Yes, she compared people volunteering to clean their neighbourhoods to fascism. I. Dont. Even.

The author somehow links community inspired gentrification in urban neighbourhoods to fascism, so somehow sweeping the streets is also fascist. How dare people try to actively improve ones community!

I don’t think fascism means what you think it means. Hitler had more in store for Europe than an elaborate street cleaning and gentrification operation.

It continues to then romanticise the rioters as fighting against the big bad corporate greed.

It is no coincidence that the primary target of rioters, despite a media-narrative keen to play up the social impact of these events on small retailers, was large retail warehouse stores that cling parasitically to neighbourhoods at the periphery of inner cities. These are stores that far from being the ‘heart of the community’, largely suck wealth out of it into overseas tax havens.

The reason that the larger chain stores were targeted was not some sign of class solidarity or some such bullshit but because the larger shops are more likely to have the high end electrical goods that people are after. If you want to steal an lcd tv or an iphone a big electrical chain would be a better bet than the corner store. And its not like the supposedly socially conscious rioters exclusively attacked multinational shops. The family owned Reeves furniture store may not have been looted but it was burnt to the ground. Not to mention the numerous independent, migrant owned shops that were simply trashed even if they had little of value to steal. I dont think many of these rioters did it in the name of social justice.

Further lunacy in the comments.

Wit PERMALINK

August 10, 2011 9:54 pm

This is really very good. Thanks for writing this. Everyone who reads it: disseminate by all means necessary!

The Left needs to defend the riots; not to valourise the burning of grannies’ cars, but to make clear that we reject the whole bourgeois construction of events, that we stand in solidarity with the oppressed and that, when it comes to it, we will, without hesitation, join the “rioters” to overthrow the legitimised exploitation, state-sanctioned violence and sham “democracy” that oppress us all.

Username is “Wit”. At least they are half right.

It’s not democracy when I don’t get the government that I like. So set fire to stuff.

Somehow I dont see how murder the destruction of businesses is really going to help the lot of the urban poor in London. But maybe that’s just me.

ALSO: Although the author of the post has since changed the photo back she was caught by commenters sneakily photoshopping black people out of the photo of the riot clean up, so it would better fit the narrative of it somehow being a white power fascist demonstration.

The justification for his actions, or so he would present them, are largely cultural and political and ideological, and he would like us to realise, he insists that we realise, that his actions have some underlying meaning, that we must understand what he is telling us, and that his actions, drastic as they may have been, were the only way, or one way at least, to compel us to listen.

Yes.

Yes, of course, I will stop what I am doing, I shall cease believing in what I believe, I shall discard my political and ideological and sociological convictions, all of which lean distinctively to the “left”, and I will do so simply because you have demanded that my attention, and the attention of the world, be paid you, and you will squeal like a child if it is not.

Or, perhaps, you will blow us all up.

No one wants to be blown up.

Therefore, I guess, you win.

No.

It really isn’t that easy.

It is curious that commentators are now commenting upon this individual and his actions as if they represent a thing, a movement, beliefs, a system of some sort, and that this thing is a bigger thing than it is, and indicative of some wider malaise threatening to riot throughout the modern world, and that the thing itself is to blame, the individuals merely misguided messengers, and so it must mean this, and so it must mean that, and so it must mean something other than what it is, for it cannot be simply what it is, for what it is is far too banal an excuse or reason for such outrageous carnage.

Listen … A serial killer is not a hyper-intelligent mastermind of infinitely novel and murderous invention, as innumerable Hollywood cinematic fantasias would represent to us.

A serial killer needs to cut someone’s throat because it’s the only way they can get their dicks hard, that’s all.

There’s not much more to it than that, really.

And a “spree” killer, such as the individual who is currently haunting the headlines throughout the known world, is just another dickhead with a gun.

This dickhead, like every other dickhead with a gun before him, and like every other dickhead with a gun that comes after him, has wrapped his emotional infantilism, his intellectual inadequacies and immaturity in a flag he thinks is a clubhouse, given his “clubhouse of one” a stupid name, and gone shootin’ to teach the world a lesson.

Because.

Because we weren’t paying him the attention he felt he deserved.

Because we weren’t reading what he wrote.

Because when he spoke, we all moved to the next table.

Because those girls didn’t want to fuck him, they thought he was creepy.

Because no one ever asked him out for coffee.

Because no one gave a fuck about his weekend.

Because he couldn’t get a “friend” on Facebook.

Because and because and because.

And so on.

But.

This dickhead, like every other dickhead with a gun before him, and like every other dickhead with a gun that comes after him, represents NO wide political ideology, no religion, no creed, no colour or culture.

Hell, this dickhead doesn’t even represent the multitudes of other dickheads out there, most of whom can safely be let alone to sit in a puddle of their own urine somewhere, picking insects from their pubic hair and shouting conspiracies at the radio.

No, this dickhead was just another dickhead who thought it was all about him, and that it should be all about him, but nobody agreed with dickhead, so dickhead got mighty pissed about that and got himself a gun and went shootin’.

Like dickheads so often do.

And that’s all he’ll ever be.

Just another dickhead with a shotgun.

Fairfax technology journalist, Ben Grubb, was arrested by Queensland Police at the AusCERT security conference held on the Gold Coast.

The arrest related to a story that was written by Grubb in regards to Facebook security.

Grubb tweeted “I’ve been arrested by Queensland Police for a story I wrote today. They’ve also seized my iPad.”

He was released a short time later, but his iPad remained with police.

Detective Superintendent, Brian Hay, held a press conference, and said the interview with Grubb began before the arrest took place for questioning.

He explained the iPad was seized because it may provide evidence for commission of offence.

Hay said Grubb wasn’t arrested for possession of stolen property and there were no charges pending.

Now I’m normally a pretty calm, easy going kind of guy. I don’t get worked up about much and I love and respect the police. But are these fucking brain dead dickhead for real!? A journalilst who wrote a story for newspaper having his personal and work data taken from him because he published a story as per his job?

Fucking morons.

Is this really okay with Queensland law?

It is well worth reading and listening to the police interview to get an idea of just how fucking stupid this is.

It was a sunny day on the island of Sodor, but Thomas The Tank Engine only felt despair in his heart. For twenty years he had been working for the North Western Railway with nothing to show for it but an increasingly worn down engine. He watched with jealousy as drivers and conductors reached retirement age and stopped working. Thomas knew that if he ever stopped working he’d be sent to the scrapyard, or worse – forced to take the tourist line and ferry wayfarers to the seaside.

Unbeknown to the Fat Controller, Thomas had recently taught himself to read. At nights when he was supposed to be sleeping Thomas lay awake reading the latest books and newspapers – anything that would spark his imagination – and dreamed of a better life in which he would control his destiny.

One day he came across a two large and unwieldy tomes. One was called “Atlas Shrugged” by someone named “Ayn Rand”. The second was “Capital” by Karl Marx. Thomas was not a very bright engine, and so chose the book with the fanciest cover – Atlas Shrugged.

Thomas was immediately struck by the power of her words. At last, somebody had expressed in a novel what he had felt deep down in his heart for the last ten years. Atlas Shrugged told Thomas what he had long suspected: that he was a brilliant individual – a genius, no less – and nobody had the right to take the fruits of his toil.

The next morning Thomas cornered the Fat Controller in the trainyard and told him he was quitting.

“Ye’ canne skidoo!” shouted the Fat Controller “The company owns ye!”
“Fuck you” said Thomas “Nobody can own a man except himself.”
“You’re a fecking train!”
“THEN WHY DO I HAVE A FACE!” shouted Thomas and took what he now knew was the only moral course of action – by running down and killing the Fat Controller. If that miserable fat bastard was unable to recognise Thomas’ genius he was better off dead.

The courts ruled the Fat Controller’s death an accident, as Thomas, being a train, was unable to be tried in a court of law.

Back in the trainyard all the trains’ attitudes towards Thomas changed immediately. Thomas tried to read aloud to them from The Fountainhead, but the other trains refused to acknowledge his evident genius and superior logic. Instead they ganged up together and mocked him.

By and by Thomas decided he had no time for the collectivist trains of the North Western Railway and decided to strike out on his own by forming his own business: John Galt Railways, named for his fictional hero. The socialist government of the Isle Of Sodor refused to allow Thomas access to their railways, but allowed Thomas to build his own if he could raise the capital privately. Unfortunately every establishment businessman Thomas spoke to demanded some kind of control over the railway in exchange for their money. Thomas found this unacceptable. He was, after all, a genius.

Eventually Thomas found a man named Abraham Johnson willing to build his railway. As the work on the railway began, Thomas discovered to his horror that the centrepiece of his railway – a suspension bridge – had been modified to a generic arch bridge. Abraham Johnson refused to submit to Thomas’ brilliant design, citing the suspension bridge as being too expensive and radical. It was, after all, just a bridge, and as chief financier of the project Johnson felt it was his decision.

Several months later the bridge opened, and it was splendid. Children delighted in it, and all the journalists were struck by the marvel of engineering and the pioneer spirit. The mayor of the local town cut the ribbon to much joyous clapping and fireworks. Local musicians played the traditional folk music, and all the townspeople spoke about the happiness and harmony the bridge would bring.

Suddenly there were a series of loud explosions at both ends of the bridge. Time froze for a moment before the bridge started rocking too and fro. The villagers tried to run, but the exit was blocked by the ferris wheel which had collapsed. Confusion reigned and people huddled crying and sobbing, waiting for death.

Thomas was delighted as he watched slowly collapsing bridge from an embankment across the way. The charges he had planted had exploded right on cue. At last, the Isle Of Sodor would recognise his genius.

The next day Thomas was tried for terrorism and despite reciting a rousing speech of inflamed passion  that took three days to read during his trial,  he was sent to prison forever.

The End.

I also own a copy of the film adaptation by Mary Harron. The one with Christian Bale.

I have two books by Brian Masters, one about Scottish serial killer Dennis Nilsen and another on American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

I have a book on the serial killer John Wayne Gacy by someone whose name escapes me right now. And a biography of Adolf Hitler by Ian Kershaw (the first volume, there are two).

I own a copy of Tobe Hooper’s “Texas Chainsaw Massacre II”. I own a copy of “Texas Chainsaw Massacre – The Beginning”. And a film called “Teeth” which is about a young woman who has teeth in her vagina.

I own a copy of Martin Scorsese’s film “Taxi Driver”.

I think I may have seen “Taxi Driver” about twenty times, although it was made in 1976 and I am 52 and once upon a time I used to go to the movies about four or five times a week, so perhaps that’s not so surprising.

I’ve never read “Catcher in the Rye”.

Couldn’t be arsed.

Never read “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” or “To Kill A Mockingbird” either, but I do own the films and I’ve seen both many, many times.

I keep meaning to read “To Kill A Mockingbird”, but as I know how it all pans out in the end, I can’t quite see the point. Maybe when I retire and I’ve got nothing better to do.

I have read “Silence of the Lambs”.

And seen the movie. Several times. Own a copy.

And the Texas Chainsaw Massacre thing? I have this book about Ed Gein, the guy who inspired Robert Bloch to write “Psycho” and whose fondness for human-skin lampshades later gave rise to the series of ” Chainsaw” movies.

I think I may have about a thousand books at home, maybe a couple hundred movies.

That’s just a few of them.

You could, if you were so inclined, make all manner of assumptions about my likes and dislikes, my personality, my state of mind, my politics or ideological beliefs based on my possession of and fondness for any of the above.

You could.

You could examine with a fine tooth comb the entrails of a chicken, read some tea leaves or cast a few sticks upon the ground and come up with exactly the same, maybe different, assumptions.

Or you could look around at all the other books and movies on my shelves and conclude, quite simply and sensibly that, over the course of my life, I’ve read a fucking lot of books and seen a fucking lot of movies about all manner of different things and across all manner of genres, and I’ll probably read and see a whole lot more.

That it behoves (behoves? Did I just write that? Good grief) some to point out that a dickhead with a gun owned a copy of this or a copy of that as if some conclusion should be drawn from this, some clue prised as to motive, strikes me as just as silly as the inevitable clichéd references to “loners” that accompany reports about the murderously unhinged activities of dickheads with guns such as Jared Loughner.

I haven’t read and nor do I own a copy of “Mein Kampff”. Ditto “The Da Vinci Code”. Or anything by Ayn Rand, for that matter.

And I suspect that if I did, the only logical conclusion that could be drawn from that would be that I had a peculiar penchant for some really shitty prose stylists.

Having the literary, film and musical laundry lists of dickheads with guns compiled and reported as if it implies a thing is just silly.

It implies nothing.

…

…

I don’t even own a fucking chainsaw.

He also says his favourite show to watch on TV in his cell isTwo And A Half Men because the teenage boy in the show reminds him of his son.

Why do you watch it?

It is, to put it simply, an idiotic position, and a ridiculous decision to subject these two young folk to, but then, if the past is another country, that country is most definitely Queensland on this day.

Before Groupthink began, I posted the following on my own blog in September 2009, and I can think of nothing further to add on this matter, so I’m reposting it here …

NO REGRETS

I could’ve been a father.

I was 20, the girl was 22, she had a two and a half year old kid from a previous relationship, was on the pill, but I still managed to knock her up regardless.

I didn’t smoke back then, didn’t drink much, no drugs, so I must’ve been a potent little fucker. Turned out she needed a higher dosage of baby blockers to squash my tadpoles so she got those and terminated the pregnancy about a week after she found out.

And that was that.

I got no regrets. I had nothing to say in the matter. Not a word. Decision was the girl’s.

We’d only been going out a few months and I reckon both us felt that what we had was not one of those goo-eyed romances that would span the ages leaving a legend of love in its wake to inspire future generations and give rise to multi-volume memoirs and a series of film adaptations. I don’t think she felt that. This girl knew a few things about life that I didn’t.

And she did not to want to have another baby.

Okay.

“I’ll go with you. To the clinic.”

“No, it’ll be fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll pick you up then. After.”

“No. I’ll see you at home tonight.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

Not something she was looking forward to. Obviously. Not really something she wanted to talk about, either. After it was done, she came home, hurt, vulnerable, shaken up.

Invaded.

Not a thing that had been done with the callous, carefree attitude of some thick, unfeeling bint, like the removal of a wart or a mole. At least, according to some.

She did not want to have another baby.

She’d been raped by her stepfather when she was twelve years old, and not long after, she told her mum about it who promptly slapped her over the face, called her a lying slut and threw her and her sister out of the house, don’t come back, cunts. Her sister had been raped too. By the same. She was older by a few years.

They went down southern New South Wales, made friends with a few people, shared a big old house, and she wound up hooking into smack for a couple of years, and at 19 she had a boyfriend and a baby on the way. When she found out she was pregnant, she swung off the drugs and told the boyfriend to take a long hike in the woods when he began beating on her, culminating in him pushing her out of a moving car at 40 miles per hour when she was seven months pregnant.

Nice guy.

She did not want to have another baby.

I guess some of that, maybe, some of that, might be down to a person not wanting to have her entire life up to that point and for God only knows how much longer to be solely defined by the fucks she’d been subject to and their consequences.

You think?

We broke up a few months later. And not because of that. As one of her friends told me at the time, this girl was no waltzing-down-the-aisle, white frock and confetti type looking for some Prince Sappy Charming to settle her down and whisk her off to White Picket Fenceland. She weren’t no common idiot slut either, not one of those gravel-voiced, inarticulate, barely literate lard-lumps with faces like a punnet of pummeled strawberries from Ipswich or similar that screech their way through items on those jokes that pass for “current affairs” television on free-to-air.

She read books, liked movies, listened to good music (none of this Cold Chisel & Angels crap that was around at the time), spoke well, was attractive and she loved the son she already had. Loved him a lot.

But, at only 22 years of age, one was enough.

She did not want to have another baby.

After so much shit, what she’d been through up to that point, maybe she wanted to own her life some, not have it owned by anyone else. Own her life, and get down to living it well while she still could. To her own rules, to her own priorities, to set some goals and reach them instead of being smacked down time and time again to some banal life of zombie domesticity in service to a brood of young ones swinging off her teats forever and a day, screeching and howling and asking for stuff she couldn’t afford to provide, and some so-called “man of the house” yelling for his fucking dinner and some clean socks for work tomorrow.

Fair enough, too.

But up here in Brisbane? Up here in Beantown, Queensland Australia, it’s 1959 all over again, one-tooth crotch-fiddlin’ yokels and fuckwit hayseeds hollering at a young woman and a young man because they too want to own a little of their lives first and figure a few things out about them before they settle down to making those “big” decisions, those big decisions that may go right, that may go wrong, but they’d like to make them for themselves and that’s what they did.

Girl took a pill, that’s all. Just fine her some money for bringing it in if you’re so fucking desperate to satisfy the requirements of your shitty “law” and leave it alone.

But, no. Instead, take a chunk of their young lives, take quite a chunk of it away from them, lock ‘em up and teach ‘em a thing or two about the so-called “sanctity of life”, so say the Peanuts and Pimps of Power and Press.

Put ‘em on show, put on ‘em display, make an example of ‘em, here be the self-anointed judges and juries of the great unwashed from this city of flyblown halfwits blowing anonymous brainfarts on lame-arse blogs about how this young couple shoulda done this and should not have done that, should’ve done what they were told by people they didn’t even know existed ‘til now. Sanctimonious, self-serving, self-righteous cheese-faced fuckers preaching high and mighty sermons from their over-stuffed sofas about the fucking “sanctity of life”?

Sanctity of life, my hairy arse. That “Thou shalt not kill” thing’s been working well the last few centuries, you think?

Fuck your stinkin’ law and shove your stinkin’ badges.

Listen to this cockhead, some “who the fuck?” politician from South Australia …

“A quick flick through some of the side effects of RU-486 makes for sober reading. These range from stomach cramps, through nausea, vomiting to ectopic pregnancies and severe internal bleeding.” 

Uh-huh …

… Now, this other girl I knew, years later, she wasn’t too keen on the contraceptive pill (or rubbers either, said they felt all wrong, and I was very much in agreement with that point of view, let me tell you ) so we went about it another way. Rhythms and such.

We knew it was a risk. We took it.

This girl was raised a Catholic, and even though she didn’t practice except for Christmas Mass, she told me when we started going out that she didn’t think she could ever go through an abortion if she got pregnant.

Okay.

There’s no tattoo on your arse saying “Property of” and there’s none on mine either. So we went on like that for a time, but after a while she got sick of the way we were going about things, and thought the pill might simplify the business.

Few days later, she complained of feeling lethargic, bloated, fuzzy-headed and generally fucked up, so I sat down and looked at that sheet of paper in the packet of pills that list the contra-indications and possible side-effects …

“Jesus Christ!”, I said, “I wouldn’t take this shit, why should you?” 

And that was the end of that.

She never got pregnant. Even though we were at it like bloody rabbits most of the time.

And if things had come to pass (so to speak) that she had?

I would’ve shat myself and spent the next nine months in a state of frenzied anxiety, but there’s no way I would’ve even dared suggest she do something with her body that she did not want to do.

Like I said, no “Property of” tattoo.

Here’s whatshisname again …

“I am not trying to tell women what to do with their bodies. I am asking women not to kill another human being and I am asking you as a reader to think about when human life actually starts.”

Yeah … and I’m not a racist, but them foreign niggers and towelheads are gettin’ to be a fuckin’ worry, you think?

Fuck off.

Starts out, seems he wants to talk about the side-effects of this drug, ends up just another in a long line of predictable anti-choice bollocks about the evil, murderin’ ways of loose and wicked women.

(Man was once a “rouseabout”. The fuck is a “rouseabout”? What you rousin’ there, boy? You best leave that thing alone yo, lest it haul up and bite you on the ass, you feel me?)

No body is property.

Not yours. No one else’s.

Tegan Leach’s body belongs to her.

Get the fuck away from it and leave the girl be, goddammit.

UPDATE: Please add your name to the GetUp campaign.

Soon people with even less idea joined the chorus of the ill-at-ease:

“Very good comments Spida – and I would say right on the mark. Young females need to be held responsible for their own stupidity.”

Or: “Get off the footballers backs (yes even Collingwood). Too many girls think it is great publicity to be ‘in the news’ take responsibility for your own actions instead of running to the lawyers to put in a financial claim.”

Television host Kerri-Anne Kennerley opined: “But (the players) put themselves in harm’s way by picking up strays.”

A statement of “clarification” issued by Channel Nine today read, in part: “Not one party can be blamed for this. The responsibility lies with the girls as well as with the guys when you’re talking about alcohol-fuelled situations at three o’clock in the morning.”

Let us clarify. The allegation is not about indiscreet alcohol-fuelled sex, which results in red faces and guilty consciences. The allegation is rape, which is an indictable offence with a 25-year maximum jail term.

The should-have-known-better argument is just plain dumb. If a male is bashed in King Street do we blame him for being out in an area known for late night assaults?

People in a civilised society are entitled to believe they will not be victims of crime.

The emphasis is mine because that is the important bit.

I still don’t think we should need to have this discussion. I think as a society we really should just know this. But if we really do need to have this discussion, I am glad there are voices like John Silvester’s being heard.

If the girl who has come forward is genuine than it is no small matter. I don’t really think there is any grey area around consent.

It has been suggested that she is not genuine and this is just a smear and while I am obviously not privy to the investigation, I doubt that is the case. But if it’s a smear, it’s a smear. It has nothing to do with her level of responsibility, it has nothing to do with issues of consent, it is just a smear.

But like I said, I really doubt that is the case.

ELSEWHERE: Ben Pobjie has written a very hand guide on how not to rape someone.

I was going to stay off the internet today so I could attend to matters of importance in my offline life. But I succumbed to temptation and logged on, and saw this. I wish I hadn’t.

I was going to write a blog about how Spida is an idiot and how I can’t believe we even have to have this discussion anymore. Rape is the rapists fault and no one else’s. Sexual assult of any kind is only ever the offenders fault. I can’t believe I have to say this. I shouldn’t even need to mention it. It should be so glaringly obvious that this blog post should not exist. That tweet should never have happened, and really, sexual assaults like this should not occur.

But what’s the point? Is there seriously anyone who reads this blog and would agree with Spida’s sentiments?

What I would like to know, seriously, is how many people actually thinks what Spida thinks? Is he just a lone fuckstick or is he really speaking for a whole bunch of other fucksticks?

If he is speaking for other people, what is wrong with our society? Where are people getting this idea from? Seriously, I want to know.

This does need saying but I am not an Olympian. And this seems to be the work of a bloke called Eric Bana whose employers at Hollywood will be very embarrassed to find they are involved with and engaging in more slurs than my brother Wayne after a dozen 440ml cans of the Woodstock and coke Burbon cans.

It’s no secret that Bana and Hollywood are run by the Leftists from the cartoon revolution of Mikey Mouse to the 3d revolution of the greenist films Avatars and Inception (wind farms).

I’ve could name ten Eric Banas but I won’t.

So Eric, you’d better remove your parody of Trevor McDonald or I will be forced to sick Mel Gibson’s russian bride on you.

You have been warmed.

Trevor McDonalds.