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How embarrassing can former PMs be? - crashlander - 11-10-2021
An interesting question that rolls up after many an election is what next for the former PM. Some move into relative anonymity, some become something akin to statesmen (not that anyone could have predicted that while those persons were in office) and other appear regularly to embarrass us.
Malcolm Turnbull is an excellent example. He didn't wait for the Opposition to kick him out at an election, he lost the plot in his own party room. Instead of sinking into anonymity, he regularly reappears to take pot shots at those who replaced him. Much of what he says is truly embarrassing.
Mr K. Rudd also comes back to haunt us regularly, as he demonstrates why his party turned on him to the general public.
But the worst of the lot, in my humble opinion, is the man who gave us 'the recession we had to have', Paul Keating. Yes, Paul Keating of the Banana Republic.
I do not warm easily to politicians of any stripe, but Mr. Keating is probably the one that I have least time for, both as PM and afterwards. He always looked like Bram Stoker's version of Count Dracula for starters. Then there was that voice that made Julia Gillard's look promising. And, last but far from least, what what he actually says.
He may be getting older, but his mouth still makes me cringe every time Mr. Keating opens it.
His latest effort was one of his most remarkable: a defence for the policies of totalitarian China. My God, has he hit a new low. He may have wished for the power that China's President Xi has and misuses daily; to remain in office until death, to use the secret police to remove political opponents, to use economic muscle to bully other polities, to remake society in his image (and that always gave me nightmares) and to take over and ruin perfectly good democratic states (Hong Kong and what he wants for Taiwan).
I mind none of these to my liking, yet Mr. Keating seems to think they are good things.
Paul Keating said Taiwan was “not a vital Australian interest” and labelled it a “civil matter” for China. The conquest of a free people by a totalitarian state is a 'civil matter'? I'm sorry, but I find such talk truly nauseous. It reminds me of Britain selling out Czechoslovakia in the days leading to World War II.
And if Mr. Keating cannot remember what happened after that, he is even stupider than I ever thought he was.
Re: How embarrassing can former PMs be? - Blue Moon - 11-11-2021
Not sure we should be allowing the use of the word "Ch..k" on this platform.
Re: How embarrassing can former PMs be? - crashlander - 11-11-2021
(11-11-2021, 12:46 AM)Blue Moon link Wrote:Not sure we should be allowing the use of the word "Ch..k" on this platform.Probably right. But sometimes it is not easy to find the exact word that best fits the person involved. I would never use the term 'chink' to a Chinese person, even one to whom I had no respect. But President Xi and others of his ilk, make normal phraseology unsatisfactory.
I had great homes for China a few years ago. The previous Emperor had used his reign to dismantle the things built up by Chairman Mao. Chinese leaders no longer ruled for life. Chinese people were the best off they had been in centuries, if ever. Corruption was down. The 'cult of personality' was on the way out and Chinese people had more political freedoms that they had experienced. They were heading down the road to being the sort of state a person could respect.
What do we have now? The same sort of Imperial Bureaucracy that weighed China down for centuries. Power for life. Granted that power is not inherited, as it was in the days of the Empire, but it is still gifted, nor earnt, to the favourite of the present ruler. The people have been repressed to a level even Chairman Mao could appreciate. China is rattling the sabres and trying to expand at the expense of everybody else. Chinese people have no political freedom. The Chinese security apparatus has taken on the power and significance that the NKVD did under Iosef Stalin. The Chinese economy is going backwards at a rate of knots. and the leader wishes to hide his shortcomings in Nationalist rhetoric and threats.
None of these might be new, not even to China, but they are a serious backwards step. President Xi is single handedly creating the next Cold War.
And Keating appears to admire this bozo! Scott Morrison may be getting flack for his 'spin' (not saying he doesn't deserve it either), but it is nothing compared to President Xi. And Keating passes it all off as being good?
Re: How embarrassing can former PMs be? - LP - 11-11-2021
The trouble is the use of terms like that can be used to generalise both sides of the argument and as such it should be removed.
Re: How embarrassing can former PMs be? - capcom - 11-11-2021
By and on whose authority LP? Tired of saying it, but I use that term to talk about their government, NOT the general population. That's the third time I've made that clear.
Re: How embarrassing can former PMs be? - LP - 11-11-2021
(11-11-2021, 01:49 AM)capcom date Wrote:By and on whose authority LP? Tired of saying it, but I use that term to talk about their government, NOT the general population. That's the third time I've made that clear.It doesn't matter what you mean by it, or how often you explain it, what matters is it's use delivers an opportunity for others to manipulate a claim of what it means and that can tarnish the whole site as well as all it's participants!
I also see it as hypocritical to leave that term intact, because I'm sure if I used an analogous term for a Southern European politicians or bureaucrats I'd be shouted down and banned here, I believe some have been banned in the past for such terms. The fact that term is used and nothing happens is two-faced.
Re: How embarrassing can former PMs be? - capcom - 11-11-2021
(11-11-2021, 02:02 AM)LP link Wrote:It doesn't matter what you mean by it, or how often you explain it, what matters is it's use delivers an opportunity for others to manipulate a claim of what it means and that can tarnish the whole site as well as all it's participants!
Again, an opinion. Yours. Leave it alone.
Re: How embarrassing can former PMs be? - DJC - 11-11-2021
(11-11-2021, 12:46 AM)Blue Moon link Wrote:Not sure we should be allowing the use of the word "Ch..k" on this platform.
Yes, its use in that context is a clear breach of our code of conduct - "Statements that are bigoted, hateful or racially offensive." - and I have deleted the post.
Capcom can re-post if he wishes, using an alternative descriptor for Xi; there are plenty to choose from.
Re: How embarrassing can former PMs be? - PaulP - 11-11-2021
(11-11-2021, 03:28 AM)DJC link Wrote:Yes, its use in that context is a clear breach of our code of conduct - "Statements that are bigoted, hateful or racially offensive." - and I have deleted the post.
Capcom can re-post if he wishes, using an alternative descriptor for Xi; there are plenty to choose from.
You may wish to input that term into the search function in the top right hand corner, and you will find two other posts that deserve to be deleted.
Re: How embarrassing can former PMs be? - DJC - 11-11-2021
(11-11-2021, 03:49 AM)PaulP link Wrote:You may wish to input that term into the search function in the top right hand corner, and you will find two other posts that deserve to be deleted.
I found the term in one other post, one that I was already aware of, but it wasn't used in an offensive manner.