A nice little double in today’s op-eds in The Australian. The last stage of capitalism may not be imperialism or monopoly, but Pollyannaism — the desperate appeal to an optimism devoid of specifics. Nick Cater has one of these, which he’s written umpteen times before. Kiss of the whip this time is that, in a column on “optimism”, he has this line:
Christopher Pearson, a former columnist for The Australian who died in 2013, noted the deep-seated pessimism in the rhetoric of global warming …
Christopher Pearson? You’re quoting Christopher Pearson in a column on optimism? He was the single most despairing man I ever met, who held himself together only by cleaving to a literal Catholicism whose founding belief is that we are born in sin. What’s next on the Catering show, Jeffrey Dahmer’s vegan cookbook?
Who’s publishing these pessimists anyway? Well, the Oz for one. Across the fold, it’s Maaauuuuuuurice Newman. Sing it, space cowboy:
Turnbull appears to believe a fun-loving, optimistic persona will attract the voter support he craves. Of course, optimism, positivity and a “don’t worry, be happy” song have their place. But …
But? What but? But us no buts, space cowboy. What’s the deal:
Australia is unprepared for a global slowdown. More than a quarter-century of uninterrupted growth has created arrogant leaders who “don’t read all the negative stuff” and show contempt for the laws of economics and unintended consequences … Not only has this divided society on economic grounds, it has undermined belief in a value system that gave us resilience, long a feature of the Australian economy. Come the next recession we will miss that resilience and there will be no China or Howard-Costello surplus to shelter us.
Jaysus, Mauuuuuurice, way to kill the buzz. Still, you can’t say The Australian doesn’t give you pluralism: contentless optimism versus contentless pessimism. Beats sober analysis I guess. Pollyanna versus Eeyore. Grudge match. Foxtel should siphon that off for pay-per-view.
Crikey should pay you some sort of nausea stipend for reading Nick Carter’s drivel. Or, perhaps it is the office punishment for leaving your dishes in the sink instead of the dishwasher.
LOL Sheesh Nudiefish. As if there’d be a dishwasher (or even a sink) in the Crikey bunker. 🙂
True…true….
That’s a gutsy move reading The Oz, darn sure I’m not up to it. We will take comfort by assuming it was a giveaway copy & nobody actually paid for it.
You paid for it Zut. So did I. Unaccounted Federal Government gifts to Newscorpse out of your taxes and mine and although I haven’t seen the inside of a copy of The Australian for a long time, I’ll bet what little advertising it contains includes a substantial percentage of Government adverts.
The Australian does seem to have several writers (Cater, Kelly) who are able to submit whatever they like, and it gets published in its entirety without editorial scrutiny – without any concern for consistency of tone or for that matter, coherence. And this media company has Rundle, who seems to have the same privileges.
But I’m really not sure who Crikey thinks this endless snark about The Australian is for. As GR’s fanboys here have indicated – no one who reads Crikey takes any notice of The Australian. So who cares?
Not to mention those grumpbois who get all teary at anything that GR writes.
Weird that in the captured media environment that Australia enjoys, independent commentary about the status quo is uninteresting?
I care, for one.
Not sure grundle should be the one to mention grudge matches, given his bouts with the usual suspects.