Remember! “True Liberty Is When Free-born Men Speak Free!”

Posted on July 8, 2011 by patriciawa

John Milton’s Areopagitica,
Crying freedom for the press
Back in 17th century England,
Resisted monarchy’s excess.

His tract was a mighty weapon
In democracy’s progress.
We are the beneficiaries
Of his most eloquent address.

But we ‘free-born’ are complicit,
As we watch and acquiesce
While that freedom is abused
With a brazen shamelessness.

We encouraged one man’s ambition
To buy up, control, possess
As property our thoughts in print,
And we applauded his success.

We shared profits with this behemoth
Who now destroys our happiness
And publishes news of the world,
Writ as he commands it be expressed.

This threat of global tyranny,
Warns that it’s time to re-possess
What for him is now a licence
To break all rules and decency transgress.

Our precious freedom so perverted
Has caused democracy’s regress.
Let’s use our laws while we still can,
Redeem ourselves, and truly free the press.

NOTE:

The blatant bias of Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd in Australia favoring the Coalition and the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, has done great damage in opposing the Government’s minerals tax and carbon pricing scheme along with promoting the chicanery of scepticism about climate change.

In the United Kingdom the phone tapping scandal has caused huge embarrassment to Murdoch who today announced closure of the News of the World, one of his most profitable newspapers. Politicians in London are suggesting that forty per cent ownership of the country’s media by one company has too much potential for corruption. So what about the near seventy per cent control by News Ltd. of print and electronic media in Australia?

Editorial in the The Australian has expressed shock/horror and revulsion at the behaviour of journalists overseas while expressing confidence that nothing like that would occur here! As if!

Internet independent news sites are rather more objective and asking more searching questions about the likely implications of this UK scandal on Murdoch’s media interests here. See Crikey and New Matilda for this. As well Margaret Simons at Crikey reports questions from CNN interested in the Murdoch embroglio, significant as it is for the USA where the media mogul has massive influence through Fox Television and print media such as The Wall Street Journal.

The recently deferred decision on Australia’s overseas news network suggests that our government too may be having doubts, or even hopes, about this UK crisis for Murdoch and how it may play out throughout his global media empire. I for one shall be heartily glad if it goes badly for him. Where is the spirit of John Milton?

UPDATE 10/07/11 My question is answered today by a direct challenge to this ‘blight on our democracy’ by The Failed Estate’s Mr. Denmore asking, ‘Who will have the guts in Australia to take him on?’

UPDATE 05/05/12,  Ad Astra at the Political Sword has written another very pertinent and eloquent post and asking similar, but even more urgent, questions about Rupert Murdoch’s threat to good government in Australia, i.e.   “Julia Gillard can defeat Tony Abbott, but can she counter the Murdoch menace?  How possible is that?  Can the Fifth Estate reduce the effect of the Murdoch hazard?  How? ”

UPDATE 25/04/13 Businessman Dick Smith has written a letter to Kim Williams, CEO of News Ltd. accusing his boss Rupert Murdoch of bias and hypocrisy in his resistance to the Labor Governments recent media reform bills. There’s a great article about this on the net. http://truthinmediaresourcecentre.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/an-aussie-hero-accuses-murdoch-media-of-bias/. I have been remiss in not updating this post here about the recent very lively debate about media control in which Murdoch through his journalist lackeys had much to say and which resulted in the Gillard government’s one major defeat in Parliament and resulted in the withdrawal of the four bills aimed at some fairly mild reforms. This is well covered by Michael Taylor and followed up yesterday by him at the Australian Independent Media Network

Time for me to get working on a new post on Murdoch’s recent presence here in Australia? Meanwhile a FURTHER UPDATE  21/05/13 from Mr. Denmore with the article of his life  at http://thefailedestate.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/damned-lies-and-journalism.html.  Please read in full and forward to friends, but as a taste…………………….

Finally, when did we sit back in Australia and decide to let a US citizen who presides over an organisation that hacks phones, promotes illegal wars and trashes corporate governance to promote regime change and run our democracy by remote?

And, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Murdoch does all of this in the name of freedom.

COMMENTS:

Ad Astra,     05/05/12,     Thank you for your kind remarks, your clever poem, so fitting a description of the Murdoch threat, and your link to Mr Denmore’s 2011 piece, which really spells out the danger to society of the Murdoch syndrome.

Nasking,     05/05/12,      Top poem, Patricia

Catching up,    05/05/12,   Patricia, this PM does not appear to jump to Mr. Murdoch’s tune.   That is a rarity in this country.   Maybe for that reason alone, the PM deserves to win the next election.

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Is Our Prime Minister In Her Prime?

Posted on July 3, 2011 by patriciawa

“Julia Gillard, in her prime, pulls a career-defining rabbit out of the hat…” said Peter Hartcher of the Sydney Morning Herald in November last year. My response to him then is below.

Julia Gillard now ‘in her prime?’
You just don’t know how high she’ll climb!
She’ll reach heights even more sublime.
Don’t judge until she’s done her time.

This moment ‘career defining?’
She’s long been Labor’s silver lining!
That’s why News is always whining,
‘Bring her down!’ ‘Get her resigning!’

Pulled ‘a rabbit out of the hat?’
I’m not sure I’d agree with that!
She’ll yet swat Mr. Rabbit ‘SPLAT!’
Put him back in his box, real flat!

NOTE: I wrote that last November and no matter what the polls say I haven’t changed my opinion one little bit, particularly not after watching her this morning on Insiders. I had already revived these few verses earlier this weekend at The Political Sword in the course of a discussion on sexist attitudes coloring the media coverage of Julia Gillard’s performance as Prime Minister. It was a carry-over from their previous thread on ‘What Julia Gillard DOES Stand For!’ which gave rise to my very recent and lighthearted pome about reincarnation and what Tony Abbott probably wouldn’t stand for!

D Mick Weir who often comments at the Political Sword had drawn our attention to an article written by Katherine Murphy on the recent Liberal Party conference who, in discussing the Prime Minister’s response to it, said that she was growing into the job of PM and showing a capacity and commitment for it, and that for Gillard, something changed last week.

My immediate response was that this suggestion by Katherine Murphy that the PM was somehow maturing and at last demonstrating commitment and capacity was one I had seen before and with which I don’t agree, since it suggests that previously she had lacked these qualities. In spite of back handed compliments like this I do think the perceptions of Julia Gillard are changing. There is beginning to be a reluctant admission from some in the media that she not only has the will, but also great capacity for the job of Prime Minister.

In my view both have long been there, but the timing of her achieving the top job was not of her choosing or her design. She had no option on 24/06/10 but to accept a fait accompli engineered by others. I imagine those hours of conversation between herself and Rudd while the world outside moved on was trying to convince him of the same, even an effort to negotiate some sort of face-saving formula, for both of them. I sensed no triumphalism in her first speech as PM and felt she would have preferred to have been making it in very different circumstances.

Since then there have been quite a few articles speculating on Julia Gillard’s character and performance as PM, but few give her the credit she deserves. There’s always a patronising note in there, as in the article by Peter Hartcher last November which gave rise to my indignant response in this pome which the Sydney Morning Herald chose not to publish. Our discussion at The Political Sword centred around the patronising and sexist tone I detect in much comment on our Prime Minister which surprised Mick Weir initially since he hadn’t particularly noticed that. He thought there were many like him now growing up with no experience or awareness of the kind of sexism that others like Gravel and Janice agreed was part of their experience. Mick thought that was an issue to discuss later.

A significant and prescient article about Gillard on the day after she first became Prime Minister which is really worth re-reading is by Julia Baird and confirms in retrospect as it were my own view that if Julia Gillard were a man there would be no doubt about her fitness for the job of Prime Minister.

Despite their success in bringing down Kevin Rudd, helped to an extent by his own shortcomings, I believe that the Coalition with the help of News Ltd. and others could never have succeeded in their campaign to denigrate and then destroy this Prime Minister had she been a man. That they’ve achieved the first, but not yet the second is a measure of her character. The picture above, taken on her fiftieth birthday, shows a woman in her prime. A few months on she is just as vibrant and strong. Her performance under extreme pressure and in the face of slights, insults and even hysterical mob hatred, suggests that she may be not only in her physical prime, who knows, but her will is indomitable and she sure has a lot still to give to this country in terms of courage, intellect and leadership.

COMMENTS

Acerbic Conehead, 03/07/11 Thanks for sharing your verses on Julia Gillard “in her prime”. As well as having to put up with the usual vitriol directed against a PM, she also has to deal with the misogynist angle.

Ad Astra, 03/07/11/07 Patricia WA I enjoyed reading what you wrote. The Julia Baird article was sound and encouraging. I believe Julia Gillard is on the way to convincing open minded observers of her mettle and strength.

Gravel, 04/07/11 Patricia, Again I agree with you wholeheartedly. I really liked Kevin, but liked Julia more, she seemed to have some quality about her that showed what she could be like if she were given the ‘top’ job. I would have folded in five seconds under what she has had thrown at her by almost everyone in the MSM, the opposition and unfortunately in voter land. We still have two and a half years to get Labor’s program through and established and if the worst happens at least she will be respected by history.

Casablanca,    11/01/11,     government is] a task that never ends, and she [Gillard] takes it on with a proper degree of calm reason, empathy, intelligence and perspective.
Just had to repeat those words from the Alister Drysdale article at
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/…/Abbott-Gillard-carbon-tax-CHOGM-Qantas-China-pokie-pd20111031-N5QPB

PWA, 11/01/11, they seem eminently suitable for your collection. Casablanca.
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Would Tony Abbott Stand For This?

Posted on June 29, 2011 by patriciawa

No matter what Julia Gillard stands for,
Abbott’ll find something about it to abhor.
Soon he’ll point out she has no religion.
Think of that! None at all, not a smidgen!

But, what if……..persuaded by the Greens,
She’d met ‘His Holiness’ behind the scenes?
And then his photo op with the Dalai Lama
Made headlines. “Abbott Meets His Karma!”

If the PM, as the leader of our nation,
That day declared that Reincarnation
Was now the religion of the state,
How Aussies would love their trendy opiate!

Their PM ‘recognised’ as one who’d been
In former life the Tudor ‘Virgin’ Queen!
Around their common ancestries in Wales,
The Buddhists might weave some wondrous tales.

Both embodied that other Celt, Boadicea!
Two great spirits, reincarnate, in Julia!
Wise, strong women from the climes of Borealis
Enthroned again down here in Terra Australis!

NOTE: This was a light hearted response to a post by Ad Astra about what Julia Gillard really stands for. His article and the comments of regular Sword visitors express the frustration we lefties feel about Julia Gillard’s poor treatment by the media and an almost perverse determination on its part to belittle her and the achievements of her government.

I need to acknowledge the original art of Chris Achilleos whose brilliant portrait of Boadicea surely embodies what we now see in Julia Gillard. Bold, big breasted, beautiful, blonde hair though, geared up for war and well armoured. Formidable indeed! Perhaps I will use that alone for this one. Tony Abbott doesn’t need more exposure!

The picture of Julia, as if at prayer, was from a shot of her sitting in the House, listening to debate. Her expression struck me and I could imagine her praying for strength. Her strength is in fact really amazing, and her determination and courage under fire, as well as her grace and forbearance in the face of personal slights by shock jocks and others who should know better. !

Comments

DD.      30/06/11,    Patricia, AHH is this why i was sent here the other day, political poetry, well met……. Though i still maintain womban is approbation, not birthright, i do seem to remember a tear for Centralia when she returned. I still hope. Did you catch Tonys Better angels remark the other day, angles and little more methinks. But would she not be a wicce then being Celt or Kelt if you prefer? A Welsh gippy PM, now there is a spin I can spin with. LOL Thanks for the smile.

Patricia WA,      01/07/11      Remember that the wicce were good witches, DD, far from the evil stereotypes. Must think about that.

Gravel,     01/07/11,     Patricia I love your poem, it is so true. Great pictures, you sure have a good eye.

Stephen Grayson,      10/07/11,  HI, figured i would find mom hanging out in here somewhere. I’m Steph, D D s son. She has held you up to me as a “paragon” of how to go about this so i pop by and say hi.    P.S., did she send “is gender the agenda” to you or anywhere you know off? I.E…. is gender the agender?

Although I’m happy, I’m not gay.
It’s not my problem nor is it my way.
For why should I create a view?
If it has no bearing on me, what you do!

So I ask why is it that it still shocks,
When we teach a young child to Kick Box?
Wise would be the parent of the child,
Who is no easy victim of a paedophile.
Was not empowerment the magic trick,
To end Germaine Greers female eunich!

So a hundred years ago would you see a Lyn White,
Equipped with trained police insight.
Would you or I feel safe in a rural Asian midnight,,,,,,,<>>>>>>>>>>

Patricia WA,     10/07/11     Steph, not sure I’m the ‘paragon’ who can advise on this, I’m a learner on using a blog site and really only using this as somewhere to store stuff I’ve posted elsewhere, plus comments from there. But I was recommended http://wordpress.com/ as the place to come to get a site set up, and I’ve found they do help. You need a gravatar to start with and after that you can register for a free blog site and all of the formatting etc. they do for you. It’s very time consuming though, so I generally don’t go in for exchange by email, I usually just transfer the odd comment from elsewhere.   As I said to DD elsewhere her stuff, and as I now see, yours is more true poetry than mine which is just doggerel and word play as a way of making comment on the the political scene.  I see you’ve commented already to AC. Acerbic Conehead is probably better as a role model, he’s been posting brilliant satire for years! Good luck!

Patriciawa,    08/06/12,    Rewrote this one for for Lyn, TT and Jane re redheads, bloodnuts and rangas.

Our ranga PM is known to have been
In former life the Tudor ‘Virgin Queen!’
Blood nuts both, with ancestries in Wales
In common with that warrior female,
Another red head Celt, Boadicea!
Two great spirits, reincarnate, in our Julia!
Wise, strong women from the climes of Borealis
Enthroned again down here in Terra Australis!

Gravel,    08/06/12,     Nice little pomette there, you bring a smile to world whenever I am lucky to read one of your pieces.

Patriciawa,   08/06/12   Also about a link from PB to collectablescorner.auctivacommerce.com/…982.aspx
Is it really our Julia, do you think?  Could well be.

Talk Turkey,     08/06/12,    Patricia,  That was a lovely little ‘pomette’ thank you!
That Collectable girl you linked to could be *J*U*L*I*A*, she reminds me of the ABC Collectors intro girl who whirls around and around, one of the prettiest things you’d ever see.

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Anyhow…..Julia, Don’t Let Them….. Have A Win!

Posted on June 28, 2011 by patriciawa


Remember when Paul Hogan,
Once most beloved bogan
Lured the younger generation
To self incineration?

Oh, how everyone applauded
When our ‘Hoges’ was awarded
Australian Of The Year
And we all had another beer!

Those days aren’t just an echo,
As brazen Big Tobacco,
Not smiling now, not funny,
Comes looking for more money.


We have watched our children die;
Have recognised that dreadful lie.
Yet those companies, undaunted,
Kept on taking what they wanted.

Now they’re funding Abbott’s unproven fiction
That this government lacks guts, conviction.
But whatever the cunning plots they hatch,
In Julia Gillard cigarette cartels have met their match.

NOTE: American tobacco company Philip Morris’ Hong Kong arm launched legal action today against the Australian government over plans to strip company logos from cigarette packages and replace them with grisly images of cancerous mouths, sickly children and bulging, blinded eyes.

Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, says she will not be backing down. Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, has been equally firm as she introduced the legislation in Parliament and promoted it within the wider community. She has been particularly critical of Tony Abbott on his refusal to commit the Coalition Opposition to rejecting donations from tobacco companies.

My own abhorrence of smoking and loathing of cigarette companies goes back to my very early childhood. My mum was a lifelong smoker. I vividly recall how, with a hacking cough and a young family to feed, she’d still scratch around for those few pennies to buy a paper packet of five Woodbines. I knew then, seventy odd years ago, that ‘ciggies’ were a bad thing. I grew up needing no convincing that nicotine was a curse on society. Watching how the Coalition rationalises its accepting donations from cigarette companies, as the ALP did in the past, one wonders if we will ever be free of this awful addiction.

I passed a poor soul on the street yesterday, pushing his gear around in a shopping trolley, dragging on a fag and coughing. No doubt smoking wasn’t the worst of his addictions, but it surely was another proverbial nail in his coffin. I wonder if his mother had once bought him a Matchbox toy truck with an advertising slogan for Winfield cigarettes with Paul Hogan smiling out at him. No one thought twice about that thirty years ago. Thank God cigarette advertising has long been banned. Plain packaging is yet another measure that needs to be supported as this Government does everything in its power to limit the number of new addicts and to loosen the grip of Big Tobacco.

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A Gamut of Emotions About Once ‘Honorable’ Peter Reith

Posted on June 26, 2011 by patriciawa

Typical of Liberals to say “No!” to Peter Reith,
They should have honored him, not kicked him in the teeth.
A man like him, so deserving of reward,
Instead has been discarded and then thrown overboard.

He more than others deserved the laurel wreath.
Modern Liberal spirit shows how much he has bequeathed.
His party should be grateful for all he’s done,
Not lock him out, reject him by a majority of one.

How must he feel, hounded out by such a pack of dogs!
Does he regret his political life, so full of paradox?
This, a simple tribute, to the patrician Peter Reith,
Hides a depth of feelings and my meaning underneath.

NOTE: Greg Jericho, Grog, recently announced a change of direction in his career. He’ll be spending less time on his blog and focussing instead on writing a book. He’s had lots of tributes from his readers and I’ve written this ‘pome’ as a token parting gift. The other day he begged for someone ‘to throw a wreath to Peter Reith’ which reminded us all of the scandalous role this ‘elder statesman’ of the Liberal party played in all the rabble rousing over the asylum seeker/boat people issue.

It was also a reminder of the quality of the men still running the Liberal Party. Think of the level of support Reith had in his bid this weekend to become its President from three party vice-presidents, including the ‘delightful’ Alexander Downer. He only lost by one vote because Tony Abbott switched his at the last minute. Oh, the power of one! I wonder if Tony Abbott sees the irony in that?

So Grog’s ‘wreath’ reference was for me no simple pun, but a grim reminder of the deaths of so many asylum seekers in the tragedy of SIEV-X, and before that the SIEV-IV incident in 2001 when Reith as Defence Minister released a video which he claimed showed asylum seekers cynically throwing their ‘children overboard’ to pressure coastal patrol boats to rescue them as they scuttled their own boat. That was at the very end of his parliamentary career, and soon to be no longer an ‘honorable’ Member of Parliament. As a politician in opposition and in government he was always a polarizing figure.

In 1988 as Shadow Attorney General Reith played a significant role in successfully promoting the ‘No’ case in the Referendum on electoral reform.

As Minister for Industrial Relations in the Howard Government in 1998 he supported Patrick Corporation in their lock-out of striking workers, using strike breakers at Darling Harbour docks protected by balaclava-clad security guards with attack dogs.

In 2000 he was discredited by disclosure that his government funded phone card bill was some $50,000, much of it from private use, including $1,000 by his son! He decided, very sensibly, not to stand for election in 2001. He was, however, still Defence Minister when the ‘children overboard’ scandal broke, followed by a xenophobic furore which was a major factor in the Liberal party winning that election.

My use of italics in these notes is an effort to link them to my underlying sentiments in my few lines of satire above, the irony if you like, of my real feelings, my meaning underneath! When I have time I’ll learn how to link them appropriately to the original news stories on the internet.

Comments

Gravel, 26/06/11, Patricia, I think you mean he’s just been thrown overboard? I got a laugh anyway.

Talk Turkey 27/07/11, I did write a tribute to your pithy pome yesterday, but yet again I did something stupid and Fwt! and I can never recapture the *MAGIC* of the orginal. I think your little nose-thumbing to That Man was superb, and I love the rhymes almost as much as I despise him. He would be charged with a gross perversion of the Electoral Act for his part in the Children Overboard affair if I were dictator.

Some simple rhymes have special charm eh: reward, overboard. and: wreath. bequeathed.

Funny how pairs of rhymes give a sense of completion, finish, gloss, satisfaction, perfection. There is no apparent reason for it, any more than there is a reason we should like music, but it’s a fact even in other languages, people like rhyme and meter.

Thee and me Patricia, we are immeasurably lucky in having English to play in, as indeed do rappers and crooners and greeting card writers, a mixed blessing, but then you get John Lennon who put it all together as never before. I especially and forever dips me lid to him. Wild rhyme and mindblowing thoughts and magic music all in one.

Any way I love this last little effort of yours in particular, partly because of how I feel about Reith. Pome On!

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Senator Minchin, Did I Hear You Right?

Posted on June 24, 2011 by patriciawa

Listening to Senator Nick Minchin,
Long time Liberal party linchpin,
Giving his valedictory
Much I heard seemed contradictory.

I couldn’t tell as I heard him speak
If what he said was tongue in cheek.
I’d liked this man of style and couth
And really wanted to hear his truth.

Some things he needed off his chest
We had already heard confessed,
Like not resisting the Iraq war,
Not opposing Howard’s Work Choices law,

These again he mentioned with regret.
What else remained, not voiced as yet?
Then came what seemed a heartfelt plea
For climate sceptics, such as he!

He hated being branded a denier,
Seen as a veritable pariah,
For declaring war on bigotry
And global warming zealotry.

The Greens, demanding a solution
To their problems with air pollution,
Had got the voters in a stew
About a harmless thing like CO2!

I felt he almost empathized,
When he talked of being ‘quite surprised,
Disappointed by (carbon’s) loneliness, isolation
and indeed (its) demonization!’

Even his party caught the madness!
Here, I thought, he might talk of sadness.
Does he regret achieving Turnbull’s demise
As mainstream media might surmise?

No. He’s still with Abbott, royalist,
Covert climate change denialist,
Whose overweening pride and vanity
Show symptoms of insanity.

‘The current Prime Minister,’ their, ‘Liar!’
Whom both worked hard to brand pariah,
He mentioned briefly, not as misunderstood
Or seen by others as doing good.

If he wasn’t trying to be funny
Why do I see irony
In his last advice to colleagues to
‘Do unto others what you would have them do to you?’

MY NOTE: All words and phrases in italics are those used in similar context by Senator Minchin his valedictory speech.

Comments

Janice, 24/06/11, Excellent pome, Patricia. Minchin never learned the meaning of “Do unto others…

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Plebiscite or Plebiscite? as in Writ or Write?

Posted on June 20, 2011 by patriciawa

Thought I’d write a pome about the plebiscite.
Problem is I can’t determine the best rhymes for it.
Some authorities suggest one word only – parasite.
Others offer alternatives like nitwit, unfit, and git.
What a wealth of choices there! but try as I might
I can’t be bothered – the proposal is a load of shit.
Some of you might disagree. OK then. It’s just a load of shite.

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How Australia’s Moral Compass* Seemed Lost.

Posted on June 17, 2011 by patriciawa

The Australian government looked star crossed,
When the nation’s moral compass* had seemed lost.
A secure lock at the official residence
Of the Prime Minister had long made sense.

It was safe in the cellar in its binnacle,
While up above the country reached the pinnacle
Of achievement in women’s liberation
With its first female leader of the nation.

Then the story broke. Reporters crowded round.
Was it true the ship of state had run aground?
Or gone off course? Were many lost at sea?
How had Julia Gillard mislaid the sacred key?

There had been leaks, anonymous phone calls,
Rumours that the strange phrase ‘Kelvin’s Balls’
Had so alarmed the PM, it seemed, she’d had it hid.
No one confirmed that though, not for a thousand quid.

Suddenly a noisy clamor from below
Revealed Tony Abbott! Wouldn’t you know!
He’d broken in, wielding his fireman’s axe.
Said he’d had to, to clarify some facts.

He lifted high the two brass monkeys sitting there,
Waved them aloft in the media glare,
Pointing out that they were frozen solid,
Proving global warming theory quite invalid!

His home invasion had paid off! He thought he’d won!
But Security arrested him, and he was brought undone.
Like Guy Fawkes he’d been caught red handed.
Tried for treason, he was as traitor branded.

His defence? A man should steer the ship of state,
With his wife as First Lady, not First Mate!
Finally the judge’s ruling he could not dodge.
He’d never have the Captain’s quarters at The Lodge.

Julia Gillard at the trial eyeballed him,
Her hand on the arm of her partner, Tim,
“Tony, I called you ‘Mate’ once as a joke.
Now here’s my real mate, Australia’s first First Bloke.”

* In the 18th and 19th centuries a ship’s compass was always kept in the binnacle along with the Kelvin Spheres, two iron balls to offset magnetic shifts. These iron balls, mounted on brass arms, sitting on either side of the ship’s binnacle gave rise to the term ‘brass monkey’ and the now well known description of extremes of cold which could freeze its balls off.

NOTES:       I usually start the day with a coffee at South Beach Cafe after walking my dog, Tacker, along the Dog Beach in South Fremantle while I visit my favorite blogs at Cafe Whispers and  The Political Sword to read any new post and comments there as well as following up on LYNS-DAILY-LINKS.     So there’s plenty to think about as I  get on with the routine of daily life.    Sometimes it’s more than just thinking.   It’s soul searching,  which I found with Ad Astra’s  article challenging us to question our moral values when judging others,   particularly politicians.   There’s been a lot of name calling,  moralising and finger pointing at Julia Gillard and her government lately.    I found myself amongst a lot of serious comment on that post about cattle slaughtering in Indonesia and the live sheep/cattle trade generally and I found it heavy going and challenging,  though worth while too.

I wrote a comment on that thread, trying to express my thoughts about my own moral values, and my views on the dilemma of politicians who have to consider a whole range of other peoples’ values.   

Firstly,  I think the PM has acted ethically in the livestock trade issue and has consequently had to wear criticism from all sides,  all of whom are judging her from their own perspective, or by their own moral compass.  Peter Holmes a Court, a cattle rancher himself,  commended her action. This morning I heard Warren Truss endorsing Minister Joe Ludwig’s initial bans but wanting as early a possible resumption of trade.    I agree with the RSPCA that we should have Australian standards, i.e stunning of animals before slaughter but that may take months or years to achieve in Indonesia.

Meantime what about the ethical implications of the inevitable hardship for those losing employment, both here and in Indonesia.  Are they required to suffer to meet our moral scruples when many of them haven’t harmed any animals?  I don’t eat meat myself, and as an animal lover I was appalled at those TV images. And I’m really angry with the M.L.A. for their dereliction of duty in this regard.   If I had my way we wouldn’t have live sheep or cattle export trade at all.  In fact, no domestic trade either.  But then how would I feed my pets?  I’m not being facetious there, just showing how inconsistent I can be at a very personal  level.
  
But that’s all moral squeamishness compared with the conflict I feel about the ethical dimensions of Julia Gillard’s efforts to stop people smuggling.   There is no absolutely right answer to this problem, as I always thought there was, for example,  about those Jews turned away from ports all over  the western world.  Even throwing open our borders and allowing free entry of refugees as some would have it would be to encourage an even livelier and more dangerous people smuggling trade as refugees, and maybe just would be economic migrants, stampede to get passage to this first world antipodean country surrounded by third world poverty.

As well,  you say that Rudd and she both lost their moral compass on climate change?   Rudd, supported by his deputy, Gillard, worked tirelessly to get their ETS passed again and again.  Were the Greens more ethical because they wanted an unacceptably high standard and so voted against it?  What moral compass did Abbott use leading the Coalition away from their earlier commitment to support it?  Why didn’t Malcolm Turnbull use his moral compass to guide him across the floor of the House of Reps with whoever would follow him?  The ‘shelving’  or deferral of the ETS was not its abandonment as a result of moral turpitude,  but rather the acceptance of political reality.
  
The accusations of immorality in all of these issues have come after events evolved and as the media and the Opposition manipulated and moulded them to paint Gillard and her government as in ‘the wrong.’   So long as the media continue to put the right  ‘in the right’ that is where the left will stay.  When Tony Abbott becomes Prime Minister of this country it will be because we have allowed ourselves to buy into the media story and to be blown off course on issues like the need to act on climate change,  the need to end the people smuggling trade,  the need to find ways to protect our environment and waterways,  to modernise our communication sytems and to fund all of these things with as just a taxation  system as can be achieved.
  
On all of these issues we have a Prime Minister who is trying with her government, supported by a few sturdy independents,  to steer a course through stormy waters churned up and muddied by a power hungry opposition leader prepared to promote the interests of mining magnates and polluting power industries.  You are accusing her of losing her moral compass?   Who is there whom you trust to have a more reliable compass with which to guide Australia into the future?

At one stage I had to retreat into a bit of light relief by composing one of my ‘pomes’  and doing some research on the web about compasses* in general.    I also got a lift from Mr. Denmore  at The Failed Estate.    He makes me think and smile too.    His  latest brilliant satire on the way the Murdoch media has been ‘stitching up’ Julia Gillard and her government with angling,  exaggerations and surmising shows  how journos these days will make a mountain out of a molehill and invent a story about almost anything.   As if rumors and leaks and innuendos weren’t enough we get body language interpreted.   We’d  been discussing that at Cafe Whispers with Min’s latest post on leadership.

So I used the ideas suggested by Min, Ad Astra and Mr. Denmore to come up with a ’story’ of my own.   I’ve illustrated it with a picture of HMS Sirius,  flagship of The First Fleet,  bringing  the first settlers to Australia.   Please note it is flying a red flag!   Was that an omen for the future?    I imagined what might happen  if we really did keep the compass from that historic ship symbolically stored in the Lodge.   Then the key to that all important cellar was rumored to be lost by the PM!    Typical of a woman to lose the key!   But what if it was a stitch up of the kind Mr. Denmore  has so ably illustrated?    Who was really to blame?

I’ve put it in a ‘pome’  but it’s as likely a story as any The Australian could carry.   Remember the Godwin Grech email?   Who would have believed that?    It really happened.    Can anyone think of a headline a journo might dream up if he had a whiff of that rumor about the lost key?     What’s the angle?     Had a disgruntled member of the household staff at the Lodge filched it to make trouble?   Maybe the First Bloke had it in a vise in his shed making  a souvenir copy?    Was Tony Abbott really there in his fireman’s gear?    Or was he framed?    Perhaps  it was  just another publicity stunt to show off his pecs?    Any alternative headlines to mine?

COMMENTS:

Ad Astra,    16/06/11,  Patricia WA You do express yourself well via your pomes.

janice,    16/06/11,   Very well said, PatriciaWA.    When people use phrases such as “lost his/her/their moral compass” they should be challenged as to their definition of such phrase and to give examples of where the accused has “lost” it.

Talk Turkey,    16/06/11   Patricia,  Your first post today was superb. No need to tone it down imo.

Lyn,   16/06/11,     Hi Patricia,  I want to second Talk Turkey on your comment being
superb.  Janice you too, you and Patricia are both a brilliant flurescent lights on this famous TPS blog.    I can’t answer you both it would take me too long. Congratulations to you both for providing such quality writing to TPS.

Catching up,   20/06/11,   Sorry, Patricia,  (Abbott) is the arsonist not the fireman. He is only capable of destroying, not building.     He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It is he, that we all need to be afraid of, not the lady inthe lodge.

Pip,    20/06/11,   Gee thanks patriciawa, now I’m having visions of the rabbott and brass monkeys….

Min,   20/06/11,    MG..there went my cup of coffee!!! That’s a truly ‘orrible thought so early in the morning Pip.

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Nicola’s In There, Doc Martens Boots ‘n All!

Posted on June 15, 2011 by patriciawa

So, Tony, you think you’ve got something on me?
Something you can offer to the press?
You keep undressing; it’s clear that’s not impressing.
Now here am I, having much more success!
My boots are made for walking, and that’s just what they do!
And, fully clothed, I wear them to walk all over you.

You keep lying, when you ought to be honest.
That’s why you’re losing, and never well ahead.
I keep praying, you’re not about to be changing.
Your right is wrong. No one believes a word you’ve said.
My boots are made for walking, but that’s not all I do.
Every day while wearing them I talk all over you.

Keep on saying the things you shouldn’t be saying,
Just keep on thinking that you’ll never get burnt.
Ha!   I’ve got me a box of no-brand cigarettes!
And where there’s smokes there’s fire you should have learned!
These boots are made for walking, and that’s just what they’ll do.
Every day these boots and I will walk all over you!

Still with me, boots?   Let’s keep walking!

NOTES:     This was written in admiration for Nicola Roxon’s stand on plain packaging for cigarettes in the face of strong lobbying by the cigarette industry. Tony Abbott, always wary of Roxon, Health Minister, who has bested him in the past has had to agree not to oppose her packaging legislation, another phase in her fight against the tobacco industry. But Abbott is still refusing to give up large donations by the tobacco industry to his party. He thought he might have a win when two signed form letters emerged through Philip Morris tobacco company from Nicola Roxon when in opposition inviting their attendance at a fund raising dinner six years before. Abbott and his party seized on this as demonstration of Roxon’s hypocrisy! She, however, fought back strongly and accused them and big tobacco of trying to launch a smear campaign against her, after all it was years ago, long before she was in government and had taken no donations as a result of these form letters sent out in error by staff. Abbott persisted in a motion questioning her credibility but didn’t have the nerve to front her directly in Question Time.

COMMENTS:

Sue,    15/06/11,      I have been humming the Nancy Sinatra song all day today. Now I have the poem and it is so much better. Thanks Patricia.

Gravel,     15/06/11,      Love your pome, I started reading it then I found myself singing it to the tune of “these boots were made for walkin”

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It’s Tony Abbott Who’s Toxic, Not The Tax!

Posted on June 13, 2011 by patriciawa

Tony Abbott on the attack in parliament over Labor’s toxic carbon tax,

Time and again we hear it said
Tony Abbott can’t lie straight in bed.
He can though lie with a straight face
Such that Virgin Mary would grant him grace.

He’s now denouncing Labor’s carbon tax
While carefully not disclosing facts
That he had plans for one himself
Which for the moment’s on the shelf.

But that’s not unusual form from him,
When his chances are looking slim
He’ll dream up any scheme or policy
With no concern for our democracy.

Now to guarantee an election win,
With plans to scrap it once he’s in,
He’s put ‘Direct Action’ on the map
After consistently proclaiming, “Climate change is crap!”

………the (Howard) government opted for an emissions trading scheme over a straightforward carbon tax. Still, a new tax would be the intelligent skeptics way to deal with minimizing emissions, because it would be much easier than a property right to reduce or to abolish should the justifications for it change.

Tony Abbott in July, 2009.

Any move towards a carbon tax or an emission trading scheme would be an economic own goal. It would be an act of economic self harm by Australia.

Tony Abbott in June, 2011.

MY NOTE: It always amazes me how main stream media don’t have these details to hand the minute politicians make statements like this, particularly in the light of Abbott’s claim that Julia Gillard ‘lied’ to Australia about a carbon tax. Thanks to North Coast Voices this came to light again to remind us, along with the recently re-discovered video footage of Abbott outlining how he would introduce a simple tax on carbon, how hypocritical he has been in his accusations that Julia Gillard plans to destroy our economy with her carbon price plan.

Comments

Gravel,     14/06/11,    You are just brilliant, Patricia

Catching up,    14/06/11,    Patricia, forget about lying straight in bed. He cannot stand straight when upright. Yes it is Mr. Abbott that is toxic, especially for the well being of this country.

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