Julia Gillard is John Howard in Drag and More
Further to Julia Gillard is John Howard in Drag may I ask Who wants to see Gillard as pro-Israel and anti-Islam?
A regular reader of this site sent this on, exact source unknown, but certainly speaks for itself.
The ALP and Israel is like a disease that no medicine can cure
Australian unionist Paul Howes loves Israel. He supports its criminality, murder of opponents, defends it from everybody and would ideally like to make love to the Jewish state. He's also one of the key figures behind the recent coup of Julia Gillard when overthrowing Kevin Rudd.
Welcome to the modern Australian Labor Party, where Israel is a state religion.
His column in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph is a typical rant that conveniently forgets to mention that one of Australia's leading Zionist lobbyists, Albert Dadon, is actually an Israeli lobbyist. He wields influence but of course we can't mention this. Furthermore, Howes doesn't want to see that there is a profound conflict of influence with the Prime Minister's partner working for a Zionist lobbyist who is trying to affect government policy towards the Middle East. But of course for some, anything related to the Jewish state is beyond criticism. Fat chance:
It hasn't taken long for the double standards to emerge, in the week since our first female Prime Minister took office.
While it's significant that Julia Gillard is our first female PM, what's really significant is how long it took us to get there.
I'm writing this column in the Sydney CBD, where we have a female Lord Mayor and State member, and female federal MP, a female Premier and a female Governor.
In Canberra, there's a female Governor General and – at last – a female PM. With the exception of the dual-Lord Mayor/Member for Bligh, all these women are, or were appointed by, Labor.
The Liberal Party, on the other hand, is so bereft of female talent that they've recycled Julie Bishop as deputy leader three times for different leaders, despite the fact that she's not considered competent enough to hold the shadow Treasury portfolio.
But the progressive side of politics has always championed women. In my own role as a union official, we have had female leaders of the Australian Council of Trade Unions since 1996, with the newest president, Ged Kearney, taking office in the past week.
She replaces Sharan Burrow, who has been elected as the head of the global trade union movement.
Yet we've already seen double standards being applied to our new PM with significant media coverage of Prime Minister Gillard's hair, clothes, voice and domestic arrangements.
The Melbourne Age carried a front-page story last week about the employment status of the Prime Minister's partner, Tim Mathieson.
He works as a salesman for a Melbourne property company, chaired by Albert Dadon, prominent in the local Jewish community.
The article implied that, somehow, because Mr Mathieson works for a company associated with a Jewish community member, this would somehow impact on the PM's stance on foreign policy, particularly in relation to her views on Israel.
It was one of the crassest examples of shoddy journalism I've seen. The implication was, firstly, that because Mr Mathieson is a man and the PM a woman, whatever he thinks about the world or who he works for will impact on what Ms Gillard thinks.
The second implication was that, simply because Mr Mathieson works for a company owned by a prominent Jew, his personal views on policy matters will be skewed by his job.
One Canberra press gallery journalist summed it up best on Twitter when he said: "I can't ever recall a male politician being the subject of claims his wife's job would influence his views on the Middle East."
He was spot on, summing up in one sentence the appalling double standards applied to Prime Minister Gillard in the article. In fact, outrage over the article was so intense that even former Age editor Michael Gawenda labelled it "bizarre".
Mr Mathieson's employer, apart from being Jewish, is a well-known jazz musician and was chairman of the Melbourne Jazz Festival.
Following the logic of The Age's article, one could presume that our nation's leader will redirect the Government's arts funding solely towards the Australian jazz industry.
Ludicrous, isn't it? Just as ludicrous as saying that the PM is going to toe some pro-Israel line simply because of who her partner works for. It's the type of double standards and sexist reporting that belongs in the past.
Julia Gillard has shown she is her own person. It doesn't matter what her hair looks like. I don't think anyone is really interested in how she dresses. It doesn't matter who her partner works for or what their living arrangements are.
What matters is that she's the best person for the job and light years ahead of Tony Abbott when it comes to understanding the needs of ordinary Australians. Yes, she's different from her predecessors, but just like Kevin Rudd, John Howard, Paul Keating and Bob Hawke, she is her own person.
Any suggestion that her partner's views, or her hairstyle, has any bearing on how she runs the country is laughable at best, sexist at worst.
Paul Howes is national secretary of the Australian Workers' Union
Julia Gillard is John Howard in Drag
Dissident writer and academic Scott Burchill on the dead heart at the centre of the ruling Labor party in Australia (and the Prime Ministership of Julia Gillard):
Caved in to miners within hours of becoming PM – not prepared to stand up to corporate power in the West, or defend the population's resources equity
Gushed to Obama – an "honour and privilege" just to speak to him, though we are allies in a (futile) war we are losing
Sucked up to Israel - expressed no concerns about the Dubai passport & identity theft or the flotilla massacre while deputy PM, and will not stand up to Israel lobby as PM
Backed the Afghan war unconditionally – without asking Obama any questions about McChrystal's dismissal, how long we need to have troops in occupation, what the exit strategy, etc,
Opposed same sex marriage – apparently the state decides which consenting adults can marry, not the adults, though her choice not to marry is hers alone
Copied Howard's Pacific solution on asylum seekers – substituting East Timor for Nauru, then abandoning it a few days later because the Timorese hadn't been properly consulted and opposed the idea when they eventually were
Endorsed a government imposed internet filter - then abandoned it a day later because the population opposes it and thinks they should decide what they can and cannot access, not the government
Lost the Government's two most competent ministers – Tanner can't stand her and what she did to Rudd, Faulkner opposes the Afghanistan commitment he was charged with implementing
It's not disappointing because only the naive believed she actually stood for something – principles or good policy, for example. If she did, she would have bailed on Rudd months ago. Concerns that someone from the left had risen to power were always risible – she is hated by her colleagues on the left more than she is by those on the right. She was only on the left of the party for the purposes of factional horse-trading and pre-selection.
What's more difficult to understand is that like Rudd, she will be rightly criticised for not standing for, or believing in, anything. Sadly, she is actually getting credit for "clearing the decks" before an early election, as if policies are dispensable as long as it is possible to hold on to power. This tells us more about modern Labor than anything. If she is re-elected, what will she do? Manage for the sake or managing? Every other idea and principle has been, or is being, trashed.
