Sadly the Queens Pde poster campaign has ended prematurely. At 2am this morning, two idiots stood at the front of the house and threatened to smash the windows. I sleep at the back of the house and was unaware of the abuse which apparently included a threat to come back at 4am with Molotov cocktails. The two flatmates who sleep at the front of the house were understandably shaken and the poster has been taken down.
I’m just sad that I slept through all the commotion, in my current mood I would have enjoyed a little rumble with some right-wing rabble-rousers… sure, I may weigh 65kgs and wear velour pyjamas, but I think a flying Kilbot would have given them something to think about.
The Queens Pde campaign will continue but we will be taking another tact… the only thing more depressing than another three years of Howard is the idea that we all say nothing.
In other news, the Liberals have announced they will direct their preferences to those ‘kooky’ Greens in the seat of Melbourne. This is a another case of political opportunism by the Howard Government - not to mention hypocrisy - but it highlights a predicament that many left-leaning voters will face this election; does one still vote for the Greens if it is going to work against the Labor Party? I have volunteered to help the Greens on election day, just as I did last election. I will be voting Greens 1, Labor 2, just as I did last election… although I am quietly relieved that I am still enrolled to vote for the seat of Curtin in Perth, rather than in my new electorate of Melbourne.
I look forward to the day when my vote will be for a Green government rather than a Labor preference.
B-Diddy DubSac says:
Geez, I dunno what is more disturbing:
a) that there are Liberal bully-boys out there?; or
b) ready to take arms against hapless pinko hippies OVER A FRICKIN POSTER DISPLAYED ON PRIVATE PROPERTY! -
seriously, why not set up your webcam out the front and GOAD those fuckers! Great opportunity to let entire media know exactly what type of cockswab votes Liberal…
Also, not too sure if you don't wanna give up your Curtin status - given its a goddam blue-Liberal stronghold, our Votes For Justice seem somewhat squandered…
Alistair, Your Local ALP New Recruit says:
Ooh, I [i]hate[/i] Clifton Hill Nazis!
But I can manage a 'heh' on the Greens preference deal. Mr Forbes and myself went through this issue with a fine-toothed comb a few weeks back. In fact, Matt made up a slew of funky tables, calculating spreadsheets and graphs about it; they're hours of fun.
[b]Warning[/b]: psephological nerdery to follow, and an argument that smells suspiciously politically-committed.
In my view, the seat of Melbourne is utterly marginal, Greens versus ALP. Greens voters are notorious for not following How to Vote cards (at least for the House of Reps), so should their primary fall short of the Libs (which isn't going to happen), around 60-80% of the Greens preferences ought to flow to the ALP. Handing out Greens how to votes is thus unlikely to be too much of a problem unless they do something equally silly with their senate preferences.
The other side of this is the most likely outcome — that the ALP get a big primary vote of >45%, but less than 50%+1, and the Greens outpoll the Libs on primaries. Libs preferences will, I think, flow directly and almost completely through to the Greens.
This happened at state level in the area in late 2002. Results for this are here. [url=http://www.vec.vic.gov.au/Elections/WP_ResultsElectorate_{860015EF-7C20-45F8-9FB5-7C835D8DFD6E}.htm]Look for those goddamn preference flows.[/url] There's every reason for a repeat on this one, with the variables for a slightly different, and slightly more blue collar, constituency to the Federal Seat, a tighter election with less protest voting, & a Greens candidate who is more 'yoof' and less 'suburban doctor'.
All of which brings me to the point: If the Liberals are consistently voting Green in seats with sitting left faction members, what does that tell you? I reckon it tells you that [url=http://au.news.yahoo.com/040921/21/qvso09/3721786435.html]The Enemy[/url] would prefer a middle-class moralist to a left-wing Labour minister, dammit.
So, yeah, I'm for Lindsay, even though the [url=http://www.lindsaytanner.com/booktalk.htm]book reviews on his website[/url] are freakin' ridiculous.
OK, done now.
KL says:
That is truly unbelievable. How old were these molotov-threatening freaks? Why would anyone care that much about L'il Johnny to act that way?
I'm stunned, even though I probably shouldn't be.
fancy dave says:
Yes you should be, KL. Stunned and outraged!!!
If I'd been sleeping in the front room that night (as I'm occasionally wont to do) there would have been trouble. Well, at least I would have suggested taking a quick photo of them, then telling them we'd be calling the police to say;
"these loonies we just photographed said they would burn down our house, so if it happens…"
I AM SO FUCKING LIVID!!! AAAAAAAARRRRRRGH!!!!!
killer says:
I don't know much about the freaks, Justin (one of the front-room flatmates) wasn't sure if they were drunk and crazy, or just crazy. He says he heard general [url=http://www.kilbot.net/news/uploads/Latham_RANT.jpg]ranting[/url] about the Labor Party, some rumbling about our motives for putting up the poster and the threats to smash shit.
I like the idea of putting up a web cam, we'll probably see Gawain, bottle of scotch in hand, mouthing-off out the front… again.
B-Diddy DubSac says:
Dunno if you boys watched SBS last nite (Dateline), but it had a damn good doco/ preview to a (straight-to-video) movie "Outfoxed" - you can read a quick review of the actual movie [url=http://www.jackasscritics.com/movie.php?movie_key=509]here![/url] …
And prepare to be riled! (or should I say O'Reilly-ed!)
Some talking points/ points of notice:
1) Bill O'Reilly literally *attacking* a son of a WTC victim (AND a Vet), who was outspoken about Bush's foreign policy! Basically, O'Fuckhead totally loses his cool, accuses the son of disrespecting his mother, starts all sentences
[Bill] "with all due respect to your father [he would be rolling in his grave for disprespecting the President like this]"…
so when the son retorts, "actually, my father never approved of the way Bush stole his way into offic.."
[Bill]"SHUT UP, SHUT UP [yes, he literally shouted at him to SHUT UP!] CUT HIS MIKE, THIS INTERVIEWS OVER, GET OUT OF HERE NOW!"
and security were called on set for this 2-pound meek f'n liberal!!
2) No shit, there was a Fox campaign based PURELY on the fact that Kerry LOOKS FRENCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not only was this worthy enough for several spliced comment/highlights, BUT THEY BROUGHT ON A FRENCH GUY who broke it down as to why people perceived Kerry as FRENCH (!?!) becoz (with en francais accent) "the french, how you say, are perceived as thinking too much, you know the great statue The Thinker - they are too indecisive and that ees why they do not trust Kerry!"
3) When Rupert first started this whole concept, he openly admitted that the whol ideal of the network was based on "restoring the balance/ objectivity" becoz the Liberal Media had had their way too long man!!! Talking about all that nasty stuff like war*, and pre-emptive strikes on false pretenses… so his first appointed CEO (still today) just happens to be a prominent polli from the Nixon, Reagan and Bush Sr eras who only entered the "media" 1 year prior to being CEO!!!!!!
(* for example, possibly the only boradcast I have seen highlighting the positive aspects of the "liberation of Iraq" - starts with "They don't ever tell you about *this* side of Iraq, inflation is down, the economy is rising, unemployment is down…yadda yadda"…and then the AUDACITY to compare the total deaths in Iraq to the total murdercount in California BECOZ THEY ARE OF REALTIVELY SIMILAR GEOGRAPHICAL SIZE (?!@?), and the fact is, you are *still* more likely to be murdered in Cali than Iraq…Cheers!!)
4) To link this back to the Kilbot article above, KL's Mr Cranky article, and the "restoring the balance" motif going on….[b]Why is it that Republicans/Conservatives will resort to EVERY DIRTY TRICK IN THE BOOK to make people "see their way" [/b]
Seriously, O'Reilly will shout them down, threaten violence against a peaceful protest, fuckhead Liberals outside Killa's house, the tactics used against Kerry in this campaign (and why the Demo's won't resort to that), but basically the Lib-Conservative have no problems with the creed…
"MIGHT IS RIGHT!!!"
Methink there is a reason why Kerry/ Liberal-at-heart don't get "dragged down to their level", but idiot-public obviously don't f'n care!
A vote for Howard is a vote for pre-emptive strikes in countries on the other side of the planet…
And what the fuck was up with Cat Stevens trying to land in US, HAVING THE PLANE DIVERTED 1000KMS, all becoz he is on the "watch list" of the US as he has made donations to muslim funds…can we please stop the bullshit and just call it "The War Against Muslims"!!!!!
..and the ironic thing? Here I stand as a neo-liberal-at-heart/know-right-from-wrong, and all this BULLSHIT fires me up to the point of wanting to FIGHT WITH MIGHT!!!
(*PS Catch ChaserNews back on ABC tonite!!!)
B-Diddy DubSac says:
5) Oh yeah, one other thing about Fox - they were conceived in 1998, and their first election coverage was 2000…(can you see what's coming next??)
Oh yes, it was FOX NEWS who WON the election by being THE FIRST to announce:
"Well, our PROJECTIONS indicate that Florida will go to Bush, so congratulations PRESIDENT ELECT GEORGE BUSH" [cool graphic congratulationg Bush comes up on screen]…
Within 2-5 minutes EVERY OTHER tv station HAD to jump on the bandwagon (so as not to appear out of touch!) and 100% relying on Fox's "projection" they all started saying "Congratulations President Elect George Bush"….
Turns out, at an enquiry TWO YEARS LATER that the same CEO I mentioned above was grilled over this, and his final word on the matter was "Oh I'm sorry about that, the projection, in hindsight, was incorrect [they SHOULD'VE SAID, objectively speaking, it was TOO CLOSE TO CALL, which it fucking was!] I APOLOGISE TO OUR VIEWERS WHO MAY HAVE BEEN MISLEAD"!!!!
Ahh, just a wee bit fuckin late boyo, as the American dolt public have been brainwashed into thinking "why is Gore trying to STEAL Bush's presidency away? whats with all the legal battles, YOU LOST!"….perception is reality, and these fuckers with their Republican agenda went like a bull at a gate, got THEIR president elected, and here we are today….
KL says:
Fuckin-A, B-Diddy, you be speaking the truth. Unfortunately to the converted.
This is the whole fucking problem: the unconverted don't want to listen to what we got to say.
Seriously, last night, Lou's Dad (who is a smart guy, but a Lib/Christian at heart) said exactly what you just quoted: "They don't ever tell you about *this* side of Iraq, inflation is down, the economy is rising, unemployment is down…yadda yadda."
I said that you never heard about the good side of Iraq when Saddam was in power either. The commercial media made it out to be a desert full of violent retards. Instead of being full of people like you and me who just happen to have a different religion.
Like when we went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 and he says "so how was the propaganda?". Then he sits in the lounge room and watches 8 straight hours of fucking Fox News, Bloomberg and Sky.
So I say it's two hours of "propaganda" versus 24 hour saturation of right wing bullshit. And he can't fucking see my point. Of course.
FUCK!
fancy dave says:
It's a simple problem of people who want answers they can understand rather than tricky questions. One side of politics is much more likely to provide said "answers" because a well-informed (i.e. questioning, critcal public is ACTUALLY NOT IN THEIR INTERESTS OR EVEN ON THEIR FUCKING AGENDA!!!
This approach has the added bonus of allowing you to point at a "chattering class" of lefties who just sit around questioning everything society holds dear and have no answers or idea about the real world and how it works. Read Al Franken's book "Lies and the lying liars who tell them" for a very funny and informative look at the US right-wing media.
KL says:
Yeah, it's like that ad for the Greens they had on The Chaser about alleviating "your middle class guilt."