Hear, hear.

For far too long articulate voices from the left have been drowned out by the noisy clamour of far-left extremists, who prefer cheap stunts like lobbing footwear and chaining themselves to things over rational argument. Presumably 'coz they lack the intellect to forumulate a sound argument. Sadly, all of us lefties get tarred with the same brush as mouth-frothing zealots like Peter Gray, and so I encourage all fellow moderate lefties to speak out in condemnation of the behaviour of the far-left.

Yes, Riz, isn't it weird that the arena in which one can express one's views most fully, Left AND Right, is the one provided by OLO, which is supposed to have a slight Right-wing tilt ?

As another fellow-Leftie, I am appalled at how alternative sites treat differences of opinion, either by freezing out those who do not follow a group line, ostracizing them, ignoring and not responding to their posts, or downright abuse and threats to either drive them away or silence them. Either way, there is very little discussion, debate, conflict of ideas, at other sites which claim to be Left. So thank god for OLO.

If I was king, I would PAY people to put outrageous ideas on-line, in order to encourage more passionate and hard-thinking responses. 'Crooked Timber' is a beauty.

I'm starting to think that free speech isn't just a nice thing to have, but that it's like a piece of machinery that we have to continually test, or a muscle that we have to keep using, otherwise it fades away, and we have to renew what it means every so often, to re-define it, to understand how vital it is for a healthy, questioning society, including the right to offend, to embarrass, to bite people on the arse.

Instead, we get idiots who replace argument and debate with faux passion and pseudo-violent acts. What next ? Throwing tea-bags at Tony Abbott ? Kicking Christopher Pyne's dog ? Finding new insulting names for politicians ? i.e. anything but thinking through arguments ?

Joe

I was about to post but I feel Farid, Riz and Loudmouth beat me to it.

You will notice that many people in the world (left and right) simply lack the intellectual capacity (as you already pointed).
However, when an intelligent discussion or negotiation occurs in their presence, the confusing words and concepts expressed fly over their heads as they are only capable of understanding basic generalizations about the world.
To them, they only see a bunch of people talking nonsense- their only form of "development" is an attention-seeking physical action or loud slogan to hit the TV screen adn turn the heads of other attention-defecit persons like themselves (in other words, they can only talk in a language that they themselves could understand).

Some people also feel that they have defined all of the bad things in the world as the entities they don't like ("fascism" being the most popular warcry) which they use to justify acts of fascism of their own.

Take those two things and you have a shoe-thrower.

kh, why do some media agencies give so much airplay to these events? You don't have to you know, methinks though the ABC was thrilled with the incident.

At the cricket for instance, attention seekers, streakers, are ignored and they do not transmit images.(Free to air TV)

At the Howard shoe throwing incident, just before it in fact, some "media personality" from the ABC, is alleged to have tweeted "someone throw a shoe at Howard", and someone did. So their like minded fellows in the audience were presumably tuned in to LWT, Left Wing Tweets, or the ABC tweet address (?) is that what you call it?

Surely the intellectual capacity of the ABC in promoting this event, encouraging such an action then hyperventilating with excitement when it happened, is a reflection of their own self obsession with left and right? (good and bad, in their own minds, I assume)

"Some people also feel that they have defined all of the bad things in the world as the entities they don't like ("fascism" being the most popular warcry) which they use to justify acts of fascism of their own.

Take those two things and you have a shoe-thrower"

Agreed .. some entities invest more time in exploiting the differences, than others .. thankfully the ABC are "objective .. oh.

The ABC intellectual? Hah they have little more intellectual ability than all those pseudo journalists who steadfastly refuse to examine the lies, deceipt and policy dumping of the lying Gillard, Swan and the dying labor party.

That John Howard who was dumped by Australian voters over three years ago and is still an issue with lefties and especially the ABC shows the reality of their continued irrelevance. As it does with you blokes who continue to discuss him.

Shoe throwing was imported from the middle-east, that lefties in Australia have followed that particular example well ... probably just endorses the fact they prefer to live in yesteryear, with all the idealogically religion wedded mid-easterners, than today.

Why do these idiots reside at the fringes of left wing politics?

"Peter Gray, a Hunter Valley resident and member of Rising Tide (a Newcastle climate change action group)'

Says it all. No rational. Earth worshipers are highly predictable.

Everyone it wouldn't make a difference what the ABC did (although like any channel, they'd never shy away from showing any entertaining antics in an interview);
Might I add that this incident was covered WELL outside the ABC

These people simply assume their actions will make a difference.

Someone throws a shoe at John Howard in an obviously humorous gesture, and all of the right wingers start frothing at the mouth.

John Howard the two-faced lying roden (called such by a member of the coalition) helped create the murder, mayhem and collective misery described in Erasing Iraq. His thus very real crimes are silently ignored by the same mouth-frothers. He was even awarded a "freedom medal" by George the boy emperor, for services rendered (in the destruction of Iraq).

Australian democracy allows dissent and criticism made openly and fearlessly. You can squabble over left wing and right wing editorials all you want but everyone has a right to an opinion. Writers of left wing articles & books and right wing writers of papers amd articles and letters cant be sure they areon the money andeveryone else is wrong. History unfolds and reveals what the truth is and that doesnt happen by being correct and having a mortgage on the truth.
Even smelly shoes throwing is a form of democratic expression.however daft we call it.Demented are also citizens but you can spot them a mile away.

socratease

Hi Ho Hum,

Shoe-throwers, mouth-frothers - what's the difference ? Inarticulateness is not an argument in itself for or against anything. What are the arguments, the rationales, the context and background and motivations of guilty parties ?

In this case, Iraq: the first war has been over nearly twenty years, and the second has been going nearly eight. Amongst what seems a multitude of players, who is doing what sort of damage ? Whose blood is on whose hands ? How easy it is to fix all evil on one or two people (Bush, Rumsfeld, Howard - all now out of it) and overlook the many other contributors, Shia, Sunni, al-Qa'ida, Iran, the Saudis, the Syrians, tribal groups, and so on.

Yes, it was illegal for the Yanks to invade the second time around, but what ants' nests they clumsily and inadvertently stirred up were not their sole responsibility: many parties were itching to get stuck in. It may even transpire, from the Shias' point of view of majority rule for the first time ever, that in spite of all the destruction and turmoil, they may experience something like democracy, rough as it may be - and no thanks to the Yanks.

There always seems to be a way of arguing, not necessarily solely on the Left, that if you complain about something having happened often enough and loud enough, it will somehow reverse, or go away. No it won't. What's done is done. What do we do about it from now onwards - that's the question.

This quote from Culture Against Man by Jules Henry (1962) sums up the situation we are in.

"In Western culture today one must make a distinction between the culture of life and the culture of death. In the minds of most people science has become synonymous with destructive weapons, i.e. with death... Where is the culture of life? The culture of life resides in all those people who, inarticulate, frightened, and confused, are wondering "where it will all end". Thus the forces of death are confident and organized while the forces of life - people who long for peace - are, for the most part, scattered, inarticulate, and wooly-minded, overwhelmed by their own impotence. DEATH STRUTS AROUND THE HOUSE while LIFE cowers in the corner."

Cowered to such a degree that the only way to resist the wall to wall lies and liars is to make symbolic gestures such as throwing shoes at insufferably smug self-righteous toadies.

Nearly 50 years later the situation described by Henry is hugely worse by many degrees.

The politics and culture of the open hand versus the politics and anti-"culture" of the closed fist (which awards "freedom medals" to its fawning toadies)

Meanwhile the politics and "culture" of death scored a huge victory in the USA yesterday. A very dark day for the USA, and by extension the entire world.

Hi Loudmouth... *wave*....

I think the shoe throwing incident is just hyporcricy.. I'll bet he is at the next 'peace' rally :)

But back to....'you'.

You say your a lefty ? hmmm could you flesh that out a bit..I'm rather interested. How do you define yourself in distinction from the 'Right'
and how do you even define 'Right' politically/socially speaking?

I'm interested in your views on the issues of:

- Public spending.. should tax payers top up bankrupt pension funds for public servants or Unions?

-Do you believe Government creates "Jobs"?

-Do you believe in 'BIGGGG' government?

-Do you believe BIGGGG government can continually fund itself in the light of a diminishing 'value added' economy in the West?

Love to hear from you on those.

Who paid for his replacement pair of pumps?

Sorry, but throwing an object at someone as a projectile, in aggression, is a form of assault.

It is further from the "right to express yourself" and closer to the movement that would seek to deny people such a right.

And that is no exaggeration.

Ho Hum, Hi,

Yes, interesting times in the US as the children take over the asylum: now we'll see - as Turnbull said a few weeks ago, there's none so powerful as the powerless, so now that the crackpots have power, what do they really stand for, what do they really, really want, how do they sort out their sh!t ?

As for your comments on Jules Henry, I'm not so sure it's any more repressive now than back in the sixties. Maybe people feel they have more to lose now and are less game to risk it. And maybe more inclined to think about issues as sort of sound-bites, i.e. very poorly thought-through. Ergo, little discussion, much bluster, and shoe-throwing.

AGiR, good questions: so what do YOU think is meant by Left and Right these days ?

Joe

"Why do these idiots reside at the fringes of left wing politics?"
-Shadow Minister

'Coz the fringes of any ideology constitutes the natural habitat of the idiot. Right-wing extremists are no better, and frequently a good deal worse than left-wing extremists. Religious fundamentalists are also idiots. The problem is not with the left or the right or the Church or whatever, it's with the people who take it too far.

Well said, Riz. It covers all bases.
Go to the top of the OLO class,mate.

socratease