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September 2, 2004
If you still have any doubts that the conservative, anti-democratic Murdoch Press has an explicit strategy of Green-bashing, then you can read a variety of attacks.
Andrew Bolt in the Melbourne Herald Sun does not disappoint. He talks in terms of the Greens increasingly rejecting civilisation and freedom and embracing the tyranny of tribalism -- the purity of the noble savage. The Greens are actually like the Nazi's--ecofacists!---says Bolt. That hostility reminds me of this. George Brandis' original speech can be found here.
Then there is this from tirade from Greg Sheridan in The Australian. A sample:
"The Greens are essentially left-wing Hansonites, simultaneously reactionaries and revolutionaries, who combine a hatred of modern society as it actually exists with a conspiracy-laden, fantastical view of how the world works. They offer nothing positive beyond dreamlike cliches and slogans, but their negative power is quite great. They can build nothing, they can damage much. But they may hold the balance of power in the Senate...The Greens' policies on the party's website are a mishmash of contradictory and incoherent generalised statements. Brown is smart enough to know that the Greens can only suffer from having intelligible or specific policies on the record. They seek to embody a sentiment of rage and frustration rather than to advance real policies."
The Greens have no reason. They are violently emotional, driven by nasty out-of-control passion. They should not be allowed to have a say in ruling the country. This is the standard conservative attack on democracy, which has its roots in Plato.
It always suprises me how the conservative voice of reason in politics is so violently emotional. I should not be suprised, since conservatism in politics is about fostering fear and threats to justify its demand for order.
Well, the conservatives are going to have to get used to a Green Senate.
The Australian's editorial strikes a more reasonable tone. It says that:
"The Greens are now too powerful and popular to be dismissed as eccentrics.... Which means their platform should be subject to serious scrutiny, like those of any other major political party. The party's policies demonstrate an utter absence of coherent thinking on the issues that matter most for a safe, fair and prosperous Australia....But the prospect of any government having to negotiate with [Bob Brown] to pass its program is alarming. There is no need to call Senator Brown and his supporters unnecessary names to demonstrate that his party presents a threat to the prosperity and well-being of all Australians. The Australian Greens' program does the job very well."
I guess that we can expect the Murdoch Press to stay on message throughout the next six week. So we will witness more violent eruptions from the conservative political unconscious.
The Green-bashing isrepeated by Howard and co. So what we have is the conservative's third front of the scare campaign (the others are the economy and terrorism).
More on the issue over at Road to Surfdom.
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I don't think I've seen this much lather since One Nation.
If I was Bob Brown I'd be laughing at how well it is going for the Greens. Actually he has seemed rather jovial of late.