Ego is not a dirty word
In the mid 1970s, Australian ‘glam rock’ band Skyhooks released an album titled ‘Ego is not a Dirty Word’. The single of the same title reached number 2 on the Australian ‘Top 40’ in mid 1976. Little Scott Morrison, born in 1968, would probably have heard it on ‘high rotation’ across the airwaves of a Sydney AM radio station (because commercial FM radio was 4 years in the future). If he was fortunate enough he might have had enough money to of to the local Record Bar and purchase a copy of the single. If he was really wealthy (for an 8 year old) he might have bought the album, as downloading the music was something that wasn’t an option until the next century.
‘Ego is not a Dirty Word’ provided commentary on the egos of some famous identifies including Richard Nixon, suggesting if he had kept is ego in check he might not have been one of the few US Presidents to have resigned under a cloud. Like Nixon, Morrison’s political end may have been completely different if he had kept his ego in check.
Since 2007, Morrison has been the Member of Parliament of the seat of Cook, based in southern Sydney. Prior to then he had at different times been the CEO of the government tourism offices in both Australian and New Zealand. Both the Australian and New Zealand Governments of the day asked Morrison to leave prior to the completion of his contracted period. In the case of the Australian Government, the request was made by a Coalition Government. It’s also history that Morrison was pre-selected by the Liberal Party after an internal war that involved the existing Member of Parliament who apparently didn’t have any plans to retire from politics in the lead up to the 2007 election.
Morrison’s rise through the ranks to his eventual appointment as Leader of the Party and Prime Minister is well known, as is his disdain for refugees, those that claim social security benefits and those who actually work for the government. As a part of his claim to be a ‘strong welfare cop ‘strong welfare cop the beat’ he was instrumental in introducing the system now known as Robodebt, where income matching was completed by machines and unusual cases were not checked by a person before the system raised fraudulent debt notices that have been found to be illegal. Someone who had their ego in check would have checked the legality of such a scheme prior to introduction. Instead Morrison stood by and allowed Home Affairs to extort money from Australians.
Like most schemes designed to extort money, Robodebt was eventually found out for what it was – a scam. Unlike most schemes designed to extort money, this one was implemented and managed by the Coalition Government who seem to have cowered the Public Service into submission. In The Monthly’s emailed newletter last week, writer Daniel James suggests that Morrison certainly has no contrition for his leading roles in the establishment and promotion of the extortion scheme
Speaking to an almost empty lower house shortly after Question Time on Monday, Morrison said: “This campaign of political lynching has once again included the weaponisation of quasi-legal process to launder the government’s political vindictiveness. They need to move on.”
As James notes
The reference to the royal commission as a “quasi-legal” process is straight out of the Trump playbook – an attempt to reduce the most powerful form of public-interest inquiry we have in this country to that of nothing more than a political pitchfork rally.
Thousands of Australians were wrongly accused of debt, with a significant number of the real victims (those that were extorted by the Coalition Government) suffering mental health problems and the families of others that couldn’t see a way out of their dilemma took their own lives. And one of the architects of the scheme is still collecting his $200,000 per annum salary as a parliamentarian while claiming to be the victim of a political hit job. Ego may not be a dirty word, but contrition and seeking forgiveness for poor decisions in the past takes more than ego, it needs emotional intelligence, something that Morrison seems to lack completely.
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12 comments
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Uncletimrob -
Phil Pryor -
Harry Lime -
Max Gross -
Canguro -
Steve Davis -
GL -
Canguro -
Katie -
GL -
Arnd -
Steve Davis
Return to home pageAs the master of that mode of operation ht he would certainly know what “quasi legal” means.
Pity none of his party had the brains or balls to call him out.
That appalling bowel ejection and colon refugee Morrison, a huge skinful of shitcoated, deepfried excremental poop, not sufficiently human to deserve recognition, is a living drag on civilisation itself, and this nation, as it seeks to avoid decline and disaster. The ultimate liar and onanistic self deceiver, Morrison is afflicted with as yet unknown, unannounced, serious debilities, illnesses, inner disturbances, unbalances, serious sicknesses. Morrison is unfit to talk, act, work, appear, relate, judge, assess, perform. His demise by any means would be a blessing, not least to himself. He is the only one around who could out-trump Trump, the ultimate Turd, and Morrison remains an ulcerous lesion on our history. After Howard harlotry, Abbott anality, Morrison maggoting, we can imagine what a political poxing awaits with possible Dutton deviate diseased degradation…
The longer the Liar lingers on the backbench boonies,the more embarrassing it becomes for fuckknuckle Pete…despite his forked tongue pronouncements.There he sits,smeared all over the shop like a giant,cemented on turd, an immovable neon reminder of everything rotten about the former government.Dutton and his goons will be working overtime to jemmy the bastard out.It’s a beautiful thing to observe.
I want to see Sideshow Scott behind bars, stripped of all his parliamentary perks and privileges, including his extremely generous pension.
If the weight of public opinion had any carriage at all, Max Gross, he’d be there already. I suspect millions of Australians would agree with you. Hah! The weight of public opinion is, of course, like gossamer dust on the wings of fairies, ephemeral & uncountable, and eternally destined to be ignored by those who arguably ought to be paying attention.
“Ego may not be a dirty word,…”
And yet, by any fair reading of the article it actually is a dirty word.
And when we consider that ego is the principal foundation plank of the liberalism that has us hurtling to destruction, it would be fair to say that ego is both filthy and fatally dangerous.
It is the cause of most problems facing humanity today.
Max,
I would also like to that happening but in the game of politics it won’t happen. Much easier, and safer, to blame a handful of bureaucrats than risk the ire and petty revenge of those on the opposite side of the bench if and when they win an election.
Steve Davis, the problem with this psychological construct called ego, introduced into the western lexicon of psychological language via Sigmund Freud along with its sister terms id & superego, is not that it exists – it is, after all, part and parcel of the domain of the inner life of the human animal, endowed as he is with a languaging brain and a sense of self-identity that almost universally employs a localised phoneme that indicates an ‘I’, a unique identifier – but that in the base and foundational sense the operator behind the self-identified ‘I’ is functionally unconscious, in the sense of psychological acuity & awareness.
There is nothing ‘wrong’ about ego… to imply that’s the case is consonant with saying I shouldn’t have a head, or arms, or legs… it’s a nonsense, just as it is to imply that ego is filthy and dangerous. To steer your thinking into a more productive direction, it’s useful to consider that fact that most of us eight billion or so humans are in a certain definable way functionally unconscious; psychologically unaware, lost in dreams, unquestioning and unreflective as to the nature of our thoughts and their consequences, similarly insensitive with respect to the relative consequences of our interactions with others, and therein lies the rub. That’s where the danger lies… in the unconsciousness carried by each and everyone of us. Nothing to do with this or that political or economic philosophy, but a universal condition suffered by mankind.
As a wise man once said, ‘it’s not about destroying the ego, it’s about becoming a conscious egoist.’
The offensive Jerk with the Smirk, aka Scott Morrison, has got to be the most justifiably hated and internationally condemned political psychopath in our history right now YET here he is, STILL inflicting our nation with his vile, thoroughly despised and destructive presence!
(Q) WHY, WHY, WHY does Morrison continue to park his arrogant, self-serving, totally depraved and pretentious arse on the seats of OUR parliament house like an offensive infected carbuncle on the rear end of the LNP cabinet!
(A) The fact that the universally unpopular pathological liar, Morrison, remains on the political stage is absolutely NO SURPRISE! This absolutely inept, pathetic and weak excuse for a human being is TOTALLY UNEMPLOYABLE out in the REAL world! Morrison has a long, ignominious history of being “mysteriously” let go or dismissed from just about EVERY job he failed to keep before lying and backstabbing his way up the ranks of the criminally corrupt cesspool we know as the LNP. The ONLY reason this non-achieving political grub rose to the top, was due to Morrison’s ruthless treachery, betrayal and backstabbing disloyalty towards his own political colleagues. Despite being loathed by most of his colleagues, he continued to rise, like faecal matter in a polluted pond, to become the worst, most depraved and callously inhumane Crime Minister on record – even surpassing the depravity revealed by that vile, insignificant little war criminal, John Howard and that inarticulate, misogynistic, intellectual midget and recidivist liar, Tony Abbott. The tragic fact is that Morrison, now known as a treacherous, lying and pathetic political miscreant HAS NOWHERE ELSE TO GO !!!!
History has proven that the bone idle Sloth Morrison – a non-achieving political parasite – failed to achieve ONE SINGLE THING to benefit the lives of ordinary working- and middle-class Australians. The ONLY thing this reprehensible creature left Australians with, after rorting and wasting countless BILLIONS of hard-earned Australian tax dollars, was an almost insurmountable national debt of more than $1 TRILLION – the WORST national deficit in our history – and THIS from a pompous, deluded regime who professed to be the “best” economic managers – what a SICK joke that turned out to be! Instead, from the moment he rose to power like some ghastly Behemoth, he went on a campaign of political malfeasance that saw him demonise and attack the poorest, most vulnerable people in our society! This is a man who was a signed-up member of the now notorious paedophile-protecting CULT of Hillsong; who’s insufferable level of sanctimonious bible-thumping hypocrisy did not stop him from pushing through one of the worst, most inhumane political programs ever seen in this nation: ROBODEBT, a diabolical Witch Hunt that Morrison (and other depraved miscreants in his cabinet) already KNEW was ILLEGAL. This was a program that sought to hunt down, terrorise and traumatise the most vulnerable people in our community that resulted in the preventable suicidal deaths of more than 2,050+ desperate Australians who felt they had nowhere else to turn! This political program was, indeed, an act of MANSLAUGHTER that MUST be addressed with despicable psychopaths like Morrison, Dutton, Tudge, Roberts et al being held RESPONSIBLE for the deaths of the people they criminally targeted.
Just when you think the LNP cannot possibly get any worse, we have Morrison’s sadistic henchman, Peter Dutton, waiting in the wings like some rising demon to take over the reigns of the most corrupt, depraved and inhumane regime in our nation’s history! The fact is that the infamous LNP – and their dangerously fascist collusion with their malevolent, totally biased Minister for Propaganda, the American citizen known as Rupert Murdoch, as well as the condescending, self-serving, prosperity-obsessed neoliberals in the IPA – have become a nefarious, anti-Australian and dangerously undemocratic CRIMINAL ORGANISATION that needs to be DEREGISTERED as a matter of urgency!
Is it me or is Scummo getting fatter and fatter and The Spud is looking more like a corpse that hasn’t yet realised that it’s life force dissipated months ago?
Katie, heyyy … Just cut it out with the polite beating around the bush already, and tell us what you really think about Scotty, why don’t you?
Canguro, thanks for taking a discussion of the ego to a deeper level.
You said “As a wise man once said, ‘it’s not about destroying the ego, it’s about becoming a conscious egoist.’”
I’ll see your wise man and raise you one Ramana Maharshi, who taught that it’s the ego that prevents us from knowing our inner Self.
Both were right of course, as long as we see that there are levels of reality.
Your wise man was echoing Socrates (in my opinion the greatest philosopher in the history of the West, by far) who warned that “the un-examined life is not worth living”.