Seems Tony Abbott finally headed off to Indonesia today to have some talks. Not about the boats – he wants the focus to be on building a constructive relationship and of course building trade opportunities. Well good luck with that one mate.
For the past three years you’ve spent most Sunday arvos holding boozed up barbies in the back yard with your boof-head mates and the main topic of conversation has been your slack-arsed wog neighbours and how they’ve done nothing about the bloody fence – it’s a f’k’n disgrace – but one day you’re gunna change it. And you’ve paid sod all attention to whether they could hear you or not. Well they could. And they didn’t much like it.
And now you’ve noticed they’re holding a garage sale this Saturday and you’re off to ask them if they’ll do you a favour and flog the Biggles collection you’ve finally outgrown. Well more or less. It’s either that or your old tin because the house is too crowded with junk no one besides you really wants in the place any more.
Fortunately for you, the wog neighbours are Indonesian so they come from a culture where politeness and civility are valued way above boof-headed ‘I’m a free citizen of a free country and I know my f’k’n rights’ individualism’. So you’ll get the advantage of that – you won’t be told to piss off and stick your f’k’n Biggles collection where the sun never shines.
In contrast, little Christopher Pyne evidently hasn’t outgrown his Bunter collection and it’s unlikely he ever will. To mangle a poem about another famous Christopher: now that he’s six he’s clever as clever and he’s going to stay Education Minister for ever and ever and…
If this goes on there’s a risk I’ll be tempted to revive ‘St Huey’s’. That’s verging on self-parody. But ‘s not my fault sir, honest: they started it.
Postscript: I’m tempted to add a new tag: ‘politics – national (deja vu)’ Or maybe just ‘deja vu’ – we’re going to see a lot of that between now and the next Federal election.
Very Droll Sir Gummo.
Please, none of this ‘Sir stuff’. I’m not interested in Imperial Honours… Although…
it might be gratifying to be elevated to a life peerage, particularly if there’s a free escutcheon thrown in. What would I adopt as my title? What should my coat of arms look like? What should I have as my motto? Now there you’ve got a nice little trio of entertaining challenges.
Too bloody right. Those ferals get through and leave bits of brown all over the place. It’s enough to make any decent aussie bloke wanna pick it up and fling it all back.
There’s a pretty easy rule of thumb for how good our regional diplomacy is: how many boats are arriving?
This tells you that Howard became excellent at it, Gillard was ok at it (you’d probably say better than good if you factor in her starting position!) and Rudd was as bad at that as he was at implementing policies. It’ll give you a measure of Abbott’s skill at it too.
Or will in due course, sorry.
Gummo, this isn’t my idea of a decent Troppo post. I detest personal denigration particularly when it relates to physical characteristics. If you want to get your rocks off on the assumption that those who are reading you share your presumption that that’s OK, please do it somewhere else.
Fine – no one can prevent you holding that opinion and you have a right to express it. It’s my idea of a nice, sharp little satirical post which employs hyperbole and metaphor effectively. No one can prevent me from holding that opinion, nor from obstinately holding to it in the face of well-reasoned argument. And I have a right to defend my opinion and stubbornly re-iterate it ad nauseam.
Please indicate where I’ve indulged in personal denigration related to physical characteristics. I’ll take your suggestion under advisement (or whatever they call it).
When I want to get my rocks off, I resort to hand or body lotion, or at a pinch Vaseline – not blogging.
(Edited extensively after initial posting – at least 66% of the final content added after that event)
“Little Christopher Pyne” has a belittling school-yard feel about it. It’s addressed to those who agree with you in denigrating someone else. Like you say, there’s nothing so wrong with doing this in the privacy of your own home, in a pub or pretty much anywhere it’s welcome, but my idea of Troppo is that it consciously tries to avoid this kind of thing. So I’m asserting what I want Troppo to be and that it’s not welcome at Troppo.
Lots of people have come to talk of Troppo as dedicated to civility and/or politeness, which I’ve never really gone for actually. The only real merit of civility it seems to me is that it helps prevent arguments going off the rails and simply becoming emotional exercises in which people rehearse their prejudices and speak past one another. What I care about is steering discussion away from tired clichés.
+1 for this, Nick.
In the past seven days:
– the Boko Haram Islamists have slaughtered yet another batch of school students (40) in Nigeria
– the al-Shabaab Islamists have slaughtered 100 or so shoppers in Kenya
– one of umpteen dozen Islamist groups in Pakistan have bombed a church in Pakistan killing 80 or so people
– Muslim Brotherhood Islamist militants in Egypt have continued their rape, loot and burn of the Coptic community.
We also now know that Australia, America, Britain etc are now significant recruiting grounds for wannabe Jihadists and that many of these recruits arrive on boats or are the children of boat arrivals.
I’m with Patrick on this one. Stop the Boats.
I’m also with Nick; get your act together, Gummo. You can’t keep using your depression or anxiety or whatever as an excuse for the blogging equivalent of a techicolour yawn. Ain’t no-one interested.
Here here!!
And gumo if you want to do cartoons ,be amusing or do not do it at all… Sure ain’t South Park.
Evidence, Mel? Most boat arrivals are in fact Hazaris fleeing the Pushtu Taliban (ie fleeing al Quaeda’s allies) or Tamils fleeing the Sinhalese (ie not even Muslim). While the tiny handful of would-be jihadists in Australia are pretty much the children of refugees from the Lebanese civil war of the 1970s and 80s, with the odd Somali (flew here) or Anglo convert thrown in. You’ve been listening to too many shock jocks Mel.
Really, civility be buggered, Nicholas – this is pernicious crap founded in prejudice, which if left unchallenged can cause real harm to real people. It should be called for what it is.
FWIW I thought there was not much wrong with Gummo’s post either. Are Troppodillians now forbidden to make fun of pollies?
I think it’s the sheer banality of it. It’s not especially funny, the underlying premises (about Indonesia, boat people and Abbott, leaving alone for a second Pyne) are probably wrong.
The irony is that a joke about the shallowness of Tony Abbott appears to be itself based on a very shallow reading of the situation.
Well said Nicholas. The ALP has to reinvent itself as a party of policy and principle to become a credible alternative government and the sooner the better so we can have bipartisan positions on more issues. That will not be achieved by abusing opponents
You mean like Tony Abbott did?
It would be really nice if the best strategy for an Opposition was to try and look principled with nuanced policy stances. That’s not the world we live in though – if the ALP wants to get back in government it should mercilessly ridicule Ministers wherever ridicule, however unfair, can be made to stick. And it should stick to three word slogans. Even in government, the ALP’s biggest problem was its focus on policy and principle rather than on marketing.
Agreed. Abbott has just given the ALP a masterful demonstration of how to be effective in opposition. Oppose everything, talk up fake crises and stoke fake grass roots fury and make it personal. Why would an opposition commit suicide by doing anything else.
I find the unsubstantiated linking of muslims with terrorism much more odious than anything from Gummo. Have you xenophobes traveled to a muslim country? Do you have any idea of how many peaceful law abiding and educated muslims there are in the world that you are tarring with your bogan hatreds and fears? There are dangerous and potentially radical people from all walks of life and religions, muslims don’t have a monopoly on it.
Well, this has turned out to be an interesting little game of Massively Multiplayer Ideological Ping-Pong. Think I’ll just click on the “Observer Status Only” button and lie back for a pleasant rest.
On his Indonesian tour Abbott has just given the ALP a masterful demonstration of how to be effective in
oppositiongovernment. So much for the expectations of the rabble commentariat!Wake up Gummo :)
Geez Gummo, now that even the Age has given up (after a masterful headline writing effort the first day) and reported Abbott’s trip a greater success than any since your hero little Johnny, surely you have it in you to admit that you can now see why most people found your attempt at humor puerile and embarrassing?
Gummo:
That would explain the history anti-Chinese pogroms; murder, rape and church-burning inflicted on the tiny Christian community; massacres, murder and torture in West Papua and East Timor etc.. All done with a polite smile and a “have a nice day”.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the Indonesians have just lifted quotas on Aussie live beef exports. Thanks, Mr Rabbit.