"Remember, the best predictor of future behavior is the past." Dr Phil
"This election campaign makes me recall those halcyon days when I was at Sydney University in the 1970s. A visit to Australia by the controversial psychologist Hans Eysenck prompted a typically passionate and polarised undergraduate debate. Should he be allowed to express his so-called racist views? The debate started as an earnest dispute over philosophical principles and ethics. Very '70s, very serious - and very boring. The doyen of the right, Tony Abbott, then stepped up to the plate against a hostile crowd and held forth. He was going well until, getting into the mood, he declared, 'As the great Bard said, 'I don't agree with what you say, but I'll defend your right to say it'.' A wag up the back yelled, 'That was Voltaire, you dickhead!' The crowd disolved into hysterics, and the debate degenerated into a slapstick comedy. Strong on style, weak on details - has anything changed?" (Letter to the Sydney Morning Herald by Ross Kerridge, Newcastle East, 10/8/10)
"A fellow student activist says [Julia] Gillard has always been 'very much on the pragmatic side'. She was always that way in student politics. She was more inclined to deal with the Liberals, the Zionists and various right-wing groups than she was with the Left. (She's got it, Stevenson & Banham, Sydney Morning Herald, 5/7/03) Strong on opportunism, weak on principle - has anything changed?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
no nothing has changed...and nothing will change until an effort is made to disconnect politics from finances, because those with money will have an advantage, reach and influence that have nothing to do with democracy.
Why have lobbies been allowed to persist for so long in what like to acll themselves 'democracies' ?
we should call our system of government Lobbocracies, and make it clear that power lies in financial control.
Brian
Post a Comment