Hi YEBIGA,

We have enjoyed the company of many progressives on OLO. When challenged by seriously intelligent OLO’ers the result is always the same. When the “platitude dispenser” and the “rhetoric engine” splutter to a halt, we end up with just another Troll.

Your responses have no context or relevance to the post to which you are supposedly replying. Just and endless stream of disjointed squawks and thought stopping clichés that “seem” to make sense to you.

As the thread continues your responses become more irrational, more emotive and less structured. Which is great because this tells us you have nothing else left in the locker.

You are confused and frustrated, you can’t understand why your pontifications no longer hold gravitas. They used to work in the past when you were flying high on Aristotle’s Ethos, “listen to me ‘cos I’m important”.

The self organizing and self referential network of like minded progressives upon which you depend is failing through public exposure, additionally such networks are shrinking.

You need such networks because that is where you not only adopt the opinion of others, you take and embellish their rhetoric to obsessive levels. That is why progressives have lost the capacity for original thought and critical thinking. You don’t need it in the domain within which you exist so you missed out on developing that skill.

Now you only represent the remnants of the great social democratic experiment that has lasted, all credit to you, for about 25 years. The bullshifters and liars may hold centre stage for a while, but in the end they are found out and their contributions forgotten.

You remind me of the eunuch at the orgy who was always first with the gossip, but being forced to realize that he doesn’t really know what’s going on, his knowledge is not real and that far from being the centre of things, he is forever on the margin.

Long may we see contributions from you and other progressives on OLO, for without them we might not know of your demise.

Eunuch-Orgy-Margins.

The ABC is consistently seen as the most trustworthy broadcaster in the country but they get complaints from both sides of politics and are heavily scrutinised for bias - unlike the rest of the media which acts out of self-interest.

The gripe that most people have is that the ABC is publicly funded while the rest of the media is "free".

It costs about $150 per year per household to fund the ABC, which comes from taxpayers.

"Free" media is wholly funded by advertising.
However, there is a levy (tax?) on the cost of everything that they advertise and the cost of the "free" media from advertising - which is paid by the public,is about $1,200 per year per household.

The annual operating budget of the ABC is similar to that of Channel 10.

While Channel 10 only has to operate a single aggregated network of a couple of TV channels, the ABC operates several TV channels plus national and regional radio networks. So much for the superior efficiency of the private sector.

It's obvious that there is a political/media campaign underway to get rid of the ABC.

We shouldn't scrap the ABC - just hand it over to Rupert Murdoch and he can appoint somebody like Andrew Bolt or Alan Jones to run it for him.

Then we can get to learn the absolute truth without those distracting negative pinko tree-loving, latte-sipping notions that are destroying our perfect vision of society.

We should also be forced to watch it for a minimum number of hours per day.

The charter for the ABC is a dreadful Eighties mish-mash of motherhood platitudes and political correctness.

Sell the damn thing off and instead implement national projects of worth like building hospitals or replacing those dangerous narrow bridges on Highway 1.

It is a question of priorities and government cannot fund everything. The ABC pulls $1billion a year and rising from the federal budget and there is all of that money tied up in assets, including technology that ages rapidly.

Who wouldn't question the wastage of taxpayers' money on redundant broadcasting services and big salaries for the smug Tony Jones et al, while people die because they encountered a road train on a narrow bridge on Australia's national highway?

Spindoc,
That last post directed to me wow!
And I thought I had issues.

Politicisation of ABC broadcasting is not restricted to AGW. The ABC has taken a position on the legalisation of so-called same-sex marriage by persistently supporting and promoting it.

The ABC is obsessive in its opposition of Coalition policy for stopping illegal boat entrants. The ABC deliberately reported that some passengers were "forced by the navy to hold on to hot metal" on board an asylum seeker boat, causing severe burns and blisters. Despite the navy confirming that the report was false , the ABC has failed to apologise, even though the ABC's own Media Watch concluded that the initial reporting was unjustified.

The need for the ABC has changed vastly since it was founded in 1932. Unlike then, when the ABC was a broadcasting pioneer, access is now available to many competing networks and the internet, which itself is accessible via fixed, mobile and satellite networks. Despite the ABC growing like Topsy, all subject matter disseminated by the ABC is now covered also by alternative sources.

Consequently, there is no justification for maintaining the vast taxpayer funded network that is the ABC. The Government should conduct a full-scale public review inquiry of the ABC as soon as possible, with terms of reference that call for its abolition except for functions that lack adequate provision by other broadcasting networks. Similarly, the SBS should be reviewed to determine what justification, if any, there is for a future.