Tim Blair

Why is it that the only commentators I ever hear talking about "oppression" or the "crushing of dissent" are people noisily proclaiming that there is none of it... plus Margo maybe.

Who exactly do you think you're sneering at?

Disagreeing with Howard on border protection doesn't get you 18 years in a cell Mork.

No shit, ilibcc. My question is: who is saying otherwise so loudly and frequently that poor Tim, who no doubt has much weightier and more constructive matters to attend to, is forced to intervene to stamp out such nonsense?

This is no laughing matter. More and more we are seeing evidence of governments controlling freedom of speech (as just happened to one of Australia's finest journos, Andrew Bolt, who was thumped for daring to say something a judge didn't like).

Our beloved Victorian Government now has an Act which any idiot can use against a person who simply speaks his mind, something I had a bit to say about here.

James, somehow I don't think that's quite what Tim had in mind.

"My question is: who is saying otherwise so loudly and frequently that poor Tim, who no doubt has much weightier and more constructive matters to attend to, is forced to intervene to stamp out such nonsense?"

The entire population of Democratic Underground (no longer allows public access to the forums, sadly), The Daily Kos, and Shadow of the Hedgemon, just for starters... don't feel like dredging through the muck for any more examples.

Australian journalists don't get locked up for 18 years, therefore there is no crushing of dissent.

Wow, with logic like that, who could argue?

Say hi to Margo for me.

Wow, with logic like that, who could argue?

Not me. Being disagreed with is not the same as being crushed. Although it may hurt your widdle feewings.

Yah. Generally, just pointing that since the sky they are apparently looking at is purple streaked with green should tip them off that perhaps there is something wrong is usually enought to set of the shrieks of "censorship."

I particularly like it when they write op-eds in the NYT or go on major tv news to complain that they're being censored. (Or having their dissent crushed.) I think the real problem is that they dislike intensely being told to "bugger off."

Tatter:

DU's forums are still readable for the general public. They may not be open to postings, but you can certainly see what the denizens have to say.

Oh well, at least the traitor Vazquez knew the charges, received a trial and knows when he'll be released.

Over at the US Gulag at Guantanamo Bay adults and children get detained indefinitely, without charge, trial or representation. Same with Saddams old prisons - where it's torture a go-go - and ditto at Bagram airbase, Afghanistan.

Mr Vazquez is very lucky his first name wasn't Abdul and that he didn't get nicked by the Americans.

Mork:

Well, how about the Dixie Chicks?

Maines said Friday on NBC's Today Show that she was "saddened" by the war. Asked whether she felt vindicated by how the war has unfolded, she said, "No ... I would have liked to have been proven wrong."

The Dixie Chicks also expressed disappointment in President Bush's remarks about Maines' overseas comments. The president said of the group, "They can say what they want to say. ... they shouldn't have their feelings hurt just because some people don't want to buy their records when they speak out. I mean ... you know, freedom is a two-way street."

Emily Robison said Mr. Bush "wasn't standing up for the principles that our country are founded on."

Martie Maguire said he basically was saying, "You got what you deserved" and "This is what's going to happen if you keep speaking out."

This from NBC's Today Show courtesy of Damian Penny.

"Why is it that the only commentators I ever hear talking about "oppression" or the "crushing of dissent" are people noisily proclaiming that there is none of it... plus Margo maybe."

Tim has provided an excellent example of REAL 'crushing of dissent'. Mere criticism of one's point simply doesn't cut it.

And the oh-so-popular action of the celebrity 'intelligentsia', that of protesting the silencing of one's viewpoint in as many major media outlets as possible is the exact opposite of the crushing of dissent.

And, James had it exactly right. The Act in question allows charges--which are a function of government--to be brought for voicing one's opinion.

That, in a nutshell, is the actual crushing of dissent--when the government can take action against a citizen for voicing an opinion.

You may be an ass, Mork, but you are allowed--and even encouraged, by our responses--to offer your opinion. Manuel Vazquez is not.

Jack, perhaps I was a little too subtle. I agree entirely that there is no "crushing of dissent" in any meaningful sense in the west.

My point is that Tim's implication that there are hoards of left-leaning Australian journalists arguing otherwise is a figment of his imagination.

I mean, we all know that he chooses the softest targets he can find, but heroically charging into battle against enemies that exist only in his head is taking things one step further!

Perhaps he's finally found his "target-rich environment".

How dare you use that tone with Australia’s most popular weblogger!

'In Howard's ideal world, they would be heard hardly at all. It would be government by big business for big business, with a powerful state apparatus to watch the public and crush radical dissent.'

Mork, statements like the above are commonplace in the broadsheets and the ABC. They are left cliches and as such, devalue the true tragedy of S. Vazquez.

Tim is quite right to point out the sheer stupidity of the left in Australia huffing about crushing dissent.

Figment of his imagination? I don't think so. In your own head, maybe.

ilibcc - I already made an exception for St. Margo. Do you have anyone else in mind?

Tim - I am chastened. Had I any idea that I was addressing the apple of 55 out of every two million online eyes (unadjusted for one-eyed persons), you can be sure that my tone would have been altogether more respectful.

The Walkleys are a wank that are open only to members of the clowns union and don't give consideration to a body of work over a given period.

Pat O’Shane, John Pilger, Greg Barns, Richard Neville, Tony Jones ...

For those who can't be bothered checking Tim's links:

1. Pat O'Shane is a magistrate, not a journalist, and only a "commentator" in the sense that she occasionally has an opinion piece published in the Fairfax press ... although the only one I can find in the online archive is a piece about golf from May. Perhaps Tim would be good enough to link to the actual article that concerns him, rather than a second hand piece from a not-so-reliable source that quotes five words from it.

Can Tim also tell us when the rally at which Ms. O'Shane spoke (which is the subject of the linked article) took place? Ruth Cracknell spoke at it, and she's been dead for a few years now. The URL contains a hint that it might have been as far back as 1996.

Evidently Tim has a long memory.

2. I'll give you John Pilger. That makes two - Margo and Pilger - thank god Tim's there to put those two in their place, lest their beguiling rhetoric seduce us all away!

4. Greg Barns is a former Liberal party staffer. He's writing about the silencing of dissent within the Liberal party - not in the community at large.

4. Richard Neville is hardly a journalist or a commentator, and the only mention of "dissent" in the linked article is a quote from Tariq Ali that implies that Neville does some of it, but not that he's been "crushed" in any way.

5. Tony Jones - an actual journalist! Again, the only mention of dissent being silenced in the linked piece concerns wether Liberal MPs have been silenced by their own party.

I hope you didn't waste too much time on Google to come up with that paltry display!

Oh, come on ... the post referred to "western commentators". That's a broad definition.

And no, I didn't waste much time. Go search google yourself. Prove yourself wrong.

Tim, for the sake of argument, I'll concede that you may well have successfully identified five "western commentators".

Your larger problem is that only two of them appear to be complaining of dissent being stifled, and one of them was doing so in 1996.

The Ken Park decision delivered several examples ... check the comments from Rigg and Marr.

Mark McKenna, Michelle Arrow, Senator Joe Ludwig, Tanya Plibersek ...

OK, read the whole Ken Park thing. What specifically do you object to?

The only discussion I saw that ventured into a general reflection on restrictions on dissent was the comments of Julie Rigg (film critic from Radio National's Arts Today program and vice president of the film critics' circle of australia - I'm astonished that I have not come across her before!) about the new obligation on governent departments to notify the government 24 hours before they publish anything that might reflect badly on it.

The rest was about censorship of movies - which I thought you previously opined was a bad thing.

Seriously, Tim, are you reading these things:

1. Mark McKenna (research fellow at the ANU - do you know how low on the academic totem pole a research fellow is?) was commenting on a specific speech by Shane Stone, and saying that if his views were taken to their logical conclusion, the result would be that journalists would always reflect the views of the majority and therefore not question popular governments. His complaint is specific only to Stone and his views - his fear of dissent being silenced is hypothetical.

2. Michelle Arrow (who teaches history at Macquarie University) complains that there is not enough dissent, but blames the people who she thinks ought to be dissenting for their lassitude, not the government or anyone else for putting obstacles in their way.

3. An opposition politican complaining that the government is reducing funding for welfare bodies that have criticised it ... now you're really clutching at straws.

4. Another opposition politician complaining about the government cutting funding for organisations that have criticised it.

Yes, these articles have the word "dissent" in the (thank-you google), but not one involves a commentator complaining that political dissent is being crushed. If these are the most extreme examples you can find, you're kind of proving my point.

But at least they're from the right decade!

Jesus, Mork ...

Julie Rigg from the ABC's Radio National believes that the government is actually increasingly seeking to devalue dissent and constrain criticism by all kinds of bureaucratic means ...

David Marr, journalist and President of Watch on Censorship, insists that the Howard government is indeed a censoring government, not only for film, but for television, computer games, publications, and the internet.

That's it. No more chasing links if you're not going to read them.

Tim - I read them all.

Immediately after the sentence you quoted, Rigg goes right on to state exactly what she's talking about, which is the practice of requiring, as a condition of their funding, non-government organisations to report to the government before they make any public statement on government policy.

I'm not exactly sure what "devaluing dissent" means, but if that's not "constrain(ing) criticism by bureaucratic means", I'm not sure what is.

So, she's not making a wholesale complaint of dissent being silenced across society, she is making a specific complaint about the ability of government-funded NGOs to criticise the government.

As for Marr, well, it's just obvious, even in your decontextualised quote, that he's talking about censorship on public morality grounds, not political censorship.

Keep on redefining terms, Mork. Now you seek to excise research fellows, politicians, etc from the broad collective of "western commentators".

All of the above cite an erosion or repression of dissent. About what isn't the issue, is it? They use those terms, which was my original point.

McKenna: “Essentially, he suggests that democracy is the majority's right to silence dissent. “

Arrow: “Maybe protest and dissent are losing their traditional regenerative base - university students - as activism increasingly becomes a luxury most students feel they can't afford.”

Ludwig: “[Howard’s] efforts to silence dissent ...”

Plibersek: ”The Howard government has gone out of its way prevent criticism and silence dissent."

And let's wait and see what the Walkley's throw up.

Re my "decontextualised quote" -- at least I quote directly, instead of elaborately paraphrasing. Way to duck and cover, Mork.

Tim:

I wasn't trying to "redefine" anyone. I just thought that it would interest anyone following the exchange to know who exactly were the cultural heavyweights making these scurrilous claims. In my opinion, the obscurity of your targets rather tends to make my point, but you may disagree.

And as for whether I've summarised the articles accurately, well, feel free to point out anything you think I've mischaracterised (assuming you've actually read them).

Otherwise, I'm happy to leave it to others to judge for themselves whether my summary or your decontextualized quotes paint a truer picture of the linked articles.

"At least I quote directly" ... thanks, Maureen!

'I'm happy to leave it to others to judge for themselves ... '

I nominate Manuel Vazquez to be our guest judge. God knows he's had plenty of time to read.

What a load of shit that you quote directly in full. Your entire existence is one long misquote and misrepresentation.

You are such a fraud Tim.

Why Mork or anyone bothers to try and debate you on anything is beyond me. I respect Mork's efforts, but I long since realised that you couldn't give a flying fuck about anyone else's opinion unless you already agreed with it.

If you don't agree with it, then it boots and all for thugs like you, as you and your ilk continue to abuse people into silence.

And yes I'm doing that right back to you now. Better get cyberchick to block my IP. But hey you put her out on the board as good old fashion troll-bait along with your own abusive comments, so I'm just throwing it straight back in your face boots and all...

Up the Trolls!

You do realise, Mork, that the original post mentioned Western commentators, and that thus far we've limited matters only to Australia, and then only to what could be found via a rapid Googling?

Do you want to trawl through the NYT, the Guardian, the Independent, the New Statesman, the LA Times, the LA Weekly, the Observer, and so on, or shall I? Care to review the words of Michael Moore, Ted Rall, Susan Sontag, Robert Fisk, and all their commentariat pals?

And there you go again with the redefining. I never mentioned "cultural heavyweights", although a number of the people cited are (Marr, Pilger, Jones, O'Shane) and many have appeared in cultural heavyweight journals (the SMH and The Age).

But if it suits you to define "commentators" only as full-time journalists (not named Pilger or Kingston, despite their abundant airtime and print space) whose complaints must not be just about crushing dissent but crushing of dissent according to your own peculiar and narrow terms, well, go right ahead. My post is clearly on another subject.

So Mike Moore, Ted Rall, Susan Sontag and Robert Fisk are all going to be at the Walkleys?

In person, or as voices in your head?

As for who is a "commentator", I'm happy to accept for present purposes that everyone is a commentator, including the voices.

I'm merely pointing out that if this is all you can find, the problem might not be as acute as the frequency and shrillness of your posts on the subject imply.

Crock - I appreciate your kind words, but I'm afraid I can't reciprocate. When I'm critical of our host, it's usually because of his tendency to prefer bomb-throwing and insult to reason and debate.

I don't find those tactics any more palatable from the left than I do from the right.

What does "western" mean to you? Is that the word you use for "Australian"?

Are you seriously telling me you're unable to make the gigantic leap from a mention of the Walkleys to a broader mention of western commentators -- even when the word "western" is right there in front of you?

Look, you've lost, and you're hurting. That's OK. The good part is, nobody knows your real name, so your shame is private. Move on, Mork.

Tim, given that your scroll button isn't working, let me freshen your memory. Your post started thus:

"I’ll be at the Walkley Awards on Thursday night. Much complaint about the “crushing of dissent” and the “silencing of debate” is anticipated."

Remember now?

And let me supply my own corollory to Godwin's Law: anyone who feels the need to point out that they've won an argument ... hasn't.

"In my opinion, the obscurity of your targets rather tends to make my point." -- Mork, 1.32pm

"Anyone who feels the need to point out that they've won an argument ... hasn't." -- Mork, 2.26pm

Oh, and your point about how the post started ... how does that cause the word "western" to be rendered invisible?

Clutch at enough straws, Tim, and eventually you'll be able to build a whole new straw man!

Tim, Mork is a troll who argues for the sake of arguing. He has no life -- arguing with you is all he has. Poor man. It's a great thing you are doing, giving this sad soul a reason to live.

I don't mind. It killed some time while I was downloading a few things. And it's fun working around
Mork's unique comprehension problems.

Mork, I appreciate your attempts at arguing your case with Tim. I can understand what you are trying to point out, and agree with some of your criticisms. Please ignore ad hominem from Andrea and continue the debate :-)

However, Tim is right to point out that, even though the Walkley Awards are Australian, there's no reason why the general trend (either here, or as discussed abroad) of allegations of "crushing dissent" cannot be remarked upon. I don't feel that restricting the argument to Australian commentators was implied, or that it is a necessary distinction to make.

See there you go Andrea. Mork is a decent person - unlike myself and you.

Mork tries really hard to debate with Tim and others and all he gets is abuse from blogchick calling him a Troll.

I'm a Troll, you're a Troll, Tim's a Troll. But Mork ain't - and a good number of your readers would agree as well. Even Tim thinks Mork is not a Troll.

It's the abuse that you give out Andrea that turns good people into Trolls. I once believed in reasoned debate with your kind, but from where I sit in the biz, all I see is poison from your kind nowadays.

'tries really hard'

lefty loony reverts to kindergarten language when all is said and done

big hawk

big canary

"It's the abuse that you give out Andrea that turns good people into Trolls."

Bwahahahaha! Fear my power! You will all become trolls, and serve me in my island lair!

Mork, the idea thar dissent is being crushed whenever criticism is leveled at leftist points is a widespread one. It is as evident among Australian jounalists as well as ther 'western commentators.

Further, it is also evident that while they have great problems with what they categorize as the 'crushing of dissent' they seem to see no problem with fawning over those who actually do crush dissent as well as being generally supportive of laws that actually do crush dissent in the west.

We are speaking in generalities here, every journalist, even every leftwing journalist, Australian or otherwise, does not fall into this mess. However, enough of them do that Tim is perfectly correct in shedding light on the fact.

And Andrea, when did you get an island lair? I thought you lived in the city the Rat built...

Cutting and pasting, day in, day out. A tenuous link here, a spurious claim there. Off to the walkleys to have the continuing crisis in confidence underlined. What are you doing there? Serving the whine?

At least dissent is clearly alive and well on the blogmire. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Mork, the idea thar dissent is being crushed whenever criticism is leveled at leftist points is a widespread one. It is as evident among Australian jounalists as well as ther 'western commentators.

Jack - if that's the case, perhaps you would be able to provide examples of such complaints. Wouldn't you agree that it would be odd if such a "widespread" idea did not show up in the articles of journalists other than John Pilger and Margo Kingston?

Are the rest of them keeping their true views a secret from the reading public?

Why is it that only you and Tim got the decoder ring?

Okay, Mork, you've had your fun. Everyone has provided you with links and quotes, and you have rejected them all even though they provided exactly what you were looking for. You are obviously just doing this for the hell of it. It will stop now.

As for where the location of my island lair is... You don't think I'd post that on the web? Let's just say... Central Florida has a lot of lakes. And they come with alligators already installed. Bwahahahaha!