to accept the fact that the home insulation scheme didn't cause increased rates of fire.
There is the concept of the big lie, and that is what the proponents of refugee torture use. It basically goes that people are more credulous towards big fabrications than small ones because they assume no one would attempt to get away with them. This is reinforced by the fact that those lies are reinforced by the media on a daily basis either through active editorialising or simply broadcasting statements of lies by politicians. The only real way to get someone out of the big lie is to chip around the edges at it with small digestible pieces of fact until the whole drat thing crumbles away under their own inspection.
But don't for a minute think that the Liberals are misguided dogooders, they are actively and knowingly doing harm to great swathes of people for the selfish gain of themselves and their mates. They are the enemy and will be until they are dead in the ground(even longer given Reagan etc)
The reason MUYB mentioned the Big Lie is because the concept absolutely applies to basically everything this government has tried to do so far with it's reshuffling of departments, reallocation of discretionary departmental resources and now with the budget. Dog-whistle politics was invented by the Howard government, and this cabinet represents the worst of that government's legacy. I regard this government as my enemy and I don't understand why any defender of civil society wouldn't feel the same, tbh.
This thread isn't a discussion between advocates about how best to convince ignorant dickheads that they're being willfully mislead by psychopaths, and I don't think it should be. The only sloganeering I can see in auspol is 'kill yourself' and tbh I don't even have a problem with that anymore because it's just a meaner alternative to 'get hosed', and some people need a meaner alternative to 'get hosed'. quote:I'm just not into becoming like them only with a different slogan, and I get the impression that's where a lot of this is going.
TLDR: I know what you're concerned about and I agree to an extent, but I don't think you should be as concerned as I think you are and I think you're interpreting some people itt's radicalism as myopic when it's actually incredibly well-considered, but they just don't effortpost about it.
Fruity Gordo fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Jun 12, 2014
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Jun 12, 2014 19:15
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- DAAS Kapitalist
- Nov 9, 2005
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Jackass: The Mad Monk
Don't try this at home.
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If your ordinary Australian gave half a poo poo about not torturing asylum seekers compared to say negative gearing or estate taxes then we'd have a completely different set of policies.
Those attitudes will always be there, but it doesn't help when the media normalises them in editorial content, and when stories that might challenge them aren't reported, and when the media actively participates in spreading the Govermnent's lies, in the case of Lateline and the Aboriginal child abuse allegations from a few pages ago.
There used to be a difference between Australian media (even the Murdoch owned parts) and the tabloid rags in the UK and Fox News in the US, but that has completely disappeared, especially since the Gillard hung parliament. The Murdoch papers were always poo poo, but never as virulent as they are now. If you gave someone from 1994 a newspaper from today I think they'd be fairly shocked.
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Jun 12, 2014 19:30
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- Tirade
- Jul 17, 2001
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Cybertron must act decisively to prevent and oppose acts of genocide and violations of international robot rights law and to bring perpetrators before the Decepticon Justice Division
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Pillbug
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Sorry for not responding earlier - I've got somewhat limited access to the net and didn't wanna phone-post on a topic I find really important. Regarding your response a few pages back, fair cop about conflating the mindset of elected LNP members vs their supporters. You're right in that they're two separate issues. Even still, by your reckoning 98.6% of parliament (I'm assuming Bandt and Wilkie get a pass) are better thought of as Gargamels driven solely by their hatred of smurfiness than as people influenced to various degrees by their own personal beliefs, those of their party, those of their powerful friends, and those of their electorate.
(n.b. this position of giving agency to the LNP doesn't apply to Bernardi, Morrison and probably Brandis and Pyne).
So let's look at each of these and see where we can influence them. Changing their personal beliefs is difficult but not impossible. If you buy Kevin Rudd's story on his conversion on gay marriage, it went pretty much exactly as how Fruity just described the approach being pushed at ACOSS. A personal acquaintance told Kevin his own story about the pain he felt about not being able to marry his soulmate, which forced Kevin to face up to the fact that his personal view was half-formed and contradictory to other values he held more dearly.
Changing party platform is off-limits except if you want to do the change from within, and given the bile-inducing poo poo that comes out of the Young Liberal conferences that option can gently caress right off. It's almost as hard to counteract special interest lobby groups, but not impossible - it's easy to get cynical about GetUp campaigns and other slacktivist efforts, but they wield special interest-level power for the good guys and can occasionally achieve results. Although my own personal opinion is that this is pretty drat inefficient as for the big battles progressives are gonna get hella outspent.
Finally there's the influence of the electorate. We're already seeing some massive pushback coming from the electorate on some parts of the budget and we are absolutely going to see some of the harshest measures get dropped. If you'd told me that the ALP's primary vote was gonna be above the LNP's less than a year after the election I'd have told you to ease off the jenkem, but here we are. The trick is now to talk to people in such a way that their gut reaction to the unfairness of the budget is solidified into part of their belief system so that their disgust stays with them through to the next election.
As ewe2 pointed out, the contrary position (i.e. that 98.6% of politicians are actual no-poo poo soulless husks driven solely by a hatred of poor people and browns) is actually a really scary thing to consider, given that Australia is going to remain dominated by the two parties for at least another generation. If this was the case the only logical things to do would be to top yourself, riot in the street, or disengage from the political process entirely, as nothing you, the Greens, GetUp, or the electorate do could in any way affect the course of Australian history over the next few decades. Sadbrains people please don't top yourself though - I've got a few mates up in Brisbane that pretty much hold exactly this position, so they've chosen to continue to vote Greens but otherwise disengage from federal and state level politics. They're pursuing an odd mix of eco-survivalism and hyper-local community building and while I disagree with their view that they can't change federal and state politics, I can't fault their logic that's led them to focus on (and make demonstrable gains with) local issues instead.
tl;dr stop otherizing politicians you monster.
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Jun 12, 2014 19:52
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- hambeet
- Sep 13, 2002
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Come on, let's hug it out Auspol.
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Jun 12, 2014 23:05
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- thatbastardken
- Apr 23, 2010
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A contract signed by a minor is not binding!
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Turns out Howard was wrong and he should have banned white people and not the refugees
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Jun 12, 2014 23:36
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- Zenithe
- Feb 25, 2013
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Ask not to whom the Anidavatar belongs; it belongs to thee.
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Wow, Obama looks really old. That is also one of the most punchable Abbott photos I've ever seen.
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Jun 13, 2014 00:58
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- Wistful of Dollars
- Aug 25, 2009
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Super Allah's head look's photoshopped on there.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:04
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- ewe2
- Jul 1, 2009
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Razer by request
quote:
Razer's Class Warfare: Muir won, but we've all lost
Let's be clear from the outset. Senator-elect Ricky Muir has as much business being in Parliament as I do a good procedural understanding of how he got there. He is nothing if not history’s most compelling case to vote below the line. To defend, as some have done following a ridiculous interview with Mike Willesee last weekend, Muir’s suitability to the Senate as though it were a hard-won right and not, in fact, a curious electoral accident is spurious. But to see his rapidly unfolding “people power” story chiefly as a crisis of preferential voting ignores the ongoing crisis in modernity and politics itself.
If you did not see the Sunday Night, interview, I cannot recommend the experience. It’s a depressing instant in which a journalist with an average record and a politician with a questionable future meet to consciously reveal a shared personal revulsion and unconsciously reveal the rapid decline of their respective institutions. If there were a winner in this early wake for late modernism, it was Muir. He was the guy not even pretending to play the stupid game.
Perhaps the memories of political journalists have to be short in order for them to forget the fact of their diminishing importance. It might be so. Certainly, in the “analysis” of the Willesee-Muir interview, media providers appear to have forgotten their culpability in the matter of Pauline Hanson.
When Hanson made a maiden speech beset by grammatical and factual error, the press delighted. When Hanson failed to recognise a word most Australians would not recognise, the press delighted. And Australians learnt to hate the press and learned to love Pauline. It was less Pauline’s charm than it was the distaste by political and media orthodoxies that turned her from an idiot of mild significance into a People’s Princess.
It is not surprise that Hanson has reached out to the Motoring Enthusiast. “I’m telling the media to back off and leave him alone,” she said. This command will only function, as Hanson might know well, to incite interest in the accidental politician. Muir’s birth by disapproval might be violent and uncomfortable, but it will, as Hanson can remember, be significant. Nothing like a paternalistic enemy to make you seem like a glorious rebel child.
In the interview, Willesee is the near-dead body of modernity. What he does in “revealing” the naivete of his subject is less "gotcha" than "gimme". To “call out” the ignorance of a man elected with a record-low primary is every bit as brave, necessary and difficult as microwave popcorn. This is a moment of false enlightenment whose results were as unexpected as Friday following Thursday. Or rather, about as surprising as the “reveal” in the final episode of a home renovation show. We all know what it’s going to look like. We watch anyway, less for the “surprise” than the comforting impression that there can no longer be any surprises at all.
After the Sunday “reality” special, it’s as if someone has taken a dump in a hardwood corner of a reality renovation show and given it its own spin-off. Last week, Muir was a quietly stinking embarrassment. This week, he is a threat to the foundation of order. Just like Pauline and just like Clive Palmer.
Hanson and Palmer have jumped to Muir’s defence, but they need not have. It was enough for the incumbent to look critically benighted. His sheer inability to form words or take a genuine interest in the political process he will soon be well-paid to misunderstand is its own defence.
There is no discernible “real” remaining in conventional politics. The ALP has long since abandoned pursuit of a spontaneous real and looks like what it is: a charade managed poorly by factional interests and focus groups. The Coalition does a faintly better job of sustaining our attention with its paternalistic melodrama. Hockey’s father-knows-best bullshit may not seem any more real or immediate than the ALP’s experimental drama, but at least it’s got a plot line you can follow.
Thanks to Willesee, Muir is now appears dangerously real. In his refusal to represent anything but the confusion and alienation of an era full of representation and no reality, he has a legitimate career.
Not since the birth of liberal democracy have two of its key establishments been both so reviled and powerless. Faith in the political process to deliver to the will of the people sits at a level roughly commensurate with love of traditional press. And not without reason. These powerful institutions have given us no reason to believe that they are acting in anything but self or mutual interest, and it is no wonder at all that many believe that social media’s foremost conspiracy idiots are reliable or politicians whose platform is “I hate politics” are trustworthy.
Just for "balance", here's another article from Crikey yesterday on that same interview which asks some questions about media's role.
quote:
'Not a protected species': Seven stands by Muir interview
It wasn't even supposed to be about Ricky Muir. But after Clive Palmer invited Channel Seven's Sunday Night to meet him and his new senators in the United States, where he was taking them on a study tour, it was the tag-along Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party Senator-elect who got all the attention after he failed to answer simple questions about parliamentary democracy and the platform he was elected on.
It isn't a train wreck from the start. Veteran reporter Mike Willesee's first question to Muir is whether, given his tiny first-preference vote count, he considers himself lucky to be elected. "I feel honoured," Muir says. But from there, the interview rapidly goes off the rails. Muir is shown looking nervous and flushed. He can't explain his policies when asked direct questions. He asks to go "off-air for a minute" to get a drink of water. Whatever that means, the cameras don't stop filming. They capture Muir being coached, told to relax.
When Muir returns, Willesee offers some advice. "It might help if, when I ask a question, don’t think of making a political statement. It’s like we’re talking in the pub -- you’d have an answer for me. That’s how you’ve got to talk to me."
One final question -- and Muir does better. He's hopeful of changing things. He's glad to be there to represent the working-class Australian. The answers are platitudes, but at least they are answers. The piece moves on, but the damage is done.
The interview is excruciating to watch, and some wonder if Muir was ambushed. Writing for The Sydney Morning Herald, press gallery hack (and Crikey alumn) Matthew Knott says Muir could have expected the cameras to be turned off as he went to have a drink of water:
"Instead, Muir was filmed receiving advice from a minder; their conversation was broadcast, complete with enormous subtitling. It was a revealing moment, but a cruel one too."
But senior television journalists told Crikey that's just not how it works. Programs like Sunday Night start filming the moment an interviewee walks in the door, which has been controversial in the past. In 2012, Elton John told Molly Meldrum that Madonna’s career was “over”, and that her disastrous tour "couldn’t happen to a bigger oval office". The comments were made after the formal interview was concluded, and John’s representation soon contacted Channel Seven to say the conversation had been off the record. But there’d been no explicit agreement to go off the record, so Seven stood by its story. Something similar happened to Katy Perry a year later, when her publicist’s requests to change a line of questioning were aired.
Muir's chief of staff, minor-party numbers man Glenn Druery, says Muir getting a drink and asking to start again should not have been aired. Druery wasn't there for the interview ("It was none of my doing," he said), but he adds that in his experience with the media, such things are off the record.
"When you do television interviews and ask, 'can we do that again', it means it's off the record if they agree. And in my experience, that stuff is never shown."
Some TV news insiders Crikey spoke to were sympathetic, but most said that without a specific agreement to allow interviewees to rewind the tape, it was bad luck for Muir. "It's very common in television to tell someone they'd be free to retake parts of an interview if they're nervous or make a mistake," one said. "It's how you get people to agree to interviews. If that offer was made, it shouldn't have been breached like that." In the absence of such an offer, our insider continued, that was just "bad luck for Muir".
Mark Llewellyn, who as executive producer of Sunday Night had ultimate responsibility for the way the interview was edited, told Crikey there was no offer to allow Muir to go on and off the record as he pleased.
And anyway, Llewellyn continues, any such deal would be unethical in itself.
"When did that kind of cosy deal become journalism -- 'the wink, wink, nudge, nudge, I'll look after you if it all becomes a little too hard, possum'? What, by the way, are the ethics of censoring interviews and depriving audiences of the complete story? To in effect be part of that cosy club that shields politicians and keeps everyday Australians in the dark. Mike was asking gentle but direct questions about the one thing Ricky Muir was elected on -- his platform. His inability to answer those questions goes to the heart of whether he has the ability to be an effective representative. Ricky Muir is about to wield considerable power. He is an elected politician, not a protected species. Direct questions to politicians (especially those with a six-year term on the public purse) come with the turf."
Another reporter, with experience on similar programs, told Crikey the interview wouldn't have been out of place on the public broadcaster, which, like Channel Seven, would have seen a duty to air the elected representative who should be held to account. "It was highly respectful. If Today Tonight reporters went after him, they could have hung him up to dry. But there was no ambush here. Willesee was quite gentle with him -- and the answers spoke for themselves."
Now call me cynical, but Llewellyn doth protest a bit much. Muir doesn't have the power of a major party politician to suggest the fun might stop if he doesn't get the treatment he/she wants. I really doubt they'd get the focus he got, justified or not.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:10
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- Those On My Left
- Jun 25, 2010
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I made a promise to myself not to read any Helen Razer articles anymore, she's such a shitheel.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:14
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- BogDew
- Jun 14, 2006
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E:\FILES>quickfli clown.fli
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Only one of these men is happy to be in the other's company
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Jun 13, 2014 01:24
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- Drugs
- Jul 16, 2010
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I don't like people who take drugs. Customs agents, for example - Albert Einstein
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I made a promise to myself not to read any Helen Razer articles anymore, she's such a shitheel.
"Give me all of your strawmen, so that I may strike them down with the righteous power of my ten dollar words and namechecks of arcane French philosophers"
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Jun 13, 2014 01:30
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- Those On My Left
- Jun 25, 2010
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"Give me all of your strawmen, so that I may strike them down with the righteous power of my ten dollar words and namechecks of arcane French philosophers"
You will enjoy this: http://overland.org.au/2014/05/talkin-loud-but-sayin-nothin/
quote:
If you’re still refusing to read the Daily Review for its exploitation of unpaid bloggers,° you may not have seen Helen Razer’s latest tirade against contemporary feminism. Couched in a review for Laura Bates’ Everyday Sexism, a book based on the eponymous internet campaign initiated by the author, Razer rants her way through 1500 words or so, cursing the ‘bitches’ who rage against sexism on the internet, who aren’t a patch on de Beauvoir and Greer in the literary stakes, and who take to Twitter to vent their frustration with the status quo but don’t dare stir from their armchairs for fear of actually changing anything.
If this seems familiar, perhaps I’m getting it mixed up with Razer’s previous denunciation of contemporary feminism – the one about the meaninglessness of Destroy The Joint, another hashtag-cum-online community, which, incidentally, involved Razer venting her frustration on Twitter while not daring to stir from her armchair… etc. To borrow a Razerism: Look, sometimes it’s hard to tell whether or not the irony is conscious.
So let’s be frank: hatchet jobs are fun to read. The hatchet job is an art in and of itself. But Razer’s excoriating review of Everyday Sexism isn’t just a scathing denunciation of a book; it’s another attack on the preoccupations of today’s feminists and one that spends more time swearing and snarking than it does proposing anything of value (other than, perhaps, everyone ought to read Spivak). Even better, it includes asides about the flagrant use of unpaid labour that went into the creation of Everyday Sexism, while simultaneously being published by a business that does not pay many of its content providers.
Now, I’m not contemporary feminism’s biggest defender. I’ve argued on Overland and elsewhere before that feelings are an unreliable barometer of political righteousness, that contemporary feminism should focus on action over spectacle, and that one cracker speech does not a feminist revolution make. There are shades of all these themes and more in Razer’s work – her arguments aren’t new, and sometimes they’re not even wrong – but her selling points are venom and disdain.
Her combativeness is not spirited debate; it’s outright toxic. Denigrating the breadth of feminist theory that’s come out of the academies and elsewhere (except for the usual suspects, because if Razer doesn’t mention Judith Butler at least once in every article her head might explode) is hardly comradely for someone who purports to be on the left. She opposed the Biennale boycott for being merely ‘symbolic’, no matter that it resulted in an actual win for the refugee campaign (there is no question that the arts will struggle for it, but it was a win all the same). Outcomes should be valued above all else, she cries, except hang on – didn’t she just argue in this same review that we should all stop focusing on action and read more? She wants it every way at once: theory instead of action and action instead of social media, all from behind her TV column and a Twitter feed that flicks on and off like an old fluorescent light in a camping ground toilet block. It seems to me like what she really wants is the ability to rage into the void from her little cocoon and be paid for it, and her favourite axe to grind relates to those pesky feminists who are always doing everything wrong.
But the biggest issue isn’t even that we should all be nicer to each other – although it is actually possible, believe it or not, to disagree vehemently about politics on the left without becoming a reactionary in the process – but that being on the left means working towards progressive change. Not once has Razer proposed anything other than a bunch of insults which smack of precisely the condescension and elitism she claims are falsely standing in the way of feminists educating themselves about the history of feminist thought. Some progressive.
But hey, saying ‘gently caress’ in a book review is funny.
Everyday Sexism may well be little better than tabloid fodder, but opposition to sexism is good, and the fact that there is more and more of it gives activists greater opportunities to build a deeper opposition to injustices in the world. If Razer really wanted to make a difference, she could have channelled some of that energy into, for example, helping the organising groups that have been working in opposition to mandatory detention for the last decade. She could easily have joined the campaign against Geoff Shaw’s proposed private member’s bill to restrict Victorian women’s abortion rights in late 2013 and early 2014.
She didn’t. Because there’s no need to get off the couch when you’ve staked out territory for yourself as a freelance troll.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:38
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- Cartoon
- Jun 20, 2008
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poop
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I made a promise to myself not to read any Helen Razer articles anymore, she's such a shitheel.
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/misfires-and-memories-as-fm-turns-30-20100804-11epf.html
Still I don't know why everyone is on Muir's back. Abbott is at least as incoherent.
Is that consumer confidence? The graph isn't labelled.
edit: Also sorry to AdelGoons for missing the meet tonight, dentists appointment.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:40
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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Razer's pretentiousness is just part of the appeal.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:45
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- Drugs
- Jul 16, 2010
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I don't like people who take drugs. Customs agents, for example - Albert Einstein
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Overland publish some fantastic smackdowns
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Jun 13, 2014 01:59
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- gay picnic defence
- Oct 5, 2009
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I'M CONCERNED ABOUT A NUMBER OF THINGS
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ABC news dump:
Australia, deftly negotiating the pitfalls of international diplomacy (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-13/australia-threatened-with-sanctions-over-israeli-settlements/5520248)
quote:A delegation representing almost 20 countries has lodged a formal protest over Australia's decision to stop referring to Israeli settlements as "occupied territories".
The move has triggered warnings from angry officials in Arabic and Islamic countries of possible trade sanctions if Australia does not reverse its position.
AUDIO: Listen to Louise Yaxley's report (AM)
Rather than using the term "occupied territories", the Australian Government has decided to refer to the settlements as "disputed territories" in a move that has been welcomed by some Jewish organisations.
A delegation of diplomatic officials - including representatives from Indonesia, Egypt and Turkey - met senior Department of Foreign Affairs officials on Thursday.
The head of the General Delegation of Palestine to Australia, Izzat Abdulhadi, said some countries might decide to impose trade sanctions over the issue.
"There are a lot of exports of meat to the Arab world and now also we're talking about the wheat," he said.
Such a move would undermine Australian efforts to expand access for local produce in the Middle East.
"I think ... the interests of Australia is to work with the Arab world," Mr Abdulhadi said.
Labor, still being poo poo (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-13/nrn-green-army-go-ahead/5520566)
quote:The Shadow Minister for Environment has indicated that Labor will support the Coalition's Green Army Bill when the Senate votes on it in the next fortnight.
The Green Army scheme would see young people receive an allowance of about half the minimum wage while working on environmental projects for up to six months.
The Federal Government has cut half a billion dollars from Landcare to fund the new program, which will start in July.
Shadow Environment Minister Mark Butler says he has minor concerns with the Green Army, but he's confident they'll be addressed by the Department.
"For example, to make sure trainees under the program are not going to displace existing workers in conservation organisations or in local councils.
"Some other questions about the interaction of the payment system with other entitlements, but I'm pretty confident that we're able to work through that. I imagine this bill will get passage in the Senate."
And finally, a solid rebuttal for anyone who still thinks that stopping climate change and maintaining a healthy economy are mutually exclusive (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-12/green-abbott-wrangles-with-his-own-climate-paradox/5517210)
quote:Tony Abbott's language so far on his overseas tour betrays a complete lack of connection between what climate change is and what it might do, writes Jonathan Green.
In September 2003 a young man with a fair degree of climbing talent scaled an old power station chimney in central Melbourne and then lowered himself down its long concrete face, painting as he went.
The result was a towering vertical billboard that read, in painstakingly rollered sweeps of white paint: "No jobs on a dead planet."
It stood for ages as a daily reminder to commuters exiting Spencer Street station, that they owed their material wealth and wellbeing to the benign, mild, generosity of this pleasantly hospitable moment in nature.
The chimney is gone now, demolished with its supporting buildings for job-creating legions of apartments. The slogan probably suffered from being so bluntly self-evident.
It lives on as one of those shorthand parodies of environmental concern, probably filed with "land rights for gay whales"; something to be trotted out with a sneering derision while deflecting Green Left Weekly street vendors. "Yeah man. No jobs on a dead planet, man."
None of which makes it any less true, or continually pertinent, as we grapple with the more sobering predictions of climate science, predictions that veer ever closer to the death of what we might recognise as our planet.
And here's a thought for Barack Obama, as he steels himself for imminent discussions with Tony Abbott that may well include the occasional oblique reference to climate change. The man you are talking to is something of a sloganeer.
Now, as an outsider it's hard to tell whether punchy epigrams actually form the totality of Abbott's conversation, but on the basis of the observable evidence, there is that chance. What is more certain is that a man who deals in the slogan may respond positively to an offering in kind.
So Barack, you might like to try this as an opening gambit: "Tony, there are no jobs on a dead planet." It might help break the ice, it might not. It's entirely possible that our PM might just blink uncomprehendingly at first mention, but as with any decent slogan, repetition is the key, so keep nagging away, again and again until you think the thing is so worn with use that it might fall apart at the softest touch. Then say it again.
Maybe it will be Obama, but let's hope that someone, somewhere can make that case to Mr Abbott: that our economy and ecology are intertwined, so closely connected in fact that the transforming degradation of one might well lead to the collapse of the other.
Abbott assures us he is convinced that human induced climate change is a real and happening thing. From that point of agreement we are only arguing about the severity of consequence. On this point the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is fairly clear and succinct.
In its view there is every chance that our world may warm by about four degrees come the end of this century. This will have consequences. As the IPCC puts it, a four degree warmer world would lead to:
Severe and widespread impacts on unique and threatened systems, substantial species extinction, large risks to global and regional food security, and the combination of high temperature and humidity compromising normal human activities.
This four degree world would be the outcome, says the IPCC, if nothing is done to change the rate of carbon emissions from this point. Doing a little would change that, but only by a little.
Chew over the IPCC's words for a moment. "Compromising normal human activities" is an interesting turn of phrase ... you might call it evocative; it kills with understatement.
Bear that phrase in mind when you now consider Abbott's expressed thinking this week on the notion that we ought to act, as people, as countries, as a world, to ameliorate climate change.
It's not that we don't seek to deal with climate change, but we seek to deal with it in a way that will protect and enhance our ability to create jobs and growth and not destroy jobs and growth in our country ... We should do what we reasonably can to limit emissions and avoid climate change, man-made climate change, but we shouldn't clobber the economy.
No. Let's not clobber the economy. There is a ghastly paradox lurking in this kind of thinking, the sort of giddy inconsistency that should be apparent to a man with Abbott's intellect and learning.
As the IPCC says, climate change, unchecked, will destroy the economy we recognise. Isn't that what we can read beneath its anodyne, phlegmatic phrasing: "compromising normal human activities"? The idea that acting to thwart climate change might "clobber the economy" is so disconnected from logic and simple common sense as to suggest some other line of thinking entirely.
Language, as ever, is full of meaning. Parsing the Prime Minister's repeated offerings on climate and economy reveals a politician with concern for one, and at best a watching brief on the other. The language betrays a complete lack of connection between what climate change is and what it might do.
To suggest that the economy needs to be protected from the only policy path that might in the long term secure its very existence, is so close to absurd as to leave you wondering just whether in fact Abbott does accept any recognisable concept of climate change.
There is another possibility: that he does concede the menace of a warming world, but for the sake of effective short-term politics has elected not to act in its interests. It's hard to imagine any greater betrayal of national - human - interest.
It's a position that can be countered in just a few words: no jobs on a dead planet.
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Jun 13, 2014 02:17
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- BCR
- Jan 23, 2011
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Oh right, I thought you were talking blanket dehumanisation, my bad. I get where you're coming from, LF and its offsite reincarnations I was involved in modding had a lot of people who had corporate jobs and did no volunteer work and refused to donate to charity because ~~ZIZEK~~ and were full of violent rhetoric. We got rid of them because they were just loving toxic.
I don't think MUYB's posting comes close to that poo poo though. His post that sparked this:
is based wholly in reality. How is anyone with an ounce of critical thinking skills meant to interpret the campaign for the NT intervention as anything but big lie propaganda for the long term benefit of the mining industry and the continuation of decades of assimilationist/genocidal government policy? How can anyone listen to the speech Kevin Andrews gave to ACOSS this morning and reconcile his twin commitments to rejecting a 'one-size-fits-all' model of social service provision while collapsing the 75 different benefit payments we currently have into 5 benefit payments and seriously diminishing the diversity of social programs? We KNOW what the point of these welfare changes are; poorer working conditions, lower wages and greater wealth inequality. You've said all of this poo poo yourself in a bunch of posts analysing articles, because it's true and we all know it.
The reason MUYB mentioned the Big Lie is because the concept absolutely applies to basically everything this government has tried to do so far with it's reshuffling of departments, reallocation of discretionary departmental resources and now with the budget. Dog-whistle politics was invented by the Howard government, and this cabinet represents the worst of that government's legacy. I regard this government as my enemy and I don't understand why any defender of civil society wouldn't feel the same, tbh.
This thread isn't a discussion between advocates about how best to convince ignorant dickheads that they're being willfully mislead by psychopaths, and I don't think it should be. The only sloganeering I can see in auspol is 'kill yourself' and tbh I don't even have a problem with that anymore because it's just a meaner alternative to 'get hosed', and some people need a meaner alternative to 'get hosed'.
So, yeah, essentially my point is that I think you're getting the wrong impression. I don't see auspol turning into a weird white collar nazbol circlejerk like some of LF did, at the extreme, and I don't think the broad left is at any risk of coalescing into some kind of sloganeering anti-humanist bloc simply because so much of our time nowadays as activists is spent actively celebrating diversity and sharing ourselves with each other. In the 10 years I've been doing far left stuff the past 3 or 4 years have seen this humongous flourishing of sharing of experiences and emphasis on intersectionality which is loving essential to activism and advocacy, as well as provision of social services. Auspol itself is way more diverse now than when I started posting in 2010. Diversity of voices in policy-making makes it way harder to make simplistic and anti-humanist policies (duh), and apart from 'eat the rich' there aren't many three word slogans we can credibly dehumanise anyone with.
TLDR: I know what you're concerned about and I agree to an extent, but I don't think you should be as concerned as I think you are and I think you're interpreting some people itt's radicalism as myopic when it's actually incredibly well-considered, but they just don't effortpost about it.
Hey Fruity, is there any books or material on organisation you've come across. I'm organising male workers and the biggest thing I've come across is acknowledging race and also trying to keep the bandwagon rolling without normal Australian racism and avoiding tokenism. So far I've been relying on class warfare stuff, but of course this whitewashes the effects of race.
Thankfully I don't have to organise politically because nominal Christian men, Mormons and Muslims all believe in the patriarchy. 
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Jun 13, 2014 02:29
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- Tokamak
- Dec 22, 2004
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quote:
The Shadow Minister for Environment has indicated that Labor will support the Coalition's Green Army Bill when the Senate votes on it in the next fortnight.
The Green Army scheme would see young people receive an allowance of about half the minimum wage while working on environmental projects for up to six months.
The Federal Government has cut half a billion dollars from Landcare to fund the new program, which will start in July.
Shadow Environment Minister Mark Butler says he has minor concerns with the Green Army, but he's confident they'll be addressed by the Department.
"For example, to make sure trainees under the program are not going to displace existing workers in conservation organisations or in local councils.
"Some other questions about the interaction of the payment system with other entitlements, but I'm pretty confident that we're able to work through that. I imagine this bill will get passage in the Senate."
You would think a political party called Labor, would not support exploitation of labour and erosion of worker rights and income. This is the one thing they are meant to hold firm on; THE ONE THING.
I hope when this goes through, well coordinated class actions are taken against all green army employers for underpayment, loss of income, or whatever rights/obligations you can't easily legislate away.
Its next to impossible for thousands of subsidised labourers not to displace any existing or future employees. They are cutting $500 million from the existing budget, people will lose their jobs.
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Jun 13, 2014 02:52
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- Blightie
- Dec 27, 2004
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To the resident union experts, a speech pathologist friend of mine was describing her working conditions and they sounded terrible.
The scenario, as it was described to me, is that each of the "employees" have their own abn's, get work from the company and pay about a 50% cut back to the employer. That sounds bad to me anyway, but basically only new graduates are employed, they are worked half to death and then spat out once they start to complain, so a stream of workers in the "do anything to make it" stage working until 2am unpaid etc.
The head honcho is some aggressive "I am a job creator" capitalist, apparently married to some fancy lawyer. I was told that the lawyer husband is mentioned as a threat whenever pay/conditions come up. There were also some intellectual property issues where the employer is claiming ownership of work done by the employee for free on their own time.
The whole thing sounded pretty bad and I wonder how many unfair dismissals or whatever have happened in the past.
So my advice was to join a union right away so that she had some recourse if (when probably more appropriate) things go sour, but neither of us were sure which would be the correct union to contact.
Any tips on this would be a big help.
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Jun 13, 2014 02:57
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- CATTASTIC
- Mar 31, 2010
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¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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You would think a political party called Labor, would not support exploitation of labour and erosion of worker rights and income. This is the one thing they are meant to hold firm on; THE ONE THING.
Surely this time they'll get some of those LNP votes though, right?
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Jun 13, 2014 02:57
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- Those On My Left
- Jun 25, 2010
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To the resident union experts, a speech pathologist friend of mine was describing her working conditions and they sounded terrible.
The scenario, as it was described to me, is that each of the "employees" have their own abn's, get work from the company and pay about a 50% cut back to the employer. That sounds bad to me anyway, but basically only new graduates are employed, they are worked half to death and then spat out once they start to complain, so a stream of workers in the "do anything to make it" stage working until 2am unpaid etc.
The head honcho is some aggressive "I am a job creator" capitalist, apparently married to some fancy lawyer. I was told that the lawyer husband is mentioned as a threat whenever pay/conditions come up. There were also some intellectual property issues where the employer is claiming ownership of work done by the employee for free on their own time.
The whole thing sounded pretty bad and I wonder how many unfair dismissals or whatever have happened in the past.
So my advice was to join a union right away so that she had some recourse if (when probably more appropriate) things go sour, but neither of us were sure which would be the correct union to contact.
Any tips on this would be a big help.
As always, the answer is: Call the Fair Work Ombudsman.
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Jun 13, 2014 03:00
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- BCR
- Jan 23, 2011
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To the resident union experts, a speech pathologist friend of mine was describing her working conditions and they sounded terrible.
The scenario, as it was described to me, is that each of the "employees" have their own abn's, get work from the company and pay about a 50% cut back to the employer. That sounds bad to me anyway, but basically only new graduates are employed, they are worked half to death and then spat out once they start to complain, so a stream of workers in the "do anything to make it" stage working until 2am unpaid etc.
The head honcho is some aggressive "I am a job creator" capitalist, apparently married to some fancy lawyer. I was told that the lawyer husband is mentioned as a threat whenever pay/conditions come up. There were also some intellectual property issues where the employer is claiming ownership of work done by the employee for free on their own time.
The whole thing sounded pretty bad and I wonder how many unfair dismissals or whatever have happened in the past.
So my advice was to join a union right away so that she had some recourse if (when probably more appropriate) things go sour, but neither of us were sure which would be the correct union to contact.
Any tips on this would be a big help.
First thing is ring ACTU, 1300 486 466 is for what union to join. 1300 362 223 is general advice.
Second, when you get an answer for your appropriate union ring them and find out when you get full service and if there is waiting periods.
Third, gather together your paychecks, contract details, and any other paperwork. Present to union lawyers.
Fairwork can investigate but aren't going to cover your back as effectively as a union.
Document every time the wife lawyer angle was brought up regarding pay/conditions because it's one case of many of bullying in the wirkplace.
/phone posting
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Jun 13, 2014 03:09
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- Adbot
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ADBOT LOVES YOU
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Jun 7, 2024 06:24
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- BCR
- Jan 23, 2011
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When Hack was doing a bit on that guy who paid in pizza, I heard one of the call-ins say they got turned away by the Ombudsman when they tried to report an awful place they'd finally left. Because they were no longer eligible to file a complaint when they weren't still an actual employee, supposedly.
That sounded like some total bullshit, what if you get illegally fired in retaliation for going to the Ombudsman in the first place? Is this even true or were they just mixed up about something? I know it wasn't true way back when I worked in retail, cause I reported a place that still hadn't given me my leave payout after I'd left.
If you're not a permanent, you're basically hosed. Due to lack of work, we're letting you go Mr/ms Casual. Fairwork being under-resourced won't investigate a non workers claim. The ato would do something eg gently caress the business over for non tax payment, but doesn't help you with work. It's one reason you join a union, because it forces the company to actually follow the law and they can't use their position to say gently caress off.
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Jun 13, 2014 03:14
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Jun 12, 2014 16:22
