Tony Abbott has drawn the ire of Papa John through his public assertion that Aboriginal culture requires an application of good old colonial paternalism to bring it right. The only reason Howard is upset about this is because while paternalism is a core tenet of most all his policies, Johnny at least knows better than to spell it out in plain English.

Abbott’s entire way of being is built around authoritarian and paternalistic structures. Abbott wasn’t silly enough to use the word ‘paternalism’ back when he was losing the RU486 debate, but that was clearly his starting point.

Paternalism presumes that a group of people are incapable of managing their affairs and require someone who knows better to set them on the right path for their own good. Such a generalised assessment of an entire class of people is unlikely to be right from the get-go. Someone also has to be appointed- or may appoint themself- to be the father figure.

Authoritarianism and paternalism in small and wisely measured doses are fine- as long as they are directed at your own young children. Neither have any application outside the family home- and especially not in matters of public policy. Those of us with enough on the ball to manage our own affairs are reasonably deeply resentful of any manner of paternalism in government.

When Tony Abbott was elected to public office, he apparently took that to mean he was given the right to treat us all like children.

Wrong, camel breath.

-weez

John Booth AM of Murdoch’s The Weekly Times (TWiTs) isn’t a journalist; he’s an amateur proctologist. In this interview with John Howard, Booth manages to get his tongue so far up the little brown hole in John Howard’s backside that he surely could taste what Johnny had for brekkie:

JB: Talking about corruption. The AWB – the Australian Wheat Board – don’t you think that you ought to be nominating former directors for knighthoods or something. They are the people who enabled our farmers to sell their wheat, admittedly with some commission on the side. We all know that this has been done all throughout the world, all Asia, Africa, South America. You have to play the game to do the business in those places.

Booth’s patronising, pandering arselicking even embarrassed Howard, who blushingly replied:

PM: I can never support it. I don’t know the final outcome yet to react to the evidence, but I never can support that.

I think our wheat growers should be our first priority. But not at that rate.

Families of Australian Defence Force serving members should let TWiTs know what they think of Booth’s support for financing the Saddam Hussein regime and for Aussie wheat farmers paying for the bullets and bombs that ADF members are currently dodging in Iraq.

-weez

hat tip to Jon Fox at 12th Harmonic.

John Howard uttered the most repugnant lie of his 10 years as Prime Minister when he said that he would exercise the Liberals’ bully majority in the Senate ‘with care.’

“We will use the majority we have,” Mr Howard said to applause.

“We’ll use it … soberly, wisely and sensibly. We won’t use it capriciously or wantonly or indiscriminately, and I make that solemn promise on your behalf to all of the Australian people.”

The plain truth is that Howard has Australia well on the road to fascist one-party rule with utterly callous disregard to the needs and desires of the people. There’s little doubt left as to whom Howard and the Liberals actually represent. Their primary clients are corporations, legal fictions which don’t have a right to the vote… or at least didn’t when I last checked.

The so called ‘Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2006‘ is nothing if not a codification of the Howard Government’s abandonment of any pretense of ministerial responsibility. Now the Government will control the Senate estimates committees, which have to date held the Government’s feet to the fire over corruptions like the AWB scandal. Big dollar corporate donors to the Liberal Party will now be gleefully encouraged to hide massive contributions. New restrictions on voter registration will make it harder to register and vote, especially for inexperienced Australian voters like myself (as a relatively recently naturalised Australian citizen), and those just turning 18.

What’s not capricious about solidifying political power in perpetuity, for its own sake? Is there nothing wanton about turning Australian workers into serfs as a matter of public policy? Chucking asylum seekers and their children in offshore prisons for their sheer hide and cheek to demand protection from despots can’t be anything other than indiscriminate.

Come 2007, we must no longer tolerate this rape of the Australian electorate.

-weez

It’s a target-rich environment for editorial toonies these days.

Steve Sack from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune is one of the very best.

-weez