“Massive kudos.” “Interview of the year.” “Legendary.” Such were the gifts from the workers to their queen. The Monday night buzz in legacy media was for Four Corners and its majesty. Sarah Ferguson’s “match up” with Steve Bannon was not “gobsmackingly” good. It was a smack to the gob of good sense. Still, some journalists saw “strength” in Ferguson. Me? I saw a soft-tissue massage.
This cannot be “current affairs”. Surely, this was not praised by other journalists as “world class”, “masterful” or as anything short of a horror. A horror that has mistaken itself for a romantic comedy in which Meg Ryan is the lead. Meg meets her fiery “match” in a book-shop parcel mix-up. He has her Margaret Atwood novels. She has his Milo Yiannopoulos.
They both learn soon that opposites attract!
Last night’s program was like that, but without the will-they-won’t-they. The pair did not argue to outpace any sexual tension. They argued to outpace another kind of tension: the racial tension Bannon is famous for selling.
Last night, I heard Ferguson tell her guest she had no reason to believe that he was racist. Last night, journalist Lisa Wilkinson must have heard something else entirely. Who knows. We know what she saw, however, because she describes the great spectacle on Twitter thus: the “master” Ferguson just gave a “grilling”. So, Ferguson’s failure to ask a guy who monetised racism about his product creation is now a master grill.
Honestly. The fact of Bannon’s personal character is not the point. I don’t care one jot if this person of middling wit, who Ferguson nonetheless interviews as a genius, is racist. I am interested to learn how Ferguson, or any journalist, can fly over oceans to ask questions of the former chair of Breitbart without once thinking, “I’d best have a look at this Breitbart.”
From the time he was appointed chair, Bannon dug a reeking for-profit pit. Next, he filled it with shit — a pardon to the gentle reader, but there is no term more fit for the stink of racism made for profit. Some of this unspeakably stupid, deceitful and hate-crammed waste has been taken down from Breitbart. Some of it has been archived by its targets, which were largely black people, uppity people and uppity black people, such as those troublemakers, Black Lives Matter.
And here we have Ferguson conspicuously not asking Bannon the most piddling question that she can: are you a racist? As though this were even a question for the former investment banker whose trade in the hate commodity not only diminished the will of those brave “troublemakers”, but helped bring journalism to this dead end. This dead end where anybody who has a bad thing to say about the fool who became the president is very welcome to say it.
Bannon didn’t invent racism, but he sure helped tailor it to the “sharing” economy.
Last night, the “I’m With Her” Australian media auxiliary praised Ferguson. They did not make the “outstanding” and “tragic” height of idiocy approved by Hillary Clinton. But they made some great exertion and cheered on this 40-minute neo-nationalist ad.
Bannon outsmarted the host. The host made a fool of herself and of history when she claimed that the truly powerful racist was not the Goldman Sachs guy sitting before her, but the poor white vulnerable trash. These people are the ones we have to look out for.
How do you do this? How do you forget that reactionary, ultra-reactionary and fascist sentiment always starts with the ruling class and is a poverty of thought that trickles down.
Even Glenn Beck gets this. Some ex-Fox News tea party calamity recalls the basic Goebbels tale. And anyone who has ever done five minutes with Durkheim or any sort of modern era sociology knows that anomie is used to the advantage of powerful men.
Look. I know I go on about the ABC and all its myopia, and by now, I’m that girl who cried Marx. But to truly know less of Western social history than the detached, and now actually irrelevant, monster who is sitting before you is a crime.
Or, it’s at least as bad as, say, Sky News giving time to a Nazi. Ferguson, like her pals on Twitter, has no context outside “I’m with Her”. Politics is nothing. Hardship is nothing. On the ABC, we know that the only true power is the evil white working class.
No. The evil of profit and the detachment it produces is before you. And the opportunistic deceit of nationalism will be the working class rationale for the same old ruling class.
What did you think of the Four Corners interview? Write to boss@crikey.com.au to let us know.
I didn’t know Lisa Wilkinson was a journalist so thanks for the info.
I watched the interview and it reminded me of one of the kiddies from “the feed” interviewing a pop star they adore. Breathless and fast paced skimming of issues only. I was almost expecting her to announce the tour dates and ticket outlets. Bannon was able to answer by deflection and deception almost every question Ferguson put to him. It was indeed the sort of surface level get to know you shit that Ms Wilkinson herself might have vomited up on whatever TV rubbish she now fronts.
Some lovely writing above Raz. Keep crying Marx….someone has to.
Fuck Todd Sampson
I think this is a step down from fire, R?
Look at the way Annastacia Palaszczuk has been attacked in Crikey for taking a small action against racist politicians in Queensland by removing the extra staff from that racist party, the Katter party. They are all defending the racists by invoking “free speech” and it’s coming from Crikey writers and almost all of the commenters. I am very angry about this and it is only your articles which have made me hesitate to cancel my subscription. Although my action would be tokenistic, I don’t want any part of supporting a publication which backs racists with my hard earned money.
Hi, S. By no means am I opposed to the idea of “free speech”. But I do believe that the very possibility of a speech that is free needs to be examined. That is, under what conditions can anyone speak freely? And, if we want these free conditions, do they start with speech.
I am not on top of the Queensland stuff at all, so will not comment. I really don’t know anything about it at all and I haven’t read it here, because only so much time etc. But, I do wanna point out that the charge of racism can be used (any charge can) cynically by those in power. We can see this very clearly at the minute in the UK. Labour’s Corbyn has had many charges thrown at him by the powerful conservatives in his party. Corbyn is a popularly elected leader, as you likely know. Labour is now the largest and youngest political party in Europe. So, it’s the parliamentary and pro-business party figures who have thrown everything at him. This anti-Semistism stuff is the latest. It’s horrible. Anti-semitism is real. It is on the rise. I do not doubt that there is some of it in UK Labour. But, there’s some of it everywhere. I’d say it is absent in Corbyn and his policies US UK allegiance with Israel is very easily seen as NOT anti-Semitic. The whole “he laid a wreath for a Palestinian terrorist” thing is a sham. No terrorists in that grave. Which is not just me making the claim that they were not terrorists. They weren’t designated as terrorists. (Although may have been by Israel. Pretty generous definition of terrorist there which appears to apply to 13 year old girls unarmed and in peaceful protest.)
So. In this case, we can say that the charge of racism is being weaponised NOT to oppose racism, but to oust a guy.
Similarly. I am afraid I have to say that I think the Facebook and Twitter and Google decisions to censor racists is terrible. It is not even the decision, really. It is the fact they can make decisions. They have the power to bury information. And if they do it to MIlo, they can do it to me.
And, all these companies have already used their powers to quash expression from the left.
It is a question of power, for me. I would prefer not to hear and read racist things. Of course. But I cannot support banning them. Because that power can and will be used by someone we do not like in future. Again, I know absolutely nothing of the Qld case.
For me, the thing with Ferguson is that this was a waste. She ought to have looked at the Breitbart model of business and power. Why could we not have him explain how he monetised racism in his own accumulation of power? She just took him at face value. Like all she would say is “well you shouldn’t say those things because some of the white working class might take them the wrong way”. UGH. The only people accused of racism here was the white working class. Like they invented it. And have the power to pay people to write racist lies and promote them on all social media and in theatres etc It was just so thick and sensationalist and we really are getting quite close to neonationalism and if a journalist cannot read a book about how that happens so she can out-argue a man who is profiting from it, well. Jeez.
Reactionary and fascist movements only appear to be populist.
I agree completely about the Four Corners episode. What happened in Queensland was that three years ago the minority Labor government gave the Katter party some extra staff in exchange for their support to govern as minor party status. After they won a majority status this situation continued. When Anning made that disgusting speech she demanded that they disassociate themselves from his position on White Australia and condemn his use of the words ‘final solution’ on refugees. When they refused to do so she removed their extra staff leaving them with the usual number of staff which every other backbencher gets. Painting this principled act as an attack on free speech is what we expect to read in the Murdoch press, not Crikey. I don’t mean to derail your discussion here but want to clarify the situation. Keep up the great work you do.
Thanks, S. Forgive my ignorance, thanks for amending it and thanks also for drawing my attention to what sounds like an exercise in ethics!
I have to go read, now.
Although, I will say I am a little biased. I am rarely impressed by politicians!
What horrified me more about the article, condemning the Queensland Premier for her actions against KAP, was that buried in the same article was the fact that SERCO had been given the contract to run an institutional facility housing Indigenous women.
SERCO should never be allowed near any correction centre. Its past actions in this sector have been widely condemned and has had contracts cancelled.
This should have been the leading headline with the KAP irrelevancies as an incidental.
Hear, hear!
Well said Helen.
I agree with every line.
Actual Nazis like Blair Cottrell are glorying in being able to share, across social media, material from an actual trusted outlet like the ABC in which Bannon and his ideology are treated with more respect than they give to the average centrist or God-forbid left wing politician. An interview; ABC news headlines and reports of the interview; all bending over backwards to show him respect.
But don’t dare criticise him or them or you want “silos” and “enclaves” and you’re a censoring fascist (curiously, criticisms the same journos don’t seem interested in throwing at the likes of Breitbart!) The NY times idiocy, where apparently denying Bannon his umpteenth platform to spout his racist and hate-filled rubbish is terrible but failing to offer that platform in the first place to someone moderate is completely fine.
Yes! You’re quite right.
I agree that journalists ought not to retreat into their silos of ideology etc
But they did. And it is for this reason they do not understand much about the present. A liberal (as Guy says in his piece on the New Yorker Bannon thingy) is often a liberal not through any intellectual effort. They simply accept status quo opinion. Which is a ruling class opinion that everything is fine. The only problem is that some people think bad thoughts.
So they have forgotten to read Durkheim or Polanyi or Marx or, geez, Freud or anything that says what was once common knowledge “economic and political conditions inform each other”.
So if they think that Bannon BANNON is the scholar to get them out of their silos?! A cynic who knows what is known by people who have some framework for understanding history (or, I contend, have ever seen a documentary about 1933 on the history channel) or has heard the terms “double movement” or “dialectic” or has paid attention to the fact that parties of the hard left are also rising in the age they first began to notice with Trump? If they think they should talk to BANNON and not a second year student of political economy?!
It is their fault for being so wilfully ignorant for so long.
I appeared on a panel television program this time last year. I was asked to speak on my book about how Marx and his framework can help us understand the present. Two journalists were there and they both just screamed “it doesn’t work it doesn’t work”. I said that I wasn’t there to claim that “it” worked but to say the Marxist framework for understanding history driven by capitalism was really useful. They said “it doesn’t work” and I asked them if they had read Marx, and one said “no” and one said “some. Years ago” and I tried to ask them how a framework for understanding history “doesn’t work” but it was just hopeless. I just got “Stalin was a murderer.”
So the silos, or rather THE silo, is built. All these old books available free on the internet are not read. All these videos by good professors of the present on YouTube are unwatched. All we have to show we are all such tolerant guys is Steve Bannon?
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Re : your remark Helen “but to say the Marxist framework for understanding history driven by capitalism was really useful. They said “it doesn’t work” and I asked them if they had read Marx, and one said “no” and one said “some. Years ago” and I tried to ask them how a framework for understanding history “doesn’t work” but it was just hopeless. I just got “Stalin was a murderer.” ”
THAT observation serves as a fair proxy to (so called) Journalism about the 1st world and it isn’t amiss among the majority of comments on Crikey. One or two employees might be guided by the example that you have provided. I am on the threshold of “pulling the pin”.
This “pin” – would it be from a grenade or the coupling of the Crikey carriage of this slow train?
Either way, it would be a shame to lose your erudition & incisive analysis on an encyclopaedic range of issues.
Approximately once per month something approaching originality appears. The majority of the content is just old plonk in old bottles. Appealing to Luther there may just be another side – but Luther was rather loathed to be constrained by his own dictums (e).
I’ve supported every initiative of Crikey that has come my way in the hope that a novel trail may be constructed among the chaos and fake news but to date the progress isn’t encouraging.
Some of the criticism directed at the writers at Crikey is just sour grapes but some of it is informed and deserved. Either way it becomes a tad disappointing, after reading a few issues, that the tone of an article for a given writer can be anticipated.
Oh the hoomanity..it’s an outrage. Hand in your subscription.
What horrified me more about the article, condemning the Queensland Premier for her actions against KAP, was that buried in the same article was the fact that SERCO had been given the contract to run an institutional facility housing Indigenous women.
SERCO should never be allowed near any correction centre. Its past actions in this sector have been widely condemned and has had contracts cancelled.
This should have been the leading headline with the KAP irrelevancies as an incidental.
SERCO is an English multi-national that offers all manner of services from air traffic control to Citizen Services (as they define it). It has been around for some time. From their web site : “Serco believes that service delivery excellence results when people, processes, and technology are perfectly aligned.”
In Oz, apparently, neither the people or the processes or the technology are perfectly aligned.
Well, regardless of the types of questions that Ferguson could have asked Bannon, he still looked and sounded like a complete arse. And of course, she could have ravaged his throat with comparisons of health, wages and crime statistics in our unionised, working class society. However, if Ferguson had explicitly made him out to be the hypocritical, mendacious, rich, fallacious, lying SOB that he really is (fancy masquerading in Op Shop clothes), then that would have just been fuel for the right-wing extremist nobs here.
You are saying that if she had some grasp of economics, it would be to the interview’s detriment?
That bit where he is talking about an actually impossible transition back to a manufacturing economy for the US? Which he’s either lying about or is too thick to know can’t happen (I’d say former)? And the best that she can come up with is “but there will be a recession a recession a recession what about a recession a recession”.
It is not that hard to learn enough abut macro-economics that you can argue it successfully with Bannon.
“Bannon outsmarted the host” – exactly. Ms Ferguson may have been able ping the hapless Joe Hockey back in the day, but Bannon showed what a poor interviewer she really is when up against someone with Bannon’s smarts.
Well, she’s a good broadcaster. And I guess people who just wanted to see a Sassy Lady interview a Bad Man liked the style.
But she doesn’t know a whole lot. Or, she has a very narrow view of power.
Ferguson is on much firmer ground when tackling Australian politicians. Which she does, terrier-like, when hosting ABC’s 7.30. Her skills are wasted on Four Corners. Or perhaps she was upsetting too many government heavies & ABC management decided to sideline her in what appears to be a prestige role.
Bingo! We have a winner!