Broad Church? Narrow Minds
“The Liberal Party is a broad church. You sometimes have to get the builders in to put in the extra pew on both sides of the aisle to make sure that everybody is accommodated…” (John ‘The Lying Rodent’ Howard, 2005).
“Separation of church and state was set up to protect the church from the state, not the other way around. To protect religious freedoms.” (Prosperity gospellor Brother Scooter Morrison, 2017).
It’s hard to imagine, in these days of unfunded empathy, that the Liberal (sic) Party once had a social conscience. Robert Menzies said this in one of his Forgotten People radio talks in 1942:
“The country has great and imperative obligations to the weak, the sick, the unfortunate. It must give to them all the sustenance and support it can. We look forward to social and unemployment insurances, to improved health services, to a wiser control of our economy to avert if possible all booms and slumps which tend to convert labour into a commodity, to a better distribution of wealth, to a keener sense of social justice and social responsibility. We not only look forward to these things, we shall demand and obtain them.”
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there” wrote British novelist L. P. Hartley and nowhere is that more demonstrable than the devolution of Menzies’ Liberal Party into a get rich ponzi scheme of unsustainable greed, corruption, silencing of dissent and rape of the environment. In hindsight Pig Iron Bob never looked so good.
The turning point for the Libs came with the election of that beetle-browed, guileful goblin John The Lying Rodent Howard as PM. Howard bastardised the Menzies doctrine of self-reliance and reward for effort into a “fuck you, Jack, I’m alright” dog whistle to the worst instincts of the suburban, McMansion dwelling electorate who were ready to be convinced that they too could be partying with the glitterati at Tetsuyas or Vue de Monde if they signed on via their ballot papers.
Howard’s “broad church” was one of exclusion of the undeserving – much of middle Australia did not want to think of themselves as losers and so swallowed Howard’s devious doublespeak. It was the cosh of Work Choices that revealed the devious Howard’s divide and conquer agenda. Despite Howard’s subsequent humiliating demise the template for the pestilent behaviour of the Libs had been established – Sloppy Joe Hockey’s “lifters and leaners” and Scooter’s “if you have a go you’ll get a go” are just variations of Howard’s “aspirational Australians” dog whistle.
Stemming from the dark, divisive Howard days of pissing on those on the outside of their tent the Tories have further degenerated into a secret society of nodders and winkers, cronies, brown baggers, spivs, shonks, poons, privateers, liars, thieves and touts. What later happened with the advent of the Mad Monk, a Strop clone and winner of the who-could-possibly-be-worse-than-Howard lottery, is that the religious wackos have assumed full control. The pews of the broad church accommodate a nut cluster of bigots, hypocrites, sky pilots, shrubbery-lurkers, bookburners, curtain twitchers and creationists under the autocratic rule of a smug mammonite.
Post-Captain Catholic, we now have Brother Scooter assuming the missionary’s position of preaching archaic dogma to con the natives into submission.
The Engadine poo jogger is a fitting representative for today’s regressive Tories. Those of them who are uncomfortable with Scooter’s bizarre, Rent-A-Jesus prosperity gospelling cult of latter day spivs have shown that they’re OK with the greed-is-good product; they’re only resentful of Scooter’s arrogant belief in his own infallibility and are nervous about his closed-eyes, arm-waving marketing. Newspeak is accepted Tory practice, glossolalia though is just plain weird.
Religion and politics have always been tainted by the other. The border between them remains very porous well into the 21st century when science, evidence and facts should’ve triumphed over superstition.
Scooter’s literal belief that he’s been anointed by a Range Rover-driving, heterosexual, sadistic, self-obsessed, all-powerful deity explains his hypocrisy, hubris, humbug, bigotry, persecution of “the others”, autocracy, smug arrogance, science denial and disdain for scrutiny and accountability. His religion-for-sale beliefs provide him with endorsement of his appalling lack of basic decencies.
Under Morrison, Howard’s “broad church” is only for the righteous; the tithers buying divine favour, the wealth-is-a-virtue grifters and profiteers and the meek and the compliant. As far as Brother Scooter is concerned the rest of us can go to hell.
This article was originally published on The Grumpy Geezer.
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New England Cocky -
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paul walter
Return to home pageGeez GG you have a magic way with colloquial language that tells it as it is.
Another ruse from Little Johnnie “Flakjacket” Howard is the “Headland Statement”. Now a synonym for “headland” is “bluff”.
So it is reasonable to presume that all these aspirational “Headland Statements” were mere “bluffs” to obfuscate the real intention establishing an elite of “true believers” in the Gordon Gecko Church of the Great Australian Public Rip-off.
Scooter may speak in tongues, but he and his cronies all speak with forked ones. They spit venom too. Not exactly Jesus style!
Why is Menzies constantly portrayed as some great democratic liberal when we know that his role in the UAP was anything but? He was seen as a supporter of Mussolini by the Italian Embassy and in 1938 he wrote of his admiration for Hitler.
Jack Howard was the school jerk, stirrer, wanker, a self centred mad yabberer, friendless but a side show for gawkers. He has become a leading candidate for political perverted arsehole of Australia from 1901, but now faces serious challenges from other self deluding misfits. Bagged and refined shit from Bunnings is good for the flowers and veges, but the unbagged, free flowing, loose and pooey pongey putrid conservative stuff is choking Australia in superstitious, misleading, righteous, self absorbed criminality and future threatening failure. Even the un-Mill-like false liberalism of Menzies was a disgusting abuse of terminology. Now, it is dogshit.
That is dinkum, what Morrison said in 2017.
God, get me out of this nuthouse. He really thinks he is Trump minus the rug.
My dad led me to the disgust of pig-iron bob but the loathing of the worst man to gain the top job was all my own work. It is still amazing that my family comsevatves rate him as the best pm since ming. Even WoMD, children over board asset selling and resource revenue wasting makes no dent in their admiration. I tried ;How ‘ard is it to say sorry but bolt has discarded any empathy for Aborigines.
For me the single worst political disaster, until booby;s caravan, was a birthday cake that let the little mongrel back.
Typically Morrison has it backwards. The reason for the separation of Church and State is to protect the State (ie the people) from the excesses and political influence of the Church, otherwise we would slip back into the theocratic horrors of The Dark Ages where civilisation and progress essentially stood still.
For example and despite the attempted rewriting of history by rabid Evangelicals the US Constitution recognised this and specifically removes the Church from government.
The remaining few theocracies in the worlds are Islamic and Jewish but those are law-giving religions. Christianity (except for The Vatican) is not and the Catholic Church in particular has a series of Concordants (ie agreements) with governments around the world – most of which are kept secret from the people.
Before he was elected JFK had to specifically state that he was first an American and second a Catholic. Morrison says his decisions come from his personal faith – a dangerous situation.
How come this article slipped through Scotty’s (this is not the time) climate speak moratorium.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-06/how-climate-change-has-impacted-your-life/11766018
Maybe Scotty is losing his mojo.
Like the Cocky from New England,I love the way you put shit on Schmo and his band of f.ckwits.I couldn’t do it without a torrent of foul language.Keep up the good work.
I said just after the 2000 federal election that the electorate had been taken in hook line and Tampa, nothing has changed. Fck I wish I was there when that photo was taken, I would have done the pair of fascist scum on the spot and no, not one wink of sleep would have been lost. Not really, but I like to daydream sometimes.
Broad church. Fat wallets.
Menzies?
Pig Iron Bob?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Dalfram_dispute
You could be forgiven for thinking history repeats cyclically in some sort of mystic Karmic way, but the reasons for similarities are usually down to earth, base and unimpressive.
“Broad Church? Narrow Minds”.
Whited sepulchres, empty vessels.
Broad Church?
Small church.
Only 80,000 paid up members (2014)
Far more serious, the refusal of media to report to Morrison pressers today, in favour of religious discrimination nonsenses of the sort attention is drawn to here-” broad church, narrow minds”.
To do with the government’s refusal to put armed forces into firefighting, but it has been let drop that the government wants the soldiers kept for fighting dirty wars off shore,
MSM insiders are angered that most of the press and media refused to question the pm on sending the reserves in to fight the fires, but I reckon I know why.