Hey, Mark, 1955 just rang. They were wondering where you'd got to.

ha ha ha good one Jon J What is it Mark wouldn't the girls play kiss chassy with you or something....
Fighting was never "part of the game" just like in politics fighting is used by people being outclassed.

Pretense and posturing is a normal part of human behaviour and has been for thousands of years.

What is not normal to humans is thinking which explains the chaotic, conflicted, greed-driven world we have created.

Only pacifying drugs and genetic manipulation can save us from eventual extinction!

Only pacifying drugs and genetic manipulation can save us from eventual extinction!
David G,
the last bloke who woke up to the rise of the morons wanted to do just that & he got & still is severely persecuted for having sense. Those who persecuted him have gone from big noting themselves as saviours to now being stuck in the crap they caused themselves.

individual,

Which bloke was that?

Poirot,
No explanation will suffice if you have to ask.

I was amused by the reaction to the non-Australian football coach who, when asked a difficult question by a female reporter, fended her off with a smile and a Latin quote from the Christian holy book that more or less told women to keep their opinions to themselves. It was erudite, funny and should have raised a laugh. Instead he was pilloried.
This begs the question - why aren't the holy books of Islam, Christianity and Judaism banned for their misogynistic content?

individual,

Don' be so coy.

Tell us more of the bloke who favoured pacifying drugs and genetic manipulation, who you think showed "sense", and whom "still is severely persecuted"?

Mark, an interesting and insightful piece.

Elsewhere I've given my reasons for taking the position that Sattler had every right to ask that question. They haven't been challenged, but I've had lots of people assert they disagree, with no reasons for their disagreement given. In my opinion that disagreement is derived from the eusociality that underlies human social organisation and is itself based on the idea that a woman's primary social role is to breed, while that of a man is to protect the women and their children. We accept that some women prefer to enjoy the attentions of other women, but we know that many such women also choose to breed and so fulfil their eusocial function.By questioning Mathieson's sexuality, Sattler implied that Gillard is childless by choice, having chosen a man who is not a breeding prospect. IOW, she has abrogated her primary eusocial role.

I don't think any of this is at the conscious level and I suspect that few would agree that they are responding to a fundamental reflex within our eusocial species, but that doesn't make it wrong...

I was also impressed with the rest of your piece, which is saying some things I think are important. The male eusocial role is that of protector and one of the ways that his protective value can be demonstrated is by direct physical competition. In our effete world, where women are now workers and soldiers and police, with physical prowess replaced by the issue of a TASER or gun, masculine physicality has to be limited or we might start asking why we choose less effective protectors and who knows where it might lead.

Heavens, we might even question what feminism actually does to make life better...

Interesting. I don't agree with much of what you say, but you present a case and offer some reasons to back it up. Personally, I had no problem with Sattler's question - until he started badgering Ms Gillard incessantly to see if she would change her answer. To me, it was as much an issue of an idiotic attempt at 'hard-hitting' journalism as it was an issue of inappropriate content. There is a section of our society that assumes old mate Tim is gay, and he asked a question on behalf of that section of society. He received a response and should have moved on - unless he was so unprofessional and ill-prepared that he had nothing to move on to. Honestly - in an election year, he gets the PM on the line and all he wants from her is an admission that her partner is, in fact, gay? Seriously?

I did think at the time that a suitable counter-attack for the pro-Sattlerites would have been to question what was so offensive about the question itself. Why is it insulting to Mathieson to ask if he is gay? Is homosexuality a flaw? Where's the PC lobby on that one?

As for your NRL discussion, I had a 14 year-old boy in my Year 9 class ask me the day after Origin why punching someone on the street is a crime but doing the same on a football field is not. I couldn't really offer an answer other than to say that it is a crime (am I wrong?) but generally gets overlooked because the victim signs up for it. But why do we televise and even celebrate violence but condemn kids for acting in the same manner?

Hi Otokonoko, I have no idea of how the interview proceeded, I haven't seen it and doubt I will.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5855#164761

I did ask what was offensive (although I'm no "pro-Sattlerite", I just like to think about things) and I was comprehensively ignored. that suggests to me that the responses being offered are not cognitive, but reflexively-derived and that the cognitive overlay is a rationalisation rather than a reason.

Your anecdote about the boy is also interesting. Our culture has, over the past 30 years, become one in which males are ever-more restricted in their expression of physicality. Yet it is that physicality that has allowed the species to prosper and has seen young men sent off to die in wars to protect the women and children at home. We even had Jeff Kennett telling us recently that if males want to preserve their mental health they must become more like women! Just as being a nurturer of children is an essential female quality, being a physically strong, brave and resourceful fighter is an essential male one. That is not to say that all men or all women fit those roles, but they are archetypes.

50 years of relentless demonisation of that archetype by feminist social constructionalists and their corporate funders have lead to male physicality being reduced to a stylised, highly-sanitised spectacle. Violence is acceptable in that milieu, but only insofar as it is clearly being limited. When I played Rugby at school, it was very common for boys to suffer serious injuries, from broken limbs, ribs, noses, etc, to deliberate gouging with the studs on boots. We used to sharpen them up on the concrete while watching early games before playing ourselves. GPS schoolboys, not low-SES kids from the wrong side of the tracks. I usually came off second best, as I was small for my age, but such is life. I got a few good shots in.

I don't know what to tell that boy. His question is existential.

I think what Sattler asked of the PM was offensive, in that by suggesting her defacto partner was gay, he was suggesting her romantic relationship, and her living arrangements were a sham.

If you are a straight woman living with a gay man, then he must be her 'room-mate', not her lover or partner in life.

And then to continually repeat the question after she had already said no suggests Sattler thought she was lying.

It all sounds a bit offensive to me....

I meant to add above that there are a few male politician's wives that I'm sure journalists want to ask about their husbands true sexual orientation.

Marrying a woman would be a sure way of deflecting homophobic suspicions re a male politicians' sexual orientation, wouldn't it?

Would the journalists dare ask this same question of a male politician's girlfriend or wife?
If not, why not?

Suseonline, "after she had already said no"

Can you quote where she said no?

Too right most would have said no right off, but as is typical for Julia Gillard she went around the question by replying that the question was 'absurd'. That is obviously why the journalist kept going, which was foolish of him of course, because he could never expect a straight answer (pun intended) from this lawyer and politician.

It is a lie that other politicians have not been asked questions about partners in the past, or been subjected to allegations about sexuality. There are examples, usually from travel claims submitted (because both politicians and journalists have a code where neither reflects on the other's nocturnal pursuits), of politicians and bureaucrats who have been confused about the status of their squeezes. Other politicians have been subjected to all manner of personal allegations, ready examples being drinking or sexuality, an example of the former might be Gorton (the Gorton Back) and for the latter, Billie McMahon.

Julia Gillard herself used a gay slur in Parliament against a happily married male with children. She referred to him as a mincing poodle. Her Attorney General at the time, Nicola Roxon, proudly relates how she held two golf balls up in Parliament slurring Tony Abbott for being a eunuch, "Grow a pair" she demanded. Abbott is a married man with children.

Suseonline, I did give some of those examples (eg McMahon) in another thread where I recall you were making the same allegations as you did now, but obviously you forget quickly.

>>Julia Gillard herself used a gay slur in Parliament against a happily married male with children. She referred to him as a mincing poodle.<<

Apparently it is time a for a lesson in remedial mammalian biology. This is a gay human male:

http://www.davidhigham.co.uk/sitecontent/images/1266584975Stephen_Fry.JPG

This is a poodle:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/Poodle.jpg

If I ever see Christopher Pyne working as hard as a working dog I'll give him half my kidneys and half my liver.

Poodles are good solid working breed but they are frequently confused with a closely related breed, the toy poodle:

http://www.dennishanna.com/toy_poodle.jpg

The analogy 'twixt Christopher Pyne and toy poodles is closer to home - they're both extremely effeminate, shrill, yappy little pains in the neck. Pathetic little toy breeds pretending to be real dogs - what they need is good kick across the room. I can't stand toy breeds or even most terriers but Pyne is no worse than the average Chihuahua. Did you have a point you were trying to make?

Even if I could train a (toy)poodle to mince, would that actually constitute a gay slur? I don't follow your logic (if it exists): the poodle is gay regardless of how it walks or finely ground it likes its steak, and the ability to feed a mincing machine does't say a whole lot about the feeders sexuality. I suspect a yag rechtub could make just as nice a sausage as the next man even if he minces a little coarser.

Cheers,

Tony

Suse, do you ever actually read what others have written?

OTB, whether more competent politicians have had to face innuendo or rumour is neither here nor there. Gillard is busy building herself an excuse for the future and setting the ALP up to become a party of, by and for middle-class, "progressive" women, mostly employed on the public purse. The working class base has already deserted in the face of the Gillard debacle. When she has lead the Party to its worst defeat ever there will be an inrush of women candidates and members from the white collar sector, many of whom will not be unionists. This will force the Party to reform its rules relating to union representation and that will be the final nail in the coffin of the party of the worker.

I'm almost swung to the view that Gillard is deliberately self-sacrificing, confident that if she pushes the gender issue all she can that she will be welcomed as a heroine by the women who inherit the party after the bloodletting is finished. After all, half a million a year and over $200k a year in pension isn't that much of a sacrifice and losing the vote of people you despise isn't either. It would be very interesting to be a fly on the wall at the Shorten's place. Bill is determined to be a tame male, it seems.

I still think that Bill Ludwig and Gillard have some sort of handshake deal not to dob each other in to the cops when they come calling, though.

Tony, I think you missed the most salient point: surely mincing poodle is an Asian preparation method?

Suseonline: <If you are a straight woman living with a gay man, then he must be her 'room-mate', not her lover or partner in life.>
Are you unaware that thousands of men are married, have children, are wonderful fathers, love their wives, make excellent partners for life, yet now and again stray and enjoy same-sex-coupling with other men?
This duality has been for most of human history the norm. Only in recent times have the PC brigade decided that men and women have to choose to be exclusive in their sexual relations. It is a nonsense that everyone is either totally het or 100% homo. Like all animals, humans are sexual beings and the way individuals express this varies widely.
OTB... you appear to suffer from the delusion that gays are all effeminate handbag swingers. That's as silly as Suseonline's assumption.

Tony Lavis,

Here you go,

<A woman with a hairdresser for a boyfriend should have a fair idea how people will read her comments when she goes around calling an opposition spokesperson a ‘poodle’, or describes him as ‘mincing’ rather than ‘macho’.

Julia Gillard isn’t normally one to use those kind of anti-gay put-downs, so what’s going on here?

Why is she trying to pop Christopher Pyne into the 'gay' box?>

Source, http://www.rainbowreporter.com/gillards-gay-smear/

Oh come on ybgirp, no one has suggested gay men haven't been 'happily' married to women, but I believe the jury is still out on bisexuality?

As far as I am concerned, anyone who has sex with someone of their own gender at all, is homosexual. If they choose to marry someone of an opposite gender, that does not make them any less homosexual.

Many people married to homosexual people apparently have no idea of their true sexual orientation, even if everyone else does. They are often truly offended and shocked if anyone suggests their partner may be gay.
It would surely be worse though if their partner wasn't gay at all!

Suseonline,
I'd think the bisexuals are the major players in the decease-developing & spreading game.
The matter of hygiene comes to mind. I fail to see how queers attend to their hygiene after an encounter in some grubby public toilet especially if their conquest is of the do-it-for-drug money variety.
shudder,shudder,shudder !

Careful Indi, keep that shuddering up and you never know who might be interested...

Suseonline, "As far as I am concerned, anyone who has sex with someone of their own gender at all, is homosexual"

There are those who would mount and be mounted by anything.

They are especially dangerous for the spread of AIDS in heterosexual women.

Anticeptic,

I did agree with you before on your well considered postings on Gillard and the Sattler scenario and had posted, and agree with you again on this topic (and the author)how the Labor Party has deserted the working class.

I will again post this article as I did in 2010, that I found to be a very good synopsis on the state of the Labor Party.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/my-party-was-trashed-by-the-middle-class/story-fn59niix-1225910722814

Some sort of a feminisation of society is going on and I don't like it either.

Constance,

Your link - an excellent article by Michael Thompson. Thank you.

I wonder what Gillards answer would have been had Sattler asked her if her defacto relationship with Mathieson was a sham and simply arranged so she would appear acceptable to all those people with geninue partners ... same sex or otherwise.

I sense a considersble number of people would sudpect her answer would include obsfication or lies.

Imajuliarnutter, I would suggest that we could ask that question of any politician, surely?

Why would Gillard's relationship come under more scrutiny than any other so-called lying politician?

I've always been suspect about Abbott's marriage...maybe that one is a sham?

Do you know ANY politician who hasn't or doesn't lie?

This article uses the argument of free speech to deride those who took issue with Sattler's inane questions of the PM.

In a democracy where free speech is valued, anyone has the right to be inane but equally others have the right to point out the inanity.

The author as a "Christian", obviously moves in strange religious circles by this essay.

Constance, apologies for the delay in responding, as I said elsewhere, the post count beat me.

I think a lot of people are coming to recognise feminism as seriously flawed in its conception. It has produced nothing good unless you happen to be a middle-class woman with no kids and a professional career and much that is bad.

I've pointed out several times that it has been supported only because it increases consumerism. Consumerism fosters a concentration of wealth by taking the money that would otherwise be saved by the consumer and invested to some purpose of their own and passing it to investors in the retail, logistics, manufacturing and resource sectors, while the consumer must borrow to do things they could fund themselves if they hadn't spent the money, meaning that investors in banks profit. At the same time, the massive growth in regulatory stuctures, mostly employing women who are net consumers, is taking every cent of personal income tax collected and making it available to finance consumption.

When it collapses there will be a runaway economic disaster because it is all interdependent. It must collapse, because it is predicated on growth in consumption, which cannot be sustained.

The US is facing the problem as we speak, with the fed deciding to stop simply printing money to prop up consumerism (quantitative easing) because it is debasing the currency for international trade purposes.

They are still better off than we, because much of their economy is driven by the receipts from offshore business controlled from the US, but that will only delay, not prevent the coming disaster.

Within 50 years world population will start to decline. We need to plan for that or face the reality that our grandchildren will be poverty-stricken.

Carefully dismantling the economic house-of-cards created by the last 50 years of feminist/consumerist policies is the key.

Anti,

Regarding your comments on the US, I thought I'd have a peek at the latest figures on their debt clock.

Around eighteen months ago there was an enormous wringing of hands and a gnashing of teeth when they hit 15 trillion in national debt. It took a further seven months for them to reach 16 trillion - and I note they are now fast approaching 17 trillion - almost 107 percent gross debt to GDP ratio. In that time, total debt has risen from 54 trillion to 59.5 trillion.

Much of their "keeping their heads above water" is due to cheap Chinese imports to keep the consumerist principle on life support.

http://usdebtclock.org/

Gee Antiseptic, I hadn't been aware that you thought feminism was so important that when it 'collapses', all the world will fall in a heap!

Gosh, those feminists have bought so much consumer products that they have brought the world economy to it's knees?

And apparently it was only the rise of greedy feminism that has wrecked the US economy?

The US banks were partly to blame for much of that country's current woes.
I wonder how many feminists run those banks, or are running the companies those banks lent money to?

Men are just as much to blame as women ( if not more so) in financial crises that are hitting many countries today.
There is most definitely gender equality in the ability to exhibit greed, and to spend money they don't have!

I wonder how many feminists run those banks,
Suseonline,
One can safely include just about 75 % of the male homosexual component in with the feminists & the result is yes, feminists are running most of these institutions.

Suse, it's obvious you simply don't bother reading things before you let your fingers do the talking.

Perhaps you might consider doing so?

Just a litle friendly advice, one human to another.

Individual, you surely can't be serious?

Antiseptic, I stand by what I wrote.
The truth is hard to take I guess.

Cheers,
Suse

Individual and Antiseptic, how well named you both are.
Me! me!! me!!

Sorry, Kipp, you've lost me, but if you know what you meant I guess that's OK.

Ah well, suse, I tried. If you don't want to read things before you post there's not much I can do.

Kipp, I agree : )
See you all on another thread...

you surely can't be serious?
Suseonline,
Oh, I'm serious alright & I know I'm not far off the bullseye.

Kipp,
kipp your hands of your privates when you're posting. It might only be verbal but it is still masturbation.

Sorry Poirot, somehow missed your post.

The US debt clock is fascinating, isn't it? Like a reverse countdown to disaster, with zero hour an unknown quantity.

Individual you can spell, clever boy !!

It was nice to read an article that didn't denigrate male values (for a change). One big male value is honor. Surely a male leader with a record as bad as Gillard's and any sense of honor would have lost face and stepped down by now.

But of course women don't 'lose face' like men or have a traditional sense of honor like men so she feels no compunction to stand aside. Her male colleagues who carpet bagged Rudd, of course, have a sense of honor (however malevolent it might be), which would prevent them from serving under Rudd.

So we have a female PM without the honor to step aside (in the face of abysmal failures) and males supporters of the PM whose honor means they couldn't serve under Rudd if she did.

You gotta love the feminization of society. Doing wonders for all of us.

Dane,

I note that John Howard didn't behave honourably when it was obvious he'd run his race.

I recall seeing he and Costello sitting together for an interview prior to the 2007 election - Howard assuring everyone he'd hold Peter's hand for the first six months if they were re-elected.

It was pathetic, actually - and certainly not honourable.

Poirot,

It's true that Howard made a grave mistake by not stepping aside for Costello. Just imagine if Costello had become PM and saved us from 5 years of Labor-Green-Independent lunacy.

Unfortunately for the rest of the country the Liberals did what they thought was honourable - they refused to remove the second most successful PM in our history. They felt he had earned the right to decide himself. They put principle before power.

i understand why they thought it was the right thing to do but, gee, just imagine for a moment where we'd be after 5 years of a Costello government:
- no boats, no deaths at sea and no billions every year paying for them
- no hundreds of billions in debt
- no carbon tax shipping jobs off shore
- no war on men, foreign workers, blue ties, rich people, miners...
- no return to 1970s labour laws
- no billions for schools.....so schools can have billions

Just imagine a world without the Labor government of the past 5 years! Too good to be true.

dane what you've posted about men and women and honour is lacking in honour and honesty.

Its a sexist rant that ignores just how decent and honourable most women are and how lacking in honour some men are.

The views youve expressed here are baseless, sexless tripe.

R0bert

I'll second that R0bert. We need to move away from the polarised, entrenched views that professional feminist agitators have fostered and toward a more useful approach that recognises inherent differences without demeaning them and permits us all the chance to be fully human, not merely cogs in an inhuman corporate machine.

Robert,
So listing the failings of our worst PM ever is a rant? Pathetic.

This is a woman who after conducting a war on 'misogyny' against those evil men in 'blue ties' then had the audacity to sit down for a knitting photoshoot.

A woman who told bald-faced lie after bald-faced lie.

Where is the honour in that?

You are the sexist. You think women should be held to different standards than men.

Thank god the rest of us will have the opportunity to throw out the trash on September 14. And no phoney 'sexism' debate will save Labor.

Susan on line,

it is percular that you question about the state of the Abbott's relationship. Equally It is not surprising that nobody has raised the least objection.

I suspect most will have laughed at the absurdity in the question you are putting about the Abbotts.

Nobody laughed at the very same absurdities contained in the question Sattler put to Gillard.

Therein lies the difference between Abbott and Gillard.

In most people's minds the Abbott's are above question, while Gillard and Mathieson aren't.

That accounts for the furore.

Cheers

No dane, listing the failings of Gillard is fine by me. As for worst PM, not sure Rudd gave it a good run during his brief stint.

The bit that bothers me is the generalisations about women and the implied generalisatiins based on your comments about honour and loosing face etc.

I object when feminists suggest that women will make a better job because of some claimed feminine virtues supposedly not generally available to men, I object when men make equivalent claims.

I've not seen any reason to believe that overall my own gender is any more or less ethical than the female gender. Some different ways of doing things but thats tactics rather than ethics or honour.

Its not Gillards gender thats the problem, its Gillard, its what she and her party believe.

R0bert

Gillard's a psychopath. That means she's atypical of both sexes.

Robert,

So I guess it was honourable for Wong to take the leader of the senate's job? What a disgrace. What a hypocrite.

At least the men had the honour to resign and stick by their convictions.

You can keep pretending there is no difference between men and women if you like. The rest of us live in the real world.

ALP men more honorable "In a statement on his website Mr Rudd says he wishes to make 100% clear to all members of the parliamentary Labor Party - including his own supporters - that there are no circumstances under which he will return to the Labor Party leadership in the future."
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/131006/rudd-says-he%27ll-never-again-lead-alp

Yeah right.

R0bert

No honour among carpetbaggers, thieves and psychopathic egomaniacs, whatever their sex.