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Spud, Godwin’s Law and the Streisand Effect

Who needs a truncheon when you’ve got expensive lawyers?

Adolf Kipfler, das Gruppenfritter, Herr Shickltuber, the Gestapotato, Dick Tater, Spudley Too-Right, Dutton dressed as yam, J. Edgar Tuber – these are all droll mockings of a rabid autocrat and all-round nasty piece of work whose head has an unfortunate resemblance to a popular starchy staple. At least while satire is still legal such sledging is beyond the reach of Spud’s defamation lawyer, the splendidly named Nick Ferrett, a tag that no clever pun could improve upon.

Führer-flavoured name calling, potato-themed as it may be, introduces the principle referred to as Godwin’s law that asserts when a Hitler comparison is made, whoever made the comparison loses whatever debate is in progress. Godwin clarified that “its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler to think a bit harder about the Holocaust“. Fair call. After all, Spud as Minister for Immigration & Refugee Degradation had merely adopted an apathetic approach to the slow mental torment of his konzentrationslager internees.

Nazi potato analogies included, lampooning politicians is everyone’s right in a free country and it’s been a long tradition in this one. When an indolent, flailing government reeking of corruption seeks all potential means to hide its incompetence and protect its criminality then scorn and ridicule become obligations. But this bin juice distillery t/a the Morrsion-Joyce grift shop gets beyond tetchy when their many shortcomings are pointed out. The ‘champions of free speech’ toss that concept onto their disposable principles binfire along with accountability, integrity, equality and other troublesome inconveniences.

A recent taste of their discomfort with challenges to their decency is from the Spud himself with a thinly disguised threat to “dirty lefties”. Spud has accumulated an impressive property portfolio and is the Minister for Defence – he’s a member of the wealthy power elite, a big cheese, the Potato au Gratin of the L/NP. In contrast Shane Bazzi is an obscure, arse-out-of-his-trousers refugee advocate. It turns out the Tubernator, a man whose idea of foreplay is to lock his pitbull in the wardrobe, has a sensitive side, taking offence from a Bazzi tweet calling him a rape apologist. A wise man would’ve let it go – to let it be lost in the noise of general social media heckling at a corrupted regime. Not the Spud. He invoked the Streisand Effect by persecuting Bazzi via a defamation suit thereby drawing attention anew to his “he-said-she-said” shrug at the in-house rape of a Lib staffer and the Tories’ general indifference to bullying, harassment and sexual assault.

The $35k in awarded damages would barely cover Spud’s head waxing bill – but, never get between a Tory and a dollar. Perhaps though it was his hurt feelings? Yeah but nah; the empathy deficit is strong in this one who could never be happier than when he’s pureeing kittens in his Kitchen Wizz. Feelings are weaknesses to be exploited. One of those feelings is people’s attachment to their house, and lawyered-up, paranoid grifters and predators on the government benches are catching on – Dutton’s message to the proles is ‘shut up or you’ll be out on the street’.

Scooter Morrison, possibly re-energised by the law suits from Spud, Laming and Barilaro has once more trotted out his cynical and routine attack on social media:

“Social media can too often be a cowards’ palace where the anonymous can bully, harass and ruin lives without consequence.”

Sounds reasonable. But the Tories harbour their own trolls, sockpuppets, social media stalkers and backgrounders and feigned indignation is a Scooter specialty, wrapped in hypocrisy, tied with a bow of shameless fabrications and delivered in a hectoring tone of dissembling twaddle. His genuine indignation is reserved for being challenged or held to account. Every utterance from this charlatan is misleading, obfuscating or blatant lying; every announcement is calculated from the perspective of political advantage – policing people’s social media is a handy distraction from their panicked avoidance of an integrity commission.

Social media users commonly have genuine reasons for anonymity including safety from the bullies and harassers Scooter pretends to be so offended by. Given the Tories’ disdain for scrutiny and intolerance of dissent it’s not a huge leap to suspect that anti-troll legislation is intended to be a trojan horse for regulations designed to silence critics through libel proceedings.

Average Australians could not afford to sue for defamation and any potential costs awarded would be swallowed by legal fees. Rather, the Tories’ ambitions will help the powerful to silence critics or to retaliate should that fail. Spud even had the front to suggest a fund from tax payers be established to cover the legal costs of the pursuit of their adversaries because even rich guys need our money to pay expensive silks to sue us and to intimidate inquisitive journalists.

First they came for the ABC. Then they came for journalists and whistle-blowers. Now they’re coming for the tweeters.

None of this is meant to imply that Spud is an actual Nazi or a sympathiser of the Stasi, Oprichnina, Geheime Staatspolizei, NKVD, DINA, the Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities or any other secret police organisation or goon squad for any repressive regime whatsoever. His resemblance to a versatile root vegetable is however indisputable.

 

 

 

 

Image from Twitter.

 

This article was originally published on Grumpy Geezer.

 

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15 comments

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  1. New England Cocky

    ”First they came for the ABC. Then they came for journalists and whistle-blowers. Now they’re coming for the tweeters.”

    Sadly GG, your days of accurate description of our allegedly corrupt and allegedly rapist amoral politicians may be coming to an undignified end should Australian voters repeat the 2019 self-inflicted wound and again elect a COALition misgovernment.

    With Scummo well on the nose and Spuddo chaffing at the bit to introduce a fascist regime to keep the poor in poverty while scooping all available government funding to Liarbral Party sycophants, the Australian voters will be lucky to get the rough end of the pineapple.

    At every election
    .
    VOTE ANYONE BUT LIARBRALS IN CITY ELECTORATES;
    .
    LOCAL CR3EDIBLE INDEPENDENT OR SFF IN COUNTRY ELECTORATES &
    .
    VOTE BELOW THE LINE FOR THE CANDIDATES OF MY CHOICE IN MY ORDER OF PREFERENCE &
    .
    we may have a chance of saving Au8stralian voters and the country for our kids.

  2. GL

    I always think of the monolith scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey when I see Peterito Duttonuci. You see, while the tribe was getting a bit of an evolutionary boost, Peterito (then known as Ugg Grunt) was off kicking and biting some other poor ape just for the hell of it and, as such, missed out. That’s why he still looks and sounds like a knuckle dragging ape like thing today.

  3. Phil Pryor

    Squeezed, extruded, badly formed, the cranial crappery of Peter Duckwit-Futton has gone through a colonic tube from Queensland to Canberra, looking worse by the nodule and gland as it passes on and through. And it is all to tell us Sweet Fanny Adams about foreign affairs of which the Old Richard Cranium knows Nothing. Untrained, under educated, uncivilised, unrestrained, the preposterous pillock posted on shoulders of solid cellophane utters dangerous garbage, implicating us all in dangers instead of peace and prosperity. Does he know we are a target? We have been for half a century and the weaponry has gone up, bigger, nastier. Yet the murdering, thieving, swindling, betraying, totally untrustworthy USAns want to abuse us with more bases for them and for equipment. Suicidal futility.

  4. Ross

    It’s creepy and extremely disturbing but spud bears a striking resemblance to a certain high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era named Reinhard Heydrich.
    Herr Heydrich by all historical accounts was a very nasty piece of work and strangely enough so is spud.
    Maybe the Buddhist idea of reincarnation has some merit.

  5. Vikingduk

    Really, hypothetically of course, that is a head just begging to be hit, hit very hard, or perhaps we could suggest a chaff bag off the coast, possibly some ditch the devil signs, bit of a rally, all in the name of free speech of course, maybe try out hitlers bitch as a cute descriptor, on go the concrete gum boots, cess pit ahead, step lively you rotten to the core travesty. Holiday idea for you and sick hunt, swimming with the sharks, a special twilight experience for such an honourable pair of scum suckers, no cage of course, an au natural experience. My shout.

  6. Douglas Pritchard

    Whilst this LNP government are bashing China, on instructions from Washington, it seems our trade with China is diminishing at an alarming rate. But dont get depressed about this, because, it seems, trade in the commodities that China doesnt buy from us anymore, is being picked up by USA filling the gap.
    Our special friendship with Uncle Sam is being strengthened daily, because our loss is their gain.
    How about this as a signal of our utter compliance with our masters commands…even as we go under?

  7. Brozza

    What kind of tuber is a boof? (Onya Albo.)
    Another classic from GG.

  8. Roswell

    Grumpy, you are a national treasure.

  9. Terence Mills

    Greg Hunt and Christian Porter have both announced that they will be leaving politics.

    They leave some very small shoes to be filled !

  10. GL

    All these things happening with Mr. Marketing the policy free vacuum makes me wonder how prophetic the following will be:

  11. LOVO

    GOLD GG 👍

  12. Terence Mills

    Christian Porter has redefined a Blind Trust to be no more than a brown paper bag with lipstick !

    The Privileges Committee who looked into this matter found that Porter had not breached the letter of the disclosure requirements but that he (and others) were testing a loophole that needs to be closed :

    The relevant provision being :

    k) gifts valued at more than $750 received from official sources, or at more than $300
    where received from other than official sources provided that a gift received by a
    Member, the Member’s spouse/partner or dependent children from family
    members or personal friends in a purely personal capacity need not be registered
    unless the Member judges that an appearance of conflict of interest may be seen to
    exist

    Will there now be changes ? : it’s not a priority for this government !

  13. Jon Chesterson

    Nothing short of priceless oratory and truth, and the satire gleams like a bolt of lightning in the wilderness.

    Not to mention Dutton’s racial vilification of minority groups, refugees, women, the common people of Australia and inciting warmongering delusional rants on and with China. If war ever broke out, he would have been this Goebbels propagandist chief engineer and anal mongrel, responsible for the mass murder and destruction of our nation that would subsequently ensue. China on the other hand blows south in a more diplomatic and balanced tune by comparison or not; they already shine a torch on his misleading rants in the general fog of ignorance. Chinese Foreign Minister says he is delusional. Absolutely agree with him. Boofhead Dutton has no respect for anyone, anything and certainly not Australians, just his own meteoric rise to corrupt wealth, power and fascist elevation, above the rest of us, we jealous citizens doubtless assume.

    The electorate for Dickson in Queensland need to knock him down and out of Parliament next election, not just allow him to scowl and deface our democracy from the Opposition benches and lance more pus, blood and poison from his veins. We need that ICAC and he must be investigated period. That is not only why he behaves the way described with such eloquence and elocution, but from the mouth and rotting vegetable matter that fuels that arrogant and deluded brain; high on shit loads of corruption pulsating from this Dick-son bully.

    This is not hate speech, this is the common man’s response, truth by metaphor and satire to the colour and stench of corruption defending itself like the plague we find ourselves in, adapting and throwing back every inch of projection and malice it can muster. Except a virus knows no better than but kill to survive, before it finally destroys itself, and not a day too soon before it takes us with it. Evolution has cunning insight, not like this depraved jumbled up omicron boofhead and wasn’t that just a classic yesterday, a defining moment – the wheels of history slowly turning back for common good, we restless hope. And the neophyte Speaker, make no bones, he is one of them, but that his face was written with words he had yet to find.

    Yes Dick-son Dutton attacks and with his mercenary paramilitary medals of abuse and dishonour, dangerously elevated to Defence Minister of our sub-humane world, and takes aim for the social media giants, to circuitously silence any voice of reason, objection or exposure. Facebook will only protect itself of course, part of the calculated fallout that will err in his favour. Alas, this is what you get when we allow commercial (Liberal-fascist-fundamental, even ordinary turn a blind eye corporate) interests to ride in on an all-consuming social platform, take away our voice and assume political superiority over us. They beat us up in the house and they corrupt our parliament. What hope is there when they do both, and turn our world against us?

    First they came for the ABC… Actually, first they came for refugees and as predicted years ago by a refugee himself, then they came for the rest of us – the entire Liberal crew; and Captain, Governor Bligh would have been proud of them as much as Hitler, Trump, Putin and this Kluxy, legless, polished boofhead führer leaps to silence the common voices of the many – Common mutiny they cry!

    This article defines it all so well, perhaps we’ve reached the milestone we’ve been waiting for… come March we’ll know where our Australian institutions stand, the measure of this governing party’s legacy, their treason, Morrison and Dutton’s demise and place in history.

  14. Kathryn

    First of all, thank you GG! Once again you have enlightened everyone to the FACTS with good humour and insight!

    So much for our democracy! The LNP have decided that the ONLY people to be free of any criticism, persecution or challenge are THEMSELVES!

    So much for free speech! Morrison and his attack dog, Dutton, have decided that NOW is the perfect time (months out from an election) to go “all out” and muzzle ANYONE with a pulse who has the “temerity, good judgement and courage” to justifiably condemn, loudly criticise and openly denounce the unspeakable level of self-serving corruption, skirt-lifting misogyny, callous inhumanity and dysfunctional ineptitude of the absolute WORST, most depraved and undemocratic regime in living memory!

    So many of these lying, conniving pathological psychopaths in the LNP have now become “dodgy” multi-millionaires in a very short time – ever since the most misinformed, Murdoch-manipulated fools in the nation believed all the character-assassinating lies in the Z-rated Murdoch press and elected the LNP whilst Abbott led an appalling vicious campaign OVERLOADED with vindictive misogynistic attacks against Julia Gillard and, later, nasty and truly vile and baseless attacks against Kevin Rudd! In the meantime, members of the elitist LNP are getting obscenely rich at our expense! It is said that Dutton has now managed to amass a personal fortune of more than $300 MILLION yet refuses to disclose how and from where he attained that level of wealth whilst on a politician’s wage! Could it be under-the-table rewards handed over in paper bags by Serco? Who knows. Australians have a damn right to know but only Dutton can enlighten us on this worrisome issue and Potato Head is staying MUM on this issue!

    If Australians value ANYTHING left standing and intact by the rampaging destruction, defundment and environmental vandalism by the “government from hell” – ironically led by a signed-up lunatic member of the paedophile-protecting CULT of Hillsong who just happens to be a colossal lying and totally dysfunctional hypocrite – then we MUST be sure to kick the LNP to the gutter at the next election because THAT is where they REALLY belong! The ALP are not perfect but the LNP have “normalised corruption” until they have stooped to the bottom of a very deep barrell! The big problem with the LNP though is just when you think they couldn’t stoop any lower, they keep digging to the point where they are now using a coal-powered Excavator!

  15. Kaye Lee

    “Adolf Kipfler, das Gruppenfritter, Herr Shickltuber, the Gestapotato, Dick Tater, Spudley Too-Right, Dutton dressed as yam, J. Edgar Tuber” LOLOLOL

    Dutton’s one positive contribution to the nation has been to stimulate the creativity of those who don’t find him quite as important as he does himself.

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