A Literary Precedent for Greens’ Feelings

Senseless Sensibility

Jane Austen’s Sense and
Sensibility* provides
The Greens with their text:

Marianne Dashwood’s
conjecture of one moment
is belief the next.

For fine-feeling folk,
to wish is to hope and to
hope is to expect,

overvaluing
feeling; for reason feeling
reason to reject.

 

* In Austen’s Sense and Sensibility (Ch. IV), Elinor “knew that what Marianne and her mother conjectured one moment they believed the next—that with them, to wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect.”

The “Progressive” Submission

The Greens have already lost their heads

With any trouble,
plight, mess or crisis which might
afflict our nation

The Greens know what to
do: plan yet another march
or demonstration.

Dr. Bandt* will write
a chant, and one having
a simple thesis:

the only way to
solve our problems with Islam’s
by proskynesis;

if any muslim
promise your immediate
decapitation

bow, bow, bow to all
demands whilst blaming Western
civilisation.

*  An example of Green silliness:

Greens MP Adam Bandt asked whether Australia’s deployment to the Middle East [were] making Australia less safe.
“We have to ask the serious question what is it that makes someone, a teenager, so disaffected with their own country that they want to kill people,” he told reporters in Canberra.

To answer Dr. Bandt’s question. Australia’s recent deployment to Iraq and Syria started Monday; Abdul Numan Haider’s plans to behead someone began at least three months ago.  Clearly, for a Government’s action to have an effect on someone’s “radicalisation” three months before it occurred, it must be really bad.

UPDATE I:  The Chant of Adam Bandt:

An some jihadist threaten you
blame, blame, blame your racist view,
and when your blood is on your chest
blame, blame, blame, the biassed West.
Should Muslims take away your head
blame, blame, blame yourself instead.
An Islam turn your life to shit
never blame the cause of it:
appease extremists!  let them slay!
Blame, blame blame the Western way.

UPDATE II:  see “Melbourne terror shooting: Numan Haider planned to behead Victoria Police officers, drape bodies in IS flag” by John Silvester in The Age:

Numan Haider used a small knife to attack an Australian Federal Police officer and a Victorian policeman before he was shot dead with a single shot.
When Haider was searched he was found to be carrying a larger knife and an Islamic State flag.
Police believe the plan was to follow instructions from the international terror group Islamic State and behead the officers, cover the bodies in the flag and then take photos to post via the internet.

Yeah, but it had nothing—nothing whatsoever!—to do with Islam, the Religion of Peace.

The Stupid ‘Carbon’ Tax is Gone

Finally

The Greens, of course, are aghast,
the ABC is downcast;
reality-deniers
must give ‘deniers’ a blast.

The act was by no means fast
but the legislation’s passed:
Gillard’s stupid ‘carbon’ tax
has been abolished at last.

“Downfall” Video: Hitler & Tasmania’s Department of Education

WARNING:  the subtitles of this video feature very offensive language.

Famed Negotiating Skills

In a carpet warehouse, two customers enter and, almost immediately, one spots an expensive but attractive Persian carpet.

Dr. Bandt:  Oh, my lord Lenin, that is the most beautiful carpet I have ever seen!  I must have it—
Sen. Milne:  Quiet, fool!  No mills!  They won’t give you a great deal if you look too eager.  The marked price is $1,500; let’s try to get it down to $1,450 or so.
Dr. Bandt:  Oh, but I want it, even if it might not immediately facilitate the free development of the class struggle in the rural districts.  I’ll pay anything to have it!
Mr. Wilkie:  Heriz an easy sale, Julia.  Qom, you take it:  that boy looks as if he’s in love with that rug.
Ms Gillard:  Ahar, sir, would you be interested in this lovely carpet?  What’s our price? $1,500?  I can do a bit better than that, I assure you.
Dr. Bandt:  I’ll take it, though the workers can obtain real political education only in the course of a sustained, consistent, all-out struggle of proletarian influences, aspirations and trends against bourgeois influences, aspirations and trends!  Not even Trotsky will deny that this is a lovely rug.
Ms Gillard:  How about I mark it down to, um, to … a thousand?
Dr. Bandt:  Only two thousand dollars?  I’ll take it!
Ms Gillard:  No, one thousand—by which I mean, of course, $850, Kashan hand.
Sen. Milne:   Hang on a tick, what else will you give us with this carpet?  We shan’t pay any more than $1,450.
Dr. Bandt:  I’ll take it!
Ms Gillard:  Look, I can’t go below $750, but I can throw in a few committees—
Dr. Bandt:  Yes, yes!  I’ll take it!  After all, the democratic system is a feature of bourgeois society—
Sen. Milne:   No, this rug looks a little worn.  Though there are rugs all over the room, I’m sure I can see some flaw.  What else can you offer? 
Ms Gillard:  All right, $500, and automatic upgrades to first class on all travel within Australia and some overseas “fact-finding” excursions.
Sen. Milne:   Come, you don’t represent the people of Australia as well as the Australian Greens do, with our consistent polling of well over ten per cent.  We don’t like it all that much.
Dr. Bandt:  I do, I do like it; I love it!  Damn!
Sen. Milne:   Quiet, you!  No damns.  Look, you can go a little lower, surely.
Ms Gillard:  All right, I’ll give you ten bucks if you take it away, and I’ll throw in an inutile tax on a trace gas essential to life, predicated on a pseudo-scientific scam, and—
Sen. Milne:   Only if you provide free delivery—
Ms Gillard:  Done!  

[After quickly completing some paperwork, Bandt and Milne exeunt, skipping.]
 
Mr. Wilkie:  So, make a good sale?  They seemed pretty pleased.
Ms  Gillard:  I’m a great negotiator.*  Now, what can I give you, Andrew?
Mr. Wilkie:  Well, Tony Abbott has already offered a thousand million dollars for this dingy, old rug-shop—
Ms Gillard:  How about a quarter of that, but I’ll throw in a promise not to gamble, a promise to have a surplus, somehow, and I’ll break my promise not to tax carbon dioxide?
Mr. Wilkie:  Done.


*  The Prime Minister of Australia, Hon. Julia Gillard, is, according to her many sycophants and lackeys, a wonderful negotiator.  Following the last election, which resulted in a hung parliament, Ms Gillard sought support from independent members of the House of Representatives to form a minority government.  Dr. Adam Bandt, the newly elected member for the seat of Melbourne, and sole member of the Australian Greens in the lower house, had already stated, on election night, that he would support only a Labor Gillard government and would never support any government led by the Opposition Leader, Hon. Tony Abbott; nonetheless, the PM entered into negotiations with the Australian Greens in order to enlist their support for her forming a government wherein, inter alia, she promised to introduce the “carbon” tax which she had earlier explicitly undertaken not to introduce.

Miscellaneous Transcriptions, Nº 3 – the Balance of Power

(from weepyleaps)

Transcript of a conversation in Sen. Brown’s office,
Friday, 1 July, 2011:

Sen. Brown:  Welcome, team, this is the first day of a new, golden age.  Hang on, we’ll just wait for the cameras to leave.  All right, welcome to the new paradigm; now, how shall we begin?

Sen. Milne:  We say, “No pulp mill!”
Dr. Bandt:  We call for an end to bourgeois, left-fascism and deviationism!
Sen. Rhiannon:  Heh-heh heh!  We need to expel from the party those members who reject the conditions and theses laid down by the central committee!  Heh-heh!  Talking of the all-powerful central committee, the leadership—

Sen. Hanson-Young:  Yes, yes, we should have a leadership spill!  I vote for Sarah Hanson-Young and so does my Teddy!

Sen. Rhiannon:  Hark!  I am call’d, my little spirit, see!  Heh-heh!  I vote for Senator Rhiannon!
Dr. Bandt:  I vote for Adam Bandt.  
Sen. Siewert:   I vote for Rachel Siewert.
Sen. Ludlam:  I vote for Senator Ludlum.
Sen. Di Natale:  I vote for me.
Sen. Waters:  I vote for Senator Waters.
Sen. Hanson-Young:  Ooh, I vote for me!
Sen. Wright:  No, me!

Sen. Brown:  Slow down, slow down, everybody.  Christine? 
Sen. Milne:  I vote for Bob.
Sen. Brown:  In that case, I have two votes and remain leader.  Now, assuming that each of you will vote for yourself for deputy—
omnes:  Yes, of course.
Sen. Brown:  I vote for Senator Milne, who thus remains deputy leader.  Right, on with business.  We have the balance of power in the Senate whenever the Government and the Coalition are opposed.  What shall we concentrate our efforts on accomplishing?  What should we announce first?
Sen. Milne:  No coal-fired power stations!
Sen. Siewert:  Ban abattoirs!
Sen. Di Natale:  Make the swinish multitude exercise more!
Sen. Wright:  Tell people what is good for them!  At the moment, the suburbs are full of ignorant racists who eat the wrong food, read the wrong newspapers, watch the wrong television shows—
Sen. Ludlam:  Supporters of nuclear energy must be demonised!  Defame sceptics—
Sen. Waters:  Accuse anyone doubtful of global warming or against taxing the air we breathe of being ignorant, suburban trash in the pay of big oil—
Sen. Milne:  We already do all that—
Dr. Bandt:  Systematic and methodical agitation is necessary throughout the suburbs—
Sen. Rhiannon:  Liver of blaspheming Jew!  First, you loony Leninist, all the party’s publishing institutions must be subordinated to the party leadership—
Dr. Bandt:  Look, you Stalinist hag, an entirely classless, stateless form of society— 
Sen. Rhiannon:  Fair is foul, and foul is fair!  Heh-heh heh!  We must arrange a boycott of all Jewish, I mean, Israeli businesses, and then we must regularly and methodically remove reformists and centrists—
Sen. Hanson-Young:  Please don’t shout!  It makes Teddy nervous. 
Dr. Bandt:  Look, I support Palestinians as much— 
Sen. Rhiannon:  The Jews are responsible—
Sen. Brown:  Umm—

Sen. Hanson-Young:  Oopsie, Teddy did a wee-wee.  Bad Teddy!
Sen. Rhiannon:  You cursed brat!  Look what you’ve done!  I’m melting! melting!
Sen. Brown:  Someone, anyone, Sarah wet herself again; and judging from the smell, Senator Rhiannon needs her nappy changed.
Sen. Rhiannon:  Ah, my pretties!  Heh-heh heh!

Sen. Waters:  Oh, yuck, now she’s playing with it!
Sen. Brown:  Adam, please, their assistants know what to do; take them to their offices, quickly.

Dr. Bandt:  All right.  Come, senators, let’s go toily.
Sen. Hanson-Young:  Is Saint Peter the tutelar saint of Cadiz?
Sen. Rhiannon:  Ah, the devil is come among you, having great wrath.  Heh-heh heh.
Dr. Bandt:  Come on! 

Sen. Brown:  Perhaps, now they’ve gone, we can get some work done.  I was thinking that I should draft a media release for Sarah calling on the Government to alter the powers of the Foreign Investment Review Board to include water licences.  Also, whatever inane thing the PM says, I’ll find a way of turning it into a stick for beating Tony Abbott.

omnes:   Agreed.

Sen. Ludlam:  I shall issue a media release saying the Australian Government has gone weeks without answering questions on when it first knew the full extent of the Fukushima catastrophe.  We must make people think that all nuclear power stations are about to explode any day now.  Our calls for green energy, of course, must not be interpreted in any way as supportive of what is actually non-polluting power.

omnes:   Agreed.

Sen. Milne:  I shall issue a media release saying that we call on the Australian Trade and Industry Alliance to call off its planned advertising campaign against a price on pollution—for the media now compliantly accept our deceptive definition of carbon dioxide as “pollution”—until it is in a position to engage in an “honest and informed debate”.  That will stop them!  Hate media!

omnes:   Hate media!

Sen. Brown:  Excellent!  We’ll get on with that.  Well done, everyone; that was a productive morning’s work.  See you all Monday!

Miscellaneous Transcription, Nº 1

(from weaklylicks)

Transcript of a conversation in Sen. Brown’s office,
Thursday, 16 December, 2010:

Sen. Brown:  So, how do we respond to that bloody Bolt’s call* for Gillard to resign?  Some intimate that we pious and blameless folk† are also somehow at fault.  It’s a slowly unfolding kettle of fish we could be opening up.

Sen. Milne:  We say, “No dams!”

Dr. Bandt:  We say, “It’s too early to say anything!”

Sen. Milne:  We say, “No pulp mill!”

Sen. Hanson-Young:  We say, “It’s time to have teddy bear.”

Sen. Milne:  We say, “Move on!” 

Sen. Brown:  Thank you, Christine.  Nameless advisers? 

Nameless Adviser 1:  We say, “So’s your mamma!”

Sen. Brown:  What? 

Sen. Nameless Adviser 2:  We say, “No, you resign!” 

Omnes:  Yes, yes!

Sen. Brown:  So, we agree that I wittily turn the tables by saying that Bolt should resign? 

Dr. Bandt:  Because he’s naughty. 

Nameless Adviser 1:  And his mamma! 

Sen. Milne:  No dams! 

Sen. Hanson-Young:  I t’ought I was a tapas bar, but I really was a cucumber.

Sen. Brown:  Right.  Thanks, people.  Bolt should resign.  That will set everything right.  Meeting adjourned.

* Following the latest deaths of people attempting to effect an illegal entry into Australia by boat, Andrew Bolt, a newspaper-columnist and blogger, called for the Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, to resign.  He considers her the person most responsible for her incompetent Government’s ineffective but dangerous immigration policies, which have lured scores, if not hundreds, of people to watery deaths.
†  i.e., The Australian Greens.

UPDATE:  see also “Miscellaneous Transcriptions Nº 3 — the Balance of Power”.