Posts Tagged ‘Janet Albrechtsen’
when will she just shut the hell up?
Don’t you hate it when you have to go to a family reunion and you have to listen to some wacky relative go on and on about the same thing they go on and on about at every family reunion?
Aunty Jan does that a lot, and I dread going to the front page of The Australian for fear of seeing another one of her stupid, inflammatory headlines almost as much as I dislike being told about my shortcomings by relatives who, frankly, are way more disturbed than I am (lucky for me, most of them are overseas).
I hope I don’t get the reputation for being obsessed with Janet Albrechtsen. I know she says so many crappy things which really should be ignored, but once in a while she displays such ignorance and bigotry that I just can’t help but point it out for the amusement of my dear Readers. This week’s masterpiece has been the subject of Aunty Jan’s ire not less that twice in the last six months (the 4 pages of her blog’s archives that I can be bothered to load).
The topic I speak of is, of course, the “looming menace” of activist judges. (Mind you, if I go and count references to the other topic of her piece this week, same-sex “marriage”, I might be here all month.) You know, those, horrible, nasty elitist fiends who wipe out historical myths that may disadvantage an entire race, prevent an indigent accused unable to access legal aid from being denied a fair trial, allow ministers to exercise powers granted by parliament and commit other such atrocies against the community which amount to an “open declaration of war against our elected politicians“.
In a dazzling display of conservative intellect and wisdom, yesterday’s headline boldly declares war on those smarmy, unelected gits: “Judges should butt out of politics“.
That’s right, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Bench — Butt. Out. Y’all may have spent years studying in law schools, working in top firms and advocating at The Bar in order to be appointed as judges and work your booties off dealing with people’s problems and issuing punishments to criminals, but you and your bonehead friends can’t tell me what to do! Nuh-uh!!! I’m telling Mummy on you! … IknowyouarebutwhatamI? … Whoeversmeltitdealtit! … Liarliar! Pantsonfire!! … Mummmmmyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You know what? I may be biased. I went to law school and learned about this whole law and politics thing and now I work for two judges, so I might just be hero-worshipping and sticking up for them.
But as Aunty Jan warns of the apocalyptic doom we now face because Californian Judges have decided (4:3) that it’s ok for two grown adults who just so happen to be of the same gender to commit to each other for life, she appears to have forgotten that the California Supreme Court hasn’t at all usurped the state congress’ role in deciding whether or not to extend the full entitlements of marriage to same-sex couples. The Californian Senate and Assembly legislated for the validity of same-sex marriages, without court pressure, in 2005 and 2007. The (duly elected) Govnernator vetoed the bills because he believed that same-sex marriage should be settled by the courts as the constitutionality of the 2000 “Proposition 22” referendum, in which 60% voted for a “man & woman” definition of marriage, was yet to be considered and validated.
Or maybe she didn’t know that? Come on, Aunty Jan, it really ain’t too hard to use Wikipedia. You have a doctorate in laws, don’t you? Did they give you a lobotomy and remove the section of your brain in which you stored the concept of doing “research” when you accepted the job at Teh Oz, or something?
To all my law friends, and my other friends, who are also smart and worldly (because, hello, you’re friends with me!), do you have any thoughts? Will the world now end or should we try to get Sarah Connor to crush those evil judges in hydraulic pumpy things?
I leave you with the wise words of His Honour, the irrefutably awesome, Justice Micheal Kirby, who has his own Facebook appreciation society and gets extra marks for having enticited a personal vendatta from Aunty Janet:
So long as law is something more than mere rules, so long as it speaks of deep values and human aspirations, of human dignity and fundamental rights, there will be people called judges who have the responsibility to express and apply the law and, in new circumstances, to push it forward and adapt it in a principled way. So long as judges do this, there will be critics. And sometimes the criticism will be fair and require correction. But let us resolve that the criticism will be voiced in civil language. We can leave out the bullying. Childish demonisation and name-calling should be left to infants’ schools. They are contemptible and anti-intellectual. We should resolve to replace swearwords with analysis and bullying with open-minded dialogue. [link]
Freedom of Thought and Intellectual Freedom
She‘s baaaaaaack!!
After her column a couple of weeks ago about how K-Rudd’s been doin‘ O-Kay (which left more than a couple of commenters asking, “Who are you and what have you done with the real Janet?”) Aunty Jan returns to doing what she does best: writing diatribes full of broad, sweeping statements that generally end with “It has happened in the US. It should be happening here.”
This week’s thesis: “University is not the place to crush ideas”.
You’re soooooo right Aunty J. Of course it isn’t; High School is.
Sarcasm aside, I once again find myself agreeing with Janet.
Now, there’s a Facebook group called Law School: Where Idealism Goes to Die, but I promise my idealism is only slightly anemic rather than already cremated.
Mind you, my corporate-law coffin is pretty much ready and waiting for me (habour-views, satin lining and all!), but I’m not quite ready to lie down in it.
Anyway, my point is that I am certainly not one of the “group of Young Liberals” who are the subject of Albrechtsen’s current concerns (btw, as one commenter rightly points out, what counts as a ‘group’? 100? 50? 10? More than 2?). However, I do believe that “freedom of thought and intellectual freedom” (maybe articulated a little snappier) is one of the most important (if not the ultimate) tenet of a university.
However, I reckon that if JA really had her way, she’d just as biased for the Right as the Leftie Scum academics the Young Libs have a problem with. My fave comment from the blog is from Steve of Sydney:
Welcome to Janet Albrechtsen University. Please read the Charter for each of our faculties:
- Business: Maximise profit. It doesn’t matter what you do to achieve it but it helps to use others in order to get there. Global warming doesn’t exist so pollute as much as you can.
- Law: Screw the poor. The law is there to serve and protect the interests of the corporate state. All other matters are trivial.
- Medicine: Survival of the fittest is how we should gear our health systems. Don’t waste money on improving public health because there is no such thing as “the public.” It’s everyone for himself.
- Education: Our role is to churn out compliant but suitably skilled fodder for the business community.
- Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. This faculty is now permanently closed and no correspondence will be entered into.
- Science: Studies in this faculty to be geared at improving GM crop yields in semi arid parts of South Australia.
- Architecture and Engineering: We will will teach you underlings how to design chic blocks of flats that will make good investments for those clever enough to pass our Business or Law degrees.
- Theology: We operate from the premise that the world is 6,000 years old, that church and state must be blurred and Islam must not be examined, but simply crushed. This faculty is continually upgraded thanks to our friends and sponsors from the Hillsong Church.
- International Studies. The US is unquestioningly a force for good in this world.
Full course fees, payable by your parents, are required at the time of enrolment. No “special considerations” will be entered into in ANY circumstances.
Hey!! That sounds reeeeeally familiar!!!
I often lament over the fact I have yet to attend a Real University, rather than one that (regardless of the rhetoric, trust me, I was there) pretty much ticks all the above boxes. My dreams of not having a HECS debt ended up becoming a Fee-HELP nightmare and I really don’t have many good things to say about the “University” of Notre Dame Australia.
I recently discovered ND had released an Academic Freedom Policy. And oh, what a glorious example of witty, ironic, sarcasm-based humour it is!!!!
At least I assume it is… ’cause this schizzle canno’ be fo‘ real:
1. The University of Notre Dame Australia … is an integral part of the world-wide group of great Catholic universities, and follows academic freedom norms which are common in all such universities.
…
5. The University hopes and anticipates that most of its students and staff will support and contribute to the context of Catholic faith and values within which it functions as an institution of higher learning.
…
6. The University must be a liberal and unfettered place where the basic values and beliefs of Christians are exposed, explained, researched, debated, freely challenged, and openly affirmed or rejected.
Can it?
Well, at least with such clear and unambiguous terms, not, we don’t have to worry about it being binding on anyone.
Cause it (specifically number six) certainly didn’t apply to the Vice Chancellor when The Quasi tried to debate the morning-after pill, in a”fair and balanced” way with perspectives of a female student and a member of the School of Philosophy (who has since resigned, along with pretty much all of the best academic staff ND ever pretended to have).
This year’s PROSH put it so perfectly:
Notre Dame: All the downsides of Catholicism, none of the benefits of university.
Touché.
“Citizen Jane” Responds
From my inbox re my vile raving rant from yesterday:
Well, here I was carelessly surfing the internet and thinking to myself… geez there’s a lot of conservative crap being printed on the internet. With a slight sigh of relief I stumbled across your ‘blog.’ At the very first glance of your page I was quickly reassured with the state of the media. The media isn’t biased at all. There’s just as much conservative crap out there as there is ‘liberal’ bulldust such as yours (and for those wondering I use the term liberal very loosely).
To start off with I have to say that it is no real surprise that you got so worked up on the issue. Well, think about. If someone says something stupid your shrug your shoulders and think, if not say, what a “poor stupid bastard.” But in this case you had a person making logical, valid points and all you could respond with was a whole heap of swearing and false bravado. And to make things worse for you the person making these points was actually one of your own-kind (someone else who writes what they believe is right in an attempt to save the world.)
Oh… you thought I was referring to author’s gender. Opps, I guess you forgot the first rule of feminism: equality. Yes, that’s right – gender is irrelevant. WHEN WILL YOU PEOPLE FINALLY UNDERSTAND THIS. The fact that it was a female writing the article is completely. Utterly. Undeniably. IMMATERIAL. But I suppose I should forgive you, when you can’t attack the content of an article you have to fill your page moaning about something.
The problem with old-feminists is that they completely lost sight of what they were fighting for. Originally, they weren’t simply about women’s rights, they were about equality. It just so happens that, at the time, women were getting a bloody raw deal. So, that’s what they fought for. Tooth and nail. They fought for a system where women could be educated, given the same opportunities and be just as, if not, more successful than their muscularly enhanced counterparts.
Conveniently (but predictably) you forgot to mention the fact that women do have a chance. And not just a 30% chance either. Confused? Oh, let me remind you of someone who actually has some facts.
Women in the present day are:
* Four times LESS likely than young men to kill themselves
* 22 times LESS likely to be imprisoned.
* And MORE likely than boys to leave school with no qualifications.Oh, but didn’t you say:
“It’s only when women are educated, supported and given the chance to excel do we have a $%&* choice.”
What’s worse is that you then go on to lament about the demise of the Office of Status of Women. Well don’t men have issues too? Isn’t this what we are fighting for here – Equality.
Agreed?
Anyone?
Oh… that’s right… now I remember why men don’t have an Office of Status. Because if they haven’t killed themselves then they are in prison or too uneducated to do anything about.
How convenient.
The thing that is admirable about Janet Albrechtsen is that she isn’t afraid to fight for equality. She isn’t the ego-thirsty, power-hungry person that you are. She can accept that 30% ain’t bad for women. Now, all your readers out there, bear with me here.
Let’s face facts. Men have penises and women have vaginas. Women give birth (using their vaginas). Men are strong and are more suited to the blue-collar jobs (not that anyone cares about those jobs anyway). But nevertheless, a bit like YOU said. You want to stay home and look after the kids. Well what happens if 70% of women agree with you. Do we then launch into a cry about the High Court?
No. We look at it objectively. Women have great opportunities. In fact, in some cases, they are better off than men. Most women are educated, out-of-prison and alive. And if a woman wants to gets on the High Court, SHE HAS THE OPPURTUNITY. So now that women have opportunities you can get off your high horse. Old feminism can slowly fade away. And a new, truer form of feminism can be bred where equality is fought for, regardless of the gender.
Citizen Jane
This, folks, is even more gold when one knows who wrote it, and I now feel 100% justified in certain possibly-irrational choices I may have made recently 😀
But, to the issue at hand.
Dear Jane
I agree with you, Jane, about equality. In fact, I was discussing this issue with a Friend From Up The Road yesterday and he takes exactly the same position as you with regards to what modern feminism is about. The term feminism should apparently be scrapped (in the same way one might say the ALP should get as far away from ‘Labor’ as possible which some creative corporate re-branding, but I’ll save that one for a rainy day… it’s too lovely a day today to be angry…) in favour of ‘equalism’ or, in the alternative, we should just forget about the whole damn thing all together and just get on with our lives.
However, there’s something about forgetting the past which I just cannot deal with. What happens when you forget the past is that you make the same mistakes over and over again. This is the same issue I have with indigenous issues and economic policy… everyone gets lulled into a false sense of security when things are ‘fine’ and all of a sudden, you’re back 70 years. As long as you, Jane, promise me that on the road to equalism we don’t forget that women have suffered with the raw deal for a very long time, I agree that we need to support everyone with warm-fuzzies.
But, here’s my reply speech (especially since you don’t like them…) on the other issues you raised, in chronological order.
Firstly, I’m not the media. I’m an over-excited twenty-something nerd who hates to piss off the few real-world friends she has and has thus taken to venting in kilobytes. Furthermore, I believe there has been some good research done on the fact blogging doesn’t affect the mainstream media enough to have real impact on the information war, and with 8 hits a day I’m not part of the tiny number who may in fact do so.
Secondly, I feel that my harping on Janet Albrechtson’s gender was justified. Someone said to me yesterday that if a man had written what she had written, it would have never been published. Why would anyone say that if what she wrote wasn’t ridiculously offensive to women and the hard fight fought by crazed feminazis everywhere? Plus, she wrote it as a woman, she should be able to justify it as a woman, and so I am going to write about what she wrote as a woman.
Thirdly, would you like to re-read my post and tell me exactly how many times I moaned without discussing ‘content’? I may get emotional sometimes, but I generally try to stick to the issues at hand when I criticise something, without resorting to blatantly making stuff up.
Fourthly, I’m glad you accept that there needed to be a cat-fight for women to “given the same opportunities and be just as, if not, more successful than their muscularly enhanced counterparts” and that “as a result of the pressure from such people that many women’s lives have improved“:
This is great. Women have achieved so much. But the brutal facts remain. The vast majority of the world’s women still have very little power, at work, in their relationships at home, or in the wider world. As British social commentator Polly Toynbee noted, even in the Britain of 2004: ‘the battle is only half won.’
Worldwide, 70 per cent of those living in poverty are women, as are two-thirds of illiterate adults. One in four women is beaten by her husband or partner. Every day, 1,300 still die unnecessarily in childbirth or during pregnancy.
I do not believe feminists have “lost sight of what they were fighting for”. It is only when we accept sub-par results do we lose sight of the fight.
Fifthly, if you’re up for some websurfing: here are some more facts about women and our (cough) place in the world.
Sixthly, when I was talking about [deleted] choices, it was in the context of responding to Auntie Jan saying feminazis do not offer women ‘real choices’. I was saying we have choices. Because of feminazis and what they fought for. Yes, hurrah, something to celebrate! Auntie Jan goes on and on about how Old Femmos whine despite the progress we’ve made and yet what does she do? Whine about something we could celebrate. Way to go!
Seventhly, I understand the point you are making about the status of men. I’m sure you feel very strongly about it. All I have to say to that is, then let’s stop arguing about women and men and fix the education system which currently favours the rich over the poor and is on a steady march to increasing that divide.
Oops, did I suddenly switch from whinging about gender to whinging about class? Here’s the thing with equality in this country right now: Everything and everyone is divided into competing factions because it appears that the elites seem to like it that way. They’re happy propping up their friends to high places and ignoring those who can’t increase their status. My apologies for the digression, but there is a link…
The thing is, exactly the same issue exists with women. Women have always have and, if we ignore it, always will face an uphill battle for equality. Probably because we have different bits down there to men. (I am going to ignore the thing you said about Auntie Jan’s ego: la la la la la la imnotlisteningoriwillswearagain la la la la.) My Friend From Up The Road pointed out that the number is 30% because 20% of women are having children at all times. (Like how 69% of statistics are made up on the spot.) Well, if that is the case, I give up. I concede. Capitulate, even. Ok, we have the chance and opportunity to be on the High Court now, let’s get the hell over it.
But 30% isn’t equality yet. We need to support everyone, men, women, children, elderly, indigenous people, migrants, students, workers, heck, even wild tree frogs, but we still have to fight for equality, as the best way to provide that support. We still have to fight because the current status quo doesn’t give a shit. That’s all I was saying. That and Janet Albrechtsen is evil.
Thanks for taking the time to send me a response, and I hope to talk to you soon
Sunili
P.S. I know I’m not one to talk about spelling, but I’ve recently found that Copy-Paste to Word only takes a few seconds 😉
because I said so 