There are some things that you read on the internet that make you think that the author may be wearing a tin-foil hat, the much beloved anti-mind control device of the paranoid conspiracy theorist – but having read Bob Ellis’ latest rambling tract at The Drum I wonder if he’s been wrapping up other appendages instead of his head?
Yes Bob, that’s exactly what’s going on. What other explanation could there be?
Is feminism killing the Left, and why does it seem so keen to do so?
Another salient question, why won’t women allow men who claim to have progressive values whore about as they see fit? Don’t they know what’s good for them?
Ellis’ confused, and confusing, questioning of whether “wowser-feminism [has] gone too far?” reminds me of reading a Choose Your Own Adventure novel from cover to cover, there are some common themes, but the story you’d get is nonsensical.
The central tenet of the piece seems to be a forlorn reminiscence of the days when casual sexual assault was the norm, and nobody seemed to mind. But that’s just the point, isn’t it? Someone did mind Bob. Just because blokes could get away with randomly groping women at the drive-in, doesn’t mean that they were particularly fond of it.
Leaving aside Ellis’ Cro-Magnon assessment of sexual assault laws, the rest of his article is an incoherent mess.
John Edwards, a left-wing Democrat and potential president, is forced out of politics by a campaign – over a bastard child
And the fact that he used campaign funds to support his mistress, while his wife was dying of cancer. Two pretty important parts of the story.
John McCain, a reformist, left-field Republican, is accused of fathering an illegitimate daughter and loses the nomination, and the presidency, to George W Bush
I’m not sure in which world John McCain gets a pass as a reformist, but regardless of that, the slur from the Bush camp wasn’t just about having a bastard daughter, but having a black, bastard daughter, which was not well received in the South.
David Campbell, a capable Labor minister, is forced out of politics by a car parked outside a place of homosexual resort.
Hang on, aren’t we talking about feminism?
Troy Buswell, a potential Liberal premier, is deprived of his party leadership for sniffing a chair.
He’s not really what you’d call a member of “the Left” though, is he Bob?
Having cast his net wide with modern examples of men bought to heel for perceived immorality, Ellis attempts to draw comparisons with great figures whose peccadilloes went unpunished.
..imagine Charles Dickens, a pederast also, not writing most of his books..
..Socrates was a pederast; Errol Flynn; Frank Thring; Arthur C Clarke; Donald Friend; Tiny Tim; Elvis Presley.Would it have been good for them to have gone to jail, or the block, or the gibbet, and have never have done the work they did, or would it have been a pity?
I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one who can see a difference between artists and people who chose to enter public life as political figures, where modern mores demand a display of moral integrity. But more importantly, why does this have to be an either/or question? Is there some reason why great art can’t be made by men who aren’t assaulting children? Are legislators who cherish marital fidelity incapable of becoming great leaders?
If you had any hope that Ellis could somehow avert the train wreck that this article seemed destined to become, I’m sorry to bring you this:
Should Assange, of all people, a hero of our century, the auteur of the Arab Spring, go to jail for five years, and Guantanamo for 20, because he attempted sex with a drowsy woman he was in bed with, and had had consensual sex with eight hours before?
Really Bob? The auteur of the Arab Spring? I’m no Middle East expert, but I suspect that decades of repression had more to do with the Arab Spring than a bunch of leaked diplomatic cables. And, for the record, consenting to sex isn’t a perpetual agreement to do so in future.
Ellis seems to be saying little more than that the world has changed, but he doesn’t want to, and he’s looking for somewhere to pin the blame.
UPDATE (Jeremy): An hilarious retort to Ellis by Ben Pobjie, “HAS FEMINISM GONE TOO FAR????. Another excellent one in Fairfax by John Birmingham. And Marieke Hardy is even thinking of renaming Bob Ellis (her dog).
20 Comments
Bob is the living embodiment of the Curate’s Egg.
A quibble: John Edwards has been indicted for misusing campaign funds. He is contesting the charge so although he may yet be found guilty I don’t think it’s ‘a fact’ yet.
Also the year 2000 vintage John McCain did run as a Reform Republican with liberal views on campaign finance and immigration. However by 2008 he had surrendered to the Far Right of his party, which is why he had so many credibility problems in that election.
“Not too high a price to pay for a dodgy hooker’s defiance of male piggery? You bet. The world can go hang. She was ‘forced’ into oral sex. Wow.”
I can understand the ABC website stooping that low for hits and ratings, they’ve been on that trajectory for a while now. But how Ellis can sleep at night is beyond me. Pure misogyny.
I used to like Ellis’ stuff, but of late he’s becoming more and more unhinged. This article is a perfect example. Apart from the lunacy of his claims – which Dave has already nicely summed up – I was furious to see the spurious claim of Arthur C. Clarke being a paedophile being repeated. He was accused of such by the Sunday Mirror in the UK (which makes The Oz look like a reliable source), it was investigated by the Sri Lankan authorities and found to be completely baseless, after which the Mirror published an apology to Clarke. So should Ellis.
The title to this piece is right. There’s so much wrong with what Ellis wrote that you’d need a several thousand words to unpick it. Ellis, thankfully, lacks the standing to merit such a response, though I will cringe the first time some reactionary defends him/herself by pointing to some on the left sharing his/her views and cites Ellis.
I’m not sure exactly when he stopped being a leftist and started being simply a curmudgeonly, eclectic and often reactionary crank with a passion for venting, but I see no reason for him to be publishing under the auspices of a public broadcaster, except perhaps as a letter-writer like the rest of us. It’s sad when people don’t age well. I think of people like Peter Cundall who even now is as sharp as a tack and the sort of chap that would add substance to pretty much any gathering of rational folk and feel very sorry at what Ellis has become.
Briefly, I would add Dave, since you didn’t explicitly say so, that the driving force in the non-criminal cases* was not feminism or some sort of related moral ethic, but the desire of other men to acquire relative power. Those in charge or challenging for power aren’t picky on how they bring down rivals.
In the case of Edwards of course, he’d given false declarations on the usage of funds he’d acquired for campaign purposes and encouraged the beneficiary to lie about it. Had he used his own personal money and told no lies, it would probably have had the same result but at least it would have been a case on moral taboo. Of course, in the US, everyone running for mainstream parties has to swear hand-on-heart by “family values” to get nominated, and so he pretty much had to lie — not out of respect for feminist ethics but for traditional christian mores.
* in the criminal cases, we must assume (in the absence of evidence to the contrary) that the driving force was good cause to infer criminal activity, although it obviously helps if some well-connected rival/enemy wants bad stuff to happen to you. The dealing with Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia would seem to be an excellent example. Dominic Strauss-Khan may be another and Julian Assange a third.In DS-K’s case it may have been a case of some purely criminal gang seeking some financial or commercial advantage. We will need to wait and see.
In perhaps unrelated news this morning, apparently even spiders get a bit demented as they get older.
Ah and here’s me thinking he was just an incompetent old fool…
Tim, even if Edwards’ mistress was a genuine employee of his campaign, videography if I recall, it’s still a dodgy use of funds, irrespective of any other illegalities he’s been accused of.
As for McCain, while he was certainly ‘running against the party’ in 2000, his record as a legislator doesn’t really paint him as any kind of left winger.
The article is beneath contempt, how it got published astounds me.
So many factual errors and false comparisons it would need a post almost the same length to refute them all.
“Mike Rann, a world-famed, green-leaning premier, is accused of consensual sex by a waitress, and in six weeks plunges Labor hero to also-ran.”
The most right-wing Premier in SA history, this paragon of moral virtue, barely tolerated by the Party, called everyone who disagreed with him a “scumbag and lowlife”, promised to “rack,stack and pack” prisoners because “our priorities are hospitals, schools and police not scumbags and lowlifes”, has repeatedly refused to establish an ICC, introduced police dog squads and patdowns on trains and buses, introduced laws which enable suspects (NOT convicted criminals) to be imprisoned _for up to 6 years_ WITHOUT trial if they spoke to anyone with a criminal record, whether they know they have one or not, introduced a law which enables Police to seize property of SUSPECTS of drug dealing.
This paragon, who parades his Presbyterianism constantly, was barely tolerated by the Party because he was popular.
Is Ellis trying to compete with Ted Lapkin in the outrage stakes?
* * *
Hang on. I take that back.
Not even Lapkin would be so demented.
Happly Uncle Bob is getting a good, and well deserved, smacking in the comments.
Cheers
Funny that when i Google ‘Charles Dickens pederast’ the first results that come up are Ellis’ article, and the rest completely irrelevant.
It’s certainly the first time I’d heard of it.
@Dave
While I’d agree McCain was far from a left-winger, he did go against party on some important pieces of legislation, if only because the legislation in question was so totally insane as to be unsupportable by anyone with a conscience. Which earned him the epithet of RINO (Republican In Name Only) after he lost the election, so as to shift the blame onto him not being sufficiently politically polarised rather than simply part of the party the public had enough of.
The issue is how one sees the term “right-wing”. Sadly, most people say those words when they actually mean “loyal to the party classified as conservative”. Which, of course, is why the term can be used in so many different ways depending on what demagoguery is in play by politicians on the day.
Even though this is really nothing more than a rambling diatribe, the volume of quick-fire examples he uses is kind of impressive for someone who seems to be losing their mind a bit.
Stop being trolled by Bob Ellis of all people.
Feminism is killing dinosaurs like Bob, and he’s sad. Still a long way to go, though, girls.
Me too, although his unhinging seems to have gathered pace in the last 10 or so years. Reading some of his stuff, I often get the feeling he is trying to be a Christopher Hitchens type, but fails miserably.
Sad that the ABC has sunk so low that few people can even be bothered questioning the use of taxpayers money to pay for such abject drivel.
So how long until Ellis makes the next stop – an appearance on the Bolt Report….
Shorter Ellis: women shut up, the mens are being harmed by them raping you.
Pathetic.