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“Tony” – A Case Study in Radicalisation

Apart from Karen’s case study, there are many others. Take “Tony”.

As a young man, Tony had the simple ambition of becoming the Pope, but the demands of celibacy combined with a demand that he cover his chest led him to drop out of the priesthood and before long he’d left the country to train overseas where he studied hand to hand combat at Oxford.

On his return to Australia he became involved in politics where he joined Hewson’s radical “Fightback” program, which had introducing the regressive GST as one of its aims. It also had a plan to make it too expensive for poor people to go to the doctor, which would hopefully reduce the numbers of them voting in elections.

When this was defeated in a popular vote because of the plans being accidentally released during a campaign launch – a mistake Tony was determined not to repeat – Tony decided that he was no longer satisfied with being behind the scenes and began his strategy for ensuring this plan didn’t die with Hewson’s de-radicalisation. He joined a sect with the oxymoronic name of the “Liberal politicians”. Claiming to be the love child of two of the senior members of this sect who had never had carnal relations,Tony subtly suggested that it was a virgin birth and that he was the messiah.

While such a claim may seem ludicrous to us, members of this radical cult found the claim to be plausible and were convinced by his claim that he could outdo the miracle of the loaves and fishes by returning the Budget to surplus while removing taxes with no significant spending cuts.

His capacity to reduce complex problems to three simple words impressed many, but ultimately this led him thinking that his followers would be satisfied with this when it became clear that the “plan” to which he constantly referred, consisted of nothing more than repeating the same simple slogans whatever the question. After a particularly tricky encounter where the ABC ambushed him by asking about the economy when he’d been practising, “stop the boats” all day, Tony was on a slippery slope.

Tony eventually relalised that he was on the wrong path when his colleagues voted in a new leader. Since then Tony has been helping to undo the damage that his group has done by giving beachside interviews to explain that his former colleague, “Scott” has been lying, as well as undercutting the new leader by saying that nothing’s changed.

Tony is expected to a great help to the other side of politics over the coming months.

 

14 comments

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  1. donwreford

    Strange how someone has a calling to the cloth and eventually cannot bare his torso and his physical body at every opportunity, also is partial to Lycra, he is a lost individual who revealed his confusion in decision making as and when he was able, unable to include his ministers on decision making after he nearly got voted out of office and made a decision to greater inclusion of ministers only to be wrapped up with Peta Credlin whom he fell in love with and afraid of going the full journey had a intimate relationship in the brain and mind department, he could not resist his craving to be intimate with her and this eventually contributed to his major downfall.

  2. mars08

    The big difference between “Karen” and Tony…. is that the radical mentality of Tony actually exists, was supported by his peers, and was put into action against innocent Australians.

    “Karen” on the other hand is a silly fabrication intended to demonise those with “alternative” ideas.

  3. corvus boreus

    The saddest thing about the hypothetical case of the fictitious ‘Karen’ is that, even after she got over her alternate-music radicalised eco-protest phase and started limiting her environmental activism to purely legal means (like court challenges to improper processes), her reformed and fully respectable activities still led to her being slanderously labelled by the federal Attorney General as a ‘vigilante saboteur’.

  4. mars08

    Yeh, cb… it’s hardly fair…

    “Today I put extreme greens on notice: north Queensland will not bow down to those eco-terrorists; north Queenslanders will defend their jobs and lifestyles and call out the gutless green grubs for the terrorists that they really are.”

  5. corvus boreus

    mars08,
    The amoebic member for Kennedy definitely took the art of moronic vilification up a notch with that particular gem.
    Given the existing and proposed extraordinary legislation attached to terrorist offenses, it would be better if the government asked/expected it’s members to exercise more restraint and judgement in not throwing around false accusations of terrorism.

  6. jim

    IMO , to me it seems that abbot has got away without being punished for the things he has done to our country things like cuts to just about every NGO that helps those in need like cuts to the blind society, cuts to neighborhood watch,and many more, just why we do not see the damage he has done on the MSM is in itself “Criminal.” http://sallymcmanus.net/abbotts-wreckage/

  7. Anomander

    I’d actually made-up a slightly different case study…

    Case Study: Tony

    Tony was a very average boy raised in moderately wealthy family in a good suburb. Tony liked to listen to both country and western music.

    Then one day his parents sent him to a Jesuit school, where they thought he was going to get a good education – instead the school started filling his head with all these strange ideas about imaginary sky friends, men walking on water and coming back from the dead, not eating shellfish, owning slaves, crucifixion, floods, bizarre prophesies and a horrendous number of killings. As unbelievable as these far-fetched stories were, they had an impact on Tony’s impressionable young mind, which led Tony along a radical path. He started using “Faith”- an ancient and strange practice, rejected by modern science and most intelligent people.

    Tony was quickly hooked on “Faith”, he started sprouting radical ideas about women being subservient to men, homosexuality being an abomination, that coal was good for humanity and that humans had dominion over nature and the Earth. Tony started hanging around with other users and established a series of connections to users with serious habits, and worst of all, pushers of the insidious “Faith” – who told he could achieve all his goals, as long as he kept buying their “Faith” they knew the people to help him get there.

    His friends at school and university noticed a change – Tony was aggressive, overconfident and refused to listen to advice or be swayed by facts. Tony’s connections helped him and in return he propagated their “Faith” to wider and wider audiences, steadily moving-up the ladder of power and influence, but the price of each step was a demand that Tony promote the extreme views of his friends, denying climate change, attacking the poor, funnelling money to the wealthy, undermining science, education and technology – things that directly contradict “Faith”.

    Using his powerful connections Tony eventually reached the heights of power, but “Faith” had twisted his persona and filled his head with extremist views, even parroting even more extreme views of the radical “Faithful”. Gradually this aberrant behaviour took it’s toll – the public became incensed at the relentless 3-word slogans and turned against Tony and his radical, extremist views – throwing him out of office.

  8. jimmy

    Brilliantly said Anomander, but sadly there are more of his ilk in the current LNP.
    Until we can eradicate them at an election we are doomed to more of the same.

  9. Adrianne Haddow

    Excellent case study, Rossleigh.
    I suspect there’s plenty of case studies of radicalisation in the former cabinet of Team Australia.
    Hunt, the environment warrior, would be a great case study.
    Or Brandis, the champion of Human Rights and Justice.

  10. archiearchive FCD

    Excellent study. With the advantage of being the truth. Unlike the words which spill haphazardly from Tony’s mouth.

  11. keerti

    And not to forget the case of a certain woman who calls herself a bishop (not maintaining the separation of church and state!) She thought that making exhorbitant use of travel costs from public money while debasing the office of chairperson of the house of ill rep ( sorry! I meant the house of representatives.was her right due to her enormous (sorry! Due to her self satisfied and lordly position).

  12. Florence nee Fedup

    I am sure I read somewhere it was learning how much a school mate earned that led him leaving the seminary.

  13. Florence nee Fedup

    Anomander, could the school they sent young Anthony to be guilty of radicalising him?

  14. Anomander

    Yes Florence and WE all pay through the nose for those “radicalised” schools, to fill the heads of our children with fairy stories, mysticism and superstition rather than science and facts.

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