As the latest round in the War Against Jihadi Death Cult Zombies weaves its inevitable way into the mill of sensationalist television news promos, and the ever-escalating one-upmanship of competing media organizations churns out “City Under Siege” headlines and the like, we need to pause and wonder just where we are headed after the first year of Abbott Reality Television.
It is becoming almost impossible to tell the difference between promotional material for Dancing With The Stars or The Block and the latest cynical attempt by the Abbott “government” (I use the word advisedly) to claw back some credibility in the polls. Could it be that petty? Just polls? With this mob, you have to go for the lowest common denominator. Of course it can.
What was, just a few months ago, the highly unpleasant but distant beat of a fanatical jihadist drum, has morphed into an existential Threat To The Homeland. In the words of a 10 News promo on Friday night, Australia now faces “the greatest threat to its national security in history”. If you’re going to go the hog, you may as well go the whole hog. Beat that, ABC, 7, 9 and SBS!
The same in-house promotions units who produce, edit and present titillating commercials for “unmissable”, “must see” episodes of dreary soap operas and second rate cooking shows, are now at work beating-up the latest half-dozen arrests of some religious crazies into a Threat To Our Way Of Life. The more ridiculous, the better.
As we watch men of the Press Gallery in suits with carefully coiffed hair looking staunchly into camera telling of how they are bearing up to the latest threat against their workplace, Parliament House, and vulnerable women (equally coiffed and made-up) delivering breathless on-the-spot reports from suburban streets seething with police in paramilitary jackboots and baseball hats, the Prime Minister deprecatingly tells us that he is not afraid for himself, but for his people.
Journalists love a war. The real ones go to battlefields and take their chances. The pretenders do stand-ups for local TV news bulletins, or beaver away Photoshopping front page newspaper graphics to scare the bejesus out of their suggestible readers.
The boundary between fake reality and Real Reality has blurred to the point of disappearance. It’s hard to tell the difference nowadays, and that is precisely the object of the exercise.
Meanwhile the Budget lies in tatters. Consumer and business confidence is approaching all-time lows. Unemployment is soaring. Indigenous Australians have been deserted again… for a photo op with the SAS. Renewable Energy, surely a growth industry if ever there was one, is under threat. Manufacturing industries are closing down, one after the other, dominoes in some ideological game. Prices for commodities that are actually in glut – electricity and gas – are soaring, not falling. Science is on the skids. Politicians are being sin-binned in lots of a dozen. Memories are failing. Debt is soaring. The dollar is tanking. Promises are discarded like used bus tickets. The government that told us “No surprises, no excuses” blames the previous government for everything instead of facing up to the fact that the people elected them to run the country.
When will the Abbott government start governing and stop spinning? The nation really does need to know when they can expect confidence and governance to return, not when the next fanciful beheading is about to take place. Let the regular authorities look after that in the normal way.
Each step along the way from the first announcement of the “Caliphate” to today, with “terror in our midst”, has both fed off the previous step and provides a platform for the next. Instead of attending to the important and pressing matters of state that affect real millions of peoples’ lives, livelihoods and businesses, a cynical promotional campaign is dumped in our laps, willingly propagated by a media obsessed with outdoing its rivals, using trumped-up drama, and narcissistic over-concentration on its own role in the process.
A Prime Minister who, in train with media finger-waggers and tut-tutters, rebuked his predecessors for junketeering has racked up more miles in the air and dollars in jet fuel attending pointless meetings and ingratiating himself with foreign dignitaries than either of the people he criticised. A couple of fawning op-eds declaring him to be “statesmanlike” seem to be the reason for this. That, and 1 or 2 points in the polls. As Abbott realizes that there are virtually no restraints on the treasure he can waste and the photo-ops he can manufacture, his swaggering, testosterone-pumped ego swells to fill the vacuum.
Meanwhile, the nation drifts, rudderless, drunk with hatred for jihadist nonsense that gets its kicks by baiting fools like Abbott. Abbott and ISIS we made for each other. The viewers watch on, hugely entertained. There’s a new thrill every episode.
Behind it all is the certain knowledge that Reality TV rates. What else would the media do but use the same techniques they use in confecting phoney reality, all the better to cheapen actual reality? Somewhere in the middle the two streams meet and the nation, while remaining essentially ungoverned, is gamed instead.
Once upon a time it used to be called “bread and circuses”. The Abbott government has invented a new twist: “bread and circuses… without the bread”… directionless, spin-obsessed, blame-rich posturing, anchored in the grammar and language of Reality TV, run by a media increasingly relevance-deprived, shrinking in size and dumbing-down in intellect (yes, it’s possible).
All the while the nation sinks further into random aimlessness with no-one at the tiller, except the preening Prime Minister and his hapless sidekicks, urgers and sleeve-tuggers..
We cannot keep indulging in this orgy of spin over substance. You can’t run a country on terrorism for another two years. Someone’s got to do some work. Political commentators routinely emphasize the techniques and tricks of politics as indicators of good governance, ignoring reality. Tricks are an amusement, not the main game. Opinionistas tick-off “promises kept” without the slightest consideration of ramifications suffered. Barrie Cassidy nominates Christopher Pyne as “politician of the week” because his wife finally got her B.A. This has something to do with Pyne being education minister. You figure it out. I couldn’t.
Cassidy also cheer-leads for Scott Morrison to take over Homeland defence in one of the most fawning, embarrassing pieces of political analysis written in living memory. In writing this rubbish, fool Cassidy automatically disqualifies himself from further recognition as a serious commentator. After the Old Parliament House scare and the months off from Insiders to ponder his future, Barrie seems to have said, “Yes please” to the political lobotomy option.
Saturday’s Daily Telegraph urged governments to “CAGE THE COWARDS”, meaning lock up anyone arrested in the last day or so by the “terrorism” circus, without further ado.
The Tele’s logic? Some of the people arrested yesterday had been released without charge. The reason? Police didn’t have any evidence against them. Seems reasonable to release prisoners for that, but not to the Tele.
Months of surveillance by “strike forces” and “task groups”, hundreds of police, helicopters in the wee small hours, searchlights, raised terror threat levels, Glock-toting SWAT teams… and it turns out they didn’t have any evidence against most of the rounded-up. It was a stunt, an expensive, overblown one, but a stunt nevertheless. The Tele’s bluster, urging the abandonment of habeas corpus and the rules of natural justice can’t paper that over. They were arrested, so they must be guilty of something, It’s the oldest copper trick in the world. m’lud. The Tele enthusiastically agrees.
The Daily Telegraph is the same newspaper that has been running an anti-Muslim campaign for the past two months. They sent intrepid investigative war journalist and heroic blogger Tim Blair out to the wilds of… Lakemba. While there, Tim discovered that the non-drinking Muslim community didn’t patronize the local pub. They walked around in funny clothes. The men had scary beards. Some of the shops had… gulp… political and religious books in their window displays. You could hear different languages being spoken. There’s none of your “most Muslims are law-abiding” multicultural subtlety in Blair’s two pieces. It’s racial and cultural mockery all the way down to the Tim’s cave, located below a fetid gutter near you. One can’t help but wonder whether it wasn’t all part of a tawdry pre-promotion designed to soften up their readership before the quasi-military early morning raids began a few weeks later. But they wouldn’t do that would they?
Abbott, said to be “running the country” from his undisclosed, tented location in Arnhem Land, pauses only to incongruously put on a suit in the midst of the red dust to sombrely intone that “chatter” (a favourite word of intelligence agencies in circumstances like this, as it implies both sinister communication and reminds us that Muslims talk funny) has been overheard. He gives a blow-by-blow commentary on operational matters, in stark contrast to the object of Cassidy’s political man-love, Morrison, and his ventriloquist’s dummy, a forgettable and forgotten “3-Star General”.
We have F-18s being fuelled up. SAS boots on the ground at the ready. Muslims vilified and caricatured. Screaming headlines urging the abrogation of Magna Carta. Severed heads. Executioner’s swords unearthed from under backyard lawns. Police, lots of them. Uniforms and braid everywhere. Death cults. Pure Evil. The UN Security Council. Po-faced commentary about “leadership”. Arrests. Move over. I wanna be on TV.
In the lingua franca of Reality TV, it’s an “unmissable” episode of Abbott In Power indistinguishable from the spruiking excess of a promo for Big Brother. As he has always done, Abbott relies on standover tactics, threats of violence and intimidation, spin and deception. He gets others, like the Murdoch press and the truly malignant Ray Hadley to megaphone the really nasty stuff while he tells Australian Muslims he’s their friend. The field is strewn with the political and social corpses of Abbott’s “friends”. Start running if he wants to shake your hand (this means you, Warren Mundine). Abbott cannot lie straight in bed. He’s the Whirling Dervish, seeking to bring those around him down so that he might stand a little taller by comparison. It’s pathetic, but Abbott has always been a small man, obsessed by small things. He’d make sure he got a receipt for a slice of banana cake at the local school fete. He did so for a sliver of Peter Slipper’s wedding cake, then stabbed his friend in the back.
Meanwhile the country wanders aimlessly, stressed, terrorised, depressed, under-employed and essentially ungoverned, too full of intolerance and jingoism to realise how egregiously it has been gamed. Businesses fail, jobs are lost, industries wind up… but Tony, the War Prime Minister, will protect them from street-corner beheadings and jihadis at the gate.
The indigenous Australians he abandoned for a photo op with the SAS sit there in their corrugated lean-tos, puzzled. This was supposed to be their week, but the cameras, microphones and strutting ministers have disappeared. The old tribal men and women mutter to themselves, “Poor fella, my country.”
And they are right.
We are going to a war we cannot win, against an ideology we cannot defeat, for a purpose we cannot explain. There will even be an audience vote this weekend. Sound familar? It is self-justifying and pointless, but hugely distracting and entertaining. Government as Reality TV has arrived.
THE PUB 
Puffy,
I rarely even poke my head in the door over the road. The very thought of the befuddled one keeps me away from PB – the only time I enjoyed the place were the times Bilbo banned the bugger.
Janice ..having worked with many customers a tad “above themselves” I can sympathise with your predicament..there are some people who, having reached a certain level of “income assurance”, feel they can be blind to the needful health problems of the very people they were sworn to serve. With “your” particular ophthalmologist, I would suggest it is a most blatant case of ; “Physician ; Heal thyself!”
Puff…that bastard : “bemused” needs a healthy kick up the arse…I don’t know why he is tolerated there….considering I am not!, I can only conclude that, like on every “factory floor”, every boss needs a bully!
Next time maybe you should ask him outright, “Don’t you like treating poor people? I do use soap you know.”
Blody arrogant eye specialist probably got his degree for free (at least his undergrad one.).
I poured myself a good lemon gin over ice with mint cocktail.
“So, I went to the front office and forked out the $80 consult fee ”
Why pay. He gave you no service. Saying that, you got off light. I just paid $95. Still the surgeon is one of the best. Would have went back to GP and asked for new referral.
Labor tried to lower the fee for Cataracts, as it is now a simple quick operation. Eye doctors did not like it.
I have been on the list since Jan. My eyes have deteriorated rapidly since then, Hospital will notdo cataracts unless on list 12 mths.
One can walk out of any doctors surgery., This man deserve that.
My son refused to sign a medicare form when a doctor would not renew his usual script, telling him to see his own doctor, who was not on in that practice that day.
I still make sure my STFU is activated before I go over there. Mind you, I’ve got so many names on it that at times the pages are mostly just titles in green writing. It’s still a good place, but sifting through the dross does get irritating.
jaycee,
I’ve never had occasion to consult an Ophthalmologist before but this little pissant has the same ‘holier than thou’, ‘better than you’ attitude as every Endocrinologist I had the misfortune to consult, as well as a couple of Physicians I got referred to who were supposed to be top knotch. Even if I happened to be a rich woman I wouldn’t part with a cent to consult these blowflies let alone trust them with my health.
Aguirre
Good idea. I will use STFU if i decide to go there. I should have installed it ages ago.
When I saw that Puff had quit PB, I tried to provoke Bemused into a shit fight. He has an intense dislike for me too.
Last time I provoked him he blew his stack and got banned for weeks.
This time, no such luck, unfortunately.
Puffy,
I went to a bulk billing practice some time back to get a tetanus injection after a gardening accident. The receptionist told me I didn’t have to sign as she waved me out after the consult. So, I would get your son to check his medicare records (can be downloaded from their site if you get a password) to see if the doctor put in the form unsigned.
If it cheers you up, Puff, several posters at PB have started a “Bring Back Puff” campaign. William himself has told Bemused in no uncertain terms he takes a very dim view of both Bemused and his antics last night.
Developing…
BTW
I went to that surgery as it was the only one open on a Public Holiday.
Chin Up Puff
Just had a look at what all the kerffule was over
What can I say.
I think our standards here suit us all well.
Bemused tried it on here when Joe started the blog. He was sent packing PDQ.
Florence,
No use asking for another referral – in this area you don’t have a choice as there are no others. I will fork out the fees for the two tests and no doubt I will be on the waiting list for the surgery for months. The worrying thing is that the Optometrist told me that my sight has deteriorated rather quickly and I haven’t long before I won’t be able to drive – if I can’t drive, I am stuffed as I live alone out of town and there is no public transport.
bushfirebill
Stop picking on him Thug.
It was your fault I had to step in and deny him posting rites here.
Wow.
A truck with failed brakes averted disaster on the freeway by going up the last arrester bed, It was a skilled piece of driving, he averted possible deaths,
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-25/police-chase-ends-in-freeway-arrester-bed-used-by-a-truck/5767850?section=sa
I posted this reply to a comment over on The Guardian concerning “Not in my name” apologising for ISIS. article……What is your opinion of that war?
Are you a fool, starwalker or what!!?…Your saccharined western version of history is demented…does not the Sykes-Picot agreement mean anything to you…when those very peoples that are now at each others throats, with OUR “western” duplicity the mother of it all back in the days of the fall of the Ottoman Empire, when the western powers divvied up the territory to suit a colonial intent and from that day till independence of those peoples WITH the colonial boundaries STILL intact and no consideration given to tribes ( but weapons and logistics heaped onto their “local-toady” oppressors), creed or national ambition, have been fighting a “rear-guard” action to halt further capital and cultural intrusion into their very private world.
Don’t come on here all condescending and sanctimonious! Preaching “as god is my witness” bullshit!!…go look in your own backyard for double-dealing genocide and get on your bended knees and thank whatever deity you want that our own oppressed and suppressed peoples do not decide “enough is enough”!!
That so-called ISIS war is a cut above the rest for brutality sectarian civil war , and as anyone could tell anyone…don’t get involved in a neighbour’s family dispute without grave reservations!
The arrestor bed worked. Good on the driver for hitting it correct.
otoh maybe he should have selected the correct gear in the first place. ( If that is the reason for the drama)
I’d rather be a Thug than a Nazi censor Joe. I begged you not to ban Bemused but you wouldn’t listen. Bemused is my friend. He is so charming and witty, with that dry sense of humour of his and absolutely no tickets on himself at all (unlike SOME I might mention).
What’s an arrestor bed? Is it something on the truck or some kind of contraption like a ramp?
well said.
Joe6p
It does say wrong gear, but again it is the ms, and they are prone to jumping to the first conclusion.
Sieg Heil, Pal
BB
It is an off road up the hill, with soft sand by the look of it, to slow the verhicle down.
https://s.yimg.com/ea/img/-/140701/jul01_arrester_bed_1280_19r4s83-19r4s9g.jpg?x=656&sig=8SP.ejwW16RbzO2B1gKX5g–
My only regret about the Banning of Bemused is that I didn’t see it.
foreverjanice,
A few years ago my OH’s had been on the waiting list for nearly 2 years and the cataracts had really deteriorated so we investigated having them done privately. The quotes we received were close to $3000 per eye. The items included in the quotes, the ophthalmologist’s fee, anaesthetists fee, lenses, measuring of the lenses and the day hospital fee. The half day fee for the hospital was $960. Medicare would cover about 70 % of the charges but none of the hospital fee.
I would suggest you investigate what other charges will apply other than his fee of $1800.
Our experience had a fairytale ending. Just as we were about to proceed, one of the last acts of the Bligh Govt was to contract out the surgery for a lot of people in an attempt to reduce the waiting list. OH just happened to be included. No chance of this happening with the Tories.
Arrestor beds are those steep uphill runoff ramps you see coming down steep inclines usually filled with gravel or sand.
A method of last resort if your brakes have failed and you are running out of control.
They work , but you must hit them pretty much straight or the rig will roll anyway.
Bemused in his customary center stage “take on all comers” mode tonight. So we could be in for a banning, if William plays his cards right.
The best thing you can do to Bemused is to prick his vanity.
He is the bloviating George Brandis of the internet.
Whenever I’ve seen those arrestor beds I’ve always wondered to myself if anyone has ever used them. You never see any scrape marks on them indicating use.
Are they used often Gruppenfuhrer Joe?
That photo gives a beter look at it. That is one on our freeway that the truck went up.
It costs $7000 to be towed out of one, so no, they do not get used much.
If you miss a gear or pick the wrong one before you start your descent and you have a road ranger gearbox you are stuffed really. There is no way to get it back in gear ,so you have to make the decisions, Jump,Hang on, ram it into a bank or if lucky arrestor bed. usually you are going to die. You see the gearbox exploded in bits before you get to the wreck from the driver trying to jam the gears in.
Bloody dangerous occupation.
A bloody good article by Elizabeth Farrelly..
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/tenets-of-democracy-get-lost-in-hate-storm-20140924-10lbp4.html
Breaking news on Their ABC: an ADF bloke in his ADF gear was verbally assaulted by two blokes in Sydney (?).
A setup or what!
BB
If the cost to use the arrestor beds was not up to $8000 they would be used more frequently one could assume.
“…You see the gearbox exploded in bits before you get to the wreck from the driver trying to jam the gears in.”
I remember on our bitzas, we had a stick that one could lever onto the road to slow the cart down.
This is all about normalizing us to our Stasi.
“…an ADF bloke in his ADF gear was verbally assaulted”…don’t tell me they called him : “sissy!”…christ!..from what we have been hearing from the ADF. abuse scandals lately, abuse would be a walk in the park!
verbal abuse, I mean!!
I’m sure it’ll get full coverage on the ABC.
Maybe they even spat at him.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/25/scott-morrison-seeks-new-law-to-block-asylum-seeker-legal-challenges
Mandy.
foreverjanice. I am on Central Coast, NSW. Yes, my eyes also deteriorated fast. Would not be able to drive now.