G-Spot Run posted:

Do you reckon it's cos he took a turn that wasn't as severe as initially thought, or because the meeting kerfuffle made him realise everyone is betting on him carking it?

John Safran posted:

There are more hot anarchists than I expected here. Don't get me wrong, there are also flabby radicals who wouldn't be able to throw a Molotov cocktail without breaking into a wheeze, but still. The Melbourne Anarchist Club, a converted shopfront along a busy road, has thrown open its doors, inviting the community to show solidarity with them. It's a response to the UPF recently rolling up to the cluband thugging around.

'So I hear you're starting up a rap group?'a woman snaps as I walk in. It's the day after Neil announced his plans for JWA. She's leaningagainst a bookshelf, flags from different struggles draping from the wall. 'I was going to ring up andvte for you to be part of the boy band.'

'Ha-ha'I say. She doesn't join in with my ha-ha.

'What's your role in all of this?' a young man asks. He's sitting inan armchair. 'Are you part of building an anti-racist movement or are you just about books and selling and career and profile?'

'I don't think it's good for my career and profile that I'm seen to be in a rap bandwith the UPF, you know?

'It's quirky,' the woman sneers.'It's, you know, whatever.'

I explain that to write stories, I hang out with all sorts of people from all sides.

'They are arseholes!' she says. 'They are using you and your profile to try and humanise themselves!'

'You think there's no use in a writer--'

'Making them just seem like funny Aussie blokes?'

'Maybe it's helpful for people to know that dangerous people have charisma,' I blurt. 'That dangerous people get crowds not because they're cartoon villains,but because they use their charisma to get people on board.' I'm happy to back myself on this matter.

'But what are people to do with that information?' she complains. 'We have to have a collective response to this. We need to build a movement!'

I find out that the young man in the armchair has been seething about me - or at least something I wrote - long before JWA were trying to sign up Ice Berg Safran. He was not a fan of my article about the Brisbane Golden Dawn rally. He reflects on my story with a snort. He felt it was a smart-arsed effort to equate far-right violence with left-wing violence, when the two couldn't be more different. He says far-right violence is a form of 'structural violence' (that is, part of State, corporate and systemic violence), and left-wing violence isn't. And furthermore, my 'comedic' story contributedto to this 'structural violence' by equating the two.

So the men who bashed the elderly Greek guy after the rally didn't engage in anything problematic, but the comedian on the scene who wrote about it did. In fact the comedian was the violent one.

The Sufi held a similar view in regard to the Charlie Hebdo attack. The psychopaths - the ones who should really take a good hard look at themselves and their actions - were the dead guys holding the pencils.

It occurs to me that Shermon quit the UPF in response to a piss-take. So for all three points of the triangle - the far right, the far left and radical Islam - piss-taking is a threat that needs to be kept at bay. People might start listening to the jokes.

Another thing occurs to me: What's wrong with interrogating violence, even if it's 'non-structural'?

I tell them I'm just interested in different things to them. 'I like looking at tangles,' I say.

'Like what?' the woman demands.

I remember the 'Talmudic son of a bitch' message from last night. 'Like that sometimes Muslims, who suffer Islamophobia, are anti-Semitic.'

Snort. Sneer. Like the Sufi, she argues there are power dynamics in play. There's not meaningful anti-Semitism these days, she advises, in the way there's meaningful Islamophobia. I tell her about the recent bashing of a local Jew by two men screaming in Arabic, and that the Jewish community centre in my neighbourhood is getting a $1.3 million 'blast-proofing' security wall after a terrorist plot to blow it up.

Just as Santa has his Naughty and Nice list, Mrs Sneer and Mr Snort have their Structural Violence and Non-Structural Violence list. Alas for the bashed Jew and the community centre employees, they've only made it to the Non-Structural Violence list. That's the side of the ledger where the violence isn't worth interrogating.

The woman pushes a pamphlet at me. It's advertising the counter-protest to the Reclaim rally. It calls for people to show up at the steps of Parliament House. 'Are you going to promote us?'

I, of course, know something she doesn't: that the UPF won't be at the steps. They'll be an hour's drive away in Melton.

'How do you know they're going to be there?' I dangle. (I might as well tell her.)

'Reclaim called a rally,' she hisses.

'Are you sure they're going to be there?'

She groans. 'So what part are you going to play?' and rolls her eyes.

'I'm in the UPF rap band,' I squeak. 'You'll see me up there scratching records behind Ez-Eric and Dr Fash!'

The woman huffs off.

'There are no casual observers,' the young man in the armchair tells me.

'Deep, man. Real deep,' I sulk.

I head to the little bar area. The anarchist selling the beers wears a T-shirt saying 'Hello Titties', with Hello Kitty's cat head redesigned to look like breasts.

Konomex posted:

I don't think the institutional issues within the Catholic church have been dealt with.

Solemn Sloth posted:

he sure uses a lot of dumb libertarian talking points as examples in that case

libertarian dingbat posted:

It’s not too bad, fairly steady and the first budget to show whisps of the coming age of nationalist populism.

I’m not sure why people melt down every year anymore. Canberra is a full blown communist state and is out of the people’s control, this simple truth that is discussed to death seems to surprise people anew every day. Like that movie where that girl gets bumped on the head then forever more wakes up every day and forgets what happened the day before.

A budget like this is as good as it gets until we have a major political realignment and Trump style revolution in this county.

AgentF posted:

All the papers are entreating that this is a Labor budget but I don't see that it is. Seems more to me like it is a coordinated effort to just claim it is a "Labor budget" so that Labor would look awfully obstinate if they block it in the senate. What's Labor about it?

racing identity posted:

Permanent financial ruin seems a tall price to pay for having bad opinions

JBP posted:

Voting for the greens is a pretty big dumb waste of time and energy. Hope this clarifies the mistakes the young people itt have made politically

Bogan King posted:

NTRabbit posted:

FttN "NBN" turns on in my area in 10 days, I should be able to get 60/20 based on the map, but Whirlpool rightly calls it Node Lottery. Big improvement on my 400k/s, I'm in an area Telstra did on the super cheap in the 80s, lowest grade of copper, all sorts of short cuts and half baked ideas.

Schlesische posted:

And yet magically, his approval ratings aren't that crash hot.
The last poll was in March (so it's a fair bit out of date), but 2pp shows LNP winning handily.

Luckily, it's not like PHON have any sway here.

Dude McAwesome posted:

Oh cool, someone who has profited massively from mining giving away some of the money they could never hope to spend.

Why the gently caress is Twiggy Forrester so prominent outside of "has lots of money?"

What's the angle here? Looking to run next election? Gunning for a knighthood? (lol, gently caress off Tones)

Solemn Sloth posted:

Thank gently caress I rolled a monk not a paladin

Lid posted:

Quadrant aint retracted poo poo. Article is still up.

Doctor Spaceman posted:

Sharri Markson in the Year of Trump 1 posted:

There’s a strong argument that the ABC should not have an online site at all.

Bogan King posted:

It's nice to know that useless raids are still going on. I remember getting turfed out of a clubs in the Cross back in the day

PaletteSwappedNinja posted:

Does Daisy Cousens have political aspirations beyond "bad columnist/talking head"? Like, I've seen her name mentioned on the periphery of Young Lib bullshit for a few years in a manner that suggests she's important in some small way but I can't figure out if she actually does anything or if she's just a ~personality~

GoldStandardConure posted:

If it comes with a reply paid envelope, print out an image of scrunt and post it back.

aejix posted:

What does it loving take before the police/legal system is actually forced to do something?

Wheezle posted:

Why does Pauline Hanson always sound like she's absolutely livid about something and trying to retain composure?