Oh,
The Congress, oncology let it be plainly said, is pure waste. It’s like the Enlightenment happened and they drank a little too deeply from the bowl of Cartesian doubt and spent the next three centuries heaving confusion into each other’s arseholes until they were so backed up, they just started shitting from their mouths. They’re vile. They “believe” that breast cancer is the by-product of abortion, condoms are no prophylaxis against disease or hellfire and that homosexuals are only That Way because of the wide availability of chèvre.
In short, they’re stupid. They think that science is a matter of opinion and that all morals are universalisable and can be traced to a Christian God. And that Christian God made the most worthy of us in His image: white and stupid property developers capable of erecting a shit block of flats in seven days.
(Apols to Actual Christians who recognise this fallacious God as a perversion imagined by John Locke. I am totally cool with you having faith in a supreme being. I am just not cool with you insisting that His governance of you extends to me.)
Just. To. Be. Clear. The Congress is a vat of infinite Stupid kept simmering to a salmonella heat by the fuel of thrice-digested bullshit. If I found myself in the company of any of its members, I would probably scream Let Jesus Fuck You as I lowered myself onto a plastic crucifix. Because, of course, I love The Exorcist and all films in the menarche-horror style and because taunting Christians is fun.
But that’s all it is. Fun. And don’t you tell me If I Can’t Dance, It’s Not My Revolution. Emma Goldman was a douche and you’ve been dancing for thirty years, you fun-loving “Leftists”. And what has that achieved? Apart from an occasional wage from the Comment pages in The Guardian? The corporatisation of war. A wage gap unseen since the Great Depression. A unipolar global power system. The price of your outrage is global inequality.
You may believe that if only we reformed the morals of those with whom we disagree, harmony would prevail. You may believe that if we stop our parliamentarians from attending the Congress conference, we have achieved something.
Today, Greens Senator Larissa Waters passed a motion to prevent her fellows from attending a conference. This move and the protests that will welcome it will achieve a few things. None of them positive.
First, genuine censure will shroud the real intentions of the nut-butter Right. Let Bernardi and Andrews and that nong Abetz go. Let them show their irrationality which is otherwise concealed under the suit of liberalism. Let Australians, who whatever you say about them are in great favour of a secular public life and despise what they see as fundamentalism, know how shitty their representatives can be. Enough rope, as they say.
Second, it gives Blot et al the chance to accuse the soft-Left of being politically correct and demanding of good behaviour. And not without cause, frankly. Who the fuck is the Left to ban things? The Left should be a force of a type it is itself banned. Instead, it comes over like Super Nanny and cries “that’s unasseptable”.
Third, the Left can feel like it had a nice little victory. Which it has not.
For the sake of actual shit. If you want to help people with a non-normative sexuality—which apparently opponents of the Congress do—campaign for refuges that young people whose lives are made miserable by their parents can access.
And don’t give me “why not both”. Because it is never both. Because condemnation of an out-and-out moment of stupidity by dumb old Christians is the easiest thing in the world. And finding solutions to real social problems is the most tedious and difficult thing in the world. And joy derived from putative victory does not inspire hard work. It gives rise to only more dancing. And the Freedom Against Intolerance is a noxious liberal foxtrot that makes people feel like the world is functioning in a more just way when actually, it is a sideshow that makes all Caring People relax and say, well, things are getting better.
Well, they’re not. They’re getting worse. And they have got worse over the last three decades with EXACTLY this kind of representational opposition to hardship. Think about how the liberal-Left fucks shit up, despite its best intentions. And let these idiots go to their idiot conference and try to conspire for a future that will not be made painful by religion but by our refusal to see that we need to change policy, not attitudes. And the only attitude that will shift anyhow is that of the centre-Right that will see, not without justification, that the Left has become a bunch of childcare workers who want everyone to *appear* to do the right thing.
If you fancied, right now you could bugger the Australian Left with a sandpaper-wrapped issue of Quadrant and it would barely stir. In fact, if you tied your junk up in an Awareness Ribbon, it would thank you for a lovely afternoon of violent, non-consensual sodomy and ask you to stay for a Nespresso chai sipped to the smooth, smooth sounds of Sarah Blasko. All the Left wants now is capitalism with a human face. It no longer cares or even knows that late capitalism only has a face. It has no brain or heart.
The market and the liberal democracy to which it is now espoused has no brain for logic. It just has force. There is no heart for compassion. Just the numb cruelty of growth. But the Left, once opposed to a structure, is now opposed to a very bad imaginary boyfriend whose desiccated insides are concealed by the suit of liberalism. Show me your human face, says the Left. And it holds a mirror up. As if the dead eyes of capitalism can see themselves staring back.
Let the words ooze like ordure from Kevin Andrews’ mean little mouth. Let him say in the crudest possible terms what needs to be said. Let him say “I am a fuckwit that thrives on a diet of corpses” and smash your stupid hand mirror of equivalence which will only reflect to the Right and the economic powers it serves (even if it doesn’t know it’s doing it) evidence of their power.
You must stop having Fun. You must stop Calling Out bullies. You must choose a better weapon than tolerance against a force that we need to see naked. Let them have their hateful weekend that is so fucking ridiculous, even your Aunty Joy will see it as a bit too rich for her tastes. For the sake of fuck and of the future, let the foundations of inequality be seen with no obfuscation.
It should be fucking mandatory for every parliamentarian to attend this festival of turds. It should be the work of the Left to dress like Church Ladies and go to the conference and demand a ban on quality goat’s cheese for fear of how it can excite the perinea of their sons. To object to the brutally objectionable is the work of children.
Don’t make me send you to the naughty step.
40 thoughts on “whatever”
Someone linked an article of yours on facebook, of all places. I both agree and disagree with your opinions on enough levels that I’m trying to organize a lifetime subscription to your web activity. Keep it up.
It’s the asinine, incremental descent into intellectual mediocrity that is so trying. With no acknowledgement of the role of class in differentiating our experiences. I hear your pain, Helen. I have a particular hatred of that brand of feminism wherein middle class (and predominantly middle aged) women fervently discuss oppression whilst pursuing a yummy mummy, yarn bombing lifestyle that is funded by corporate executive hubby (dependency upon male earnings is the new radicalism in Northcote and Thornbury – because it’s all about ‘choice’). Where volunteering at their children’s fete is elevated to the same political status as lobbying for legislative reform to engender systemic change. Because it’s all about ME!!!!!!! Look at middle class, narcissistic MEEEEE!!!!!!!
Sorry. Rant over.
This is why you’re awesome, Helen. A well-written piece.
Antony is good with his ‘keeping it real’ Israel stance maybe he mistakenly extended his #sobrave anti-Israel persona to the fem issues. Go hard Helen – loving it… And never STFU…
Yep. He does seem to have mistaken Twitter Feminism for the IDF. Poor dear.
It was a very flawed piece of writing.
As a 62 yr old feminist thanks for shining lights in dark corners and opening up new doors – you made me cry.
Was it all the curse words that made you sob, Kerry? :)
she is a jew, so it’s not surprising she’s racist
What?
By the way “Shaun” and “Katharine”. Please go to the trouble of masking your IP address if you’re going to troll properly. I can see you’re the same computer.
it’s rape culture Helen. This poor woman was being sexually harassed on the street and no one even did a thing. Men, Women, everyone just stood by and watched her be molested, this is a sad indictment on western culture where men have the right to do whatever they want to a woman’s body. I for one am glad this video has shed light on a perverse and unspoken area of western society. Women are treated as less than second class citizens now where there bodies are jsut seen as meat to be toyed with by men. And your apologetics of these rapists, Helen, quite frankly makes me sick.
What in heaven’s name are you talking about?
Do read the post.
I do suspect a comment calling me a “rape apologist” appended to a post that has nothing whatever to do with rape in a cut’n’paste instant of Jezebel jargon is one of my mates trolling me.
Clem Bastow. Is it you?
I certainly did not suggest it was not
Paula Matthewson’s on why women on the right will never identify as feminists was worse. It went: ‘I know dick about feminism, but I’m going to write about it anyway, and by the way I was raised in the Working Class® but the right suits my aspirations better.”
And now I’m ashamed to admit I read it and toyed with idea of commenting.
it’s not the hello’s helen, it the rapeyness of it all, and you’re bigoted diatribe really just shows you up as being a rape apologist.
I’m really unsure if this is a genuine feminist reprimand or a parody.
Either way.
Honestly, Are you having a gag, here?
Antony’s piece felt a bit like Kony 2012:
He doesn’t really know much about Kony/feminism, but he saw a YouTube video and now he knows he has to stand up to the victims of this vicious warlord/Clementine Ford, and that by pressing the Like button/writing a Guardian think-piece he can convince others that we have to Stop Kony/save feminism.
I feel, however, that these efforts, like Kony 2012, will be futile.
I last bought shoes in 2012 so, y’know…
It was cool watching some other male feminists tell Loewenstein to shut up because penis in response to his ‘as a penishaver, I’m #sobrave for talking about this’
But also a man therefore wrong
I was lying in bed with my girlfriend earlier today after a late afternoon romp and she says, “read this by Anthony Lowenstein”, shoving her laptop in my face.
So I did, and told her, “I didn’t understand a thing”..
Then she showed me your piece Helen, and I read it and said again to my beautiful gal, “I don’t understand this either. You’re the lawyer, I am just a landscaper”.
She laughed, we put the laptop down and spent another 2 hours in bed.
cheers, FD
I love this story.
But you’re obviously oppressing women so I can’t allow it.
First time I’ve ever heard “pants” used in that context. Loved it and did a lol.
Well. I’d accept the style compliment. But, you know. Man.
You rock, Helen.
(And, as I have a unisex name you’ll never know if my opinion is meaningless or poignant). ;-)
I am ambivalent about your opinion!
Well. You know. I guess you can comment on fashion?
I understand his assertion that it’s easier to criticise Zionism that feminism. He’s speaking from the “inside” as such on Zionism, coming from a Jewish background, which he cannot lose. He’s on the “outside” of feminism, a hard place to criticise from.
And perhaps to get a little psychological, he knows on Zionism, his position is strong and with merit; on feminism, he feels like he’s on the right track but still shakey.
Yes. He must feel a bit in over his head. He’s no expert and it’s unfortunate that what he said he has previously lacked is courage. I’m not just being a bitch when I say what he lacks is clear thinking on gender. He needs to read.
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Sadly, your opinion is no good here as you are a chap.
#Brave
Well. This is true but chiefly because you are a lady.
Well said. Read his article last night, the I’m-so-courageous undertone running through it struck me as suss in a way I couldn’t quite identify, glad you (more articulately) pointed it out.
Thanks, P. Although your opinion is meaningless because penis.
As always, a well-reasoned article Helen.
Surely, you’re only saying that because you’re a man! Or, a woman!