Carlton's AFLW team lesbian-free......just in case!

[saintspremiers]

http://cfcblu.es/StatementSep20

Glad they got a women's side and sticking up for approx 80% of their own team, whilst St Kilda, who pioneered the Pride games well before any survey forms were mailed out and activily say "yes" missed out.

Great stuff.

Can somebody translate this post into English, please?

Sarcastic jybe based on the fact that about 80% of AFLW players are gay

[IanRush]

http://cfcblu.es/StatementSep20

Glad they got a women's side and sticking up for approx 80% of their own team, whilst St Kilda, who pioneered the Pride games well before any survey forms were mailed out and activily say "yes" missed out.

Great stuff.

The AFL is only endorsing "yes" and pushing for AFL-W as they get Government Grants/Tax benefits for employing women and LGTBI's. Think about it. For years the Aussie Rules crew called soccer a game for sheilas, wogs and pooooovters. Now the AFL promotes women's sport as if they invented it.

Oh well, each to their own.

No Rushie, the AFL supports the yes campaign, gender equality, non-discrimination and inclusiveness because it is the right thing to do. The Saints are an inclusive footy club and I am proud of them for taking a stand on social issues. Like the AFL, the Saints have in the past made mistakes, but that is no reason to not do the right thing now.

The AFL is a sporting body that should stay out of politics. How about the AFL return Aussie Rules football to its glory days as opposed to being sidetracked?

[IanRush]

http://cfcblu.es/StatementSep20

Glad they got a women's side and sticking up for approx 80% of their own team, whilst St Kilda, who pioneered the Pride games well before any survey forms were mailed out and activily say "yes" missed out.

Great stuff.

Can somebody translate this post into English, please?

Sarcastic jybe based on the fact that about 80% of AFLW players are gay

Which goes back to my post earlier today that the AFL is only pushing AFL-W to get Government Grants/Tax Breaks for employing more women and LGTBI associates.

[SaintPav]

Call me cynical, but the AFLW is all about promoting the Men's brand through improving the perceived reputation of the AFL as that's where the money is.

While I'm not a fan of the AFLW, I'm not against it either but.....

by commercialising women's football, the AFL has probably wrecked what was previously a bona fide community grassroots movement. The AFL will ditch it as soon as it suits them.

Have you watched any of it? Crap football. My 11 year old grandson's team plays a more attractive and skilled game. Hate the whole pc concept.

Yes I have a few times, but I try and not to compare it to the men's game, which is difficult, as it is a completely different game. I'm ambivalent about it.

I've seen some very ordinary AFL games played by the men over the years as well.

I don't buy the whole PC angle used by the conservative right. It's irks me because treating your fellow man with humanity, respect and civility is important. Having said that, it is important to speak the truth which includes dishing out harsh criticism, not personal abuse, when it is warranted.

[Sainternist]

I don't buy the whole PC angle used by the conservative right. It's irks me because treating your fellow man with humanity, respect and civility is important. Having said that, it is important to speak the truth which includes dishing out harsh criticism, not personal abuse, when it is warranted.

Well said!

[saynta]

Call me cynical, but the AFLW is all about promoting the Men's brand through improving the perceived reputation of the AFL as that's where the money is.

While I'm not a fan of the AFLW, I'm not against it either but.....

by commercialising women's football, the AFL has probably wrecked what was previously a bona fide community grassroots movement. The AFL will ditch it as soon as it suits them.

Have you watched any of it? Crap football. My 11 year old grandson's team plays a more attractive and skilled game. Hate the whole pc concept.

Yes I have a few times, but I try and not to compare it to the men's game, which is difficult, as it is a completely different game. I'm ambivalent about it.

I've seen some very ordinary AFL games played by the men over the years as well.

I don't buy the whole PC angle used by the conservative right. It's irks me because treating your fellow man with humanity, respect and civility is important. Having said that, it is important to speak the truth which includes dishing out harsh criticism, not personal abuse, when it is warranted.

Provided of course that one respects their fellow man and that said man, or woman deserves to be treated with civility and humanity.

Unfortunately I have met more than my fair share who don't deserve any of that.

But that's me.

Most of the main talking points of the looney left is pc bulls***. Imhfo.

[The OtherThommo]

Call me cynical, but the AFLW is all about promoting the Men's brand through improving the perceived reputation of the AFL as that's where the money is.

While I'm not a fan of the AFLW, I'm not against it either but.....

by commercialising women's football, the AFL has probably wrecked what was previously a bona fide community grassroots movement. The AFL will ditch it as soon as it suits them.

Have you watched any of it? Crap football. My 11 year old grandson's team plays a more attractive and skilled game. Hate the whole pc concept.

Yes I have a few times, but I try and not to compare it to the men's game, which is difficult, as it is a completely different game. I'm ambivalent about it.

I've seen some very ordinary AFL games played by the men over the years as well.

I don't buy the whole PC angle used by the conservative right. It's irks me because treating your fellow man with humanity, respect and civility is important. Having said that, it is important to speak the truth which includes dishing out harsh criticism, not personal abuse, when it is warranted.

Hello Pav, how ya doin'? I've sent you a few of these 'missives to the cohort' over the recent journey. As you know, I am something of a fan of the irony to be found in people getting so irate about 'Weapons of Mass Distraction'.

For mine, the references and jibes about women's footy ('soooooooooo many lesbians'), needs to be juxtaposed with the headline issue of the nation's moment - the 'great, great plebiscite' - it's all about the kultcha.

To today's missive to the cohort:

"As boring, meaningless and distracting as the same sex marriage debate has been, and is, it has provided a spotlight on some of the least impressive displays of argument construction one is likely to see in this lifetime.

This highlights the precarious foundations of the arguments put forward by the likes of Rupert’s warriors (e.g. Bolt). The wobbly foundations become apparent when those types attempt to link actions taken in the name of same sex marriage, with ‘articles of faith’ beyond that simple arena (e.g. free speech/political correctness, employment rights, law and regulation).

Contradictions? Oodles. Coherence? SFA.

They have the ‘system’ they’ve long bleated for. Yet, still they bleat, oblivious to their own paucity of self-awareness (and fkn logic). From today's Crikey:

"Why are right-wing snowflakes like Bolt so mad over this sacked kids' entertainer?

The non-binding mail survey a nation should never have endured has given rise in recent weeks to “argument” that should never have been made. Ugh. There’s the argument implicitly made by News Corp that former prime minister John Howard retains his value as an expert speaker on topics other than the Biggles series of adventure books. There are cruder, more explicit arguments made from within that same empire that no decent person should repeat.
Then, there’s the effing argument, from both Yes and No advocates, against “bullying” behaviour among the general population, which leads us to no useful end, save for proving beyond doubt that safe-space seeking is a bipartisan pursuit. Miranda Devine and all her spiritual children are now, in fact, the flakiest snowflakes, regularly demanding refuge from the heat.
Yes, Miranda, this just in: some people are not very nice. This has likely been true for some years and is possibly why policymakers have been drawn, at times, to build niceness into law. We have, for example, harsh penalties to deter those who would physically harm others. For a few decades, we had decent legal protection, hard won by trade unions, against rough treatment at work.
Curiously, the single argument of value provoked by our dreadful time of Brexit-lite may turn out to be for the Australian worker’s diminished rights. When a young Canberra woman found herself without work due to expressing support on social media for the “No” vote, some useful discussion emerged.
Not to polish the masthead, but Crikey was the first to consider the worker identified as “Madeline” not as homophobe or hero, but as a test of current employment conditions. As much as I like to give it to The Guardian, that title, too, deserves praise for considering factually what it now means to be “sacked”.
The short answer is: less and less. How can it mean anything when you don’t really have a job from the start? While older workers may preserve some part of their old-timey conditions — super, weekends, the right to shoot off at the mouth about whatever they please during weekends or other leisure hours — younger workers like Madeline must be as “agile” as Malcolm Turnbull demands. She, like her entire generation, is stuffed. Around 40% of Australians are now engaged in “alternative work”; that is, they are casual, self-employed or, like Madeline, “independent contractors”.
Contractors and the self-employed have no protection under the Fair Work Act. Which wasn’t something that seemed to trouble Guardian economics writer Greg Jericho a few years back. Jericho made the case in 2014 that we shouldn’t worry about a rise in freelance work, because a freelance agency had provided him with survey data that suggested many “choose” precisely the kind of “flexible” work that agency had as its revenue model.
Now, the guy has moved a little to the left of classical liberal economic thought, and has found that a “hands-off approach to IR” — you know, the sort of rule that deems “flexibility” and “choice” to be more important to workers than the knowledge they can pay the rent next month — might not be such a good national plan.
The Madeline freelance case may be an unfortunate event, but it sure is a good brainteaser. This fate of this No voter has highlighted a pro-market hypocrisy so stark, it was impossible even for outlets openly committed to ignore No voters, formerly quite fond of deregulation, to ignore.
Of course, over on the dependable right, Andrew Bolt finds as little trouble in ignoring hypocrisy as he does in stippling his short columns with rhetorical questions, such as yesterday’s “who are the real bigots?”, or that from a decade ago which dares us to imagine who we “really, truly would want at the top in a crisis. Howard or lip-licking Kevin Rudd?”
As things turned out, the lip-licker was chosen by Australians, many of whom found themselves facing a crisis Howard accelerated and Rudd had sworn (but failed) to address. WorkChoices, legislation piped in at the prelude of a GFC, itself caused by deregulation, had such impact on workers, they chucked the crisis-maker out. But there’s no chance that a brain like Bolt’s could be publicly teased into conceding that Madeline’s true enemy is not “political correctness gone mad”, but classical economics, AKA neoliberalism, gone mad in politics.
Bolt championed Howard, a man who believed it was up to the market to decide our fate. The market decided Madeline’s fate. Madeline’s boss reasoned that an events company would lose profit if word got out that one of its staff had urged for “No” on social media. Maybe not a commercially irrational decision in a small, progressive city, and the single state or territory where same-sex wedding ceremonies had been, however briefly, performed.
It’s not an unusual decision in the market-friendly present for a company to end a contract based on its social media policy. Actually, it’s a decision of which Bolt may, in other circumstances, approve. In one post, he listed several of Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s professional appointments, and made some argument for their cessation, partly on the basis of her seven-word Facebook post.
“Where is the government?” Bolt asks for Madeline, dismissed worker, on Sky News. Exactly where you wanted them to be, son: right out of the way of business.
Yes, I know. The search for consistency in Bolt might be compared, by disrespectful others, to the search for a single crap in a s*** stack. But it must a brainteaser for others on the right, those who have also fought for the market to be master but, in the Madeline case, might not like its rule.
When the right to be a bigot, or a communist or a Known Homosexual, is no longer a guaranteed right at work, perhaps Senator George Brandis’ head starts spinning. I wonder if Tim Wilson, who has written that the “human right most being neglected is free speech”, now finds that his classical liberalism holds within it a deep contradiction. He might realise that his beloved free market inevitably curtails his beloved free speech — again. The most neglected of all the human rights in Australia, ranking well above the right to asylum, the right to freedom of association, or the right to protection against unemployment for Madeline.
Who knows what Tim is truly thinking. If The Guardian is able to shift in its views on true freedom for workers, a topic set aside for so long, perhaps he is, at least, a little confused by liberalism. The liberal-left may be less confused after Madeline, and resume its interest in labour conditions.
Save for the topic of workplace bullying — again with the surprise that some people are not nice, and can be particularly nasty in an insecure labour market — these conditions have been largely undiscussed by the nation’s left-liberal thinkers since the time of Howard. There were, at the time, centrist commentators like David Marr pointing out basic incompatibilities in conservative liberal thought.
Howard claimed to be in favour of family, but compromised that institution by extending working hours. Howard claimed to be a proud Australian, but was a humble servant to US foreign policy and US-led financialisation. Howard claimed to have traditional moral values, but kept pace with the very latest old practice exhumed by Washington DC. You don’t get to put your foot hard on the economic pedal then act surprised when cultural values start racing too. Howard invited the market to decide. The market then made its decisions.
Howard had lived long enough and read widely enough to know that big economic decisions create cultural changes and divisions. Still, he made the public case that it was always the other way around. If only we were more moral, more traditional and harder working, the health of the economy and all else would follow. It’s up to you the individual, he said. And after he had gone, the liberal-left plumb forgot they disagreed with that fib.
Madeline is their reminder. She’s not an individual to despise, but a young worker whose rights might be worth protecting. Heck. If she had these rights, maybe she’d become a person so nice, she’d change her preference to “Yes”.
This Madeline moment contains within it the potential for some old-timey solidarity. We don’t have to personally like the people with which we stand shoulder-to-shoulder. We just have to fight for our rights.
Spiteful and thin argument has been suffered as the result of this absurd survey. Pain has been felt in the LGBTI community and anger, so easily aroused in times of economic insecurity, is widespread. If there’s one good outcome (save for this rather good typo on the slip) it is a re-emerged interest in the life of the worker. All thanks to a “No” voter feted by Andrew Bolt."

If girlies want to have a crack at playin' footy, good on 'em. If some people don't want to watch those girlies havin' a crack at it, good on them, too. It's choice, and isn't that what it's supposed to be all about? Life and death?

But, why do so many mudderfuggers, and their gender opposites, demand an inalienable right to bellow opinions, about every meaningless media and corporate 'initiative' that gets whacked on the agenda, particularly when those initiatives are designed PRECISELY to distract as many as possible from the harsh reality of where the political economy is actually heading?

As some have noted, the AFL will milk until it decides the yield is about to dry up. The media will make hay while people keep buying the bulls*** of distraction. The PR operatives will devise 'communication strategies' until something else takes their fancy as a more viable mode of distraction from reality.

And, people generally will continue to look away from the general rottenness, and succumb to the 'bread and circuses' of confected and meaningless 'controversy'.

So much opinion, so little significance.

Not every person with an oar can reasonably claim to know how to row.

[saynta]

To each his own mate. I don't find either of the Williams sisters in the least bit attractive.

You may not find them physically attractive, but you cannot deny they play a very attractive brand of tennis. They'll both go down in history as the greatest siblings to play the game.

Not to me. A third rate male tennis player would thrash them

That's been proven in the past. So therefore to me they don' t play an attractive brand. I wouldn't cross the road to watch either of them.

[Proph3t of egan]

Call me cynical, but the AFLW is all about promoting the Men's brand through improving the perceived reputation of the AFL as that's where the money is.

While I'm not a fan of the AFLW, I'm not against it either but.....

by commercialising women's football, the AFL has probably wrecked what was previously a bona fide community grassroots movement. The AFL will ditch it as soon as it suits them.

Have you watched any of it? Crap football. My 11 year old grandson's team plays a more attractive and skilled game. Hate the whole pc concept.

Yes I have a few times, but I try and not to compare it to the men's game, which is difficult, as it is a completely different game. I'm ambivalent about it.

I've seen some very ordinary AFL games played by the men over the years as well.

I don't buy the whole PC angle used by the conservative right. It's irks me because treating your fellow man with humanity, respect and civility is important. Having said that, it is important to speak the truth which includes dishing out harsh criticism, not personal abuse, when it is warranted.

Hello Pav, how ya doin'? I've sent you a few of these 'missives to the cohort' over the recent journey. As you know, I am something of a fan of the irony to be found in people getting so irate about 'Weapons of Mass Distraction'.

For mine, the references and jibes about women's footy ('soooooooooo many lesbians'), needs to be juxtaposed with the headline issue of the nation's moment - the 'great, great plebiscite' - it's all about the kultcha.

To today's missive to the cohort:

"As boring, meaningless and distracting as the same sex marriage debate has been, and is, it has provided a spotlight on some of the least impressive displays of argument construction one is likely to see in this lifetime.

This highlights the precarious foundations of the arguments put forward by the likes of Rupert’s warriors (e.g. Bolt). The wobbly foundations become apparent when those types attempt to link actions taken in the name of same sex marriage, with ‘articles of faith’ beyond that simple arena (e.g. free speech/political correctness, employment rights, law and regulation).

Contradictions? Oodles. Coherence? SFA.

They have the ‘system’ they’ve long bleated for. Yet, still they bleat, oblivious to their own paucity of self-awareness (and fkn logic). From today's Crikey:

"Why are right-wing snowflakes like Bolt so mad over this sacked kids' entertainer?

The non-binding mail survey a nation should never have endured has given rise in recent weeks to “argument” that should never have been made. Ugh. There’s the argument implicitly made by News Corp that former prime minister John Howard retains his value as an expert speaker on topics other than the Biggles series of adventure books. There are cruder, more explicit arguments made from within that same empire that no decent person should repeat.
Then, there’s the effing argument, from both Yes and No advocates, against “bullying” behaviour among the general population, which leads us to no useful end, save for proving beyond doubt that safe-space seeking is a bipartisan pursuit. Miranda Devine and all her spiritual children are now, in fact, the flakiest snowflakes, regularly demanding refuge from the heat.
Yes, Miranda, this just in: some people are not very nice. This has likely been true for some years and is possibly why policymakers have been drawn, at times, to build niceness into law. We have, for example, harsh penalties to deter those who would physically harm others. For a few decades, we had decent legal protection, hard won by trade unions, against rough treatment at work.
Curiously, the single argument of value provoked by our dreadful time of Brexit-lite may turn out to be for the Australian worker’s diminished rights. When a young Canberra woman found herself without work due to expressing support on social media for the “No” vote, some useful discussion emerged.
Not to polish the masthead, but Crikey was the first to consider the worker identified as “Madeline” not as homophobe or hero, but as a test of current employment conditions. As much as I like to give it to The Guardian, that title, too, deserves praise for considering factually what it now means to be “sacked”.
The short answer is: less and less. How can it mean anything when you don’t really have a job from the start? While older workers may preserve some part of their old-timey conditions — super, weekends, the right to shoot off at the mouth about whatever they please during weekends or other leisure hours — younger workers like Madeline must be as “agile” as Malcolm Turnbull demands. She, like her entire generation, is stuffed. Around 40% of Australians are now engaged in “alternative work”; that is, they are casual, self-employed or, like Madeline, “independent contractors”.
Contractors and the self-employed have no protection under the Fair Work Act. Which wasn’t something that seemed to trouble Guardian economics writer Greg Jericho a few years back. Jericho made the case in 2014 that we shouldn’t worry about a rise in freelance work, because a freelance agency had provided him with survey data that suggested many “choose” precisely the kind of “flexible” work that agency had as its revenue model.
Now, the guy has moved a little to the left of classical liberal economic thought, and has found that a “hands-off approach to IR” — you know, the sort of rule that deems “flexibility” and “choice” to be more important to workers than the knowledge they can pay the rent next month — might not be such a good national plan.
The Madeline freelance case may be an unfortunate event, but it sure is a good brainteaser. This fate of this No voter has highlighted a pro-market hypocrisy so stark, it was impossible even for outlets openly committed to ignore No voters, formerly quite fond of deregulation, to ignore.
Of course, over on the dependable right, Andrew Bolt finds as little trouble in ignoring hypocrisy as he does in stippling his short columns with rhetorical questions, such as yesterday’s “who are the real bigots?”, or that from a decade ago which dares us to imagine who we “really, truly would want at the top in a crisis. Howard or lip-licking Kevin Rudd?”
As things turned out, the lip-licker was chosen by Australians, many of whom found themselves facing a crisis Howard accelerated and Rudd had sworn (but failed) to address. WorkChoices, legislation piped in at the prelude of a GFC, itself caused by deregulation, had such impact on workers, they chucked the crisis-maker out. But there’s no chance that a brain like Bolt’s could be publicly teased into conceding that Madeline’s true enemy is not “political correctness gone mad”, but classical economics, AKA neoliberalism, gone mad in politics.
Bolt championed Howard, a man who believed it was up to the market to decide our fate. The market decided Madeline’s fate. Madeline’s boss reasoned that an events company would lose profit if word got out that one of its staff had urged for “No” on social media. Maybe not a commercially irrational decision in a small, progressive city, and the single state or territory where same-sex wedding ceremonies had been, however briefly, performed.
It’s not an unusual decision in the market-friendly present for a company to end a contract based on its social media policy. Actually, it’s a decision of which Bolt may, in other circumstances, approve. In one post, he listed several of Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s professional appointments, and made some argument for their cessation, partly on the basis of her seven-word Facebook post.
“Where is the government?” Bolt asks for Madeline, dismissed worker, on Sky News. Exactly where you wanted them to be, son: right out of the way of business.
Yes, I know. The search for consistency in Bolt might be compared, by disrespectful others, to the search for a single crap in a s*** stack. But it must a brainteaser for others on the right, those who have also fought for the market to be master but, in the Madeline case, might not like its rule.
When the right to be a bigot, or a communist or a Known Homosexual, is no longer a guaranteed right at work, perhaps Senator George Brandis’ head starts spinning. I wonder if Tim Wilson, who has written that the “human right most being neglected is free speech”, now finds that his classical liberalism holds within it a deep contradiction. He might realise that his beloved free market inevitably curtails his beloved free speech — again. The most neglected of all the human rights in Australia, ranking well above the right to asylum, the right to freedom of association, or the right to protection against unemployment for Madeline.
Who knows what Tim is truly thinking. If The Guardian is able to shift in its views on true freedom for workers, a topic set aside for so long, perhaps he is, at least, a little confused by liberalism. The liberal-left may be less confused after Madeline, and resume its interest in labour conditions.
Save for the topic of workplace bullying — again with the surprise that some people are not nice, and can be particularly nasty in an insecure labour market — these conditions have been largely undiscussed by the nation’s left-liberal thinkers since the time of Howard. There were, at the time, centrist commentators like David Marr pointing out basic incompatibilities in conservative liberal thought.
Howard claimed to be in favour of family, but compromised that institution by extending working hours. Howard claimed to be a proud Australian, but was a humble servant to US foreign policy and US-led financialisation. Howard claimed to have traditional moral values, but kept pace with the very latest old practice exhumed by Washington DC. You don’t get to put your foot hard on the economic pedal then act surprised when cultural values start racing too. Howard invited the market to decide. The market then made its decisions.
Howard had lived long enough and read widely enough to know that big economic decisions create cultural changes and divisions. Still, he made the public case that it was always the other way around. If only we were more moral, more traditional and harder working, the health of the economy and all else would follow. It’s up to you the individual, he said. And after he had gone, the liberal-left plumb forgot they disagreed with that fib.
Madeline is their reminder. She’s not an individual to despise, but a young worker whose rights might be worth protecting. Heck. If she had these rights, maybe she’d become a person so nice, she’d change her preference to “Yes”.
This Madeline moment contains within it the potential for some old-timey solidarity. We don’t have to personally like the people with which we stand shoulder-to-shoulder. We just have to fight for our rights.
Spiteful and thin argument has been suffered as the result of this absurd survey. Pain has been felt in the LGBTI community and anger, so easily aroused in times of economic insecurity, is widespread. If there’s one good outcome (save for this rather good typo on the slip) it is a re-emerged interest in the life of the worker. All thanks to a “No” voter feted by Andrew Bolt."

If girlies want to have a crack at playin' footy, good on 'em. If some people don't want to watch those girlies havin' a crack at it, good on them, too. It's choice, and isn't that what it's supposed to be all about? Life and death?

But, why do so many mudderfuggers, and their gender opposites, demand an inalienable right to bellow opinions, about every meaningless media and corporate 'initiative' that gets whacked on the agenda, particularly when those initiatives are designed PRECISELY to distract as many as possible from the harsh reality of where the political economy is actually heading?

As some have noted, the AFL will milk until it decides the yield is about to dry up. The media will make hay while people keep buying the bulls*** of distraction. The PR operatives will devise 'communication strategies' until something else takes their fancy as a more viable mode of distraction from reality.

And, people generally will continue to look away from the general rottenness, and succumb to the 'bread and circuses' of confected and meaningless 'controversy'.

So much opinion, so little significance.

Not every person with an oar can reasonably claim to know how to row.

Holy. Crap.

Have you found a publisher yet? Cause that's thesis length

[SaintPav]

Hi ToT, Tim Wilson is one strange cat.

I think John Hewson nails it.

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/john-hews ... ylqbj.html

[lewdogs]

To each his own mate. I don't find either of the Williams sisters in the least bit attractive.

You may not find them physically attractive, but you cannot deny they play a very attractive brand of tennis. They'll both go down in history as the greatest siblings to play the game.

Not to me. A third rate male tennis player would thrash them

That's been proven in the past. So therefore to me they don' t play an attractive brand. I wouldn't cross the road to watch either of them.

Have you ever watched Serena play live? She is an incredible player regardless of her gender.

"Wouldn't cross the road to watch them play". Strange thing to say.

[Jacks Back]

Call me cynical, but the AFLW is all about promoting the Men's brand through improving the perceived reputation of the AFL as that's where the money is.

While I'm not a fan of the AFLW, I'm not against it either but.....

by commercialising women's football, the AFL has probably wrecked what was previously a bona fide community grassroots movement. The AFL will ditch it as soon as it suits them.

Have you watched any of it? Crap football. My 11 year old grandson's team plays a more attractive and skilled game. Hate the whole pc concept.

Yes I have a few times, but I try and not to compare it to the men's game, which is difficult, as it is a completely different game. I'm ambivalent about it.

I've seen some very ordinary AFL games played by the men over the years as well.

I don't buy the whole PC angle used by the conservative right. It's irks me because treating your fellow man with humanity, respect and civility is important. Having said that, it is important to speak the truth which includes dishing out harsh criticism, not personal abuse, when it is warranted.

Hello Pav, how ya doin'? I've sent you a few of these 'missives to the cohort' over the recent journey. As you know, I am something of a fan of the irony to be found in people getting so irate about 'Weapons of Mass Distraction'.

For mine, the references and jibes about women's footy ('soooooooooo many lesbians'), needs to be juxtaposed with the headline issue of the nation's moment - the 'great, great plebiscite' - it's all about the kultcha.

To today's missive to the cohort:

"As boring, meaningless and distracting as the same sex marriage debate has been, and is, it has provided a spotlight on some of the least impressive displays of argument construction one is likely to see in this lifetime.

This highlights the precarious foundations of the arguments put forward by the likes of Rupert’s warriors (e.g. Bolt). The wobbly foundations become apparent when those types attempt to link actions taken in the name of same sex marriage, with ‘articles of faith’ beyond that simple arena (e.g. free speech/political correctness, employment rights, law and regulation).

Contradictions? Oodles. Coherence? SFA.

They have the ‘system’ they’ve long bleated for. Yet, still they bleat, oblivious to their own paucity of self-awareness (and fkn logic). From today's Crikey:

"Why are right-wing snowflakes like Bolt so mad over this sacked kids' entertainer?

The non-binding mail survey a nation should never have endured has given rise in recent weeks to “argument” that should never have been made. Ugh. There’s the argument implicitly made by News Corp that former prime minister John Howard retains his value as an expert speaker on topics other than the Biggles series of adventure books. There are cruder, more explicit arguments made from within that same empire that no decent person should repeat.
Then, there’s the effing argument, from both Yes and No advocates, against “bullying” behaviour among the general population, which leads us to no useful end, save for proving beyond doubt that safe-space seeking is a bipartisan pursuit. Miranda Devine and all her spiritual children are now, in fact, the flakiest snowflakes, regularly demanding refuge from the heat.
Yes, Miranda, this just in: some people are not very nice. This has likely been true for some years and is possibly why policymakers have been drawn, at times, to build niceness into law. We have, for example, harsh penalties to deter those who would physically harm others. For a few decades, we had decent legal protection, hard won by trade unions, against rough treatment at work.
Curiously, the single argument of value provoked by our dreadful time of Brexit-lite may turn out to be for the Australian worker’s diminished rights. When a young Canberra woman found herself without work due to expressing support on social media for the “No” vote, some useful discussion emerged.
Not to polish the masthead, but Crikey was the first to consider the worker identified as “Madeline” not as homophobe or hero, but as a test of current employment conditions. As much as I like to give it to The Guardian, that title, too, deserves praise for considering factually what it now means to be “sacked”.
The short answer is: less and less. How can it mean anything when you don’t really have a job from the start? While older workers may preserve some part of their old-timey conditions — super, weekends, the right to shoot off at the mouth about whatever they please during weekends or other leisure hours — younger workers like Madeline must be as “agile” as Malcolm Turnbull demands. She, like her entire generation, is stuffed. Around 40% of Australians are now engaged in “alternative work”; that is, they are casual, self-employed or, like Madeline, “independent contractors”.
Contractors and the self-employed have no protection under the Fair Work Act. Which wasn’t something that seemed to trouble Guardian economics writer Greg Jericho a few years back. Jericho made the case in 2014 that we shouldn’t worry about a rise in freelance work, because a freelance agency had provided him with survey data that suggested many “choose” precisely the kind of “flexible” work that agency had as its revenue model.
Now, the guy has moved a little to the left of classical liberal economic thought, and has found that a “hands-off approach to IR” — you know, the sort of rule that deems “flexibility” and “choice” to be more important to workers than the knowledge they can pay the rent next month — might not be such a good national plan.
The Madeline freelance case may be an unfortunate event, but it sure is a good brainteaser. This fate of this No voter has highlighted a pro-market hypocrisy so stark, it was impossible even for outlets openly committed to ignore No voters, formerly quite fond of deregulation, to ignore.
Of course, over on the dependable right, Andrew Bolt finds as little trouble in ignoring hypocrisy as he does in stippling his short columns with rhetorical questions, such as yesterday’s “who are the real bigots?”, or that from a decade ago which dares us to imagine who we “really, truly would want at the top in a crisis. Howard or lip-licking Kevin Rudd?”
As things turned out, the lip-licker was chosen by Australians, many of whom found themselves facing a crisis Howard accelerated and Rudd had sworn (but failed) to address. WorkChoices, legislation piped in at the prelude of a GFC, itself caused by deregulation, had such impact on workers, they chucked the crisis-maker out. But there’s no chance that a brain like Bolt’s could be publicly teased into conceding that Madeline’s true enemy is not “political correctness gone mad”, but classical economics, AKA neoliberalism, gone mad in politics.
Bolt championed Howard, a man who believed it was up to the market to decide our fate. The market decided Madeline’s fate. Madeline’s boss reasoned that an events company would lose profit if word got out that one of its staff had urged for “No” on social media. Maybe not a commercially irrational decision in a small, progressive city, and the single state or territory where same-sex wedding ceremonies had been, however briefly, performed.
It’s not an unusual decision in the market-friendly present for a company to end a contract based on its social media policy. Actually, it’s a decision of which Bolt may, in other circumstances, approve. In one post, he listed several of Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s professional appointments, and made some argument for their cessation, partly on the basis of her seven-word Facebook post.
“Where is the government?” Bolt asks for Madeline, dismissed worker, on Sky News. Exactly where you wanted them to be, son: right out of the way of business.
Yes, I know. The search for consistency in Bolt might be compared, by disrespectful others, to the search for a single crap in a s*** stack. But it must a brainteaser for others on the right, those who have also fought for the market to be master but, in the Madeline case, might not like its rule.
When the right to be a bigot, or a communist or a Known Homosexual, is no longer a guaranteed right at work, perhaps Senator George Brandis’ head starts spinning. I wonder if Tim Wilson, who has written that the “human right most being neglected is free speech”, now finds that his classical liberalism holds within it a deep contradiction. He might realise that his beloved free market inevitably curtails his beloved free speech — again. The most neglected of all the human rights in Australia, ranking well above the right to asylum, the right to freedom of association, or the right to protection against unemployment for Madeline.
Who knows what Tim is truly thinking. If The Guardian is able to shift in its views on true freedom for workers, a topic set aside for so long, perhaps he is, at least, a little confused by liberalism. The liberal-left may be less confused after Madeline, and resume its interest in labour conditions.
Save for the topic of workplace bullying — again with the surprise that some people are not nice, and can be particularly nasty in an insecure labour market — these conditions have been largely undiscussed by the nation’s left-liberal thinkers since the time of Howard. There were, at the time, centrist commentators like David Marr pointing out basic incompatibilities in conservative liberal thought.
Howard claimed to be in favour of family, but compromised that institution by extending working hours. Howard claimed to be a proud Australian, but was a humble servant to US foreign policy and US-led financialisation. Howard claimed to have traditional moral values, but kept pace with the very latest old practice exhumed by Washington DC. You don’t get to put your foot hard on the economic pedal then act surprised when cultural values start racing too. Howard invited the market to decide. The market then made its decisions.
Howard had lived long enough and read widely enough to know that big economic decisions create cultural changes and divisions. Still, he made the public case that it was always the other way around. If only we were more moral, more traditional and harder working, the health of the economy and all else would follow. It’s up to you the individual, he said. And after he had gone, the liberal-left plumb forgot they disagreed with that fib.
Madeline is their reminder. She’s not an individual to despise, but a young worker whose rights might be worth protecting. Heck. If she had these rights, maybe she’d become a person so nice, she’d change her preference to “Yes”.
This Madeline moment contains within it the potential for some old-timey solidarity. We don’t have to personally like the people with which we stand shoulder-to-shoulder. We just have to fight for our rights.
Spiteful and thin argument has been suffered as the result of this absurd survey. Pain has been felt in the LGBTI community and anger, so easily aroused in times of economic insecurity, is widespread. If there’s one good outcome (save for this rather good typo on the slip) it is a re-emerged interest in the life of the worker. All thanks to a “No” voter feted by Andrew Bolt."

If girlies want to have a crack at playin' footy, good on 'em. If some people don't want to watch those girlies havin' a crack at it, good on them, too. It's choice, and isn't that what it's supposed to be all about? Life and death?

But, why do so many mudderfuggers, and their gender opposites, demand an inalienable right to bellow opinions, about every meaningless media and corporate 'initiative' that gets whacked on the agenda, particularly when those initiatives are designed PRECISELY to distract as many as possible from the harsh reality of where the political economy is actually heading?

As some have noted, the AFL will milk until it decides the yield is about to dry up. The media will make hay while people keep buying the bulls*** of distraction. The PR operatives will devise 'communication strategies' until something else takes their fancy as a more viable mode of distraction from reality.

And, people generally will continue to look away from the general rottenness, and succumb to the 'bread and circuses' of confected and meaningless 'controversy'.

So much opinion, so little significance.

Not every person with an oar can reasonably claim to know how to row.

Holy. Crap.

Have you found a publisher yet? Cause that's thesis length

Who would even entertain reading that much text? Short n sharp, mate! Keep em wanting more hey what!!

[Ellaandjohn]

To each his own mate. I don't find either of the Williams sisters in the least bit attractive.

Well that matters


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[saintspremiers]

To each his own mate. I don't find either of the Williams sisters in the least bit attractive.

Well that matters


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I agree with Stinger on this one.

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[Ellaandjohn]

To each his own mate. I don't find either of the Williams sisters in the least bit attractive.

Well that matters


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I agree with Stinger on this one.

Sent from my iPhone using my mirror

But why would you even say it. It's actually disgusting


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[SaintPav]

Who would even entertain reading that much text? Short n sharp, mate! Keep em wanting more hey what!!

Well I read it and it was good. How you supposed to ever learn anything if you don't read!

[degruch]

To each his own mate. I don't find either of the Williams sisters in the least bit attractive.

Well that matters

I agree with Stinger on this one.

Sent from my iPhone using my mirror

But why would you even say it. It's actually disgusting

Since most idiots have been banned over the last few seasons, someone has to take up the mantle.

[IanRush]

To each his own mate. I don't find either of the Williams sisters in the least bit attractive.

Well that matters


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I agree with Stinger on this one.

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But why would you even say it. It's actually disgusting


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Because a heterosexual man still has a right to express his opinion.

[degruch]

To each his own mate. I don't find either of the Williams sisters in the least bit attractive.

Well that matters

I agree with Stinger on this one.

Sent from my iPhone using my mirror

But why would you even say it. It's actually disgusting

Because a heterosexual man still has a right to express his opinion.

Hetrosexual you say? Given the initial quote, you're making a wild assumption there Rushie

[SaintPav]

Provided of course that one respects their fellow man and that said man, or woman deserves to be treated with civility and humanity.

Unfortunately I have met more than my fair share who don't deserve any of that.

But that's me.

So what would Lady Justice say about that?

[saynta]

To each his own mate. I don't find either of the Williams sisters in the least bit attractive.

Well that matters


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I agree with Stinger on this one.

Sent from my iPhone using my mirror

But why would you even say it. It's actually disgusting


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

because of this post from a fellow poster

"I actually find women's tennis more entertaining than the men's. It's best out of the 3 sets and there are more rallies. Not to mention there is the occasional babe to watch and they generally seem more humble than the douchebags on the men's circuit."

Sainternist Offline



It's called free speech which the looney left haven't as yet been successful in banning, despite their best efforts

[saynta]

Who would even entertain reading that much text? Short n sharp, mate! Keep em wanting more hey what!!

Well I read it and it was good. How you supposed to ever learn anything if you don't read!

i agree with JB. I don't have an attention span that would allow me to read that.

[saynta]

Provided of course that one respects their fellow man and that said man, or woman deserves to be treated with civility and humanity.

Unfortunately I have met more than my fair share who don't deserve any of that.

But that's me.

So what would Lady Justice say about that?

When I first entered the Justice system over 50 years ago, I saw judges put on black caps and sentence murderers and rapists to death.

Sent a chill up my spine but i realised the sentences were just.

Unfortunately they were never carried out and routinely commuted to life in goal.

Also unfortunately, thanks mainly to the Whitlam government and then subsequent softcock governments, the judges and the justice system were castrated, no longer having the balls to man up and get rid of society's scumbags.

So really I don't give a stuff what "Lady Justice" would think of my comments.

PS. Of course i love Dutton.

[saynta]

To each his own mate. I don't find either of the Williams sisters in the least bit attractive.

Well that matters


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I agree with Stinger on this one.

Sent from my iPhone using my mirror

But why would you even say it. It's actually disgusting


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Because a heterosexual man still has a right to express his opinion.

[SaintPav]

Provided of course that one respects their fellow man and that said man, or woman deserves to be treated with civility and humanity.

Unfortunately I have met more than my fair share who don't deserve any of that.

But that's me.

So what would Lady Justice say about that?

When I first entered the Justice system over 50 years ago, I saw judges put on black caps and sentence murderers and rapists to death.

Sent a chill up my spine but i realised the sentences were just.

Unfortunately they were never carried out and routinely commuted to life in goal.

Also unfortunately, thanks mainly to the Whitlam government and then subsequent softcock governments, the judges and the justice system were castrated, no longer having the balls to man up and get rid of society's scumbags.

So really I don't give a stuff what "Lady Justice" would think of my comments.

PS. Of course i love Dutton.

Some people might say that this makes you no better than the 'scumbags'.