Brian
In a much wider view education controlled by Leftwing goverments at state level for most of the past 20 years is the cause of the destruction of our once fabled egalitarisam, where everybodys view regardless of statwus, wealth or education was respected. We once knew nobody held all truth and everybody held part of the truth.

It is time we returned to those values and dumped the current crap about education being the be all and end all and font of all wisdom. Clearly it isn't.

Nutter,
What connection does your incorrect rant have with the topic of the diminishing quality and narrowing focus of the mainstream media?

Brian,

Although Adam starts his piece discussing the manipulation of mainstream media he does devote a lot of his article to the asylum seeker issue and from my reading of his article he is expressing an opinion about the issue itself.

Adam, I agree with your analysis regarding the manipulation of mainstream media but I would add that manipulation can be driven by the media organisations themselves.

If you remember back to the Keating era when mandatory detention was established there was an infamous scene at the Port Hedland detention centre where family members of a refugee were shown on national TV crying out to their relatives separated by the perimeter fence. As Robert Tickner explained in an interview later if the TV camera had only panned out a little it would have shown detention officials standing alongside an open gate not far away. That was a deliberate attempt by the media in that case to manipulate an image.

As to the current debate I think it has descended into an acrimonious debate over how these people arrive and I think more focus should be devoted to the causes driving these people to seek asylum. War and persecution to me are symptoms of much more fundamental issues surrounding the low status of women in the source countries.

So in the context of a calm and considered broader discussion Brian and Adam how do you suggest we address these patriarchal attitudes, particularly with recent arrivals intent on maintaining these traditions in Australia?

I was around, Adam Henry, when Chile elected in a stupid communist government which immediately "nationalised" the means of production and sent Chile bankrupt. The economy effectively collapsed and the population became desperate. Just like in Turkey and Egypt, the Chilean armed forces were a lot smarter than their stupid, ideologically driven government, and they kicked the commos out.

I remember the images on TV of the Chilean middle classes sitting on the balcony of the stock exchange sipping wine and cheering on the Chilean Air Force Sabre jets who were bombing the palace.

I don't care if the armed forces then rounded up the morons who had sent their country bankrupt and even knocked few of them off. Communists were hardly paragons of virtue in that department themselves, so if the commos got what they have been routinely dished to their political opponents everywhere else, I really don't care. Chile is now a reasonably successful South American country and you only have to compare it to Cuba to figure out what what Pinochet did was the right thing to do.

Brian of Buderim, whenever one of your posts appears on my computer, the arrogance drips off the screen, & runs all over my desk.

You must be an academic. Only academics can develop so much arrogance with so little justification.

Sorry for this "Hasbeen", but you do leave the door open here! Are you sure the substance dripping from your PC screen and all over your desk actually originates from Brian (namely from the other side of the screen)? Judging by your comment it seems very likely (in a number of possible scientific explanations regarding this unfortunate substance suddenly dripping from your screen and onto your desk), that this substance may actually originate from somewhere on your side of the screen. Just an observation of course!