Downer on Rudd
June 24th, 2010 at 9:42 am by David FarrarIn a few hours it will be Prime Minister Julia Gilliard. iPredict have her at 96% and the bookies at $1.20.
The numbers are flocking to Gilliard and there is now pressure on Rudd not to force a ballot. Even the Treasurer has gone to her side.
So how did Kevin Rudd go from almost the most popular Prime Minister in a generation, to being the only Prime Minister ever to be rolled in their first term of office?
An essay last Thursday by Alexander Downer has some answers:
Members of the Federal Parliament all know each other; not necessarily well, but at least a little. Over the past 20 years, few, if any, MPs have been less popular than Kevin Rudd. All politicians are at the very least a trifle vain. They like to be the centre of attention, to be in the media, to be ‘consulted’. There is barely an exception. All of them think they are a bit better than they really are. Nearly all of them are ambitious, many furiously so. But on all of those counts, no one in recorded Australian political history has ever exceeded Kevin Rudd.
And this very much includes his own Cabinet and Caucus. There was respect but never popularity.
What MPs didn’t like about Rudd, the backbencher, and Rudd, the shadow minister, was his conceit and vanity. On 9 September 2004, an Islamist fanatic tried to blow up the Australian embassy in Jakarta. I was in Victor Harbor that day when the ambassador rang me directly on my mobile to tell me the terrible news. I told my staff we ought to go immediately to Jakarta and to take the head of the AFP, DFAT officials and intelligence people as well. We needed a VIP plane to load our officials in Canberra, fly to Adelaide to pick me up and push on to Jakarta. We could be there before bedtime.
I told John Howard of my plans and he said I ought to also take the opposition spokesman for foreign affairs, who happened to be Kevin Rudd; this was, after all, during the election campaign. Indirectly, I let Rudd know he was invited. I drove to my office to prepare for my departure. There was a message to call Rudd. He was furious. The f***ing VIP plane wasn’t going via Brisbane to pick him up. It f***ing had to. He ordered me to change its f***ing flight schedule.
I explained two things to him. First, the plane was too small to add him and his staffer unless we offloaded the AFP Commissioner or the intelligence officer. I wasn’t prepared to do that. Secondly, to travel via Brisbane would add hours to the journey. Instead, we would pay for a commercial flight for him.
This was not met with grace. A fusillade of abuse, much of it with sexual references, ensued, and then a demand that I tell him the flight schedules from Brisbane to Jakarta. ‘I am not,’ I crudely said, ‘your f***ing travel agent. DFAT will help you.’
The point is clear: people at the embassy had died, we needed to get the Indonesians onto the case to establish who the culprits were, we had to show support to the embassy staff at this time of crisis. It wasn’t about me and it certainly wasn’t about the shadow minister for foreign affairs, Mr Kevin Rudd. But for the member for Griffith it was about one thing: himself.
This is an incredibly telling story. It fits very much into the essay by the leftish David Marr on Rudd.
Marr is probably right. The secret of what Rudd is all about lies in his childhood. That’s probably true of all of us. Something happened then which made him determined one day to be famous. He has succeeded — spectacularly. But like all people who seek fame for themselves at the expense of others, his fame will eat him up. Fame fed with substance can make a person great. Fame alone will destroy you.
It has taken an incredible three years for the Australian public to realise who their national leader really is. I sat with a Labor luminary having a late-night drink in June 2008. He turned to me and said: ‘Mate, one day the Australian public will grow to hate Kevin Rudd as much as I do.’ That day has arrived.
It is going to be a fascinating day. I am spending it with various Federal Liberal Party people. For them it may be mixed emotions. They will be celebrating the fall of Kevin Rudd. It is no mean thing to put enough pressure on a Government (mind you a lot was self inflicted) that they roll the Prime Minister.
The downside for my Liberal friends is that Gilliard is not Rudd. She will have a honeymoon, and that could well last past the election. On the other hand she has to deal with some nasty messes left behind by Rudd such as the resources super tax.
Tags: Alexander Downer, Australia, Kevin Rudd
June 24th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Great heading. Looks like a Ruddy great downer.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 9:51 am
Just couldn’t get past the Mark Lundy look alike in Rudd. Never warmed to him.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 9:53 am
“So how did Kevin Rudd go from almost the most popular Prime Minister in a generation, to being the only Prime Minister ever to be rolled in their first term of office?”
Who do we all know who is in Canberra for the first time?
You will be lucky to be allowed back into the country David!
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 9:53 am
What’s especially interesting is how all this has been bottled up until the cork pops and it squirts everywhere. The Labour party must, despite all, be quite disciplined.
There hasn’t even been a great deal of media speculation about the leadership. You would have thought that the press gallery would have led a whispering campaign.
What’s the explanation?
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 9:54 am
DPF goes to Canberra, and immediately the Labor PM is dumped. Coincidence? I think not.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 9:57 am
^^Exactly what I was thinking… Some prior knowledge DPF..?
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 9:58 am
Rudd pretended to be a Conservative to get elected, and once elected became just another tax and spend Socialist. The left can never be honest about their intentions, and Rudd as a classic example, pays the price.
Woody Woodpecker will not save the left though. In truth, she is even a much more embittered socialist than Rudd.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 9:58 am
“What MPs didn’t like about Rudd, the backbencher, and Rudd, the shadow minister, was his conceit and vanity.”
Sounds just like a straight version of Chrissie Carter.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 10:02 am
..and these words I think are quite prophetic in terms of NZ and what is happening here-
“The secret of what Rudd is all about lies in his childhood. That’s probably true of all of us. Something happened then which made him determined one day to be famous. He has succeeded — spectacularly. But like all people who seek fame for themselves at the expense of others, his fame will eat him up. Fame fed with substance can make a person great. Fame alone will destroy you.
It has taken an incredible three years for the Australian public to realise who their national leader really is. I sat with a Labor luminary having a late-night drink in June 2008. He turned to me and said: ‘Mate, one day the Australian public will grow to hate Kevin Rudd as much as I do.’ That day has arrived.”
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 10:16 am
“It has taken an incredible three years for the Australian public to realise who their national leader really is.”
But it took NINE years for the NZ public to realise what a f**king a**hole Helen Clark was.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 10:25 am
Great timing – try not too drool too much on the keyboard David
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 10:25 am
Why is Rudd about to go out on his ear? Because he is a smug, supercilious w*****r, who is a workplace bully. He set’s himself above the crowd, and genuinely beleives he is better than those who elected him. He has attempted to govern Australia via the Kitchen Cabinet, rather then the full cabinet. He is authoritarian, and undemocratic. He does not seek consensus, preferring to govern by decree.
Redbaiters theory is somewhat wide of the mark. Given that John Key actively seeks consensus from groups as diverse as the Maori Party and ACT, his inclusive, consultative government is the antithesis of the socialist “My way or the highway” approach adopted by Mr Rudd, and Helen Clark when she held the reins of power.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 10:26 am
Yeah brilliant timing David, real tinny luck…
My observations of Rudd has been that he is a super bureaucrat in the mold of almost a Helen Clark. The perfect mandarin administrator who is also fluent in Mandarin…
One example was the controversy of overworked staff, from memory I think this was some public sector staff who complained about the long hours expected by Mr Rudd (someone correct me if am wrong). The sense that I got (and have felt it most other times when I see him speak on the news) was that he has an ingrained bureaucratic and quite cold attitude and lack of compassion for human beings i.e. not everyone is a bureaucrat that wants to work a 90 hour week. His lack of compassion in terms of the Jakarta bombings doesn’t surprise me.
Won’t miss this bureaucrat, I guess he won’t be coming to Wellington to speak to Parliament etc after all…
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 10:26 am
DPF we just need you to pop by Washington please.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 10:27 am
This all seems very Mickey Mouse to me.
Here we have a PM, elected with a large majority who hasn’t even completed a single term, and he is being dumped within weeks of the first poll to show his party not in the lead.
Either he is really really bad or Aust Labour are a bunch of poll-driven fruitcakes.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 10:30 am
This is all bullshit. Rudd is going not because he is an unpopular autocratic arsehole, but because he scrapped the ETS.
That’s what was on this blog just a few weeks ago.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 10:32 am
On your departure David you will have every right to pause at the plane door and say (sotto voce of course) “my work here is done”
Of course if you want to frighten the crap out of everyone, wave a corncob pipe and declare “I will return”
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 10:32 am
I made a point of this during the first McChrystal thread the other day – that if you spend your time reading the lamestream media you’re not going to be up with the play.
If you had been reading Tim Blair’s blog (and he is also a MSM journalist), none of this would be a surprise, nor would you have the impression that it has been ‘bottled up’.
Look through the back-threads and you’ll see numerous pieces about various Labour party groups gearing up for a shit-kicking. It’s only a surprise if all one does is watch TV1, TV3 news or read the Herald, Stuff, Dom Post, etc, etc.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 10:43 am
How DPF did it.
Vote:
June 24th, 2010 at 10:45 am
The autocracy is the reason for Rudd’s unpopularity in his Caucus. His unpopularity with the public is because he made grand promises on climate change and reform, on which he hasn’t delivered. He painted himself as a visionary and hasn’t come up with the goods. The public see him as yet another spinning, lying politician who believes in nothing, and will say anything to get elected. If the ETS was so important for his premiership, he could have called a double dissolution. But like Brown missing his chance in the UK to call an early election, Rudd refused to stake his leadership on it.
Previously Rudd’s popularity with the public shielded him from his unpopularity in the caucus and his lack of factional alignment. With his public popularity stripped away, he had nothing protecting him.
I don’t think Tony Abbott will have a snowball’s chance against Gillard.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 10:46 am
Check out this ad
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/liberals-launch-new-kevin-olemon-advert/story-e6frgczf-1225882345940
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 10:57 am
Tony Abbot stood for the leadership of the Liberals on the climate change issue. He won. The Libs are known to be against climate change under Abbot. They lead Labour in the polls. The Greens believe in climate change. They are falling in the polls. The claim that the public wants action on climate change is propaganda.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 11:02 am
s.russell (576) Says:
June 24th, 2010 at 10:27 am
“Either he is really really bad or Aust Labour are a bunch of poll-driven fruitcakes.”
or both…
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Surely the more honourable thing for the Aussie Labor party would be to call an early election with either Rudd or Gilliard as their leader/PM.
The people of Aussie voted for Rudd, they did not vote for this unfortunate looking female.
Mind you, it is Labor so honour does not come into it.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 11:14 am
“not vote for this unfortunate looking female.”
Looks like she use’s the same beautician as Auntie did.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/3847190/Woman-PM-for-Australia-Rudd-faces-axe
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 11:24 am
You’re so ignorant redbaiter, and so pained by ideology that you ignore the facts.
A year ago the Greens were on 8% primary vote in the Morgan Poll. They are now at 13%. A record high.
Rudd’s unpopularity is because he made grand promises that he has back tracked on.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 11:27 am
This whole thing on Rudd and how fast it’s developed into his downfall is bazaar… the knives and plan to topple him from within his on party must have been hatched months ago.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 11:27 am
Yes Tim, and it is not the ETS per se that is the problem, rather that he promised something big that he can’t deliver on.
Anyway, 5% of the population (swing vote to Greens) are pissed off there is no ETS. Big deal. You shouldn’t govern on a 5% populace.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 11:29 am
Sounds like he has gone, stepped down with no vote, and Gillard is new PM.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 11:30 am
Rudd has resigned..
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 11:39 am
Now we know the real reason that Obama did not visit Aussie.
Obama must have known that Rudd’s days were numbered, Obama just cannot be seen to be associating with anybody who is as unpopular as Rudd.
Can you imagine the way the media would have played Obama’s visit and the subsequent demise of Rudd.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 11:39 am
Poor old 747Kevin another lefty thrown on the scrap heap. The bugger threw the towel in rather then a knife in the guts. I do hope the blobs of jelly that pose as National Socialist MP’s can emulate their Aussie comrades. Shyster Shonkey and the useful idiot are on par with 747, the worm will turn.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 11:47 am
“You’re so ignorant redbaiter, and so pained by ideology that you ignore the facts.”
Here is a recent news story I found in about 30 secs of searching. Tell me where it disagrees with those facts I have stated above?
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/new-poll-has-tony-abbott-looking-stronger-against-kevin-rudd/story-e6frf7jo-1225882098918
I know where the ignorance is Mr. Ellis.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 11:51 am
And the fuckwits over at Stuff, in their rush to have a breaking news headline on their website, fuck it up royally:
“Julia Gillard becomes first Australian PM as Kevin Rudd stands down”
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 11:55 am
Only the people of Morningside voted for Rudd. The rest of them voted for various other MPs, all of whom are still in parliament. The voters would have made their decisions based on the quality of the candidates in their electorates, rather than simply voting for a party — right?
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 11:56 am
National here will be saying “you can’t dump the ETS,look what happened to snot eating Kev!”
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Come home David.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
“The voters would have made their decisions based on the quality of the candidates in their electorates, rather than simply voting for a party — right?”
That is the theory, however, the reality is that they (and most people in NZ) vote for the various leaders.
Try it with your workmates who are not interested in politics, I bet they say they voted for Key or Clark, I also suggest that they would have little idea who their local MP is.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
He is coming home Trev, I hear he is going to Wainui next.
Start looking for another job.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
big bruv @ 11:39 am
Now we know the real reason that Obama did not visit Aussie.
Obama must have known that Rudd’s days were numbered, Obama just cannot be seen to be associating with anybody who is as unpopular as Rudd.
Can you imagine the way the media would have played Obama’s visit and the subsequent demise of Rudd.
…. So we will be expecting a visit to New Zealand soon from Obama and Gilliard…
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
We may well be RKBee.
Both Obama and the unfortunate looking female will be desperate to be around a popular leader.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Just heard some Aussie journo? opine that Gillard has the mind of a lawyer and the mouth of a bricklayer.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
And yet you still want to return NZ to FPP? This is exactly why I believe MMP is a better system: people vote for parties (or leaders), and so the national party vote should determine how many seats parties get.
[but I don't want to get too far off topic, so I won't post more on this topic here..]
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
It will be fascinating and a true test for the Coalition. Are the public prepared to come back to them or was it a case of ‘anyone but Rudd’.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
James Allan, an NZ Lawyer and University Professor resident in Australia, writes good op-eds occasionally for “The Australian” and for “Quadrant” Magazine.
He did one in “Quadrant” a few months ago, unfortunately not online, on the subject of “why” he was getting Australian citizenship. The grittiest bit was, that he thought Australia and NZ were on political trajectories so different that he doubted that the current arrangements re Kiwis living and working there, would stand the strain for much longer.
Rudd, for all his faults, was a cunning politician who kept the extreme elements of Labor Australia bottled up so as to make his party more palatable to the electorate. John Howard defined Australia, and Rudd had to work with that reality. Gillard is Australia’s Helen Clark, who “rolled” a basically much more decent ordinary Kiwi person, Mike Moore ( a better man than Rudd, too), out of the way so as to pursue a radical social engineering agenda and stack the party with her stooges.
We will now see what James Allen called “the very different political trajectories” of the 2 countries, if Gillard-Big Unions Labor goes back to the wilderness like a decade of loony leftwing radicals kept UK Labour in the wilderness in the Thatcher years. NZ went 180 degrees the OTHER way, and put the radical feminazi into power for 9 years and let her pretty much define NZ like Howard defined Aussie. Now, we have a nice smiley face Mr Key who has to play Clark lite like Rudd had to play Howard lite. That, my friends, is just how different we 2 countries might shortly show up to be. Would an AUSSIE jury aquit 3 communist bastards who vandalised an installation that our mutual US allies use to provide us with security?
If Abbott becomes PM in a few months, get into Aussie and get citizenship while you can. Don’t buy a house until their property bubble has burst, though. Rent until that happens. One feature of property bubbles, is that rents barely go up while the land prices go through the roof. The same applies here, by the way. If you can get some sucker to pay “current market values” for your house while we’re still near peak bubble values, all the better for your impending move to Aussie.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
If you think the Coalition will win, you can make some money out of it…
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Dude is gone. Nice
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Is that some tears I see from Rudd.
Ha ha ha.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Stuff quoting Key: “I guess there had been a sign that the polls had been difficult for Kevin the last few months but that’s not unique in politics and he’d obviously been a highly regarded and well loved prime minister of Australia.”
Sometimes I get confused – is JK just trying so hard to be polite that he is prepared to tell blatant porkies and talk BS, or does he think we are stupid? Why the hell does he think even his own party eventually got frustrated and rolled the “obviously … highly regarded and well loved prime minister of Australia”? Perhaps he should be looking more closely at why Rudd has gone – his global warming and ETS infatuation among the reasons.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Rudd was pathetic having a blub on the box just now,a real Ozzie bloke……not!
Gillard looking very dangerous with her “belief” in climate change and promising to put a price on carbon,my God they’re all mad!
Here’s hoping for an Abbot landslide.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
I am not sure I would put much store in anything Alexander The Talking Knee Downer has to say.
This is a man who was the biggest disaster as Liberal party leader since John Hewson.
This is a man who aspired to be Prime Minister of Australia, yet could not get his wife to forgo her British passport.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Robert Mapplethorpe – I think you’ll find Downer acknowleges in the essay that he was a poor leader of the Liberals. His humility on that is one of the features that makes it interesting.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Mapplethorp
Could not get his wife to………Jeez don’t you people believe in individual freedom and choice,no of course not. Her culture ,heritage and family are not important. Now if she were an “ethnic”……………
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
We’re now in for days perhaps weeks of “objective” mainstream media pundits giving their jaundiced left wing views on how wonderful Gillard is- Australia’s first woman PM etc etc. So fucking nauseating.
This is where the media come undone, for they are in league with the Labour party in their long time strategy of trying to present themselves as middle of the road when they, and especially Gillard, are a pack of fucking communists. Operating by stealth, and the media help them cloak what they really are and what their real objectives are.
If Gillard could she would now drive the train straight to Grand Communist Station. She can’t of course, but everything she does from now on will be focussed on that eventual destination, and at times we may even appear to be going away, but in truth, we’re going down the same line in the same direction, and will eventually end up at that same station.
And the mainstream media, that pack of lying snivelling deceitful scumbags, are out there doing all they can to facilitate the journey.
Tell us the truth about Gillard you contemptible frauds.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
The truth?
You can’t handle the truth.
Anyone, man or woman, who supports the Western Bulldogs, previously known as Footscray, can never be all bad. A great team for the Mighty West, a great supporter of that team.
BTW, please send me a google map link to Grand Communist Station, it must be one Marcus
Vote:lush left off his journey off the rails.
June 24th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
PhilBest:
I’ve missed your contributions to Kiwiblog and no one seemed to know what had happened to you. Where have you been? And more importantly, are you back on deck now?
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Thanks for the kind words, Nomestradamus. Warm regards to Redbaiter too. I miss the Kiwiblog community. The simple explanation for my absence, is “too busy”. I always said the time would come when my vocation would take me away from the blogosphere semi-permanently. I may just pop back in in a rush now and then when something I rate as highly important happens – like this. But the not so simple explanation is, “no longer worth the bother”.
For what its worth, I believe the Left in NZ has its 30 year plan nicely mapped out. Leave office only after sabotaging everything for the other bunch, so that it is impossible for them to please the electorate. No wonder Mikhail Kullensky was grinning. Add to that, a poisoned media political discourse that obliges the Nats to carry out half of the Left’s plot for them anyway.
Look at where Helen Clark left off. That’s where the Left’s social engineering program will pick up from again. (In 2011? 2014? 2017 – it’s just a matter of time). Imagine Maryann Street making policy. (Who imagined Helen Clark being a “popular” leader, in 1998?) If you’re a Christian who wants to raise your kids decently, escape while you can. I am not optimistic about my country at all. I even thought “Christian” Rudd (Howard Lite) Australia to be preferable to “Not sure about God” Key (Clark Lite) NZ but was watching what might happen – like this change in Aussie. I am leaving my own exit to Aussie as late as possible, praying for a miracle in NZ. Meanwhile, I regard earning and saving – to be better placed for an exit – as more important than attempting to influence things via blog participation.
The last straw for me, was what the Waihopai jury did. 12 New Zealanders randomly chosen from the community, and NOT ONE could stick up for our American benefactors? FFS. NZ’s relationship with Australia, on current trajectory, is progressing from being like that of the USA and Canada, to that of the USA and Cuba. Just give it long enough.
If Gillard does a Clark to Aussie – God forbid – I don’t know where to turn. Apply for Green cards and go to Texas if I get one. Certainly not to one of those coastal State hotbeds of apostasy and politically correct tyranny. Although it looks like they might go completely broke yet. Here’s hoping the freedom loving States of the USA will survive the coming meltdown intact without being dragged down too by the machinations of the coastal left.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
“If Gillard does a Clark to Aussie – God forbid – I don’t know where to turn.”
So maybe its best after all to fight for change where you are right now?
Australia still has a significant right wing voice, due a lot I think to the fact that there are still some private education facilities to be found. Overall though it is still bogged down in a deep left wing mire.
You’re right, the stealing power obsessed leftist scum are everywhere and it is difficult to know what to do to awaken the public when the media is so completely in the thrall of the left.
Why I have always said the media, traitors to their own profession, are the first adversary. The centralised education system is the next most evil influence.
Talking of the fight- just read an interesting article you might like to read-
“The Next Civil War”
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20100619/NEWS/100619366/-1/opinion?p=2&tc=pg
(Warmest regards to you too Phil. Kiwiblog is much the worse for your absence.)
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Serious question RB – how do you bring about reform in the media? (I think we’re poorly served by them too).
Anything’s possible, but waiting hoping they’ll string themselves up is unlikely to change anything.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
Oh God.
Rise to the occasion, our Great Jugeared Hope – only you can save us from this train wreck!
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Mr. George. there are two elements to the media. One is the state run media, the other is the private media. The former has to be defunded, and the latter is of course free to report as it wishes and is only influenced by the aims of its shareholders.
Whether the motive is propaganda or profit, it matters not as in a free society we have to let them report as they wish.
The options are pretty clear. (although perhaps not to one whose thinking is as muddled as your own). In order to rid ourselves of the plague of state owned media we must elect politicians who will defund it. In order to rid ourselves of left wing private media, we must ensure we never let a dollar of our income be spent supporting it.
Both of these objectives are slowly becoming a reality as (a) governments run out of money to fund propaganda outlets and citizen’s anger at the misuse of taxes continues to rise, and (b) in the private sector, advertising revenue is channelled to far more successful balanced outlets rather than to heavily biased and fast fading left wing outlets.
Other factors are a growing awareness in communities as to how the left operates. This too impacts upon support for public broadcasting and left wing private media outlets. Journalism classes in universities too are under scrutiny as once again, the public becomes aware of leftist influence in education, especially in journalism, (where it is well documented). Budding journalists are indoctrinated to be agents for social change rather than objective reporters of fact.
Things will change slowly as long as we freedom advocates, (against the wishes of such as yourself), keep persisting and struggling and fighting to get ideas out there that the left would immediately ban from public view if it was in their power.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
“She speaks her mind ”
See what I mean by propaganda? Gillard is most careful never to speak her mind for she knows that if she did, she’d never get a vote.
She constantly cloaks her thoughts in weasel words designed to fool the punters, many who still think the media is the same objective source of information it was before it fell under the control of the left.
The media is quite happy to go along with this subterfuge. Propagandists like Curtin are not challenged on their partisan rubbish because she and the media are part of the same commie scam.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 8:18 pm
Ok, RB, fair enough. That sort of change won’t be easy – trying to move the consumer masses and marketers who seem to be mutually addicted – so I suspect it could be a long hard battle – especially when you seem to relish trying to make enemies. Sometimes it seems like you are just in it for the thrill of the battle rather than to achieve anything because you seem to act counter to encouraging support beyond train wreck enthusiasts.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
Nothing will be gained by staying in the center. The center must be pulled right and the only way to do that is to extend the political spectrum from the crippled single far-left wing dimension it is in NZ today.
The further the ideas are to the right, and the wider they are exposed, the further that center will move away from its leftist extremes. This is the movement the left know and fear so much.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
Vote party vote ACT next time!
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 9:26 pm
RB.. So maybe its best after all to fight for change where you are right now?
move away from its leftist extremes.
You mean like Phil.. and this Blog.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 10:03 pm
Ah well – since we’re rapidly (and predictably) heading for the “have an orgasm for Julia” month in the MSM, and since the echoes of the McChrystal affair are still reverberating, it’s probably time to have a laugh with Ed Driscoll
He has a short, sarcastic piece on All The President’s Rubes, where he has some fun with one Richard Cohen of the WaPo. It would seem that Richard is a bit down about Obama
To which Driscoll responds:
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
Oh and by the way – congrats also to RB’s 10,000th post – and the return (even if only briefly) of PhilBest.
Vote:June 24th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
10,000 is always a good marker – unless it’s age, I suppose. Well done RB, and I hope you spend the next 10,000 sticking it to the Progs as well.
Vote:June 25th, 2010 at 12:43 am
Thanks guys- grateful for your encouragement.
Vote:June 25th, 2010 at 8:59 am
Jeez…10 000 posts ?
…somebody reward this guy with a life !!!
BREAKING NEWS : pollywog just cracked a ton.
WOOOOHOOOO…
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