On Howard-hating
The right wing’s favorite pitch these days is that those of us on the left are irrationally consumed with blind hatred for [John Howard].
From [Tim Blair] to [Gareth Parker] to [Steve Edwards] all the way to [John Ray] (who knows a thing or two about hating), the rightwing pundits have been scratching their pits about this seemingly unsolvable riddle.
It’s not exactly Fermat’s Theorem.
Let’s see. Where to begin?
Well, there’s the [Tampa-based] election, for starters.
Then there’s the trashing of the [refugee] and Kyoto treaties.
And the tax cuts for the rich. And the deregulation of corporations.
And the [fridge magnets], Guantanamo Bay, and the imprisoning without trial of [Australian] citizens.
Of course, there’s this reckless, illegal war in Iraq that [Howard joined], using a pile of dry lies as fuel.
And then there was last week’s [attack on gay marriage], with [George Pell] grinning behind the [Prime Minister's] ear.
That should be enough to solve the puzzle.
But now comes [Norman Hanscombe] of [Cassandra's Cave], writing … that the left is now “frothing” as much as conservatives did when [Keating] was [Prime Minister]. …
The article was by the great columnist Molly Ivins, who wrote, in her concluding section: “It’s not necessary to hate [John W. Howard] to think he’s a bad [Prime Minister]. Grownups do that, you know. You can decide someone’s policies are a miserable failure without lying awake at night consumed with hatred.”
What she hates are [Howard's] miserable policies. She concludes her essay by saying, “If that makes me a [Howard]-hater, then sign me up.”
I’m with Molly. [Howard] may be an affable guy, but he’s a dangerous, disastrous [Prime Minister].
[With apologies to Matthew Rothschild.]
I think that adequately sums up the situation.
“I think that adequately sums up the situation.”
Well, hardly. Robert’s thesis seems to be that because he doesn’t hate Howard – indeed, finds him affable – it therefore follows that everyone
else is similarly inclined – love the sinner, hate the sin, kind of thing. Ergo, to allege that Howard is ‘hated’ is a wicked perversion of the truth. While I respect the integrity of Robert’s personal position here, I’m unconvinced about it’s broad applicability…………
I will take this seriously when the Federal President of the ALP starts rumours about Johnee like Staley did with Keating.
Until then I think the thought og people hating Howard as much as Keating is laughable
“Until then I think the thought og people hating Howard as much as Keating is laughable”
I don’t. I think that the same motivation applies in both cases: highly personalised demonisation and pathologisation is a traditional concomitant of adversarial politics. The more ‘powerful’ the target, the more toxic the attack. And there’s no discernible difference between Left and Right.
Well, not in Australia, anyway, Geoff.
I think I actually agree with Norman (!) that there are a contingent of people who irrationally hate Howard, and would attack him no matter what. I don’t think you’re one of those people, and I don’t think there’s even a sizeable proportion of the Left who’re like that.
And of course we don’t even have the Republicans and their hopefully-unsurpassable example of rabid hatred of Clinton, to point to. Keating? Pchah.
so what would a rational hatred of Howard (or anyone else for that matter) be?
I think hate itself is irrational in this context Meika.
“irrational” is just the Done Modifier for “hatred”. Kinda like “complete and” for “utter”. Or… or…
Why not ask long time A.L.P. left activist, Bob Howard, whether some of the hatred expressed against his young brother John, is not only misguided, but also, in some cases, perhaps a also tad pathological?
He’s known John Howard longer and better than any of us, and he always made it clear he didn’t agree with him politically [which isn't, I guess, all that surprising?]
I’ve got no issue with the man. I just wish someone else was Prime Minister.
I’ve got no issue with the man. I just wish someone else was Prime Minister.
If the Man could shore up Medicare, introduce tax credits, and bring forward cap-ex defence spending, I’d almost have no issue with him.
If John Howard was a hot chick, I’d fuck him.
Then there’s the right on the question of “political correctness.” If we put an argument, then of course we are being “pee cee” – when the idea really is a rhetorical shibboleth raised by the right to depict us as censorious, un-Australian and mind-numbed.
(mind you, in academic and sexual discourse in our society there are some staggering wowsers freezing genuine debate – but they are just puritans and shared equally by both sides of politics.)
From our perspective, of course, we notice that the “political correctness” of current politics is that Government is inefficient and evil, and that everything should be sent out to the private sector.
And that, genuinely, is the underlying hatred of our times. The governors for government itself, expressed sadly sometimes by both sides of politics.
Howard hating? I use a joking rhetoric of evil, but beneath it is something serious – that the Howard Government is uniquely committed to simple, blatant, public lying. And that is a moral position which genuinely debases the body politic, and undermines the heritage of democracy.
If the word “evil” has any currency at all, surely it can be applied to something like the Tampa horror? or is the term some kind of medieval hangover which disappeared when we stopped dunking witches, or has been glued onto genocide and can’t be used for anything else?
If so, common nationstealing has to find a lesser language, and that turns out to be our secret linguistic project. Now I am not making sense…
The point about the hatred for Clinton is a good one. That REALLY defines hatred. And it was evil, for the same reasons I have just ascribed to our friendly little knockneed comical Prime Minister. Sinister little bastard that he is.
I don’t hate or love people that I’ve never met – but I don’t like most of Howard’s policies. Having said that, I don’t like most of the ALPs policies either, and I detest the policies of Green Nation.
Perhaps I’m just an old softy, but I feel that old saying could well have been modified to say, “Hatred is the last refuge of the intellectually challenged.” I certainly believe in always trying to understand their plight
It is interesting reviewing this set of comments a few days later, with my completely serious hat on for a moment.
Politics is not an emotionless craft. No one sits around objectively and carefully making up their minds in the practical world – although the academics who post do the best they can, and deploy argument and deduction to reach a position.
But politics, flesh and blood politics, is by nature a passionate affair. We join a team, which roughly supports what we actually believe, and we engage in a game driven hurly burly. Politics is an expression of deep urges to tribalism and competition. (After all, the rugby league grand final is on this weekend – and look at the passionate blogging about that from otherwise “objective” economists..) It is exciting, engrossing and passionate.
What is more, it is precisely NOT a sport in that we are playing for very high stakes – the future of the country, our deep sense of participation in our nation, and a knowledge that beastial things can be done to people we care for. Children in detention camps, soldiers in disgraced armies, farmers driven off the land, livelihoods ruined, sick people dying untended, enterprise unrewarded, talent driven away or withered.. I have deliberately constructed a spread of effects here, which move different sectors of politics because I want to demonstrate the general point – if we lose our argument, the effects will gut us, no matter where we come from.
I don’t “hate” Howard in the sense that I want to see him dead, or broken-hearted over personal tragedy. But I think he is doing dreadful things and I want to see those things in ruins. And I think he has degraded politics and I am angry about it.
The Clinton example is a good one. It seems the American Right took on a crusade that went far beyond politics, that genuinely did proceed from hate. In that sense, there’s not too many people in the Australian debate who are so completely eroded by nastiness to feel like that. But there’s plenty of antagonism, and it is sanctimonious of the Right to pretend otherwise.
I am old enough to remember a generation of politicians in Federal Parliament who did respect each other. The Dalys and the Killens. They were probably a minority in their day, (look for Eddie Ward in the history books) but I think that level of grace and consideration is gone. And that is very sad, and reflects a collapse of consensus, and the fact that we are playing for high stakes as a result.
We would all have something to say about this change, and point to different malign forces and characters – it is worth taking up in another forum.
david Tiley, I’d never argue that there arent issues aren’t worthy of arousing passion; but the trend is to decide on conclusions, then ignore all evidence which doesn’t confirm your prejudices. That’s NOT a psychologically healthy position, and it certainly isn’t a particularly useful road for society to take. Chimpanzees are probably as capable as us of acting emotionally. We have other capacities which I consider more useful.
Unfortunately, using them is usually more painful than taking the emotional route to making decisions.
Yes, and I am really talking about doing politics in its daily sense; the fundamental part which is about making decisions is particularly important at a time when in some ways the old positions have been breaking up. We are trying to find new ways forward. An emphasis on education, for instance, attracts both “traditional” conservatives and democratic leftists – both of whom seem to be sharing a communitarian position.. who would have thunk that fifteen years ago? Gee, how did I get so longwinded?
Unfortunately, David, involvement in “politics in its daily sense”, tends to result in most people, particularly with those determined to make a career out of it —- regardless of their party or their ideology — somehow forgetting whatever first motivated them. It’s a basic feature of human nature. A regrettable feature perhaps, but none the less a feature for that.
I’m not suggesting I like it; but I lack the intellectual malleability — or the alternative ambition — to pretend otherwise.
I’m with David. The only thing he’s managed to deliver to the Australian people is the comedy show of “Abbot and Costello”.
Can’t help feeling that the joke’s on us though.