A delightful smear job on the Occupy Melbourne protesters by the Herald Sun this morning, with our new favourite beat-up queen Anne Wright (the one who tried to pretend back in February that $2.42 meals for prisoners were luxurious) doing a classic bit of “pick out unrepresentative details and pretend they show hypocrisy” hackery:
No issue yet but we’re working on one
Organisers walk around tapping on their iPhones, the media co-ordinators use a Macbook to update their Twitter and Facebook accounts and others snap photos using expensive digital cameras.
I mean what percentage of Australians have mobile phones and computers, right? And if they were ordinary folk surely they’d be shooting on much more expensive film, right?
Conveniently exactly what Robert Doyle was about to do.
I did love the summary she gave this quote from a protester:
“I was walking home after a night out at 2am and they asked me what I thought of the movement and I have been here ever since,” he said. “I just don’t like the fact the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, I haven’t done too much research.”
Anne’s reduction of that?
Unemployed 21-year-old Leroy Maurus only joined because he was walking home from an all-night bender.
Yeah, that’s all it was.
And she went on. Getting sillier and sillier.
The vegan kitchen, lauded by protesters as a haven for the homeless, uses store-bought Tip Top muffins and Vegemite, sold by major supermarket chains.
And:
A couple were drinking Starbucks coffee, one of the world’s largest coffee chains.
It’s almost like these people live in the world they’d like to change, isn’t it?
I mean, I know it’s just an obvious, shameless beat-up, an entirely one-sided attack serving to defend in advance Robert Doyle sending in the police this afternoon. But, Anne – it might’ve been more effective if you were even a little subtle about it. More does not necessarily equal better.
(I will give begrudging credit to the Herald Sun sub-editor who came up with the “within tents for assault” pun for the top of the page, though.)
PS Don’t worry, they did find a dreadlocked hippy-looking fellow for the top of the page; he was just to the right of the bit I cropped.
ELSEWHERE: From the sibling Occupy Wall Street protest in the US, what happens when a partisan news organisation tries to pull the same stunt on camera and they misjudge their target:
That bit at the end?
“I think, myself, as well as many other people, would like to see a little but more economic justice or social justice — Jesus stuff — as far as feeding the poor, health care for the sick. You know, I find it really entertaining that people like to hold the Bill of Rights up while they’re screaming at gay soldiers, but they just can’t wrap their heads around the idea that a for-profit healthcare system doesn’t work. So, let’s just look at it like this, if we want the president to do more, let’s talk to him on a level that actually reaches people, instead of asking for his birth certificate and wasting time with total nonsense like Solyndra.”
Snap.
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A Marine Sgt. tells the NYPD where to get off.
The US protests are certainly not manned by “scraggly-eyed dreamers” as Howard called them ( btw Howie, what are scraggly eyes? Did you mean hair perchance, but were so frothed-up you got your images all scraggled?). In fact, these protests are characterised by a wide cross-section of types. The Right just don’t want that to be the case, so we get the usual labelling that gives them some self-righteous comfort in a changing world. That the Melbourne protests are less prominent than the overseas versions doesn’t detract from their importance.
Still loving every minute of it.
You’re a hero Howard.
Mr Wrench
Very good, Mr Wrench, now get your globe out, locate New York and then locate Melbourne. You may notice that these two points are some distance apart. You may also have enough powers of perception to realize they are in two different countries, possessed of two different sets of economic circumstance.
Now whilst OCM’s US progenitor may indeed be running a lower ratio of useless hippy to productive citizen, this is of no comfort to the handful of clueless wanabees in Melbourne and their ageing armchair-revolutionary supporters, such as yourself.
It is quite clear they have no broadbase appeal beyond the arts faculty lounges of this great nation and your onanistic delusions of the coming of the dictatorship of the prolatariat are destined to be met with disapointment.
Try as I might, I simply can’t ‘detract from their importance’ due to them having none to begin with. You could also add to importance: relevance, coherence and a respect for personal hygeine.
I’m loving every minute of the idea that a grown adult is actually loving every minute of it.
It’s interesting to compare the way the Arab Spring was covered as opposed to the way the Occupy {insert place name here} has been covered.
On the one hand the Arabs Spring represents a sudden wakening of the Arab desire to embrace Democracy, which should be encouraged and nurtured, at all cost. Whilst the Occupy {insert place name here} movement represents a decent into anarchy, which needs to be suppressed with the full force of the law, at any cost.
Even the ratbag republicans presidential candidates and Fox News have had to temper the idiotic hippy bashing…but not our Howard…
Just how right of extreme right wing do you need to be before you’re a kind of walking talking Godwin?
Howard, do you realise that many of your posts, including the last one, consist almost entirely of abuse of one kind or another? It’s hard to take seriously your criticisms of Aliar, even though I sometimes agree with them in principle.
Language warning. https://heathenscripture.wordpress.com/2011/10/22/robert-doyle-is-a-fucking-cunt/#comments
Bloods05
Whilst I appreciate your commitment to civil discourse, I wouldn’t characterise my posts as ‘abusive’. Condescending, supercilious and contemptuous from time to time, like most posters, sure I’ll grant you that, but I’m not calling other posters outright idiots and the such. ‘Ageing armchair-revolutionary’ was as bad as it got last post, in reply to a poster who called my good self a ‘pillock’ a couple of threads back. Although, I did call Aliar a ‘goose’ a while ago, still, hardly the most aggressive of insults.
Still, I’ll leave it up to the reader to cast their final judgement.
In order to protect his right to free speech, Timmy must curtail that of his readers.
So far, three readers’ comments on that post at Schadenfreude Central have been expunged and replaced with the text:
Doesn’t Timmy realise what a loss this represents to online … um, debate?
Consider my final judgment cast.
What’s telling in the remarks is the depth of the cultural animus towards political deviance, expressed in the tropes uttered against the occupiers. Nobody implies that they may have been guilty of anything but overstaying a permit, yet well-worn right-wing caricatures from the 1960s are all trotted out.
One of the flying monkeys expresses satisfaction that “a Liberal government is finally cracking down on greenies/socialists”. Putting aside that this would probably have come from the City of Sydney Council, the action is clearly conceived of as political. If “libertarian” Blair has a problem with people endorsing political repression on his blog, he is keeping stum about it.
IIRC Marshall McLuhan once said, the medium is the message and that seems amply demonstrated here. Writing for the Murdochracy, Blair is a repressive authoritarian rather than some sort of libertarian.
Howard, we may have to agree to disagree on the definition of abuse, but your abuse (as I define it) is not confined to other posters. It extends to the targets of your criticism, and your casual stereotyping of groups of people merely detracts from the persuasiveness of your arguments and makes you sound like Robert Doyle.
Nick the Hippy, that is a wonderfully pointed, purposeful, humanely-inspired tirade of abuse. Cruel, mercilessly cruel, but fair. Howard, please take note. When it’s done well, with a bit of style, flair and a dash of originality, free from what Fran calls “the cultural animus towards political deviance”, it has a place. Sadly, despite your earnest strivings, you haven’t hit that mark just yet.
Bloods05
Good to see you’ve recovered from your momentary aversion to abuse. Let’s hope any future relapses aren’t as selective.
Got me a beauty Howard. Answered every point I made.
I know I’ve used it before, but I never tire of dear old Oscar: “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”
@Vesper,
exactly what I was thinking. When Egyptians and Tunisians use the internet, mobile phones and cameras to start demanding a better system they are wonderful – look at their ingenious use of technology! But when Melbournians do it they are spoilt little rich kids. How can the downtrodden poor of the middle east afford these expensive pieces of equipment? Possibly because technology isn’t actually expensive anymore so the fact that someone has an iphone doesn’t really indicate their level of wealth at all.
None of this excuses the behaviour of the police, Vic gov and Melbourne City Council. I was horrified by the actions of the Police. You don’t need to choke people who are not resisting (people seem to think that if you don’t resist you must go quietly, the vast majority of protesters were not actively resisting or fighting back, they simply weren’t going to put their hands out in front and ask the police to whack on the cuffs.) you don’t need to drag people by their hair across the ground or break their nose when they haven’t actually broken any laws.
Hah! Ok that was funny
Like being “Condescending, supercilious and contemptuous” is any better.
Bloods05
You appear to be confusing making a point of any sort with the making of selective accusations of ‘abuse’, ‘stereotyping’ and writing without ‘flair’. If you actually do have a point to make, as opposed to critiques of style, by all means make one.
If it were not so chronologically improbable Howard, I would swear you must have been an intimate of Oscar. You seem to have been the inspiration for so many of his best and most devastating aphorisms.
Bloods05
Is that another one your ‘points’ I’m supposed to reply to? Please let me know, perhaps you can mark your posts in the future so I know what you regard as a ‘point’.
Sorry, Bloods05, I missed your initial retreat into cliche:
Quite clearly, resort to cliched Oscar Wilde quotes is the last resort of the unimaginative. Consistency is the last resort of the consistent. Next.
When you start getting snarky Howard, I just know you’re out of options. My dear, Oscar was never cliched. That is why he has endured.
Have a read of that piece Nick linked to, and get back to me with your thoughts. I’d be genuinely interested to know what an intelligent conservative thinks of that kind of writing, particularly when it is applied to blustering, inconsequential bullies like Doyle.
Bloods05
I genuinely tried, but could go no further than the fifth paragraph. The author may have had many valid points to make thereafter, but his expletive laden vitriol rendered his rant unreadable. Now, I don’t live in Melbourne, so until now I never knew who the city’s mayor was, and thus can make no general judgements thereupon. But it would seem to me that in starting the article the way he has, the author has guaranteed that only those who agree with the title’s premise will read it the whole way through: in short, he has ensured no one’s opinion will be changed. Is this what you mean by to ‘detract from the persuasiveness of one’s argument’?
I am surprised you endorse this piece given your protestations regarding abuse. This piece is what I would regard as abusive: so personal and vulgar in it’s vitriol as to be unreadable to all but those who agree with it’s proposed premise.
Perhaps I should not be surprised given you have started of this thread’s comment section with this piece of considered commentary:
My concern, as I tried (in vain) to make clear, was that you object to abusiveness from others while indulging in it yourself. I failed to make it clear, evidently. Personally I have no problem with it when it is done with wit and originality, and makes a substantive point. You and Aliar don’t fit that bill. Your abuse is hackneyed and smarmy. You know how to write well, and you usually do. But when you try to categorise those you disagree with, you come across like a combination of Piers
Akerman and Christopher Pyne, which I’m absolutely sure is not your intention. Aliar, on the other hand, defaults to personal abuse as soon as he sniffs opposition, which is most unappealing. Sadly though, I agree with him far more often than I agree with you.
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