Eumundi Dirt Farm Veterans For Truth
Political lies - - Posted on March, 11 at 10:33 am by Aussie Bob
The government’s meek monitor, Sydney’s Sun Herald, reports “exclusively” that Kevin Rudd has been accused of stretching the truth.
I really don’t know what the Liberal Party thinks they’re doing here. Perhaps they think that by claiming Rudd’s life story has been tainted from his youth then this means he is, was and always has been - since he was in short pants, supposedly - unfit for high office, his entire biography a fraud. Smear an opponent at the age of seven and you’ve smeared him for life.
Rudd’s Version: Local big-shot businessman turfs out struggling dairy farmers after their husband and father dies in tragic accident. A fairly simple story.
Liberal Party Strategists’ Version: Years later, descendants of local big-shot business man are ”struggling to contain their anger”. Turns out, they reckon, their Dad didn’t evict the down-and-out family after all. He just told them they were out on their ears as soon as he got a new tenant, who could arrive at any time. All this, they admit, very soon after the funeral.
Which (I would have thought) amounts to the same thing anyway.
Desperate times. The Lib dirt farmer magicians keep forgetting they told us how the conjuring trick was done. Pulling the rabbit out of the hat doesn’t have quite same effect after that.
Pull the udder one, boys. Is this the best you can do?
By the way, Rudd stands by his version 100%.
John Howard also has a few clouds over his own past: his father’s alleged shady business dealings with W.R. Carpenter & Co. regarding using his status as a returned soldier to act as a front man in the management of New Guinea copra plantations; his father’s supposed connections to the New Guard; Howard’s own mysterious winning of a Commonwealth scholarship in his second year of university… to name just three. Do the Libs really want to go down this path? I guess the answer is “yes”, but will it win them the Velvet Soap?
ELSEWHERE: Jason Koutsoukis gives up the “Rudd on a marble slab” metaphor in favour of the astonishing claim:
“In 1996, voters also knew what Howard stood for.”
Posted in Political lies |
March 11th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Well, some of us did. And we’ve subsequently got it, in spades. The problem is that the “some of us” that did was not the “all of us” who were the supposed (yeah, right) target of the message.
March 11th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
It is an indication of just how desperate the Libs are that they are trying to dig up dirt on the recollections of an 11 year old boy who had recently lost his father.
Never underestimate the depths the average slime-coated conservative party hack can go to.
March 11th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
I remember reading that David Marr article last year and thought at the time, well, of course, pretty shonky stuff - like father, like son. But I doubt anyone would think the worse of Kevin if he remembers 2 weeks and someone else remembers 6 months. What’s the diff - they still had to get out and it was a hard time for the family, no doubt. They will not scrape more paint off Kevin over this (except maybe with National voters - meh).
March 11th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
I’m still not sure I understand what Howard stands for.
I know what he’s against: Unions, the poor and underprivileged generally, women, environmentalists, refugees, multiculturalism, a non-political public service, anyone in the slightest bit critical of Australian or American foreign policy; And anyone who doesn’t agree with everything he says or does, 100% of the time.
I think that pretty-well covers it.
As for Koutsoukis, he’s so busy kissing Howard’s backside that he wouldn’t have a clue what’s going on around him. When he breaks suction and looks-up after the election, he’ll be in for a bit of a shock.
March 11th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Whatever. Why are we supposed to believe the story told by the descendants of the farmer? But not believe Kevin Rudd.
Whether from the Libs or a dirty reporter, it doesn’t matter. Why tell it at all?
March 11th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
LOL what Muskiemp said. I personally don’t believe a word of the famous John Howard/Jack Davey story but it doesn’t lessen my dislike for him.
March 11th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Well said AB. I doubt that many voters are aware of Howard, Costello & Downer’s past & their alliances. Thanx to a slack media over the past decade their lives have been skimmed over. The attacks on Rudd not only demonstrate how sh*t scared the Corporate owned Coalition & their War Mongering industrialist backers are of Kevin Rudd…but it’s possible they can’t BUY or BLACKMAIL him (a real positive for Australia)so they’ve decided to do the smear job.
Now, Gerard Henderson, another sneaky smear merchant, said something interesting today on Insiders. He mentioned that “it’s not the Liberal Party doing this, it’s the journalists” (not his exact words but you get the gist). So, we’re meant to believe that a generally useless, gutless, cowed bunch of journalists (as they’ve proved themselves to be most of the past 6 odd years - post 9/11) have suddenly grown a backbone & are independently investigating politicians…& conveniently are HITTING the popular, new Labor Leader, Kevin Rudd…his shadow Attorney General (who probably had the nouse & guts to take on some of these corrupt Coalition members & their Corporate mates & therefore had to be ‘brought down’)…& a few Moderates in the Liberal Party. It’s all a load of crap!
The Murdoch HIT MACHINE is doing the what they do best…pulling everyone down into the gutter. Turning the Nation’s political arena into a DIVIDED, PARTISAN slime filled bucket…as he & his trolls have done in THE USA & Britain. News Ltd. are the eventual winners because they get the ratings & sell the papers that STIR UP THE SH*T. The other media groups race to the bottom to grab the same benefits & before we know it, Australian media is dominated by blatant advertising, ‘gutter’ politics, sexploitation, sick celebrity idolisation, useless diversionary & fear-mongering stories’, finger pointing & tabloid claptrap. Nothing new…just more dominant & exagerrated…in your face…& your kids. It’s all about MONEY, political influence, self-promotion & a blatant attempt to deter people from voting, particularly the young - to sicken them, make them overly-cynical…by carefully constructing a perception that all politicians are corrupt & ‘dirty’, so why bother showing interest & turning out - that’s how these COWARDLY, control freaks (the asset gatherers/New Aristocracy living in their Fortresses & sending other people to ‘die for them in War’ types ensure they retain POWER. Look at the effect it’s had in America…more than 50% don’t bother to vote.
Well I reckon Labor, The Greens, Dems etc needs to HIT back at the mainstream media…shine a LIGHT on it…reveal the relationship between Government & the Fourth Estate…demonstrate BIAS (as Bill Clinton did w/ Fox News)…tell it as it is. Let it all come out in the wash.
If Rudd has half the integrity & guts I think he does he’ll take them on. If not, little by little, incrementally the Murdoch News & their cohorts will take him apart as they did Latham. If he shows tenacity & courage the majority will support him. I’m certain of it. More people despise this Government & their Corporate/Media mates than polls are demonstrating. (by the way, I had a chat w/ a diehard National Party couple last week & they think that Howard has crossed the line re: Workchoice & The War & are willing to give Rudd a chance).
I like what your doing AB…it’s about time that our Leaders were scrutinised more intensely…but a cautionary note: let’s not descend into an abyss we can’t climb out of…Australia deserves better.
For now tho, give these attack dogs what they deserve…a bit of their own medicine. 11 years of horsesh*t is long enuff!
March 11th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Howard Downer & Costello have not stopped repeating the “lacking in judgment” of Rudd, they are trying very hard to make it stick, but like Nasking says, more and more people despise the Howard Government. Downer & Howard are crying because Rudd called them liars and of course the “Royal” commission cleared them. When is the gutless media going to pull these liars up and ask, which “Royal” commission was that? That was not, a “Royal” commission put in place to investigate, which MP was responsible for the AWB corrupt payments to Saddam Hussein.
March 11th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Oh Ken, I’ve got that Jack Davy show on tape.
There’s Little Johnnie, squeaky voiced, complete with “me bruvver” and “yes please, Mr. Davy” and all. And there’s his bruvver in the audience giving him the answers. Lovely stuff.
Strange thing is: 18 months later he was doing law at Sydney University and a year after that he’d taken over a “spare” Commonwealth Scholarship somebody else didn’t want. A fast maturer, I guess.
By the way, apparently Liberal Party HQ was just down the street from Sydney Law School (it was in the city, at King & Elizabeth). His colleagues tell stories about how often he used to be absent from lectures while on Party busines. One wonders whether Party business didn’t turn to funny business when it came to being awarded that vacated scholarship.
My own absences were entirely due to unsuccessful attempts to master table tennis at SU Sports Union, which is why Howard is PM and I’m the one braying from the sidelines.
Naz, the problem with hitting back at the Press is that the people you’re hitting back at have the power to write that story any way they like. They crucified Latham for complaining about their digging into the affairs of his family. Decided he was “unfit for high office” because of it.
BTW, I’m not saying don’t hit back. I’m suggesting that it’s best to hit back at the source of the slagging. Then, if you can dig up enough dirt, offer a truce: you’ll stop if they stop. All through third parties, natch. Problem is that it’s ugly and detrimental to national political discourse… but hey, they started it.
You have to remember that the pundits have no shame at all. They have no hearts or consciences. Insulting them, or calling them on their lies is water off a duck’s back to them. They lap it up. Makes them feel important. They have to be called off by their masters, the politicians. Slag-off the politicians and you’ll get results.
March 11th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Funnier still was Costello on today’s Sunday carping on about how Tin-Tin had labelled our esteemed Praime Minister and Foreign Minister “liars.” Quelle Horreur!
As if one of the most common conversations around the local bar isn’t ‘Yeah, I knew the little shit was a liar when I voted for him last time around’.
March 11th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Yeah, and I like they way they HATE Rudd turning his back on them in QT. Drives ‘em crazy. Matty Price, observing from the gallery, thought he detected Rudd’s pen hesitating once and wrote a whole column about it.
I’d also like to see an investigation on Howard’s “deaf ear”. Does he really have one, or is it just a folk story? He used to spend a lot of time (at eligible age for joining up) on street corners supporting the Viet Nam war (to which he didn’t go because of said ear)… still does actually, when you think of it.
A good look into Johnnie’s affairs would be a good start. But there are others.
Downer. I can’t believe he doesn’t have the odd skeleton in the odd closet. Abbott? We already know a lot about him, or do we (the sanctimonious prat)? Turnbull. Now there’s a suitable subject for upping to the marble slab for vivisection. Millionaire banker, and known fool. He must have slipped up somewheres along the way. There’d be Labor attack dogs just waiting for the word on any of these.
All done discreetly of course. If there’s one thing to make a journalistic hack forget his training, it’s a juicy scandal. They eat their own then. Don’t get in their way.
March 11th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Good stuff Muskiemp.
I can see your point AB…but it worked well for the Dems when Clinton did it. It’s a way of letting the population know that a certain news group owner is using HIS News outlets as a propaganda mouthpiece.
However, I agree w/ the Third Party concept/tactic…:)…never hurts to have a few Prussians at your Waterloo…methinks Costello is a bit of a Ney…lol
Never a truer word said…:)
March 11th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Howard’s strength has always been that he’s a try-anything political nerd.
I remember hearing the memoir (on ABC RN) of a Sydney lit or art group who invited the then young Howards along to some part or other. Mrs Howard was fine, but John was a complete loss, spending the whole evening in the kitchen lidtening to the results of the Tasmanian election on radio. Hasn’t changed much.
Interesting piece over at Troppo http://www.clubtroppo.com.au/2007/03/07/howardanoia/#comments
from comment 15 IfYouKnewSushi.
apparently according to that Howard played a key role in winning a seat for Tom Hughes, whose daughter later married one Malcolm Turnbull. Suggests he might still try and fix the succession for the same family.
If you want a sure sign that they’re gone, watch the Queen’s Birthday Honors List in June. My guess is that if Dolly finally sees the writing on the wall, he’ll push very hard for a knighthood. And Howard still owes him. Then again he hasn’t seen it in the past.
March 11th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Humble apologies AB, I didn’t realise there was primary evidence of the event. Bloody hell, did someone (not you presumably :-)) have the prescience to recognise a future prime minister when they heard one? Or did radio stations archive all this crud? The cost must have been (still must be?) enormous. Yet other valuable audio visual archives have deteriorated so much they’ve effectively been lost. One of life’s minor mysteries I suppose.
My absences from uni in the 60s were almost entirely due to the fact that the closest bar was the Regent Hotel. Once there, the walk back was a lecture too far. Since then of course unis got civilised and put in bars of their own. Then people got materialistic and too busy to go to either bars or lectures.
Ah progress.
March 11th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Jason Koutsoukis has to be thanked for repeating this great, historic, Howard quote, from your link, Aussie Bob..
“It’s hard to see him (Prime Minister Tony Blair) being defeated,” Howard said. “I don’t think the conservatives have done enough spade work. You can’t fatten the pig on market day in politics.”
While many were imagining that election day was when they cast a vote, in a democratic society. It is, in fact, “market day” in his world vision.
Who is the pig? The economy or the voting public… we may be looking at pigs ‘in the trough’ here. National Party, in his terms, and fox hunter types in conservative England..
Spade work? Rely on BNP and Pauline for their black arts.
March 11th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
All this slime hinges on the fact that Howard has his back to the wall and all the bad polls would have the backbench jelly-bellies shaking at the knees.
March 11th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
- sorry didn’t quite finish - Costello has come to the fore in recent times and it would not surprise if he is ready to take over when Howard steps down for whatever reason well before the next election. Maybe they realise this will be Cossie’s last chance for a stint at the top job - he’d hardly be around after the election when this bunch of cretins get the arse!
March 11th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
“Speculation came to fever pitch today as rumours circulated concerning John Howards’ future. Inside sources were quoted as saying that his personal wellbeing had been compromised by the stress of long hours and the pressure of the ongoing Wars on Terror an’ Drugs”. No comment was forthcoming from treasurer, Peter Costello, who is currently on holiday in the Grampians.
Yep Howler, I will go with that.
March 11th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Don, I think you’ll find that was an episode of Street Stories (or somesuch) by the wonderful Kerry Jean Ross about the Dinner Club in Griffith.
March 11th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
NB: Don Wigan:
Keeping the Liberal Party Crown Jewels In The Family
Chapter and Verse
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/stories/s141875.htm
for Malcolm/Lucy Turnbull/Hughes family tree. Yes that is Hughes, as in Robert.
You learn something every day, huh: Malcolm’s Muddle name is Bligh. I see they might have named one, or possibly two, of their kids after Downer: Alexander and Daisy.
Tom gets a mention in Our Jack’s
“most emphatic endorsement to Malcolm Turnbull as the next Liberal Member for Wentworth” http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/news/article.aspx?ID=83
Background at:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/02/06/1075854062256.html?from=storyrhs
In that 1963 belection ” young Howard, suburban solicitor and ambitious Liberal Party apparatchik,” seems to have invented, or at least was test pilot for the new Liberal Party Secret Weapon, which they’ve continue to deploy ever since, refining it, making a science of it:
The smear campaign.
You can see why him and them and textor/crosby get on like such a house on fire. Howard probably gave Textor the idea of push polling.
I’m sure there’s always been badmouthing but I reckon Howard introduced, or at least institutionalised, TRIBAL HATRED and FEAR in Australian politicking.
“Howard attacked Hughes’s opponent, the Labor stalwart Les Haylen, as a classic red-ragger, producing pamphlets depicting him as “Left-Wing Les” and “the Minister for Peking”. Hughes won, and Howard’s own political ambitions soon took flight.”
As they sow…
Hell, they didn’t take flight then, he’d been circling in the stratosphere like a vulture for a few years already, as Den Mother of the the Young Liberals Sect. But true, this cunning stunt got him into the Adult Section.
Howardoid factoid #62:
He never quite managed to leave home, he lived at home with his mum till he was 31, went straight from the maternal bosom to Janette’s. Kinda creepy huh.
When he first contested a seat, him and mum sold up the Earlwood house to move into the electorate the liberal power brokers gave him pre-selection support for. Then they moved back to the same street when he didn’t get up.
I wonder if there’s any of those 1963 pamphletts in the Libs museum. They’d be red, white and blue I guess. Double barrel boogie man propaganda, a Hansonite before her time, both red and race baiting:
“Left Wing Les, the Minister for Peking” Authorised by John Winston Howard.
It must gall him somewhat now that he and we have to suck up to China.
I say it’s all gutless Pete’s fault, he supped with the devil, did the deal with Howard after Daisy proved to be such a dud as fearless leader.
March 12th, 2007 at 12:08 am
Believe it. I’ve got the audio file on my PC. It’s funny… until you realise that he eventually became our prime miniature.
March 12th, 2007 at 12:51 am
Interesting turn of events in Amerika…looks as tho Fox News President Roger Ailes & his ‘faux’ news team have pissed off more than a few in the Democratic Party. Seems the tables are being turned on the Repug’s mouthpiece of a cable network:
(source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melinda-henneberger/dems-dump-fox-obama-comm_b_43060.html)
ouch! The Democratic Donkey gives the Fox a swift kick in the machos.
March 12th, 2007 at 11:09 am
AB is right.
Way past time to fight back against the slime machine. The OZ versions of the far more vicious and professional versions spawned by the anti democratic authoritarian US right may be less professional, but they are meant to be just as intimidating, and appear in many cases. to have succeeded.
Bullies are all the same. The minute you stop taking their crap and fight back they start crying and then run away.
Parties like to be careful of offending the powerful because they understand that one day they will be the governemnt, however the general level of mendacity, smear and outright suppression of any critical evaluation of government claims is over the top, even by the generally unimpressive standards of the Australian media.
It is way past time that the right in this country started to feel some ‘heat’ about the very untidy way they have manged thee business of government over the last 11 years. A good start would be to examine the links between lobbyists for various industries, their links to the Liberal Par, political decisions and actual legislative outcomes. I am aware of at least one major industry lobby group whose CEO was selected specifically from the Office bearers of a state Liberal Party machine, precisely because it was understood that is would ‘assist’.
The person in question did not have the foggiest clue about the industry itself, and presumably cares only to the extent that he continues to be paid.
March 12th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Thanks for that extra info, IfYouKnewSushi.
As I said his long-term claim to fame will be as a political nerd or junkie, considerably sharper than Richo. Certainly not as a polly or statesman.
I think I can add slightly to your theme by suggesting that he followed Enoch Powell’s English race campaigning (which ultimately failed after a young Tory yob got it off to a flying start by downing Patrick Gordon Walker). He learnt from it, and tried a variant in the 80s on Asian immigration. It laid an egg then.
But he didn’t really find his length until that dumb-cluck Pauline Hanson did it for him. Then he only had to fall in behind with a little dog whistling.
He was lucky that the shock jocks kept the Boat People issues simmering, and that allowed him to move in on the Tampa as if it was an invasion of our borders and sovereignty.
Very sad times. Lets hope the polls are right and the public is sick of this poison.
March 12th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
One afterthought inspired by your graphic, AB, is that they could have had a Dairy Cow Veterans for Truth and interview a few of the surviving cows from that era.
Bossy: “I never did trust that sneaky little runt. I reckon he turned up for milking with icy fingers deliberately.”
Maisy: “He wasn’t all that smart. He often put us in the wrong feeding paddock. Spent too much time swotting. I hate those elitist types.”
Bertie: “He wasn’t all that brave either. Whenever I fronted him, he hopped the fence quicksmart.”
March 12th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Any chance you guys could share it with us? Or tell us where you got it from?
March 13th, 2007 at 2:05 am
Here’s a Real Audio link:
Jack Davey show
Here’s an excerpt that appears to lend weight to the old saw about the child being father to the man:
Jack Davey: What is a mezzanine floor?
John Howard: A what?
Jack Davey: Well, where do you find a mezzanine floor?
John Howard: Oh, on the floor of that house in an eastern country?
Jack Davey: You mean a harem?
John Howard: How do you know?
Jack Davey: How do I know?
I dunno whether it’s funny or frightening, but it definitely is annoying.
March 13th, 2007 at 2:38 am
Thank you, Mr C.
March 17th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Hey Costello, you are priceless! Question-time would be alot of gas from a heap of boring old farts without you.