Monthly Archives: June 2013

Is the Media Destroying Our Democracy?

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The Australian Independent Media Network

democracy

A poll in the Melbourne Age 25 June stated that “Tony Abbott’s insistence that the election will be a ”referendum on the carbon tax” has been undermined by polling showing that just a third of voters support the Coalition’s plan to abolish it.
Fewer voters want to see the carbon tax removed now than before it took effect on July 1 last year. Nearly half, or 48 per cent, wanted the tax scrapped a year ago.
However, a poll of 1009 people, conducted by JWS Research for the Climate Institute, found just 37 per cent of them now supported the Coalition’s intention to wind the tax back in favor of its ”Direct Action” policy, which involves paying companies to reduce emissions.
Even fewer people – 34 per cent – would back an Abbott government calling a double dissolution election to fulfill its ”pledge in blood” to repeal the tax.”

Other…

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Judging Gillard and the Labor Government

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The Australian Independent Media Network

judge

What is good government and how does one judge it? Thomas Jefferson often referred to the term good government. In his opinion, the Government ought to be judged by how well it meets its legitimate objectives. For him, good government was the one who most effectively secures the rights of the people and the rewards of their labor, which promotes their happiness, and does their will. For instance, he said: “The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the only legitimate object of good government.”

In terms of the fruits of ones labour Abraham Lincoln had this to say. “Labour came before capital and is not related to it. Capital is what’s acquired from labour, and would never have come about if it were not for labour. Therefore, labour is superior to capital and deserves the higher significance.”

I often say that at the heart of…

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Let’s do a poll!

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The Australian Independent Media Network

One of the big problems with polls is that people have no idea what they mean. A few months ago, there was a poll showing that Howard was the most popular PM in the past twenty five years. He got a whopping 35%. Impressive? No, not when you consider that he was the only Liberal PM in the survey. It’d be like doing a survey and asking whether you’d prefer to see Gillard, Rudd, Dreyfus, Shorten or Abbott as PM. One would expect Abbott to win that one.  Howard actually received a lower percentage than the Liberal Party did in 2007 election. So, in other words, many Liberals preferred one of the Labor leaders. Yet this was written up as Howard being the most popular PM in the past twenty five years.

The other problem with polls is that they don’t distinguish between the possible, the probable and the impossible.

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Caught in its own trap

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TruthInNewsMedia

Comment by Barry Tucker                    22 June, 2013

Melbourne’s The Age sprung its trap today and neatly caught itself.

In an editorial calling for the Labor Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, to stand aside “For the sake of the nation”, because her message is not getting through, The Age revealed itself to be a perfect waste of perfectly good newsprint, and megabytes.

The Age is well aware of the reason why Labor’s message is not getting across: The Age, along with the rest of the mainstream news media, is not allowing Labor’s message to get through.

The MSM, including the supposedly impartial taxpayer funded ABC, chooses to focus on leadership rumours instead of examining the policies of Labor AND the federal Liberal National Party Coalition. The Coalition HAS released policies, and so have five minor parties that I can quickly think of. It’s…

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MSM fails to deal with climate change

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TruthInNewsMedia

COMMENT By Barry Tucker                    22 June, 2013

Three academics writing in The Conversation have severely criticised the mainstream news media for failing to take politicians to task over climate change policy. In Australian media failures promote climate policy inaction the academics write:“More insidious than outright denial of the science is a new form of denial where the science is accepted but where the need for carbon pricing and government intervention and regulation is denied. This appears to be the current position of the federal Coalition. Again this goes almost completely unchallenged.”“That such positions can be held but not defended while the science itself is attacked in Australia says much about the culture of commercial media in this country.”

You might be able to remember as far back as the 1980s and 1990s, when the expression “dumbing down” was being…

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The Faceless Men of the Liberal Party

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Frances Jones

By Father Kevin Lee

OK I know people reading this are going to say, “He is suffering from ‘sour grapes,’ but please try to understand. It’s like when you are in love with someone you overlook their flaws (even though you recognise them) and you can become despised enemies after you discover attributes you didn’t realise the other had. My position has changed due to discoveries I never anticipated. So reserve your judgment of me until you read the whole story.

I was a priest for twenty years and was always led to believe that separation of the Church and State was like two parallel lines that never meet, but I was soon to find out that like the celibate clergy, it’s a truth in terms of policy position only, it is not true in fact.

I discovered this painfully in my last parish, Glenmore Park.

In our community was…

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An Open Letter to Mike Carlton

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The Australian Independent Media Network

InUnityIsStrengthDear Mike Carlton

As is often the case when I write letters to people, I am writing to you as a representative of a greater group. I think you can guess who this group might be. The Ruddites.

It would be inaccurate for me to say I always read your column in the SMH because I very often don’t. But sometimes I do and I usually find it quite amusing and clever and refreshingly nut-free unlike many other opinion columnists printed frequently in the mainstream press. But the column you published yesterday, on the same topic as The Age’s editorial, was, I’m sorry to say, a shocker. Have you ever heard the phrase: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result? Many of your readers might have forgotten that you wrote on this very same subject – asking the Prime Minister…

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Behind Every Man Of Steel

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Sexism of hollywood and films

The Dish

Matt Zoller Seitz picks up on the “striking and curious” absence of fleshed-out female characters in the new movie:

Lois is an important character, but only for how she furthers Clark/Superman’s attempts to understand himself and claim his destiny; she’s ultimately much less of a fully-realized, freestanding human being than the kooky, narcissistic Lois Lane played by Margot Kidder in the Reeve films, or even Kate Bosworth’s Lois in “Superman Returns,” a melancholy figure defined by her capacity to move on after the hero’s abrupt departure from Earth. Adams’ Lois is tough and smart but has no personality, only drive, and she’s not as integral to the action as she seems to be on first glance … females exist, for the most part, to be saved, or to have things explained to them.

Alyssa confesses she’s had enough of the standard superhero romance:

If we’re going to be clobbered with two…

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