By Jeremy
Timmeh today sticks it to those revolting triumphalist “leftists” and their apparently prominent foolish conservative-style gloating after the last election:
EXCUSE me, but weren’t the culture wars meant to be over? Lots of leftists told us so, following last year’s election.
Yet now the biggest story in the country is about a photographer who without trouble exhibited his work throughout the Howard era and now finds his pictures condemned as “revolting” by the PM.
The war-overists unfurled their “mission accomplished” banners a little prematurely.
I’m a lefty, but I don’t recall anyone I know or read declaring the culture wars “over”, or “mission accomplished” just because the country elected a Labor-right Prime Minister. Who is Blair talking about? Is he talking about anyone who exists, or is he hallucinating? Or has he been trawling fringe blogs so obscure even their authors aren’t sure their posts are actually being uploaded?
I don’t suppose it really matters. In any case, whoever these “leftists” are, figments of Tim’s moribund imagination or not, he’s certainly pwned them. Bravo, mate. Please allow me to shout you an imaginary glass of champagne on your imaginary victory.
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“Is he talking about anyone who exists, or is he hallucinating? Or has he been trawling fringe blogs so obscure even their authors aren’t sure their posts are actually being uploaded?”
i feel sure that blair doesn’t understand the term ‘culture wars’, hence his confusion/hallucination/whatever. besides, now he’s got a smick new mainstream site he has to write something that’ll bring the masses running doesn’t he? and nothing gets the sheep baa-ing quite like lefty come-unstuck syndrome.
oops, meant to include at end that reason blair needs more sheep is because number of posts a bit low since moving to smick new site. LOL!!!
Maybe he is referring to article such as this one in the Sydney Morning Herald;
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/09/1062902057793.html
or this one;
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/a-truce-in-the-culture-wars/2008/04/25/1208743249053.html
The ‘culture wars are over’ meme seems to be a creation of Blair and Albrechtsen, based on no real substance.
Comment moderation! WTF????
…And nothing gets the masses in like a good old-fashioned lefty bashing!
Unless Blair posts proof (which I highly doubt) than all I hear is gibberish from him.
Chris, it will become “proof” once Bolt links it and then links it then Blair re-links it.
Blogger and Financial Review columnistJohn Quiggin: “Both before and since the election, commentators of the centre-left, including me, have pronounced the end of the culture wars …”
Quiggin, again: “The broadly unanimous centre/left position, (examples here and here) is ‘it’s over, no one cares any more, let’s get on with serious business’.”
The Australian: “The culture wars are over, at least in the minds of some prominent ABC commentators and the liberal intelligentsia who claim Kevin Rudd has routed the reactionary forces of the Right.”
Ben Pobjie in New Matilda (to Andrew Bolt): “I’m sorry that the culture wars are over. I’m sorry if that makes you feel irrelevant.”
The SMH’s Richard Hinds: “The so-called culture wars are over.”
Academic Robert Manne (summarised by Janet Albrechtsen): “To argue, as Robert Manne does in The Monthly, that the culture wars are over is fallacious.”
Blogger HowardOut: “The Culture Wars are over, Miranda. You lost.”
Margo Kingston: “ …went to bed at 5am on Sunday morning with the roar of Howard’s loss and Maxine’s win in my ears (culture war won) …”
Academic Richard Nile: “The announcement of the summit is the clearest sign yet that the culture wars of the 1990s are being bypassed.”
See, that’s the thing- Blair, Bolt etc base their opinions of what constitutes a “leftist” solely on a few vocal minorities in the press and arts. You could argue that there have been culture wars across the world between conservatives and liberals for all of mankind’s existence, of course, but most of the so-called “cultural warriors” on both sides (well, really, there are far more sides than merely two, but whatever) perceive a fictional, homogenous blob as their enemy.
Well, I’m not sure that all tim’s examples qualify as crowing lefties (if you actually follow the links), but those guys, provided that they’re the same ones angry with Kevin Rudd for his “revolting” remark, have indeed been pwned.
The rest of us are shaking our heads at you and wondering why you’d give someone like Tim Blair a free kick. “Mission accomplished” is the righties’ thing. You know how stupid it is. Why copy that?
Duh.
As to the culture war in question, see the next post.
Good of Tim to provide links, although I’d take issue with some of them, too (in a solidarity groupthink with Jeremy, you see).
Ben Pobjie is a comedian, for starters, and his comment is more likely a jab at Bolt and his ilk than any serious exultation.
The News Ltd broadsheet seems to be generalising in its comments (like Tim was) without naming anyone (and it goes on to say that it “hopes” the wars are over, anyway).
Richard Hinds doesn’t seem like much of a lefty to me, and his article is mostly about sport (but I guess being published by Fairfax makes him a defacto commie in Tim’s eyes).
And Nile talks about “bypassing” (or abandoning?) the “culture wars”, not winning them. He’s on about a normalisation of public debate, rather than the slinging match of old. COMMIE!!1!
Other than that, though, it is clear that the country’s entire current of vaguely-left-of-Franco writers and bloggers have been holding all-night parties celebrating their victory in the culture wars. I know I have.
You lefties just got completely pwned by Blair.
If this blog was important enough, I would establish a blog refuting its silly assertions.
“You lefties just got completely pwned by Blair.”
We did, Leon? I’m not as familiar with that experience as you are, so I’ll take your word for it.
pwnt, Leon.
Stand by for a comment from “Howard Roark” defending Leon’s intelligence, courage and integrity.
owned
LOL – seriously, I actually did Laugh Out Loud.
The thing is that Tim gave readers credit for already aware of at least some of those quotes.
Man! If I’d done that I’d be too ashamed to show my face in public for months. But there you are poking your ahead above the parapets again!
Like, totally pwned, ladies.
What a bunch of amateurs.
pwned.
“Is he talking about anyone who exists, or is he hallucinating?”
“Good of Tim to provide links, although I’d take issue with some of them, too (in a solidarity groupthink with Jeremy, you see)”
So Tim proves numerous quotes of living people, to show that some lefties have claimed the ‘culture war’ is over, but all the names provided are ‘not good enough’. Typical!
“Is he talking about anyone who exists, or is he hallucinating? Or has he been trawling fringe blogs so obscure even their authors aren’t sure their posts are actually being uploaded?”
John Quiggin. Margot Kingston. Sydney Morning Herald. The Australian.
pwned.
Yep. Pwned.
And even more amusingly, too thick to admit it.
Now THAT is priceless.
MarkL
Canberra
Go for gold, fellas.
DamianD
Canberra
“…Well, I’m not sure that all tim’s examples qualify as crowing lefties…”
This is known as “moving the goal posts”. But, hey, feel free to scramble for cover, people, ‘cuz you’re totally pwned.
Here come the (stupid) bastards, to cite a Primus song.
Blair could also have added to the mix another Leftist who thought the Culture Wars were all over and the good guys had won.
Guy Rundle:
“What you need in these times is one such contrarian columnist, not eight, with the rest talking closer to where people actually are. If Switzer and Mitchell don’t clean house, someone will. ”
“The other reason these guys are under the hammer is, of course, because they FAILED.”
http://www.crikey.com.au/Media-Arts-and-Sports/20071210-Time-for-Switzer-and-Mitchell-to-clean-house.html?CurrentDate=29+%2F+05+%2F+2008
Jeremy, here is the title of your post:
“Fictional “leftists” pwned”
Do you STILL say that these leftists are fictional or not?
You know, any other self-respecting lefty would just delete the whole thread and pretend it never happened.
Also Waleed Aly writing for the Sunday Age.
Also Mercurius writing on Larvatus Prodeo. (“For those who are dismayed by talk of culture war and all the militaristic language it entails, I’m afraid I can offer little consolation. I believe such terms, when you look beyond the hairy-chested rhetoric, are analytically useful to help us examine what is going on. Many have declared that the years of kulturkampf are over, but I think these are false hopes born of a failure to recognise that the war has moved on from the grinding futility of the trenches to the ruthless devastation of lightning war.”)
Also, Guy, formerly of Polemica.info – see the Quiggin link above. If you were in any doubt about the validity of the Albrechtsen link, the other examples that Tim and others provide would seem to demonstrate that there was a widespread sentiment amongst the left that the culture wars were indeed, over. As an easy search would have found.
But also, interestingly, John Howard! It would seem that the largely metaphorical culture wars are like a door, something that can be permanently closed and opened depending on the needs of the participants.
Perhaps George Miller was right:
We’re a very small country and we have very little culture distinct enough to call it our own. So why should we have a war about it? It’s as ridiculous as bald men fighting over a comb, when we should be out there trying to grow hair.
“Comment awaiting moderation”? WTF?
Oh, I guess it was an anti-spam measure.
The multiple links triggered the spam filter. Fixed now.
Here’s a “fictional” leftist discussing the culture wars. Purely for Jeremy’s edification.
Jeremy: “I’m a lefty, but I don’t recall anyone I know or read declaring the culture wars “over”, or “mission accomplished” just because the country elected a Labor-right Prime Minister.”
Tony Moore of CPD: “The change of government, however, is no guarantee that money will pour into Aunty’s coffers and a left-wing ABC Board will arise from the ashes of the culture wars.”
Does this count as a leftist discussing the culture wars? Or was this taken out of context? I’ll defer to an expert leftist on this point.
Seems I’ve been reading all the wrong leftists. From now on I’ll let this mob prescribe my commie reading list for me.
Pretty lame, Damian. So I guess that’s the, “Oh you mean THAT kind of leftist?”, gambit…?
Did too.
Did not.
Did too.
Did not.
Hey! Looks like it’s easy to get the Zeitgeist over here in “the Project”.
Pwned, boys, pwned.
Damian, you are (purposefully?) missing the point.
Jeremy says specifically:
“I’m a lefty, but I don’t recall anyone I know or read declaring the culture wars “over”, or “mission accomplished” just because the country elected a Labor-right Prime Minister. Who is Blair talking about? Is he talking about anyone who exists, or is he hallucinating?”
To put a finer point on it, he entitles the post:
“Fictional “leftists” pwned”
Note he isn’t saying “some” leftists or “certain” leftists. He is saying that there are none. Hence the term “fictional”.
Why do you people have to be so damn dishonest?
“Fictional” leftists dispwned
Ahh – the winged monkey semantics game.
“Tim never said that ALL lefties believe in the culture wars, he just said ‘Lefties’ believe in them, which really only requires 2 people to believe it in order to be a technically true statement.
And Tim found five!! His point is PROVED I tell you! I can barely control my erection.”
Batwing morons. Keep on fighting against the easy target kids – meanwhile the 99% of Leftists for whom you have no answer will chuckle quietly at you.
As we have been doing for the last ten years.
That’s right Mondo, my little Leftie mate. Don’t like losing the game you started so you move the goal posts.
What a complete Leftard.
Fondest regards,
Winged Monkey of Enlightenment
Mondo not just 99% of leftists, 95% of Australians laugh at infantile right-wing ideologues like Abu Chowdah. People who immerse themselves within
the blog sites of typists and cut and pasters like Bolt and Blair, so much, that their own personal beilief sytems just become a representation of the mcahinations inside the heads of their blogging overlords. The vast majority of thinking, adult, rational conservatives laugh at people like Abu as well.
Yep bitchz got pwned.
Pwned, Chris of “Brissie”. Well and truly pwned, little buddy.
Loved the “overlords” bit, though. Very Marr-esque in its paranoid delusion.
The culture wars are clearly not over. Equally clearly very few people think they are. Albrechtsen and Blair have picked up on a few leftists who have made stupid statments about this and whipped it up into a bigger controversy than it is.
“Culture wars” is an expression for the running battle beween leftists and non-leftists which covers a huge number of issues. A few of these have been settled and other areas are hotly contested. In any sane world gay marriage would be uncontroversial and Windschuttle would be applauded for his work in cleaning the Augean stables of the black-armband historians.
Don’t like losing the game you started so you move the goal posts.
It’s more like attempting to stop you dribbling retards from expanding the goals to encompass half the field so that you can excitedly scream ‘Goal’ every time Blair manages to fumble the ball in a vaguely forward direction.
There, there. Yes, of course it is. There’s a good chap, young Mongo. Keep your pecker up.
“The vast majority of thinking, adult, rational conservatives laugh at people like Abu as well.”
also bolt bloggers lol at abu chowdah too chris – we ‘re not all group thinkers.
abu chowdah: Kevin 24/7 obviously not keeping you busy enough eh?
Pwned, Chris of “Brissie”. Well and truly pwned, little buddy.
And how do you explain that imbecile? Just because you spend so much time at a mutually assuring, tribal, group-thinking community site like Bolt’s, don’t assume that people from other sites form collectives in the same way.
When did I ever identify myself as a ‘leftist’ or state my tribal unity with the people quoted in this post. I guess one could say that my views on a range of issues means that I would be best identified as centrist or centre-left. But no, Abu what an imbecile like you would undoubtedly fail to understand is that my main objection to typists and cut and pasters like Bolt and Blair, along with their knee-jerked group-thinking collective of minions, like yourself, is your inability to discuss adult issues, in a way even closely resembling that undertook by a rational, logical, mature adult.
“Confessions of a Bolt blogger”, I understand that some Bolt Bloggers, would laugh at Abu as well. Having previously been one, and occasionally returning, I do agree that there are a few bloggers who challenge the idiotic consensus harboured by Bolt, seemingly more able too now, with less censorship of dissenting views.
Also there are some rational conservative minded people over, there who ultimately may agree with Bolt on individual issues, but do not engage in the childish rubbish, and who would also laugh at “Abu” types
Unfortunately the majority of Bolt’s visitors form a vast group-thinking, hilariously hypocritical, idiotic mob, with no self awareness, and pre-decided political views, based on servitude to the mob’s ideology. I was previously unaware of the level of juvenile idiocy, or the numbers afflicted amongst some of my fellow Australians, until I first visited Bolt’s site. Previously I had, perhaps naively, thought that their type of behaviour was something that died out amongst people, once they reached adult-hood. Thankfully the vast majority of adult Australians, aware of these types, laugh at them.
People LOL at my posts? People don’t take me seriously?
I’m… I’m… shocked.
I was just browsing back and realised that Chris’s diatribe above was directed at me. There was a great deal of effort (and bile) in your posts Chris and I apologise if I didn’t actually acknowledge them at the time. Still, the moment has passed my dear fellow. Insha’allah I will have the benefit of your witty and erudite disapprobation at some point in the future.
I will say that I do not always agree with Bolt and Blair and I certainly do not always agree with some of the hardcore regulars at those sites (especially Blair) and have crossed swords with them and been treated as persona non grata at one time or another.
It saddens me that you would stereotype me in such a cavalier fashion, but it does not surprise me. There’s a LOT of that about on left wing AND conservative sites.
Having said that let me add… pwned Chris, pwned.
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