Groupthink

Archive for category Media

An Important Message from the Australian Pharmaceutical Industry

Oct 27

Posted by Ross Sharp in Corporations, Media, Politics, Society | No Comments

Our Fellow Australians,

We of the Australian pharmaceutical industry and its related interests and concerns are alarmed at the Federal government’s recently announced policy intentions seeking to introduce mandatory dosage recommendations on prescription and non-prescription medicines and medicinal products.

It is our firm belief that introducing such restrictions on products that are legally and freely available to any Australian within current age regulations will seriously impact on the ability of the Australian pharmaceutical industry and its related interests and concerns to continue operating on the level of profitability necessary to viably invest in much-needed further research into the medical, scientific and pharmaceutical fields that are vital to the continuing health, well-being and welfare of not only all Australians, but people throughout the world.

Our independently conducted research has concluded that the introduction of such mandatory dosage restrictions and recommendations may potentially cost the industry upwards of $13 billion in lost research and development investments per annum, which carries with it dire implications for the average Australian citizen’s health and their ability to treat their health issues and concerns responsibly and independently of government interference. By restricting such current freedoms, the government also fails to grasp the enormous cost and pressure such a policy of restrictions will place upon the national health care system as more and more people, unable to responsibly self-medicate will, potentially, consume the time and attentions of health professionals on relatively trivial matters that would be best served on those far more serious.

The Federal government’s current policy intentions signify not only an interference in an individual’s right to choose their own treatment regime as their needs may dictate, but a breach of confidentiality between the recommendations of health professionals and their patients. Therefore, it is our most sincere intention to continue to aggressively protest the introduction of such a policy by the current government as we believe it represents not only a highly unfair and discriminatory imposition on our industry and its related interests and concerns, but a violation of every Australian citizen’s right to live and make decisions about the course of their lives unhindered by government intervention and restrictions.

It is down paths such as these that the seeds of totalitarianism are sown.

Sincerely,
The Australian Pharmaceutical Industry and its Related Interests and Concerns

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Freedom!

Sep 28

Posted by Spock... in Media, Society | 3 Comments

Andrew Bolt has a bi-weekly full page spread.

He appears every weekday on the radio.

He has his own TV show.

I don’t think his speech is really that threatened, do you?

The take away from today will be a discussion about “free speech”. There will inevitibly be those who wil argue that speech should be completely free and unrestricted. These libertarian types will no doubt get their knickers in a knot over it all. They will use the word “freedom” like the smurfs use “smurf”. And then there will be those who are quietly (or perhaps less quietly) glad that Bolt is finally getting his comeuppance. I have to admit that it’s like watching a murdering drug kingpin go down for tax evasion; it’s not how I’d like it to happen but part of me enjoys it all the same.

I love the idea of free speech, don’t you. I haven’t heard anyone argue otherwise. I think this debate centres more around degrees of free speech than any level of opposition to it. But like everything I think it gets pretty murky when you start looking at the details.

I think free speech would work great if everyone’s speech was equal, but it isn’t, is it? My speech is not equal to the speech of Andrew Bolt or his media asset owning overlords. Chances are, yours isn’t either.

So if a powerful media organization decided that it would like to say something about you (perhaps it is to do with your race, your performance at work, or you personal opinions outside of work) what chance does your speech have against that? Can you yell as loud as News Ltd?

Maybe these “restrictions” on free speech aren’t such a bad thing if it protects those that don’t have as much free speech as others. Maybe ensuring that those with more forceful free speech treat it with the respect and responsibility that it deserves is a good thing, even if it occasionally gets into murky water around issues of “freedom”.

Of course, when the legal system is used to shut down blogs *cough* and trample on those with soft voices the system is probably not working.

I don’t have any answers, but I think framing the discussion as “for freedom” and “against freedom” doesn’t help anyone. I think today was about “being a dickhead about it” vs “rationally discussing issues”, I think the court came down on the side of “don’t be a c***”.

But I will leave the last word to well known advocate of unity, Andrew Bolt:

“I argued then and I argue now that we should not insist on the differences between us but focus instead on what unites us as human beings. Thank you.”

That’s about all I have to say this morning. Carry on being free.

UPDATE: Dave over at Pure Poison has a copy of the law and the judgment on the blog. The issue doesn’t seem to be expressing his opinion. It seems like it was about the lies and distortions and stuff.

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Outragertainment

Sep 21

Posted by cosmicjester in Media | 2 Comments

 

OUTRAGE! SHOCK! HORROR!

 

Some days it seems like being whipped up into a collective outrage over the days nontroversy. Be it people being sacked for telling risqué jokes on their twitter accounts or the Prime Minister getting stuck into the chaser because their media adviser told them the people on talkback radio didn’t like it, it does seem like being perpetually outraged over complete non-issues is this nations favourite pastime.

Yesterday there was another outrage at the very mediocre ABC comedy At Home With Julia. According to the press reports tonight’s episode features a scene where Julia and Tim have sex under the Australian flag. Cue the usual suspects that this demeans Julia Gillard, the office of the Prime Minister and my favourite that it’s disrespectful to flags.

Mr Forrest told colleagues the satirical take on Ms Gillard’s private life demeaned the office of prime minister, after learning tomorrow’s episode features on-air prime minister Amanda Bishop and actor Phil Lloyd, playing Tim Mathieson, naked on her office floor under an Australian flag.

“Having sex in the prime minister’s office under the Australian flag is the last straw for me,” Mr Forrest reportedly told MPs.

“The old English traditional shows like Are You Being Served – they were funny, but this isn’t. And to desecrate the flag dishonours what my dad did.”

 

Eh? I fail to see how your dad fighting in a war and one scene in a comedy program are connected in any way. And in fact if we weren’t fighting for the right to have a shag on our flag then what was the point?

Seriously though, Liberal MP’s are even calling for ABC’s funding to be slashed because of this great offence.

 

A Coalition MP yesterday called for the ABC’s funding to be reviewed, describing the episode as a “pathetic and disrespectful” denigration of the Prime Minister’s office.

 

So lets get this straight, the governments media enquiry is a great threat to freedom of speech and freedom of the media according to the coalition, but threatening to slash funding to the national broadcaster because they find a single scene offensive isn’t? OK then.

The simple thing to do is given the prior warning over this great Australian outrage, if scenes of a comedian playing the Prime Minister having sexytime under the flag offend you, just make a note not to watch the show. Simple, everyone wins. But that isn’t outragertainment, all these precious petals will take special care to tune in just so that they can be outraged and have something to complain about.

As for the show itself, the most offensive thing about it is that it isn’t terribly funny. Is it disrespectful to the Prime Minister? Meh, probably. But I’d rather live in a country where do have the freedom to be disrespectful to the offices of power if we so wish.

UPDATE: More from the ever perturbed John Forrest.

Victorian National Party MP John Forrest said abuse of the flag should not be tolerated and called for a debate on whether the the episode should screen.

“I’m thinking about my late father who lost three brothers for that flag,” he said. “The veterans are going to go ballistic.”

Incorrect. The current flag did not become our national flag until 1953.

 

 

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We are all Bill Murray now

Sep 8

Posted by Ross Sharp in Immigration, Media, Politics, Society | No Comments

5.30 on Channel 9′s “Today” show this morning opens with the headline story, “They’re here! More boats headed for our shores carrying potentially hundreds of asylum seekers and they could be here as soon as today!”, it’s Groundhog Day, I punch the mute button on the remote and wait for it to go away.

Lordy, lordy, won’t you help me please, for I was about 41 or 42 when this conversation about refugees became the Australia’s Cup of political footballs, and I am almost 53 today, and this conversation continues, and it surely does exhaust my tired ol’ mind sumfin’ awful and wearies my chalky ol’ bones to the marrow, yes’m, indeed it do, amen to that and praise this day.

For I have worn out my last pair of rubber underpants and peed my last panicked puddle of despair over the dire straits of it all, I can pee and squeal no more, I’m plum all peed and squealed out, looks like they’re here and they’re here to stay and they’re coming, more of them, every day, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of whacked-out dingbats in bomb-laden dinghies to blow us all to that great brick shithouse in the sky, fuck our sheep and fill our pies with felafel.

By God in the almighty heavens above our tender heads, it is a sad truth today that the fabric of our society is indeed a torn and ragged rag of a thing now.

Yes, Sweet Jesus, it is but a pair of ol’, piss-streaked y-fronts on the spindly and spotted frame of an 80 year old digger with its arse all hangin’ out to buggery, and the people of this fair land ain’t havin’ none of it no mo’, they’s a souffle of social unrest a-risin’ in the heartland, all angry cheese and righteous dustings of outraged flour over the changing state of this nation and these seemingly endless series of vile upheavals that have seen our shores swarm with murderin’ beards and their murderin’ ways, smokin’ hookahs and bakin’ flatbreads and those little jelly sweets that are dusted with sugary shit, I quite like those and I don’t really have much of a sweet tooth.

…

…

Sorry, where was I?

Oh.

Yes …

5.30 on Channel 9′s “Today” show this morning opens with the headline story, “They’re here! More boats headed for our shores carrying potentially hundreds of asylum seekers and they could be here as soon as today!”, it’s Groundhog Day, I punch the mute button on the remote and wait for it to go away.

Lordy, lordy, won’t you help me please, for I was about 41 or 42 when this conversation about refugees became the Australia’s Cup of political footballs, and I am almost 53 today, and this conversation continues, and it surely does exhaust my tired ol’ mind sumfin’ awful and wearies my chalky ol’ bones to the marrow, yes’m, indeed it do, amen to that and praise this day …

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The imagined, but very real, leadership crisis

Sep 4

Posted by Spock... in Media, Politics | 1 Comment

Yesterday I wrote about the leadership crisis that the media has entirely manufactured. I am sure that it goes without saying for most of you that the media are not mere observers, gathers and reporters of news in our political space. They act in the space perhaps even more than the politicians. The media defines the terms of our political debates and the context those debates take place. No one else in the political space has the power to manufacture reality like the media does.

Not to labour the point, but I think The Age today illustrated my point beautifully.

Gillard firm as MPs waver

MPs waver? So Labor MPs have expressed doubt about Gillard’s leadership? A challenger is counting their numbers? Anything?

No. Nothing of the sort.

That’s not to say Labor MPs aren’t feeling a touch of dispair. They have been getting nowhere in opinions polls, and the two biggest media stories of the week are how the government is incompetent (High Court ruling) or just plain stuffed (Craig Thompson). This despite the Parliamentary Budget Officer bill being introduced to parliament.

SOME of Julia Gillard’s own MPs have declared she is stuck ”spinning her wheels” and predicted an election rout ”in varying degrees of diabolical”, as Labor’s internal despair spills out into public view.

That’s not leadership speculation. That’s not MPs wavering on leadership. That’s a feeling that has been expressed for months. They’re not getting anywhere in the public’s mind, and it’s frustrating the hell out off them.

The Age then reports that the ALP is feeding information to the opposition on the Craig Thompson affair, but then The Age tells us that “Both sides agree the leaks do not appear to be motivated by a desire to damage Ms Gillard”. So not wavering on leadership then.

And this is where the story enters self-perpetuation mode,

Both sides agree the leaks do not appear to be motivated by a desire to damage Ms Gillard; but the Thomson affair, along with the High Court’s ruling last week against the Malaysian refugee swap deal, has intensified speculation about Ms Gillard’s future as Prime Minister.

Speculation from where? The media. But that doesn’t matter, by this point the idea of media speculation is so entrenched that they don’t need to justify it, they just need to say it. The Age is reporting on the media’s own speculation.

The only reason that Gillard has even commented on matters of leadership (or anyone has commented on it, for that matter) is because the media has asked about it.

Then the article come crashing to a close almost contradicting the first half of the article,

Sources across the party insist there is no imminent move against her, citing a prevailing view that she should be given time to pass carbon price laws and sort out Labor’s stoush over gay marriage.

Former New South Wales premier Bob Carr insisted the party was not considering a change of leader. ”I know they’re not. There’s no basis for leadership speculation,” he said

Bob Carr is probably right, or at least he was. There wasn’t any basis for leadership speculation. The point I am labouring here is that the media may have been imagining all of this leadership speculation, but the media has the power to imagine it into reality. Leadership speculation is very real now even though it wasn’t before.

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What I see when I see the new anti carbon-tax ads

Sep 3

Posted by Spock... in Media, Politics | 14 Comments

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The dog from Up

Sep 3

Posted by Spock... in Media, Politics | 2 Comments

There has been lots of great stuff written in recent weeks (and months) about why political journalism in this country is broken. Some innovative analysis and solutions have been offered, and many bloggers and ranters on the internet have different takes on why it’s broken, how it’s broken and what can be done to fix it. But everyone seems to agree that it’s broken, that much is clear.

Our media has a painfully short attention span. This is not a problem that exclusively ours either. During the current Republican presidential primaries, Jon Stewart described the US media as the dog from Up. The American media was bored with the current crop of Republican candidates so they started speculating about Rick Perry entering the race. He did, and the next day the media started speculating about Paul Ryan entering the race.

“Mum, can I have a Paul Ryan?”

“I JUST GOT YOU A RICK PERRY. AND YOU ALREADY BROKE YOUR MICHELE BACHMANN.”

This week the Australian media got bored. Bored of Julia Gillard, now they want a new Labor leader to defame (seeing as this one won’t let them).

All week, Gillard’s leadership has been “under threat”. From who? Doesn’t matter. The media is now is self-perpetuating-story mode. The media is reporting on the media’s speculation about the media comments that Gillard’s leadership in now under fire.

And that is the narrative. It doesn’t matter if the story doesn’t really have anything to do with leadership, the media applies their new narrative to it anyway.

This, for example:

“Left jab forces Gillard to defend her leadership”

Julia Gillard’s leadership is being further damaged as Labor’s Left faction demands she drop all plans for offshore processing of asylum-seekers.

The Left’s revolt follows the disastrous outcome for the Government from the High Court’s refusal to allow the proposed people swap with Malaysia.

As the row over Prime Minister Gillard’s judgment continued, the faction insisted cabinet return to Labor Party policy that excludes sending boat people to another country to process their claims for refugee status.

But Ms Gillard is defying her critics within the Government, vowing to remain in her post until the election in two years.

The story has nothing to do with leadership. Nothing. The left faction of the ALP wants a change in policy, not leadership. So how did we suddenly make the jump to “But Ms. Gillard is defying her critics within the Government, vowing to remain in her post until the election in two years”? A policy dispute is not a leadership dispute. But of course, the press gallery has spent all week building this narrative, so any story about the government will now be framed with questions of leadership.

All this leadership talk seems to be based on is some remarks by former Labor minister Graham Richardson and an unnamed Labor sources who said Gillard has “lost authority”. Hardly enough to justify the current media frame which has dominated every story about the government this week.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the entire party is in disarray and demanding a new leader immediately.

After a week of apparent leadership troubles the media is now free to speculate on who would replace Gillard. Even Andrew Bolt has his suggestions (I’m sure that the ALP will be returning his calls soon). Combet, Shorten, the Rudd revival, even Peter Beattie was being thrown around as if the media is so bored with the current options they need to inject leaders that aren’t even in Parliament into the debate.

The cross-benchers get in on the speculative action too, as the media turned to them to justify their narrative when the Labor party wouldn’t. Lenore Taylor wrote:

Mutterings about leadership change within the Labor Party usually end with the assertion that the three crossbench independents did their deals with Julia Gillard and would bring down the government should anyone move to depose her.

For so long we wanted to fantasise about a new Labor leader, but the independents wouldn’t let us.

But the independents themselves say that’s not necessarily true. The three independents are still backing the government, and the Prime Minister, but at least two don’t rule out supporting a Labor administration led by someone different.

See! See! We were right! The ALP could change their leadership!

As an aside, I will say my love for Tony Windsor grows each and every day.

“I don’t think I can conceive of a situation where I would impose Tony Abbott on the Australian people – they might choose him and if they do then that’s their choice, but I would never impose such a person. I have severe doubts about him as an alternative prime minister, always have had, but he’s compounded that in my mind by his absolute negativity and dog whistling. He’s encouraged that nasty edge with the Tea Party talkback people and it’s quite dangerous in my view. He’s making extraordinary claims in the climate debate … he’s denigrated Parliament with a deliberate strategy to make it look dysfunctional when the reality is it is not.”

Of course, I don’t think it is only Tony Abbott who is giving the impression that Parliament is dysfunctional. He is aided in no small way by the media, who have been more than willing to report on the alternate reality that is Abbott’s version of Parliament.

Rather than reporting on the policy, or even the substance of the High Court’s ruling (you had to go looking pretty hard to find out on what grounds the policy was deemed unlawful) the media has turned this week into a week of leadership speculation. A circus.

Much has been written about the Sideshow since Tanner released his excellent book back in May, but nothing seems to have changed in the way the Australian media reports politics.

And it’s hard to see it getting better.

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Dickhead with a shotgun

Jul 26

Posted by Ross Sharp in Crime, Media, Society | 2 Comments

A rather pathetic individual has taken it upon himself to inflict damage to other individuals who had done no damage to him.

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.

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Spoilerific Harry Potter open thread

Jul 17

Posted by cosmicjester in Media | 2 Comments

Obvious spoilers for those that haven’t yet seen the latest movie.

We’re not all too proud to pretend we are too cool for Harry Potter are we? Good. We could talk about the carbon tax, but that’s kind of boring.

On Friday I caught the final Potter flick in glorious 2d. Overall I thought it was a pretty solid conclusion to a great movie series.

What I liked, as with the final book was the revelation about the true motivations of Severus Snape. One of the ongoing mysteries of the series was where did his true allegiances lie and just like in the book the final reveal was both touching and sad. Alan Rickman as Snape has to be one of the all time great casting decisions in movie history, it’s hard to think of any other actor that was just made to play a particular character.

What I didn’t like so much was that after years of buildup and wanting to see the magical world outside of Hogwarts was pretty unimpressive. Finally, the majority of the story wasnt set in a boarding school but instead they spend most of their time camping in the woods. Not very magical. Where was the rest of the world in the conflict? The entire magical world seemed to consist of a boarding school and a street in London.

But still I enjoyed the movie much like I enjoyed the rest of the series, and despite their shortcomings the films probably turned out better than what they were originally going to be. Steven Spielberg was originally set to direct, and well, it would have been different.

“I did think it would be worthwhile for Steven Spielberg to direct,” Horn said. “We offered it to him. But one of the notions of Dreamworks’ and Steven’s was, ‘Let’s combine a couple of the books, let’s make it animated,’ and that was because of the [visual effects and] Pixar had demonstrated that animated movies could be extremely successful. Because of the wizardry involved, they were very effects-laden. So I don’t blame them. But I did not want to combine the movies, and I wanted it to be live action.”

So basically the Harry Potter movies would have looked like that weird Tintin preview.

Plus, he wanted to Americanise the very British characters. Steven even wanted Haley Joel Osment to play Harry. Thankfully JK Rowling wouldn’t sign over the movie rights unless all the actors were either British or Irish.

So, thoughts on the final film. Which was your favourite film in the series? Did you prefer the books or the movies? Favourite character? Have at it.

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Urgh

Jul 4

Posted by cosmicjester in Media | 2 Comments

One of the more interesting additions to ABC comment and opinion site The Drum is observing former ALP speechwriter and current asshat Bob Ellis diverge further into his insanity.

Just last November he predicted Qantas was “finished as an airline” because of the evils of privatisation, in April he condemned the ADFA sex scandal as an overreaction because of the precedent set in MASH and Sex and the City and earlier this year was perhaps the only person who tipped Labor to win in the NSW election.

 

And now this.

A few things.

The basic jist seems to be that we shouldn’t let the odd occurrence of rape, adultery or child molestation get in the way of an important artist or politicians career because after all boys will be boys. Now I could almost agree with him if he was just making the point about private matters between consenting adults ruining public careers, I really dont think the Schwarzenegger or John Della Bosca scandals were the public’s business at all. But then he says things like this…

 

and the Jewish ex-Communist Roman Polanski, accused of pederasty, correctly, made no more Hollywood films, and despite his evident genius was blocked, harassed and menaced for 35 years and faces jail in his 80s.

 

He drugged and molested a child, but his films are good so no big deal.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about his rants is that he generally accepts rape as a natural urge and that we should forgive men who sometimes succumb to their urges. No, Bob, just fucking no. The majority of sane individuals find rape abhorrent and don’t think we should look the other way if the perp is an important artist or politician. Seriously is that such a hard concept to understand? It’s not just feminists that loathe rape but any decent individual.

Crazy idea, if politicians don’t want rape accusations ruining their careers how about not fucking raping anyone? Crazy concept for Bob I’m sure.

* Also he claimed that Elliot Spitzer was a republican and that Monica Lewinsky was a teenager during her dalliance with Bill Clinton. Both false.

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