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I think this lil snippet from the incredibly underrated UK comedy gem, Peep Show (watch it if you have not - unbelieveably funny!) might come in hand in this rapidly unraveling thread:
 
Seems a lot of Australians get their world view from mainstream media hacks like Andrew Bolt and/or Stan Grant, and acquire a smug self-perception that they are well informed. But they are duped by a controlled media,
If that were the case, we'd have Morrison for a second term. SKY is not mainstream, it's an outlet of RW hacks.

SKY hacks like to think they have influence when they don't. They are fringe media, ranting to a small choir for attention and ratings. Their rating are too poor to cut through. A lot of their stuff is simply Murdoch allowing US style lunacy and paranoia to run free. He thinks it can get traction here. It won't. We don't have US style paranoia and their vicious culture wars in politics. We're too apathetic.

Grant doesn't have an agenda rant like SKY. The ABC is held to a charter to reflect cultural diversity and its minorities. It too suffers from an apathetic public that doesn't connect to politics in large numbers.

Most commercial media is little more than magazine-style soft news - hoons, house fires and petty crime made to look as threatening as possible. Can't see how anyone is duped by something who's only agenda is to slip in insidious advertising and make it look like news. Their political reporting is largely passive, just gives pollies a soapbox, and tries to get a stoush going for a few extra eyeballs. It's pathetic.

These days there is plenty of valuable and insightful information accessible to all through the Internet, but you have to go find it

The majority simply can't be arsed. Not only that, it takes a smart internet and media savvy type to work out the shit from the informed balanced stuff. There is far more of the former on the net.
 
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It’s called thinking for yourself, Dave. You should try it sometime. Might calm your nerves.

You see, if you want to live in a democracy you have to get used to the idea of people having different points of view to yours. Moreover, they are entitled to them and their right to hold them should be celebrated. People can even take them out on the streets and demonstrate about them. It’s a bitch isn’t it? Most of us as we enter adulthood learn to not only cope with the burden of entertaining two or more opposing ideas in our heads at the same time in order to reach our own conclusions, but to learn from it. A diversity of ideas expands the intellect and should not be howled down.

As for it creating “monstrosities” - well, your monster might be another man’s angel. If you struggle with that concept you might find the plot line in Shrek illuminating.

Do you have a problem wuth democracy, Dave? You seem to be calling for a form of government where our elected representative must step aside and pass power over to unelected ‘experts’ in the bureaucracy of government and in big business. It has a name - Fascism. A lot of us here have relatives who died fighting it in WW2.

I could go on about how there is rarely one expert opinion that is right, and how experts often get it very wrong or simply build a case on lies. I could mention the IT experts ringing the alarm bells about the Millennium Bug (or Y2K) of 1999. Or the 2003 Invasion of Iraq by the ‘Coallition of the Willing’ (20 years ago this week) based on expert opinion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction - he didn’t but millions died as a result. But instead I attach an old press clipping I took back in the mid-1980s when I was thinking about free speech and government censorship. Hope you have fun playing catch-up.

As for how you cope with the moral dilemma you pose in your final question, well that’s a matter for you and your conscience, when you find it. I hope you do.

Sigh..

Your low key ad hominems, hubris, strawmanning and bizarre definition of fascism notwithstanding (by that logic, I assume you support ANTIFA, right? I mean, you don't support fascism, do you?)
Look, I get that people believing they're privy to some exclusive knowledge elicits sense of agency over their lives. Better still, believing the 'system' is out to get you, MSM lies and obfuscates literally everything as part of some corporate power play, experts are all on the payroll of 'big pharma', vaccines are part of ' the great reset' or whatever, and you know the truth feels empowering. It feels good to be smarter than you dum dum neighbor, right?

However, it also spawns a particularly idiotic, mob-centric orgy of lazy thinking and contrarianism. Who needs context when social media provides a ten second sound bite?
Why steel man and argument and risk derailing your own narrative? Why issue a mea culpa when you can just double down?
Yes, experts often get it wrong, but when you get really sick for instance, do you visit a doctor or a homeopath?
You may hold experts in contempt, but when push comes to shove, you'll eventually be forced to eat your own words.

Personally, I tend to focus on issues within my sphere of influence and control. The things that directly effect myself and those around me. That's why my nerves are indeed, calm. Deciphering the firehose of 24/7 news will drive you mad. What happens on the streets of Taiwan and Ukraine or any other of the multitude kayotic global hotspots of at best, in the periphery of my thoughts.
I can't change it, neither can you. Pick a charitable organisation you trust and put your money where your mouth is about the best you help.

But you are of course free to incinerate as much of your precious time getting to the core of these issues as you like. The net result of either one of our strategies will be effectively the same. The Chinese and Russians and for that matter, the internet don't actually care what you (or I) think. Sorry to break it to you.

Oh, by the way:
1 x great grandfather - WW1 - amputee.
1 x great uncle - killed in Gallipoli.
1 x grand father - mother's side WW2.
1 x grandfather - fathers side - RAAF - plane shot down by German U boat - recorded in Herbert A. Werner's book, Iron Coffins.
1 x uncle - Vietnam - left a competitive runner and cyclist, returned an alcoholic who suffers PTSD.
1 x cousin - partial amputee as a result of a training accident.

So yeah champ, my relatives have paid their dues in both just and pointless wars alike.

You have have a nice day now.
 
And the ABC is for LW hacks that is just as unreliable as the commercial outlet, sad thing about Aunty is we are forced to pay to keep the buffoons on the air.

This is a huge fallacy, it's virtually a meme. A decade of LNP cuts and board stacking with their commercial media stooges and Ita, have put paid to any notions of LW bias. As if there ever was one - the ABC would have been the only outlet critical of current govt, and they dished up the same to Rudds govt. The LNP doesn't go for that, it expects the funding of the national broadcaster to be its echo chamber. Hence the cuts and raids.

The Turnbull govt also gifted Murdoch $40m for broadcasting underrepresented sport - like women's footy. Clearly an ABC remit. A cut by any other name. Coalition gives another $10m to Foxtel to boost women's sport on TV

The ABC charter means it has to cover things commercial media don't. "Lefty" stuff like indigenous and minority issues. Commercials don't, because they don't have to.

As for being left biased, did no one watch the election coverage? It was right biased and clearly so. Speers trying to torpedo an in depth interview with Albanese, playing the gotcha game, and Ibrahim removed from the air for her ALP twitter shitlist. Far from having a leftwing bias, the ABC has been tamed by cuts and incessant attacks | Kevin Rudd
 
And the ABC is for LW hacks
My opinion of the ABC is that it has gone soft. I watch most of my news on YouTube and and while GB News might push a right view and DW might push a left view, the ABC has moved to a very soft middle ground. Instead of hard-hitting left/right journalism you are more likely to see the umpteenth episode of Back in Australian One on Back Roads Story for 4 year olds. Nice TV...totally soft.

Stuff like this gets my vote

 
My opinion of the ABC is that it has gone soft. I watch most of my news on YouTube and and while GB News might push a right view and DW might push a left view, the ABC has moved to a very soft middle ground. Instead of hard-hitting left/right journalism you are more likely to see the umpteenth episode of Back in Australian One on Back Roads Story for 4 year olds. Nice TV...totally soft.

Stuff like this gets my vote



4 Corners still delivers the goods. I'd hardly call this episode 'soft'.
 
Cassidy and Sayles, neither of them can hide their disdain for any view that is not as far left as theirs. If you can’t see that then either you have never seen them in full flight OR yours views rest way to the left too. I couldn’t give a rats what your political persuasion is but I do object to so called “journalists” using the public broadcaster to disseminate their personal opinions.
 
I do object to so called “journalists” using the public broadcaster to disseminate their personal opinions.

But Bolt and Jones can stir up as much Shiite as they please at the other end, but because we don't contribute, it all ok? It's not, it deliberately polemic and far more arrogant and intrusive than any ABC opinions.

If people look beyond their "ABC is stacked with leftys" blinkers, they will see it's far from it. When it comes to bias though, people see only what they want to.
 
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I find it significant that Aunty (ABC) averages the same number of complaints of bias from both Labour and Liberal. Probably says they're somewhere near the centre.

On commercial media there are plenty of right wing commentators, very few from the left. Might be something to do with the owners of the private media being fairly fascist and imposing their views on the media.
Happy to spend the pittance ABC and SBS get to bring a bit of balance to reporting in Australia.
Mark
 
I watch/listen to neither of those you named for the same reason, I just want the facts/news with no spin. I don’t support their media outlets in any way shape or form, I am forced to support Aunty (foolishly I pay tax).
MHB, I guess in the overall scheme of things the billion dollars that Aunty gets through annually isn’t overwhelming but my simple view is it could be better spent elsewhere. If commercial outlets are predominantly RW then if Aunty provides “a bit of balance” then Aunty must be well LW?
Q&A with RW bias? Hallucination, “an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present“.
 
But Bolt and Jones can stir up as much Shiite as they please at the other end, but because we don't contribute, it all ok? It's not, it deliberately polemic and far more arrogant and intrusive than any ABC opinions.

If people look beyond their "ABC is stacked with leftys" blinkers, they will see it's far from it. When it comes to bias though, people see only what they want to.
ABC is a conservative-free zone: No debate about it – gabfests are conservative-free zones

Even Sky News has left-leaning paid correspondents.

The issue isn't that there is a left-leaning media outlet, it's that the ABC is publicly funded and should have a balanced view on things.
 
Yes, yes, yes. Writers festivals attract a lefty audience because everyone knows the Right can't write.

If right-wing writers ever became successful they would dominate the festivals and these festivals would retain gov funding.

This is egregiously untrue. Do you really think of your political opponents as people being too stupid to write well? Because you may be humbled to know that there are intelligent people across the spectrum of politics, many of whom you could learn from even if you don't agree with them on everything. I'm not a massive follower of the literary scene but I know great authors like Tolkien, Tolstoy, Lovecraft, Frank Herbert, etc. weren't progressives. I like reading George Orwell even though I'm not a socialist.
 
ABC is a conservative-free zone: No debate about it – gabfests are conservative-free zones

Even Sky News has left-leaning paid correspondents.

The issue isn't that there is a left-leaning media outlet, it's that the ABC is publicly funded and should have a balanced view on things.

Oh dear, let's all feel for the conservatives, they only have a compliant media that can't be bothered to ask real questions, and the rest is owned by staunch conservatives Murdoch and Stokes, who have clear agendas. Pass the tissues.

SKY has left leaning correspondents? You should try stand up my friend, that's almost funny.

What exactly is 'balance' is that looking at every issue from every perspective and interview every possible 'expert' available?, even if some or all of those perspectives are clearly idiotic, agenda driven, irrelevant or plain bonkers?
 
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