It’s time for another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
I’m going to switch on threaded comments. If it works you can try it out here. I’m not sure what will happen to older posts.
Also, I’ve tweaked the settings to show 100 comments at a time, and to begin at the beginning, rather than showing the last page first.
John Quiggin 
jungney – you actually raised some good points but you do it with such venom that I’m not sure a response from me would even be welcome.
@TerjeP
Wow, it is a good thing for your own self-development that you can sense this extreme dislike that many of us feel toward you – not just Jungney. I am ‘rude’ enough – as you judge me to be – and obsessed enough by this dislike that I waste my time responding to you.
But I’m pretty sure that many of us have suffered from, or in neutral language, have negatively been affected by, the simplistic and anti-human ideology that you have been espousing over the years, and/or we have known people who have been badly affected.
And you continue to disrespect people by recommending the good Senator David Leyonjelm as someone who has something to offer in the way of solutions to the problems that the people I live among are experiencing. Why?
Megan wrote on February 19th, 2015 at 22:10 :
The role of the role of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in setting up Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran to face execution is chilling and shameful. Regardless of how this turns out, the AFP should be made to answer before the public for their actions, ideally through a parliamentary inquiry.
In any case, if Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran deserve to face the firing squad, so to do members of the Indonesian police, who are also known to be corrupt and implicated in drug trafficking.
One of many articles which explain heroin trafficking is Deep Events and the CIA’s Global Drug Connection, originally published 6 Sep 2008, by Professor Peter Dale Scott. The global flood of heroin, particularly from Afghanistan after the invasion 2001, show that the Opium Wars of 1839-1842 and 1856-1860 never ended.
@jungney
Marx was keenly aware that capitalism has within it the seeds of its own demise. Marx reminds us that capitalism, in its current form(s), is only one of a long line of modes of production. I haven’t (yet) read enough of Marx to say much more than that, but clearly, it is an easy trap to be caught by, thinking capitalism is “It.” Who knows what a post-capitalist society will look like, or even when such a thing will eventuate? Personally, I have no idea on this score. Nevertheless, it is hard to see how the vast accumulation of wealth among such a small number of people can be self-perpetuating: is there is a point where the metaphorical cogs seize up?
@TerjeP
Venom? My dear fellow, welcome to the world of genuine cut and thrust discussion. If it appears venomous to you it is perhaps you haven’t too often come across people who don’t buy the innocent possum look that libertarians adopt when trying to sell a car without an engine. Or wheels.
Today, the fiftieth anniversary of the day that the Freedom Ride bus arrived at Moree, I heard for the first time Troy Cassar Daley’s song memorialising the event. I think Paul Kelly had a hand in composing this.
I’m retiring for the evening with spliffs, drinks and this song on repeat 🙂
For a change of pace, a song so bad that it’s good. I love this song.
NB: Stong language warning!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW9cCWm53H4
@Ikonoclast
Beautiful sentiments beautifully expressed 🙂
Same riff, sort of, as “Shakin’ All Over”… who stole the riff from whom? Or are such things really cultural possessions? The Strauss’s used a lot of folk tunes. Even Beethoven used folk tunes. They embellished and transformed but they also stole or plagiarised from the folk, from the ordinary and humble people. Same old story.
There is a very good movie all about that issue “RiP – A Remix Manifesto”.
Watch this clip.
It’s about 3 mins and is funny/sad.
@Megan
Exactly, so much of cultural IP today is about owning stuff that was originally a folk creation. That’s capitalism for you. Everything that the people originally created gets appropriated and “owned” and slectively makes (mostly) white punks, WASPS etc. rich.
If you want to go really deep into Western literature (for another example) narrative itself is a folk creation; especially what can be called “narrative grammar”. Find “Morphology of the Folk Tale” by Vladimir Propp. There are something like 30 odd narrative elements in folk tales and all superhero myth tales. You can find all or most of these elements in lowbrow lit or cinema (Harry Potter or Starwars) and yet also in self-conscious highbrow literature (Siddhartha by Herman Hesse) follows the plan exactly) yet it could have a highbrow justification for doing so. I won’t go into that here.
Joseph Campbell’s “Monomyth” thesis covers the same ground but Propp (1922) got there before Campbell (1949). It’s just that Propp was obscure outside of Russia (and maybe inside Russia. I wonder if Campbell credited Propp (if he secretly studied him) or discovered such stuff later and independently?
Great authors (like Leo Tolstoy for example) are also very well aware of what profoundities are going on in folktales though whether Tolstoy uncovered the formal “narrative grammar” like Propp I would not know without more research. Tolstoy certainly loved, collected and analysed Russian folktales (analysed in terms of symbolism). He also used Russian folktales in his reading primers for young children. He pushed for education of the peasants and sunk enormous time and effort into helping them. Of course, it helps if you are a Count with lots of spare time, property, serfs and money. 😉
Here’s a pdf for excerpts of Propp’s short work. I will try to make it a non-link to avoid moderation. Remove asterisks to make it work again.
h*t*t*p*:*/*/*homes.di.unimi.it/~alberti/Mm10/doc/propp.pdf
@Ikonoclast
Thanks, I’ll read that thing about Propp.
I’m reminded of an interview of Paul Kelly (I don’t think much of Denton, but I think highly of Kelly – so it’s a compromise!) from 2004 where Kelly basically admits that he steals songs and then, like stolen cars, changes them a bit:
Wow!
I suggest reading the story about Cory Barnardi in today’s “The Saturday Paper”.
Unsurprisingly, it appears to have been ignored by Rupert’s ABC and Fairfax (News Ltd would be expected to ignore it, but the rest of the establishment media?).
@Megan
Read it. The business stuff is easily checked and verified, so you are right to wonder why they haven’t also run a story on it in the MSM. Perhaps the MSM are so impoverished of old-school journalists, they can’t afford to follow up on a story with fact checking in it 😦
Today’s Australian has a lead story which is designed to sink PM Tony Abbott: there is a certain amount of Schadenfreude, watching a Murdoch bum-wrap go after the LNP’s top man. They claim that the PM wanted to know if we could go it alone, invading Iraq/Syria and fighting ISIL ourselves, with a 3500 strong military force. The article goes on to say that the ADF were shocked at the idea. The article also claims the PM wanted to send 1000 troops to the plane’s crash site in the Ukraine, to secure it. Again, the article claims the military were shocked at the proposal, given our troops would not know the languages of the region, or be capable of discerning Russian separatists from Ukraine loyalists.
I point out that the PM vigorously denies aspects of this news article, in a manner so often employed in the past. Tacit in that is whether I think the article is correct or not.
@Donald Oats
I refuse to read any Murdoch output whatsoever.
In theory I should have no idea what you are talking about. But in reality that “story” (together with the “counter-story” courtesy of Murdoch’s “Sky”) is prominently featured/regurgitated – without any fresh follow-up of their own – on brisbanetimes, ABC and Guardian and all of them deliberately and explicitly promote/attribute the Murdoch outlets in the re-telling.
Hence my original observation about the silence regarding the Bernardi story.
i read “loon pond” now – clicks: in right place – http://loonpond.blogspot.com.au/ -a.v.
I just noticed the Bureau of Meteorology website is running popup ads
http://www.bom.gov.au/
and select a state capital. One advertiser is a fossil fuel company. Perhaps that company will tell the govt they are not keen on Direct Action or other bothersome policies, though that particular policy is not bothersome. Supposing it was there could be a veiled threat the ad money stops unless the policy changes.
Advertising on BoM or the ABC carries more gravitas because the organisation has a reputation for objectivity compared to say the Murdoch media. This could be the start of a slippery slope.
strange: all i see are “pirate bay” popup ads. are you sure you haven’t been hanging around service station sites before you went off to the bom site? -a.v. 😉
This article is getting a lot of social media following the election. I would be interested in comment as it would appear to be just a form of PPP where we can’t really determine anything on the information provided and the concept that the library is “self-funded” misrepresents the position whether it is a good deal or not. I seem to recall JQ had some criticisms in the past on PPP’s in Brisbane related to swimming pools or something but no idea on this one? http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/construction-to-begin-on-wynnums-selffunded-library-20150218-13ikyx.html
@Mark Beath
Brisbane’s Lord Mayor, Campbell Newman, first proposed this model in 2005.
Back in those days, for whatever reason, public opposition to the concept of privatising our city libraries prevailed and it didn’t proceed – at that time.
Neo-liberalism is like a cancer or a weed infestation, if it isn’t absolutely and totally destroyed it will return again and again until it destroys everything.
PS: Lord Mayor Campbell Newman addressed the Wynnum Chamber of Commerce in March 2007.
They reported:
Somewhere along the line in the last ten years or so the neo-libs (ie ALP/LNP duopoly) have thrown off the idea of treading carefully and have proclaimed that their mutually agreed agenda should be “let rip”.
And they wonder why the electorate seems to be so “volatile”. They should be glad it is hard to find pitchforks lying around these days.
@Hermit
I noticed this some time ago. The ALP is to blame for this, as far as I can see. Under the LNP, I doubt they’ll reduce the advertising or cease it. I am entirely in agreement that the difficulty with accepting advertising on their website—even if the revenue goes elsewhere—is that they are offering a tacit endorsement of the advertised product and/or service. If the BOM does not appreciate what can go wrong with being associated with an advertised company, they should have a chat with CSIRO about brand recognition and the hassles of protecting reputation. It is a very very slippery slope, something akin to giving a cigarette lighter and some sticks of dynamite to a primary school kid—or a politician. Very predictable, very messy.
@Donald Oats
Yes, definitely an ALP “reform”. Advertising on “BOM” was introduced in 2013.
Today we are to have all our rights and freedoms, such as remain, taken away on the strength of the conclusions of a “review” carried out by LNP hacks.
Where is our right of appeal? The “Rugby League Judiciary”?
Fascists, and that is most certainly what these people are, hate the rule of law and the separation of powers.
Of course Shorten’s ALP is 100% on board.
Maybe Mr Denmore is best placed to answer this question [a quote from Rupert’s ABC]:
When did it become acceptable journalistic practice to report from the future – with direct quotes?
Abbott is trying to outflank Labor on the right ,hoping the community will go further right than Labor is prepared to. It isnt certain that this wont backfire on our Big Man -maybe there is enough intelligence out there .Abbott is a dangerous bigoted man full of hyperbole – existential threats and new dark ages indeed . He is terrifying the Australian community for political gain. He is elevating and glorifying the work of the few nutters we have had so far -ensuring that we will have more. Its a self fulfilling prophesy .
Good news: climate change denying ‘scientist’ Willie Soon is in disgrace and is almost certain to be sacked by the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysics Centre, after revelations of his receipt of massive undisclosed payments from the fossil fuel industry.
@Ikonoclast
Hilarious! I used to have a record with “CIA Man” on it.
I really enjoyed hearing it over the closing credits of “Burn After Reading” when I saw it.
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