This thread is designed to accommodate anyone who wants to write their own retrospective on John Howard. I won’t impose length limits, or do much moderation, but I remind everyone that the rules regarding civilised discussion remain in effect. If you don’t recall them, please read the comments policy, linked at the top of the page.
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John Quiggin 
John who?
LOL Ken.
A week later does anyone care? I’m glad I don’t, he’s gone and good riddance.
The laugh of the week was Lowitja O’Donahue who referred to Mr Howard as “What’s his name?”.
Status: Unprosecuted war criminal
On the kinder side, I found Howard to be a very courteous and naturally friendly person. His ability to remember people’s names and go out of his way to say hello to them was quite heart-warming. He was also extremely intelligent and one of the most able communicators of all our prime ministers (able to speak succinctly and in the Australian vernacular without ever sounding arrogant). I don’t miss him at all because he was leading us down the wrong path (for the reasons JQ mentioned) but he was nonetheless a remarkable man.
You are all wrong.
John Howard is the 2nd longest serving Prime Minister, and if one is a political junkie (ie, most who visit this site) this makes him the 2nd most successful Prime Minister.
Getting elected & getting votes = the most measurable definition of success in politics.
Howard fooled most of the people most of the time.
It depends what you understand as success-as-prime-minister. Getting re-elected rather than achieving something lasting and worthwhile in office.
If appeal to bigotry, racism and xenophobia are measures of success because they make a leader popular then John Howard is in the same league as Vladimir Putin – if not quite where Milosevich or Hitler were coming from).
It is hard to believe that it is only a week since the election. The Howard government seems like it was back in the Stone Age or some dim distant memory. The changes in the political culture of Australia (In the space of a week!) have been impressive. What this week has highlighted was the gap that had grown between the expectations that big business has of the federal government and the praxis (dyspraxia in the end) of the Howard government. The neoconservative project that began with Thatcher and Reagan was about the use of state power to dismantle the political and economic architecture of the long boom. Big businesses tepid response to Workchoices (i.e. they said ‘thanks, that’s nice, but we are profitable enough to live without it and we have other things on our mind’) seemed to signal that that era was at an end. Why? Because big business interests now needs the state for other purposes. I have a hunch that we are in for an era where the state will be expected to play a much larger role in the organization of economy and society. The project of ‘atomising’ working class interests and breaking the organisational capacity of the labour movement no longer has precedence (In any case, organised labour in Australia is a ‘historically exhausted’ force- Ruddism is an expression of that exhaustion). Wedge politics, obsessions with marketising everything that moves has been replaced by a renewed discourse about ‘national unity’, ‘national planning’ and the central role of the state in preparing us for the era of big businesses’ version of the ‘Greenhouse Mode of Regulation’.
Joh Bjelke-Peterson didn’t make it to PM but his alter ego did. John Winston Howard was the same kind of politician as Joh; small minded, mean spirited, parochial, populist, jingoistic and a seeker of personal advantage above all else. In terms of international law, a good case could be made that John Howard was also guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Howard’s legacy is that he has damaged Australia so severely and in so many respects that the nation may never recover.
The damage to Australia’s international reputation may be repairable but it will take some considerable time. We participated in an illegal war, we condoned and conspired in torture and illegal internment of our own and foreign nationals. We treated refugees in the most criminally foul and inhumane manner. The damage to our institutions, our liberal democracy and the national psyche will be much more difficult to repair than our international reputation. We cannot as a people participate in blatantly immoral and cruel actions without being rendered to some degree desensitised and callous. We cannot legislate away democratic, legal and humanitarian protections without threatening such essential principles as the presumption of innocence, the right to natural justice, the right to a speedy and fair trail and above all the right to protection against the arbitrary power of the state.
Every functionary of the state (public servants) and the public at large ought to realise that if we assist an agenda like that run by Howard and Bush then at some point that self-same arbitrary and tyrannous power which we help to build up will inevitably be turned against us and our families.
The damage to our economy is no less than all the other damage done by the neo-conservative wreckers. Our current prosperity is superficial and the essential underpinnings of our economy are in a severely weakened and dilapidated state. A quick summary will remind us that $100 billion of public assets were sold for about $50 billion. This is a conservative estimate. This means $50 billion was stolen (legally but immorally) from the common wealth where it had served the common good and transferred to private ownership. Funding of essential infrastructure was choked so that our hospitals, schools and transport infrastructure have been allowed to run down badly.
The ratification of “Kyoto� and the process of switching to non-carbon and alternative renewable energy sources have been seriously and perhaps disastrously delayed. The economy is distorted by policies and subsidies which suit the moneyed class and do further damage to our efforts to recast our energy posture. The indefensible negative gearing policy remains, along with salary sacrificing (legalised tax minimisation), dubious trust arrangements and subsidies for petrol, diesel, coal and natural gas consumption.
Above all, Howard demonstrated and encouraged the same get rich now, rip it out, cut it down, burn it up, stuff anyone else and devil take the future attitude that Joh Bjelke did. These are the negative qualities which lie at the heart of the neo-conservative attitude; an attitude which strangely seems to go beyond greed, exulting in the wilful destruction of anything good possessed by those outside their own class and taking the most perverse and sadistic delight in inflicting cruelty as widely as possible. Sadly they and their cohorts may have taken the world beyond the point where basic humanity, the general environment and the world civilization dependent on both can be salvaged.
The entire cabinet of the previous Australian government should be sent to The Hague for trial. Yes, they do deserve a fair trial, which is more than they gave to those they persecuted.
Joh Bjelke-Petersen would have been a far more successful Prime Minister than John Howard.
Joh was one of the few in politics (probably a handful in total over the past 40 yeasr) with a record of success before politics.
Australia’s internation reputation is not damaged in the slightest.
When you say “refugees” Ikonoclaust, you mean people who “lost” all their paperwork which would prove their refugee status, except for $10,000 for a boat passage. For these illegals, Australia was the 4th, sometimes 5th country of passage after their homeland. And an airfare costs only $1,000 – $2,000. Hmmm…
I can understand the war in Iraq being unpopular by those with no moral compass. But to say it is “illegal”? And just who is declaring it “illegal”?
Ikonoclast has said it best for me. I will add that being a very successful politician and prime minister, or a nice bloke with good manners mean zip in the face of his mis-deeds and he should be required to take consequences.
In the absence of any stronger consequences, we should all try to at least forget him.
John Howard will eventually be remembered as one of our worst Prime Ministers. His treatment of climate change was an appalling disgrace, Iraq was a dreadful fiasco, and he demeaned our standing internationally. Our spiralling national debt will come back to bite us and our lack of an industry policy will be seen as a mistake. It was a perfect demonstration of someone who believes in power for power’s sake – and using that power to try and keep it from anyone else.
John Howard will never understand why he lost this federal election. If Tony Abbot is to be believed, Howard really thinks we were all just bored and needed a change or words to that effect!
However Australia better remember why it wanted him gone and express those reasons loudly or this incoming Labor government may repeat many of Howard’s mistakes. It seems that the only legislation it has committed to rollback is WorkChoices. What about those bloody awful sedition laws etc. It’s time to remind the new Rudd Government that IR was not the only issue which moved voters on 24 November.
Xander: ” His treatment of climate change was an appalling disgrace ”
Let us see what the other side do. There is talking and there is doing.Mr Rudd has to walk the fine line between putting a prohibitive tax on Carbon(to lessen it’s use) and not upsetting the 1 in 15 people who changed their vote at he election.
Xander, John Howard will (deservedly or not) be remembered as one of the best prime ministers.
Climate change is not something in which the rest of the world has shot ahead whilst Australia held back. We are all still under starter’s orders.
Iraq ain’t over yet. All wars are fiascos of one sort or another.
Our international standing has got some backbone under Howard. One of the few things he cannot be faulted on.
Someone who believes in power for powers sake – and using that power to try and keep it from anyone else? And this make him different from Kevin Rudd, Paul Keating, Bob Hawke, Malcom Fraser, Gough Whitlam (& so on) HOW exactly?
He is a politician fer chrissakes, what did you expect?
Ikonoclast
The damage to Australia’s international reputation may be repairable but it will take some considerable time.
The claim of “damage to international reputation” is a straightforward empirical claim, but where is the evidence?
I must take issue with a point made by Steve at the Pub. Please note I am playing the ball not the man. Steve said “When you say “refugeesâ€? Ikonoclaust, you mean people who “lostâ€? all their paperwork which would prove their refugee status, except for $10,000 for a boat passage.”
Point 1. It is the nature of being a genuine refugee that one is often fleeing from any or all of war, persecution, corruption, poverty, starvation or edidemic. These conditions are scarcely conducive to having all of one’s paperwork in order.
Point 2 – It is true that not all refugees are as desperate as described in point 1 above. Nevertheless, their situation might well be that after selling up to flee they have some papers and maybe $10,000 to pay / bribe their way to a country of refuge.
Point 3 – Desperate people do desperate things. Who’s to say that some wisely or unwisely do or don’t selcetively lose or withhold paperwork. People fleeing really dangerous regimes or feeling uncertain about the “welcome” from other countries may do exactly that. I wonder Steve at the Pub if you can imagine what you would do in such circumstances.
Point 4 – Yes some refugees may be purely economic refugees or merely opportunists. However, you and I and we should not pre-judge it. Remember, the principle of innocent until if and when proven guilty. Take them in, treat them humanely and process their cases properly according to international refugee law.
Point 5 – Treating people as in point 4 is actually cheaper. Punitive and incarcerating approches are hellishingly expensive. The notion that we will be seen as a soft touch is nonsense. With proper process under international law we can maintain integrity and a population policy whilst serving the cause of humanitarianism.
In The Age “Ministers sent report on Habib abuse” http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/ministers-sent-report-on-habib-abuse/2007/11/30/1196394625496.html illustrates John Howard’s approach. If there was an advantage for him then the truth was irrelevant.
Question for Steve at the Pub to ponder (no need to totally derail this thread Steve, just mull it over) how many of the people rescued by the Tampa were found to be genuine refugees?
Hmmm, yes the Age report. One of many smoking guns I think that will now see the light of day and prove the complicity and guilt of the Howard cabinet.
Howard will be remembered as a “whatever it takes” politician, in thhe worst tradition of Graham Richardson, who he had a lot in common with, despite being in a different party.
Example: his shameless trashing of federalism, a fundamental Liberal Party belief if ever there was one, because he thought it would be good politics to attack state Labor governments.
(The spinelessness of state Liberal leaders who said nothing while this was going on is worthy of a post in its won right.)
Ikonoclast Says: December 1st, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Ha, Ha, Ha, I am splitting my sides laughing. This “damage to our reputation” people are always talking about must have occurred in one of those parallel universes that quantum physicists are always conjecturing.
One could imagine the alternative history, as breathlessly reported by a Fairfax journo:
“AUS’s reputation was left in tatters during Howards reign. He encouraged Hanson’s rise to power, especially after he promoted her to deputy PM.
“Hardly any people came to the Olympics or visited AUS as tourists during this dark period in our history.
“Also, there were virtually no immigrants esp NESBs allowed in under the New White Australia policy. No coloured people of any complexion could be persuaded to come here and run the gauntlet of “narrow minded bigotry”.
Howard’s policy compared very unfavourably with the USA and USE, both of whom passed multicultural constitutional amendments during this time. And they never had any more ethnic problems or far-right political movements ever again.
And so on. In fact this parody is not far from the literal truth reproduced by most cultural commentators over the past decade.
Aboslute. Reality. Disconnect.
Most of Howard’s bads were related to style or process. He did very little substantive bad. And much substantive good, esp during times of crisis eg E Timor, Port Arthur, 911-Bali response, Aceh tsunami, indigenous intervention.
Most of all he repaired our dysfunctional civic culture after a generation of Left wing intellectual garbage and institutional wreckage.
Howards greatest achievement was the reform of immigration and indigenous pollicy which were an absolute dogs breakfast when he got to power. Rorts and rackets were the order of the day – the head of ATSIC was a serial rapist fer crissake. And a former immigration minister was languising in jail for racketeering!
The results were predictable: emerging ethnic ghettos, branch-stacking, ethnic crime gangs, massive welfare fraud, rorting of both immigration and refugee programs, rampant anomie and child abuse for broken indigenous communities, even assassinations.
This alarming situation has largely been reversed due to proper and effective action by politically incorrect ministers, led by Howard. No doubt this led to some indelicacies and noses being put out of joint by oh-so-sensitive expats and frequent flyers. I couldnt care less.
Do Cultural Leftists think that perhaps these little blemishes might have done our reputation a tad of harm?
A little anecdote.
An acquaintance of mine used to be the Liberal member for the country town where I live. He told me this story.
“Back in the mid-70’s I went to an old-style town meeting with xxx. We were both just starting out in politics. John Howard spoke at the meeting. As we driving back, xxx said ‘John Howard is going to go a long way’. I replied “Oh, I don’t know, I couldn’t see that there was anything he actually stood for. And you know, we were both right.'”
Maxine McKew has this morning claimed to have won John Howard’s seat. I wonder, Jack Strocchi, if she was being presumptuous or do you think it is a fact now?
Sir Henry, as of yesterday 92.25% of votes were counted and Maxine was on 51.25%. While the last 15% of votes were being counted she lost 0.4% of her margin. I don’t think she can lose it now.
Since I travel quite a lot in Asia and meet Asians visiting here, I think that it’s fair to say that our international reputation has suffered quite a lot.
melanie Says: December 1st, 2007 at 4:07 pm
I daresay these Asians would hail from countries substantially more racist and less democratic than John Howard could ever dream of. Still everyone is entitled to their own opinion, no matter how tendentious and self-serving.
Also, perhaps you should travel a little bit more in your own country, to get an idea about how our citizens feel about dysfunctional immigrants. A trip to SW Sydney or SE Melbourne would be a real eye-opener.
What I am interested in is hard fact. In this respect the “damaged reputation” thesis is complete codswobble. Asians have been coming to AUS in their droves over the past decade.
Lots of investment from Asia flooding the AUS equity markets. Lots of Asian tourists and immigrants esp in Sydney.
Whats more they love the place, literally in many cases. Caucasian Christian males picking up Asian second wives and I dont mean mail order brides from the Phillipines.
My mother plays hosts to a den of Asian students. They all adore her, send her post cards and all the rest. More dutiful than me.
So where is this dreaded reputation-trashing going on? In the minds of academic, diplomatic and mediacrats no doubt there is a lot of hand-wringing, brow-furrowing and finger-wagging about Howard’s latest outrage.
This tut-tutting is usually done to curry favour amongst Asians on the cocktail party circuit. All part of the relentless battle for social status war waged by upper-middle class, uni-educated, inner-city dwelling, luvvies against lower-middle class, TAFE-educated, outer suburban McMansion dwelling red-necks.
“If there is hope it lies in the proles.”
George Orwell
There aren’t permanent friendships, just permanent interests.
Howard’s dogwhistling ways on race, while demeaning to all associated with it, changed nothing in terms of international relations or trade relations.
As Strocchi has pointed out, it didn’t stop tourists from coming to Australia and it didn’t stop any trade deals. Australia’s influence may even have helped Indonesia make the transition to the post-Soeharto era, which isn’t exactly democracy, but is better than what they had.
Could Howard have achieved this while avoiding being such a narrow little philistine? Probably. But Howard was the philistine we had. In terms of our relations with Asia, he could have done much worse.
Australian foreign policy is in transition between a declining US and a rising China/India. Howard managed that quite well.
The above comment is an unfortunate example of the cookie-cutter type of decontextualised analysis of Howard’s prime ministership that elsewhere I predicted future historians will show more sophistication.
To extract Howard’s responses to cultural matters from the broader geopolitical circumstances is at the minimum naive, but more like calculatedly diingenuous. It is impossible to discuss Howard’s responses without seeing the connections not only within the Anglosphere, but throughout Europe, Africa, the Phillipines, Indonesia, Thailand, India, and even the middle east.
Fortunately historians tend to make higher demands on evidence than allowed by Luvviesphere Warriors.
OK, I’ll bite.
Just how is everything connected to everything else in your imagined map of Howard’s mind, JG?
If Howard was able to carry this allegedly huge, internally consistent construct around in that enormous brain of his, then exactly how did he lose the election? Seems like a silly misuse of brainpower to me.
And can you answer these two questions without using the word “luvvie”?
Those electors who voted Kevin07 should now present themselves to their nearest detox.
John’s longest lasting legacy is probably his least reported on.
I’m talking about the expansion of the welfare state to the point where almost every Australian family now recieves welfare (family tax benefit B, baby bonus, first home grant etc. etc. etc. etc.).
And let’s not forget that when faced with the pressures of an ageing population he decided that regardless of how much an old person earns they should pay less tax than the rest of us because well, they’re old.
These “reforms” will only get more expensive as time goes one are politically impossible to claw back.
Nice legacy.
Spot on pale_ale. The churning that goes on in terms of taxing by bracket creep and then giving it back as middle-class welfare bribes is worse than useless economically speaking.
Unfortunately, our economy is so distorted by middle-class welfare, corporate welfare and subsidies for uneconomic and polluting activities, it would take ten years with the best political will in the world to wind it all back without causing the patient to go into termial shock through withdrawal of all the financial drugs of dependency. Gee, sorry about the long sentence.
But Mr Strocchi, some of those “dysfunctional immigrants” were functioning well enough to cast a vote in Bennelong, weren’t they? You will recall that I predicted as much in a blog and even bet you $50 and you accepted. Which reminds me, are you going to honour the wager? Or shall we wait until the John Howard is officially declared as having come second?
Incidentally, you got a bargain of a lifetime there, at even money, when the price at Centrebet on Maxine at that time, around February, was $4.25 to John Howard’s $1.25.
Sir Henry, if the bet was made, in the official and correct manner, Mr Strocchi should pay up.
In my opinion.
He kept Australia white and free. For that I shall always love him.
I’d like to pass on my regards to the man who was a true giant astride the international stage. A colussus in international affairs. Why, I’ll never forget how in 2002 he was the first to promise to join me in Iraq. Here was a politician who was able to stand up to the cheese-eating-surrender-monkeys and fight the good fight there even though 90% of his people didn’t want it. Now that’s a true leader!
Any time I wanted an honest opinion I knew that I could go to him and that he’d agree with me. That’s a true friend.
He was the best darn leader Austria has ever had. He really raised the profile of your country like no other President has done before.
And he really knows how to run an OPEC meeting. Can you imagine, an OPEC meeting without Arabs! The man of steel was a policital genius, and I’m proud to say, my dearest friend.
Mr Jan Howart, I salute you.
iKonoclast, this excerpt from your comments @10, rigs clarion true with me.
“We participated in an illegal war, we condoned and conspired in torture and illegal internment of our own and foreign nationals. We treated refugees in the most criminally foul and inhumane manner. The damage to our institutions, our liberal democracy and the national psyche will be much more difficult to repair than our international reputation. We cannot as a people participate in blatantly immoral and cruel actions without being rendered to some degree desensitised and callous. We cannot legislate away democratic, legal and humanitarian protections without threatening such essential principles as the presumption of innocence, the right to natural justice, the right to a speedy and fair trail and above all the right to protection against the arbitrary power of the state.”
And all the while, the now ex-Member for Bennelong was our helmsman.
joe2 and Sir Henry, please allow me to reassure you that Mr. Jack Strocchi always conducts himself in a most gentlemanly manner when it comes to matters of honour.
“Climate change is not something in which the rest of the world has shot ahead whilst Australia held back. We are all still under starter’s orders.”
Europe’s GHG emissions are lower today than they were in 1990, Australia’s are approximately 8% higher.
this thread was probably a very good idea. ‘catharsis’ as the shrinks put it. as the classical hellene dramatists put it too, with more relevance. but emotional release having been achieved, let’s go back to our common hobby of pretending to be citizens.
what should the rudd regime do,
in education?
in national defense?
in social services?
in infrastructure?
in conservation?
in environment?
what will constitute success in these areas?
it’s not enough to say the wicked witch is dead, the wicked witch never dies, she just does a doctor who. now let’s pass the time by setting standards in ‘print’ as it were, to remind us in a few years time of what credulous fools we were. (well, you were. i didn’t vote for him.)
Sir Henry Casingbroke Says: December 1st, 2007 at 8:56 pm
The swing against Howard was below the national average, and this in a set whose demographics had substantially shifted away from the LN/P base. North East Asians are the predominant immigrant group in Bennelong. Do I need to spell out to you why they do not, as a rule, produce a relatively large crop of dysfunctional citizens?
I appreciate your reminder that I I lost the bet on who would win Bennelong. I dont appreciate your graceless hectoring about my propensity to honour my wagers. Not the sort of thing a gentleman does in public.
YOu will get your $50 after you send me your banking BSB or pay pal email.
Lord Sir Alexander “Dolly” Downer Says: December 1st, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Are all Cultural Leftists deranged from reality when the subject of John Howard comes up? For the umpteenth time Howard massively increased the NESB component of immigration. See this article for proof.
THe substantive differences b/w Howard and Fraser-Hawke-Keating was that Howard did not use the immigration/refugee program as a corrupt racket to pander to ethnic lobbies or to bolster declining party memberships.
YOu might have thought that this civic progress (a policy of diverse adoptives/a polity of relaxed and comfortable natives) would garner some praise or at least acknowledgment from the vanishingly small number of commenters who have an impartial concern for the national interest. But I would not hold my breath.
The stylistic difference b/w Howard and Fraser-Hawke-Keating is that Howard resorted to dog whistles where political correctness reached hysterical proportions. I think he should have called a spade a spade but perhaps blunt speaking is “inappropriate” in these days of cultural sensitivity training.
Obviously what counts above intellectual veracity and social utility in cultural analysis is stylistic show ie projecting a good image of oneself in the status-conflict between inner-urban, uni-educated apartment-dwelling, black-clads versus sub-urban, tafe-educated, McMansion-building, red-necks.
Pathetic.
Personally I think Howard’s greatest strength was as a great manager of people and their diverse interests and this was nowhere better displayed than as a manager of their representatives in his government. The contrast with any manager on the other side of politics should be glaringly obvious to us all and perhaps Rudd has taken up that strong legacy now. Fred Argy noticed the characteristics that a successful diversity manager needed (essentially not being a hater) and although he had his strong beliefs and was not afraid to enunciate them, he allowed his ministers a lot of free rein to get the overall job done, albeit he would make the tough overriding calls (eg on Latham’s polly super stunt) As for our international reputation, it was not long ago he was voted the world’s most popular leader and Oz the world’s most popular place to emigrate to. As Al points out, it remains to be seen if Rudd can mend our international reputation back to the good old days of Keating again, before we all fell under Howard’s evil spell and trashed it.
Jack, you might not want to take that comment (37) at face value. Unless you really think it was written by the former foreign minister. In which case, I welcome the President of the United States to the comments as well! (38)
I agree with one point made by al loomis at 41.
I suggest that before the new government does anything
in education
in national defense
in social services
in infrastructure
in conservation
in environment
it should restore the structures and processes of probity and ethics in government. Some starting points might be a ministerial code of conduct, codifying the roles and responsibilities of advisers and departmental heads, cleaning up the use of government money to advertise party policies and repealing the Electoral Integrity Act.
Human nature being what it is, it will be only a few months, at most, before the new team becomes accustomed to the perks of power and to spending public money. The closer we get to the next election, the less likely they are to restrain themselves.
Howard managed the Liberal Party to death.
Howard’s ascendancy coincided with the collapse of the Liberal Party nationwide as a credible force in state politics. And finally, the disease of Howardism has killed the Liberla Party at the federal level.
The connection between Howard and the nationwide collapse of the Liberal Party is not hard to see.
Howard relentlessly purged the party of its liberal wing. His complete victory in this regard was thwarted only by latterday resistance from the few remaining liberals (e.g., Pietro Georgiou) and their thoroughly alarmed supporters.
Howard did nothing while his own state branch (NSW) was taken over by unelectable religious lunatics.
None of this had to happen. I am sure that the voices of reason will return to conservative politics. Whether this return will occur inside or outside the current Liberal Party is still a metter for conjecture.
Howard chose to encourage this cultural revolution inside the Liberal Party for his own purposes.
The consequences for Liberalism will be dire and long-lasting.
As Howard said in his concession speech, “I owe the Liberal Party more than it owes me.”
Liberals are going to pay that price for decades.
Jack needs an emergency sense of humour transfusion.
Mr Strocchi, I am a little hurt by your assertion that I was hectoring you (gracelessly). My intention was merely to inquire whether you wanted to wait until AEC formally declared the poll in Mr Howard’s seat of Bennelong, or if you were happy with Maxine McKew’s claim. The graceless hectoring came from those notorious luvvie leftist wets Joe2 and EC.
If you are happy to acknowledge that our ex-prime minister Mr John Winston Howard has now lost his own seat then you may consequently wish to settle the debt by way of a $50 donation to Larvatus Prodeo to help them with a new server – you may not be aware that their previous server fell victim of a vicious denial of service attack by people hostile to freedom of speech. You will find the PayPal gateway via http://larvatusprodeo.wordpress.com/about/
George W. Bush Says: December 2nd, 2007 at 9:23 am
As if piling onto the “John-Howard-is-a-racist” bandwagon was ever funny. Stale, threadbare and not even remotely close to the mar.
Cultural Leftists should try to come up with a new political joke for the the next decade. Perhaps even a new political thought, although that would probably asking to much.