I'm a bit bored, it's too peaceful, so I thought I'd ask the question.

How many more ladies will it take to finally kill off the Oz Labor party?

Now we all saw that it took only 4 lady leaders to kill the Oz Democrats, but they were of course a somewhat smaller party.

We have seen every single lady Labor leader preside over a huge loss of support by the electorate.

Anna was the only one who could claim to have been elected by popular vote, & look what she did to that in just 3 years.

Julia on the other hand used a few whiles to get to the lodge, but looks as if she will manage to beat Anna in leading Labor in the rush to oblivion.

Before the Qld elections there had been 5 ladies, all of whom managed to reduce Labors popularity quite quickly, so why have they done it again?

This morning I listened to a very supportive ABC interview of their new lady leader, Palaszczuk, & wondered if they have a death wish. She appears to be trying to be twice as tough as Anna, but with only half the capacity.

One of her big bitches was the lack of female cabinet members in the new LNP government. Interesting that. Perhaps they don't have a death wish, like the one Labor appear to be continuing with her Promotion to leader.

Yes I know, I'll duck.

PS. Right now the ABC have a bunch of birds on air, scrambling all over this lack of "fair" representation. Surely it is bad enough that cabinet ministers have to be selected by the regions they represent, with out having to worry about their sex as well.

Amusing post, I spent most of yesterday pondering how societies such as the U.S.A and the U.K whose whole political landscapes are totally dominated by minority interests and underpinned by egalitarian principles are now even more rapacious, warlike and imperialistic than the so called White male hegemony of the past.
We call it Totalitarian Humanism.
Remember Feminist teachers who'd puff themselves up by saying that if women ran the world there'd be no more war?
The Western powers are now stacked with feminists of both sexes and the great Liberal Panzer Divisions are rolling over the Third World.
What went wrong?
Could it be that Feminism and all the other egalitarian "Isms" were set up to serve Globalist Captialism in the first place?
You could also look at it from the MRA perspective, the women now have power, which has come at the expense of men's human rights, don't expect us to help you out if it all goes pear shaped, we're all too busy playing video games and dying of preventable diseases.

Interesting concept.

Are the female ALP leaders getting the leadership in a hospital pass? Did labor always expect Juliar to fail and hoped that the feminist vote would prevent a bloodbath?

First Keneally, then Bligh, and now Juliar are going to leave office with only a handful of MPs.

Margaret Thatcher was obviously promoted on ability and delivered what most men could not. The Labour party appoints political animals whether men or women. Look at their last 3 choices.

I would have thought that the record of female
politicians is just as varied as their male counterparts
and demonstrates the impracticality of using gender to
differentiate between leadership styles

Oh I don't know about that Hasbeen.

I am sure we could find far more dropkick male politicians in our colourful political history than we could females.

I very much doubt that more females in the parliament could do a worse job than many of the male politicians over the years.

Oh, by the way Hasbeen, I was bored the other day, and came across a few quotes that I found amusing:

"Women belong in the house... and the Senate." ~Author Unknown

"There never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers." —Susan B. Anthony

"I think it's about time we voted for senators with breasts. After all, we've been voting for boobs long enough."
~Clarie Sargent, Arizona senatorial candidate

"There are very few jobs that actually require a penis or vagina. All other jobs should be open to everybody." ~Florynce Kennedy

<< I'm a bit bored, it's too peaceful >>

Well Hasbeen, me old mate, why don’t you answer this question regarding one of your favourite subjects that I’ve asked of you a number of times:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=13433#232086

or respond to this post:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=13443#232149

I’ll give you a right royal run for your money that’ll be guaranteed to get your blood flowing and cure your boredom. Or perhaps you know this all too well and prefer to bail out of threads when Lud starts asking the curly questions!

You’re an enigma. You like stirring, but you don’t like being stirred!! ( :>|

Regarding female leaders; I can’t see any significant difference in the different party’s fortunes related to them having male or female leaders.

Haz, I think your perceived general poor performance from women is not real and is only coincidental. There are lots of poor male leaders in our recent political history. In fact, there are scant few commendable ones.

Indeed, I wonder whether you could think of a single leader in the past ~30 years that has been any good in your opinion?

Ludwig,

I get your point, the poor performance of Bligh, Gillard and Keneally are not because they are women, but rather because they are Labor?

OK Ludwig, I think it was very novel, giving Anna's old man the opportunity to work at tearing apart the dreadful waste of tax payers money he had been busy building, under the now RIP Labor off party.

On the warming mate, it is all a lefty rip off today. Some of the twits may have believed it, at the start, but now only believe they MUST be right. So far they have proved just one thing. They have to cheat, lie, "correct" data, ignore & in fact try to suppress data, to keep the thing going.

You shouldn't be above jumping on this cr4p just because it tends to support your fixation on population.

Just in passing, I'm right with you on population, & immigration. Just because there are too many people in the world is no reason to overpopulate Oz.

On the lady thing, it was perhaps a little tongue in check, but only a little. Too many of them don't have enough math & far too little science to understand how they are being conned. Too much empathy is worse than none at all in leaders.

If you need more convincing, just think Clover Moore.

The reason is obvious - whenever the men stuff it up, a woman gets appointed to try and pick up the pieces and, eventually to take the blame. Kirner, Bligh, Kenneally, Gillard. It's interesting to see that this mainly (only?) happens on the Labor side. Labor men tend to walk away (eg Beattie) and let the women steer the ship onto the rocks, while Liberal men go down with the ship (Howard). Rudd is an interesting exception, perhaps he was removed because it appeared that he wanted to emulate the Liberals by going down with the ship. The Demos match Labor to some extent, by appointing women as leaders when things are already going downhill (to mix my metaphors).

<< the poor performance of Bligh, Gillard and Keneally are not because they are women, but rather because they are Labor? >>

No Shadow Minister.

The Libs and Labs are two peas in a pod. They’re essentially no different.

Their leaders have all been reasonably intelligent competent people Let’s face it; they’d have to be to get to be leader In the first place. (Well, except for one K Rudd perhaps!). And then they ALL meet the same fate – condemnation for poor performance!

It is their addiction to big donations and the consequent pandering to the wishes of the vested-interest profit-driven big business sector, plus their innate stupid addiction to rapid continuous growth that has stifled their success.

No leader will win the support of the Australian people until this changes. When one of the major parties adopts a genuine sustainability platform, or when some new political entity comes along with this doctrine and threatens to displace them if they don’t embrace sustainability, then we might see a leader emerge who can win the hearts and minds of the majority and actually start to dig Australia out of the enormous hole that antisustainability-oriented Liberal and Labor governments have dug over the last few decades.

There is actually a glimmer of hope of this happening now that Bob Carr is in the ministry.

Sorry Ludwig, I can't agree with much of that. There is a large difference. Labor is for big government, as big as possible, & the libs are the opposite. The ladies have been worse, when in power than most of the men, because they look at every thing through the prism of motherhood, which converts everything to rainbow colours.

Leaders in my experience are the worst people. Usually better at calling in favours, & conning the naive. Hell, just look at the two closest to us. Gillard a cunning shonk, & Obama an orator, with no idea of what he is saying, or should be saying.

Go back a bit, & we get Hitler Churchill, & Starlin. Orators with out a brain between them. Great leaders if you wanted to get killed. We only won because more of our generals were prepared to sit on Churchill's head more often.

I do think that any "leader" who got up & shouted, stop immigration, would win in a land slide, but I doubt it could happen.

Academia would scream about the "greedy" policy, & the bureaucrats would have no idea of how to do it.

But don't worry, the next war will get most of us, & if we are really smart, we could join the Swiss, avoid damage, & proffitt out of everyone.

Hasbeen,
Churchill, Hitler and Stalin were three of the most intelligent men on the planet at the time, you can also throw in Tojo, Roosevelt, Mao, Nehru, Petain, Curtin......you're essentially accusing them of being demagogues, which is unjust and inaccurate,

Dear Jay,

Hitler and Stalin both despised and mistrusted democracies.
Both were accomplished killers, both created panic and
chaos throughout Europe. Each produced millions of
refugees and homeless. Each built cocentration camps in
which millions of innocent victims perished. Both were
dictators using the same methods to deal with their
domestic opposition - terror. Both escaped retribution,
dying, without having been brought to justice.

Lexi,
So did Nehru, Churchill, Truman, Mao, Tojo...what's your point? Auschwitz, Gulag, Dresden, The Rape of Nanking, Partition of India, Hiroshima/Nagasaki all sit within the same context, you can't pick and choose elements of 20th century history according to your bias.
Adolf Hitler was a messianic figure, like Napoleon or Juilus Caesar, he was not stupid, he was not "evil" and he was not a demagogue, he was universally described by those who met him genuinely brave, clever, heroic, polite to the point of self effacement, talented and genial, I challenge you to prove otherwise.
Napoleon Bonaparte held strong Racialist views and especially hated Blacks, Julius Caesar killed a million Gauls and took another million as slaves in the Gallic wars, this is the nature of the "man of action".
Stalin on the other hand actually was a criminal, a false hero, a drunk, a liar and a genuine monster but he wasn't stupid or incompetent either.

The assertion by Hasbeen that those figures were demagogues is false, MLK was a demagogue, so is Obama, ditto Pauline Hanson, Geert Wilders, Avigdor Libermann, Aun Sung Suu Kyii, Bob Brown, Ehud Barak, Ron Paul....rabble rousers, populists, telling people what they want to hear rather than the truth.

Dear Jay,

The memories of those who perished at the hands of
the two evil tyrants Hitler and Stalin will be not
be revered by your mocking and inaccurate posts.
I have no further wish to continue interacting
with you.

Might I add that the above discussion is going some way to explaining the original points about the failure of feminised Western political castes.
A Napoleon, Hitler or Mao or even a Putin or Abbott is utterly irresistible to what we might call red blooded men and women, real adults, the feminised Western elite can only keep papering over the cracks for so long.
Throw Third world migration into the mix and the blood gets redder, the adults more receptive to the man of action, the heroic leader and the more futile the efforts of the elite.
Tony Abbott is no Vladimir Putin and Putin is no Peter The Great but cometh the time, cometh the man, this is the cyclical nature of history, there is no such thing as progress, only rise and fall, invention and re-invention.

Lexi,
As above and so to you, I know you don't like my posts but they're not inaccurate, read Charles Lindbergh's impressions of Nazi Germany, the finest of "our people" routinely describe that society as the best in Europe albeit one in which they would not have cared to reside.
The memories of the Iraqi, Afghan and Pakistani civilians slaughtered in the name both of Democracy and women's rights are not respected by your position and by the stance of egalitarian minded people who talk but don't put their lives on the line.
This also raises the other disturbing feature of feminised Western politics, the fact that our young men are being sent by feminists to kill Afghan men in the name of women's rights.
Sorry Lexi but the jig is up on "human rights and democracy", the butcher's bill of totalitarian Liberal Humanism and universal human rights is too great for real men and women, thsoe with a conscience and a sense of morality and fair play to bear.

At all times, vigilance is the price of liberty.
... The measure of our society over
history is our fidelity to our principles. We must
remind our government and our people to remain faithful
to those principles or otherwise our society, like
so many in the past will be swept on the ash heap of
history.

Jay,

If Napoleon and Hitler were so clever, how come they both contrived to have their invading troops in Russia in the depths of winter?....pretty dumb by my reckoning.

Dear Poirot,

So glad to finally read a post that puts things into their
proper perspective. ;-)

People making comments - about Hitler
such as we've seen recently on this thread - obviously
have not spend any time in Europe between
1939 and 1945 as many of the 1950s migrants to Australia
(including my parents), did.
Reading - Albert Speer's, "Inside The
Third Reich" might help.

Jay's raves about the alleged feminisation of western politics, reminds me of Ghandi's quote:

"What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea.”

What do I think about the feminisation of politics? I think it would be a very good idea.

I imagine Jay would have been against the American civil war on the grounds that our boys were being sacrificed in the name of black rights.

Lexi,

Talking of the aptitude of despots et al: -Francis Bacon put it most succinctly when he said, "Nothing hurts more in a state than that cunning men pass for wise."

I believe that applies to men like Hitler and Napoleon.

(incidentally, an ancestor of mine was the chief medical officer on St Helena when Napoleon was there. He almost certainly did his autopsy - although I'm not sure that it says much about his medical skills : )

Cossomby,
And again, you need to understand history, Lincoln was unconcerned with "Black Rights", runaway slaves were not permitted to stay in Union states for more than 30 days, he did not free slaves in the north and he planned to deport all Africans to Liberia.
The proper context of the War between the states is the culture clash between the old Indo European Aristocracy of the Confederacy and the Militant Anglo Saxon Protestant "Reformers".
We need a new term to illustrate Totalitarian Humanism, Progressive Aggression would suffice, let's say the civil War was more the result of radical WASP Progressive Aggression against the old Indo European Aristocratic model.

To the others, yeah damn right this is female aggression and warmongering to serve Feminist goals, are we all still in love with Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, Oprah Winfrey and all the other "Empowered women" baying for the blood of Middle Eastern men in the liberation of their women?

Poirot,
The allied Armies were caught flat footed and unprepared in the middle of Winter in the Ardennes, sixty thousand of them perished, was Eisenhower stupid as well? Let's not even "Go there" and talk about Norway or Crete, let alone Singapore or the Phillipines
See I merely make observations on that era from an informed, neutral standpoint, Hasbeen and Lexi are hopelessly biased and ill informed, their misinformation demands a response.
Might I also point out that there is no enduring Eisenhower or Stalin cult of personality, my estimation of Hitler, Napoleon and Julius Caesar as messianic figures rather than mere "Stupid" politicians holds true.

Jay,

If you're saying that the likes of Napoleon and Hitler possessed an ability to infect their followers with a kind of mass hysteria, I'll go along with that. The human mind is susceptible to the expression of such personalities - especially in a collective framework when facing a common enemy or sharing a common goal.
It doesn't follow, however, that these men were particularly intelligent or wise.

Jay, perhaps I was being too ironic for you.

I am aware (as a historian) of the complex reasons for the US civil war, but I was merely matching your total oversimplifying (invention? conspiracy theory?) of Iraq/Afghanistan to 'female aggression and warmongering'. I'm surprised you didn't go the whole hog and suggest that all the "empowered women" were Jewish as well as feminists!

Ghandi was being ironical re western civilisation, his 'it would be a good idea' implied that it hadn't been tried yet! Ditto my comment re political feminisation! It doesn't exist, but it might be a good thing - and it would not involve baying for anyone's blood! When I saw George Bush standing on the aircraft carrier saying we won (or whatever) I saw the same old big power male politics going back to the Romans.

Actually your comments on the causes of the US Civil War undermine your own argument. Just as the anti-slavery line was a superficial one covering "the proper context of the war - a culture clash etc", Your nonsense about feminisation /baying for the blood of middle eadstern men is a superficial one covering the real causes, which are many and complicated.

I'm not following this nonsense any more, I'm a feminist so I have to go out and bash a few men today (I had better spell it out - that's irony again).

Poirot,
Not Hysteria, faith, devotion, even love.
They were messianic figures, you can add to the list figures such as Mohammed, Imam Ali, Joseph Smith, Shaka Zulu, Crazy Horse, the list of "Men of Action" is endless.

Cossomby,
Yeah everyone who doesn't agree with you is crazy.
BTW insults are conduct unbecoming of an academic, I'm just stirring the pot and it appears that in the face of a confrontational, or hostile attitude your side just withers away or claims "No Platform!".
The Predator drone is the emblem of the struggle for "Human Rights" in the early 21st century, it's such a female weapon don't you think?
No mess, no nasty confrontations if you strike while the enemy's back is turned, much like those mousetraps that enclose the little beasties when they've done their work, the lady of the house just pick up the contraption and disposes of it without having to look at the victim.

Alas, I've succumbed.

Jay, I'm not an academic. And I'm not feeling hostile - I really have no desire to bash up some men, literally or mataphorically - I was being ironic.

And I was trying to use humour to counter nonsense.

Seriously, the predator drone as a female weapon?? really?? Looks like a raping phallus to me. Are you sure the feminist thing (even as a stir) isn't just a way to dissociate yourself from the horrible appalling things men invent to kill people?

Jay,

You are grasping at straws equating something called a Predator "drone" to femaleness.

And I disagree - "hysteria" is an apt description for the sort of effect that seductive leaders have on collective humanity.

Hasbeen, regarding global warming; I have asserted quite a few times in our discussions that it doesn’t matter if it is real or not. We should be taking practically the same sort of actions anyway in the interests of a sustainable society. You agree with me about the sustainability business, but you have steadfastly avoided commenting on this point. What do you reckon?

I asked you recently whether there is any leader in the last ~30 years that you support. You seem to knock the stuffing out of every single one. Is there actually one or two that you feel have done reasonably well, or at least not appallingly badly?

Hasbeen,
I do indeed, think about the way women conduct conflict or express hostility toward others, remotely, stealthily, the way women and particularly girls use social media to bully one another is another,it reminds me of remote drone warfare and is a good metaphor for our age.
The Predator drone is also a good metaphor for the so called "surgical" way war is portrayed by the human rights proponents, it speaks of minimalist intervention and an almost maternal concern for those in the vicinity.
The point I'm trying to draw from this array of threads is that perhaps Feminised Western governments are failing because they lack moral legitimacy, due in large part to their deceptive practices, double standards and often outright hypocrisy.
They'll send in B52's to secure womens rights, and it's ALAWYS about women's rights isn't it?
Asma Al Assad is the epitome of the modern empowered woman, yet the Feminised Western governements back militias who would rape and behead her and all Syrian women like her if she fell into their hands.
Anyway, you see where I'm going with all this, the discussion is petering out but I'm happy to keep going if you want to.

As I wrote earlier - the record of female leaders
is just as varied as their male counterparts
and demonstrates the impracticality of using gender
to differentiate between leadership styles.

However there are some people who interpret things,
consciously or unconsciously according to their
gender perspectives. As Petersen and Runyan (1999,
237) pointed out - "A great deal must change before
world politics is ungendered. Ungendering world
politics requires a serious re-thinking of what it
means to be human and how we might organise ourselves
in more cooperative mutually respectful ways. We
would have to reject gendered dichotomies - male versus
female, us versus them, culture versus nature. We would
have to recognise power in its multiple forms and be
willing to imagine other worlds."

In other words these changes are less a matter of
top-down policy than of individually and collectively remaking
human society by re-constructing our identities,
beliefs, expectations and institutions.

This is the most difficult and complex of human projects, but
history has shown that we are capable of such revoultionary
transformation.

Jay characterises the predator drone as 'female' because 'women conduct conflict or express hostility toward others, remotely, stealthily'. He suggests that it is "emblem of the struggle for "Human Rights" in the early 21st century, it's such a female weapon don't you think? No mess, no nasty confrontations if you strike while the enemy's back is turned."

But in the evolution of weapons, dealing death at an increasingly remote distance has a long history. Spears, bow and arrow, the long bow (Agincourt), the rifle, the cannon, aerial bomb, WW2 rocket attacks, high altitude carpet bombing (Vietnam), rockets in Somalia, and now the predator drone. Exactly when did feminists get involved in this?

However the ultimate remote, stealthy weapon, which strikes indiscriminately 'while the enemy's back is turned' must be the land mine and the IED (improvised explosive device). These are most effective in situations where there is a disparity in technology betwen the opponents, but where the technologically weaker side has a home ground advantage. An alternative gender analogy might equate the terrorists use of remote stealthy weapons with female and the big power's big techno weapons (the drone) with male. Under this analogy, for 21C wars in the Middle East, those using 'male' weapons would be the ones supporting women's rights etc,. while those using 'female' weapons suppress women's rights.

One of the most chilling male statements on war was made by a US general after a US rocket attack on a city building took out a number of Somali politicians / war lords. "We have to show them that they can't get their own way by using force." Surely the lesson was exactly the reverse?

Lexi,

You said "As I wrote earlier - the record of female leaders
is just as varied as their male counterparts"

For labor I agree, the Male MPs have been just as crooked.

Dear SM,

I think that you'll find if you do your research
(and your local librarian will be able to
assist you) that gender is a non-issue once a woman is
at the post. The power of the leader ensures that the
sex of the leader is irrelevant. You get leders like
Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan, Indira Gandhi of India,
Golda Meier of Israel, Violetta Chamorro of
Nicaragua and Corazon Aquino of the Philippines,
Margaret Thatcher of the UK, Julia Gillard of
Australia - just to name a few. They
all carried out their duties of managing their countries.

But of course you're not interested in any of that.
You only view this forum as a means to an end. To
use each and every issue as a bludgeon with which to
renew your attack on Labor and if possible -
the PM's character.

Lexi,

There are good examples of female leaders such as Golda Meier and Thatcher, the thread is really why the female leaders in Australia have been so hopeless.

Juliar, and Bligh, through lying to the electorate have led their parties to record lows.

SM, what about Carmen Lawrence, Joan Kirner, Clair Martin, Lara Giddings and Katy Gallagher?

How hopeless have they been, or currently are?

Carmen Lawrence and Joan Kirner, led their party to defeat,
Katy Gallagher, and Lara Giddings were not elected and assumed the role, Giddings party polling is sinking, and I don't have any real feed back on Katy.

I don't agree with the sentiment from certain males
that the female leaders in Australia have been so
"hopeless." Wasn't it a female who ousted a Prime
Minister from his elecotrate. I will again
stress that - the record of female
leaders is just as varied as their male counterparts
and demonstrates the impracticality of using gender to
differentiate between leadership styles. Females have
led in a wide variety of roles in a wide variety of
disciplines and just as males have done. They have
contributed greatly to this country.

Here's a "mixed" list that should jog some memories:

Caroline Chisholm, Dame Enid Lyons, Edith Cowan,
Louis O'Donoghue, Roma Mitchell, Marion Scrymgour,
Shirley Smith,Florence Cardell-Oliver, Margaret
Whitlam, Margaret Court,Amanda Vandstone, Carmen
Lawrence, Linda Burney, Mary Gilmore, May Holman,
Lady Millicent Peacock, Susan Ryan, Joan Kirner,
Elizabeth Kenny, Nellie Melba, Joan Sutherland,
Gina Rhinehart, Elisabeth Murdoch, and many, many more.