Bali
Environment - - Posted on December, 16 at 7:48 am by Ken L
Ever since November 24, the survivors of Howard’s mongrel pack of blogosphere hangers-on have been trying to regroup. They’ve been like the Grande Armée retreating from the snows of Moscow in 1812, desperately trying to find ways to stroke their monstrous egos with delusions of moral and intellectual dominance even as their heroes in Canberra display for all the world to see what a nasty bunch of lightweights they are and always were.
One of the straws they’ve grabbed at is the Bali conference on climate change. “Look,” they’ve sneered happily. “Look how Rudd’s back-pedalling, look how he’s just adopted Howard’s all-wise position, look at how hypocritical Labor is hehe.” Because these people are essentially stupid. They are incapable of analysis or nuance. In terms of negotiating parlance, all they can see is a position. The subtleties of interests and strategy and tactics escape them completely.
So it will be hilarious to watch their confusion this week in response to the Bali agreement, an agreement that Howard would have opposed to his dying day. An agreement moreover in which Australia appears to have played a significant role, even if only because our symbolic ratification of Kyoto isolated the USA and put the Bush Administration under incredible pressure to demonstrate that it had some shred left of good global citizenship.
So congratulations to Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong and everyone else involved. It will take a while but the penny will eventually drop with what’s left of the Howard cheer squad that the Howard era is over. Finished. And his remaining blogosphere acolytes who continue to spout inane tripe about Rudd being a Howard clone might eventually come to see what utter morons they are making of themselves.
PS:
I don’t pretend to have followed the substance of the Bali negotiations. My scepticism about the chances of the international community doing anything effective is on the record. But Mark Brian over at LP in Exile has a great overview with other links.
Are they ever coming out of exile, do you think? I reckon they’ve gotten to like it there.
Posted in Environment |
December 16th, 2007 at 8:42 am
“And his remaining blogosphere acolytes who continue to spout inane tripe about Rudd being a Howard clone might eventually come to see what utter morons they are making of themselves.”
I wouldn’t count on it. The internet is a moron friendly medium. Nowhere else is it so easy to gather together in self-congratulatory cliques and ignore every dissenting voice.
December 16th, 2007 at 8:58 am
I think you’re being unkind to morons by likening the Howard huggers to them. Morons might be thick, but they are not necessarily nasty, as are the cohort you were comparing to them.
December 16th, 2007 at 9:25 am
The piece of doublethink from the Howard cheer squad that has amazed me most has been the cry that ratifying Kyoto will ruin us and proves how dangerous Labor are, while the Bali negotiations prove that they’re still playing me too.
As you say Ken, they have no capacity to understand anything beyond a Liberal party press release.
December 16th, 2007 at 10:09 am
I know Jan. It’s so hard to find the mot juste. Cretin? Imbecile? Never mind, we all know what they are even if we can’t find the precisely correct label.
December 16th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
“find the precisely correct label”….Ilks!.
December 16th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Agreed. Tis one of the advantages of having a diplomat in charge. So much for the inexperience slur.
December 16th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
i hope the Labor Party are now seriously thinking about changes to media ownership laws…anyone who thinks we have a Left-leaning or even “fair & balanced” media is out of their mind.
Going by recent news reporting, i can tell you more about the Federal Liberal lineup than the Labor one.
And any visitor to these shores would think we had ‘failure’ at Bali (not true) & that Australia is a Country full of dysfunctional families who rape & bash & murder each as National pastimes…& that Aboriginal men do nothing but screw little children…& our most influential Leaders are the CEOs of multi-national companies…& Australia is a police state riddled with child pornographers, drug addicts & dealers, and animal abusers…and we are addicted to the Spice Girls, David Beckham, shirtless footy stars & screeching idols.
And people wonder why the ‘97 “New Labour” train was derailed. Ask SKY NEWS…and the other Corporate propagandists & smear merchants who have the tenacity to call themselves “news outlets”.
December 16th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
They are ilking bloviators.
December 16th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Mumbles to self at what Lyn said,’why didn’t I think of that’ , Thats funny, thanks Lyn.
December 16th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
[Are they ever coming out of exile, do you think? I reckon they’ve gotten to like it there.]
Yeah, since the Day of their DOS-out, some of the writing has developed an air of Conrad, Naipaul and Thomas Wolfe as they struggle valiantly to regain their byte-hold in the Blogdom of Oz. The lonliness of long-time limbo; that pervading angst of exile has lifted their literary game.
Maybe they need to suffer more:)
December 16th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
That’s obvious. Might I suggest you read this earth shattering document before embarrassing yourself by further rhapsodising about the prodigious negotiating skills of Wong and Rudd.
Bali Road Map
December 16th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
It’s like someone opened a window
I wonder if this is a foreshadowing of how the greater blogosphere might feel at the end of 2008 (assuming we don’t somehow end up with a US run by another religious right nutjob)
December 16th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
That post at LP in Exile is by Brian, not me, Ken.
December 16th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Thanks Mark … fixed.
December 17th, 2007 at 1:40 am
“Are they ever coming out of exile, do you think? I reckon they’ve gotten to like it there.”
We’re working on it, Ken. Not long to go now I reckon.
December 17th, 2007 at 8:32 am
Is anything that is actually practical going to come out of the Bali talks?
No.
What delusional booster can explain to me, or anyone else, how things will improve from this ego boosting get-together. From all that I have read, each country has said that “We will cut our pollution immediately. However………..”
What industry will voluntarily cut its own pollution without sucking up tax dollars either immediately or eventually?
How do I, as an individual, help by putting in 40-odd dollars worth of energy saving light bulbs, driving a hybrid,(have you seen the battery in those suckers?) or using a solar clothes dryer. Not at all If everybody in Australia did, (and they won’t), it would affect business bottom lines resulting in price rises to ensure dividends are paid therefore preserving the board members golden parachutes. Greed is now better than good, it is damned well god-like. Meanwhile, factories continue to merrily spew their shit into the air.
Do I have any answers? Nope. Thats why I asked in my third paragraph. All I know is that talk will do nothing whatsoever and all the written agreements that will follow will do nothing except provide the basis for escape clauses and future amendments.
December 17th, 2007 at 10:30 am
I now see that the Coalition are claiming some credit for the agreement on Climate change at Bali. They say it is because of their hard work on climate change during APEC. Wake up you Galoots, the people don’t believe you and you have no credibility on this issue. After years of putting their heads in the sand they expect people to believe they were partly responsible for a move in the right direction. They really haven’t learnt from their hiding at the ballot box have they. It was great to see PNG get serious with the World Buly the USA. It was gold telling them they were looking to them for leadership, but if they didn’t want to lead, step aside because they want to follow someone who would show leadership on Climate Change. Is everybody else scared of the bullies, too scared to call a spade a spade. Great work PNG, you showed what leadership is.
December 17th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
The bit I liked best was the attempt by a spokesperson for HM Opposition, to paint Australia’s effective finger wagging at the US’ reluctance to get onboard at Bali, as ‘endangering the US alliance’.
Is it just me? I mean for how much longer do we have to listen to this bit of exhausted Cold war/GWOT rhetoric and worse, just why do these clowns think they deserve to be taken seriously on just about any level. I have been listening to this particular garbage now, for oh I dunno, seems like my whole life.
There is something quite deranged about the reflexive, almost addictive reaching for this phrase, at any and every policy and programmatic juncture. I mean, is there something else they could say for a change? You know. Say something about the policy itself in its own terms, rather than just versions of “oooh, I’m telling the US on you! You are endangering TEH alliance”! I mean, really!
And another thing. When you have Greg Sheridan in Saturday’s OG waxing lyrical about how the lack of serious analysis of Australia’s love of suburban gardens, reveals yet again, just how out of touch the left wing deracinated blah blah blah (you all know the rest) I have to wonder if the Australian Right just hasn’t gone completely barking mad, or is it that I am suddenly noticing, the way you do when the noise stops, and you can hear the crickets again?
December 17th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
you got it in one Aussie Sheila…this bunch of twisted fruit loops & their drooling ilk have spent far too many years visiting or imitating Murdoch’s inferno…their brains are fried & they’ve confused “hedonism” with “self-sacrifice”.
It’s all about self-gratification dressed up as Puritan work ethic as they vainly attempt to redraw the socio-political road map on ever crumbling parchment…a confused, dazed and motley crew obsessed with their desperate longing to be intellectually & morally superior to those they smear & persecute…but in fact they are lost in a nightmare of Manichaean paranoia whilst parking their slime-covered butts in Hotel “Morally Bankrupt”…last stop before Reckoningville.
This lot are most definitely Clive Barker material.
December 17th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
LOL nas we’re trying to make RTS an ilk-free zone by 2008.
December 17th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Ken wrote “Ever since November 24, the survivors of Howard’s mongrel pack of blogosphere hangers-on have been trying to regroup. They’ve been like the Grande Armée retreating from the snows of Moscow in 1812, desperately trying to find ways to stroke their monstrous egos with delusions of moral and intellectual dominance even as their heroes in Canberra display for all the world to see what a nasty bunch of lightweights they are and always were.”
Thus, and I suppose I should have expected it, but have any others noticed how the current tsunami of media publicity and air time being awarded to the train-wrecked Liberal Party since the recent election far exceeds that being given to our actual government of the day?
It’s as if these God-like Liberal saints and pillars of moral rectitude still retain some trace of credence, or an ounce of competence, or deserve any reportage whatsoever, instead of being proclaimed as the atrocious turds that they actually are. It’s as if they never joined any coalition to illegally invade other countries, as though they gleefully signed Earth-saving agreements at Kyoto, and almost like they never condoned the bribing of Saddam Hussein to the tune of $600 million. And you’d nearly think they didn’t trash our health and education in this, one of the world’s wealthiest nations. As if.
Immediately following the wonderfully fragrant breath of fresh air which blew through Australia with the last election, we are now getting approximately el-zilcho favorable coverage of our new government from our frothing OZmedia and its Little Johnny Rotten cheerleader squads? Does Australia even have a new government? You’d hardly know it.
I rang ABC Radio National to complain about their non-stop rabbiting over the Libs and their absurdly irrelevant squabblings over who gets what xmas presents. I asked “Will you report any good news about Mr. Rudd and his new government, apart from his “failure” at Bali, as you put it? Or is there only one political party in Australia: the Liberals?” They denied any bias, but it’s not just them. Evidently the entire infuriated Murdoch spin bowlers from worldbullshit.com are working overtime to discredit and dismantle Rudd’s machine when it’s hardly even started, whilst swamping us with transparent Ozganda of endless discussions and hand-wringing concern for that already sunken Titanic called the Petulant Liberal Opposition Party, P.L.O.P.
December 17th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
:)…ilk are like rodents Ken, no matter how much we spray they keep coming out of the cyber-boards…like the hordes of little Maoists running thru Andrew Bolt’s head.
Isn’t it refreshing to know we can mention the word “Bali” now & not only think of cheap holidays, drunken Aussies running & riding amok, sexual diseases, bombers & tragedies, and drug mules…but also “Kevin Rudd & his team handed over the signed Kyoto Protocol document to cheers and applause”…& visions of a confident, portly & dignified looking fella stating “I’m Al Gore…” - Gawd I luv that guy…why didn’t they make him President? He’s one of those natural Statesman & generally all round good guys & well read fellas…a bit dorky, like so many of the treasures in society, and he sure knows how to irk the Neo-Cons & others of that il..whoops, almost…persuasion like none before, ‘cept mebbe Woody Allen…:)
JHC, your words as ever are a salve to my irritated mind…we are once again enduring a barrage of non-sensical whinings from those who drink from the cesspool of News Corp ideology…their words rain down upon us like stankin’ Guano shot forth from foul bats in panic mode.
If they were characters in a computer game i’d force all the buggers to walk the plank…a once daily dip into the poisonous oceans of their own making. Gobbled up by green sharks with the distinct facial characteristics of Bob Brown.
Poor Monsieur Bolt must be having a fit by now…perhaps a moral aneurysm? To secretly Pinata the Left in my basement, or not to Pinata? That is the question.
December 17th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Aussie Sheila made me laugh as I read “When you have Greg Sheridan in Saturday’s OG waxing lyrical about how the lack of serious analysis of Australia’s love of suburban gardens, reveals yet again, just how out of touch the left wing deracinated blah blah blah ..”
This last month surely must have been ‘my finest hour.’ To read in this blog about the totally deranged Greg Sheridan from the OZSPIN RAG whingeing like a petulant schoolgirl about the (alleged) US ‘intelligence’ agencies getting it all wrong in revealing that Iran has no threatening nuclear program, and hasn’t had one for four years, brought tears of joy to my eyes.
Almost frothing with rabies, Greg squawked that it’s unbelievable the USIA’s would divulge the, ah, real truth - for once. Our dear friend Greg Sheridan, I should remind all, is brainwashed, blinkered, shackled, hogtied, manacled, welded, cemented, secured, handcuffed, cable-tied and Araldited to the ultra-looney Righty wingnuts of this world.
His beliefs, reflected in his voluminous printed words, encompass all other’s views - as long as they’re about greed, guns, bibles, dollars and small items like taking over the world for looney America’s sake.
Tough shit, Greg. You arseholes have had your stinking way ever since Gothenburg’s printing press arrived, choking our throats with centuries of lies and spin. Now it’s our turn, us everyday bloggers, the decent majority, while ultimate liars of your ilk will be consigned to history’s sin-bin - ad infinitum.
So thanks for nothing, Greg. Does your psychiatrist say you’re making any progress?
December 17th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Thanks, Nasking.