Don't feed the trolls

Ever since Internet blogs allowed comments, there has been a particularly nasty, vile group of people that visit the comments sections of blogs, post inflammatory comments to provoke others and move on when they have derailed the conversation. Usually the rationale for doing this is to disrupt the blog or to get some publicity for themselves. The process is known as trolling. The remedy is ‘don’t feed the trolls’ – ignore them.

It’s probably wasn’t a surprise to many when the offensiveness of new Senator Fraser Anning’s maiden speech in the Senate was reported as being deliberate. The Monthly’s Paddy Manning laid out the process in his daily email a couple of days after the speech was made. Briefly the concept behind the speech was to ‘out Hanson Hanson’ thus gaining free publicity and potentially longevity in the political system. In other words, Anning is trolling the Australian public.

Hanson’s particular brand of racism has allowed her to suck at the public teat of election funding for a quarter of a century. As Anning was born in 1949, his time in public life probably won’t run to 25 years, which is a blessing. Anning only got a seat in the Senate because he was third on the One Nation Senate ticket in Queensland at the last federal election. When the somewhat ‘strange’ Malcolm Roberts was ruled illegible for the Senate seat he occupied (remember he was the one that claimed he renounced his UK Citizenship by email without confirming the correct email address), Anning was nominated to fill the breach. Between the time of his call up to the Senate and his first appearance in Canberra, he ditched his alliance with Hanson’s One Nation and formed a ‘loose’ alliance with Senators Bernardi and Leyonhelm. By the time he read his ‘maiden’ speech, Anning had ditched them and joined Katter’s Australia Party. While Anning might have had some input, the speech was written by Roberts’ ex-speech writer.

Hanson lined up with Turnbull, Shorten and a host of others to condemn the speech by Anning. And it should be condemned as it is factually wrong according to Fairfax. It was also deliberately provocative, crude, racist and disgusting. The problem with Hanson et al condemning it is that they all have skin in using racism and hatred for political gain. Hanson’s ‘disapproval’ is disingenuous at best as her organisation was the one that put Anning in the Senate. Hanson’s comments were also probably a warning shot to ‘get off her turf’. Turnbull oversees the current inhumane policies towards refugees imposed by the Australian Government and his party’s current ‘elder statesman’ — John Howard — was the first to use the plight of refugees to win an election. Shorten doesn’t make treatment of refugees a point of difference between the ALP and LNP. Keating’s ALP Government introduced the concept of detention while refugees were ‘processed’. Pot – meet kettle. Demonstrating the point, as Paddy Manning wrote:
Within hours of denouncing Anning yesterday, Hanson introduced a bill backing the immigration plebiscite he’d proposed in Tuesday’s speech. Likewise, after decrying racism yesterday, as Andrew Wilkie tweeted, Labor and the Coalition “ganged up in Parliament to strip the rights away from 1,600 asylum seekers who’ve been illegally detained”. Only Wilkie, the Greens’ Adam Bandt and independent Cathy McGowan voted against the government’s legislation to retrospectively validate the excision of Ashmore Reef from Australia’s migration zone. Today Cory Bernardi tabled a 15,000-signature petition from the Halal Action Movement and moved a motion against Australia joining the UN’s Global Compact for Migration. It has to end.
So while the ‘shock and horror’ of Anning’s speech was still fresh in everyone’s minds, various politicians that were ‘outraged’ demonstrated that their words are cheap.

Unfortunately the trolls like Hanson, Anning and others such as Katter, Bernardi and Leyonhelm are seeking personal aggrandisement at your expense. It is far easier to attract followers by picking on a group such as Africans, non-Christians or those from the Middle East that don’t have the public recognition enjoyed by the trolls, blaming the group for some problem such as lack of employment for those from a low social-economic background and falsely claiming cause and effect.

It is base politics for the sake of base politics. From Manning’s article again:
We will not be the most successful multicultural nation in the world for long if this goes on. Something concrete has to happen to stop the downwards slide into open bigotry.
Look at Menzies’ ‘Forgotten People’ speech of 1942 or Chifley’s 1949 ‘Light on the Hill” speech. While you might not agree with the particular points made in either speech, our politicians in the past could articulate policy that was inclusive, promoting a solution to perceived problems without hatred and finger pointing at those that ‘are different’ for some reason or other. They didn’t need to troll and incite hatred to gain publicity.

Australia is a successful multi-cultural society and like it or not, we are all immigrants to this country or descended from them. Perhaps Anning, Hanson and others who have a problem with multiculturalism should, in the words of a racist bumper sticker, ‘love Australia [as it is] or leave’. Meanwhile, the rest of us need to remember not to feed the trolls. The shame is, we really used to be better than this.

What do you think?

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Ad Astra

20/08/2018

2353NM

Thank you for your fine piece.

Feeding the trolls is counterproductive. As the image shows, they are gluttonous. Feasting on the infamy derived from their outrageous behaviour, they will come back again and again for more of the same. It is always their intention to gain attention, no matter how adverse the publicity.

They have learned from Pauline Hanson that contemptible words and actions attract attention, and from those of like mind, votes. That was what Anning was all about from the outset, as his subsequent behaviour showed.

It is a sad reality of political life that some of the electorate endorse extreme views. Bob Katter’s animated endorsement of Anning’s speech is an example. There are many like Katter out there.

Ignoring the trolls is the best remedy, but because the media feeds on such controversy, they will foster and amplify the words and sentiments of the likes of Anning. The media feeds the trolls for its own advantage.

Ad Astra

20/08/2018

Folks

As we traverse yet another episode of Prime Minister in Peril, you must be having a vivid déjà vu experience. Malcolm Turnbull, our current ‘Prime Minister in Peril’ is a perennial source of: ‘We’ve seen all this before’.

It was in August 2009, nine years ago, that I first wrote The Turnbull endgame?  In October 2016, two years ago, I wrote The Turnbull endgame – again?  Today, I could write The Turnbull endgame – yet again?  But I won’t because what I would write would be virtually the same all over again.

I find it fascinating to re-read pieces about Turnbull. When I do, I realise that virtually nothing has changed. Turnbull is just the same. Even the issues he’s grappling with have scarcely changed. I do not expect that he, and the issues that beset him, ever will.

Expect the endless cycle that began when he entered politics all those years ago to continue indefinitely.

I looked back in the TPS Archive and selected for your attention The Turnbull endgame – again?  You may not have the stomach to re-read it, but should you decide to give it a try, you will be astonished, as I was, at how well it describes Turnbull’s plight today. Only the dates have changed.

It does demonstrate that politicians’ patterns of behaviour do not change, nor do the issues they need to address. The tedious cycle goes on over and over and over again. This is what makes politics so interesting, and at the same time so predicable, so discouraging, so gloomy.

If you are able to find the time to glance quickly through The Turnbull endgame – again? to pick the eyes out of it, you may be astonished. You may wonder: ‘When was this written?’ and be surprised that it was posted on TPS two years ago.

Here is the link: http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/posts.aspx?postid=841da855-0edb-439f-8dd6-322aac0206ed   

Your comments would be welcome.

Ad Astra

20/08/2018

Folks

Here’s another TPS piece about Turnbull, this one by 2353NM, which you may care to peruse.

It too reflects Turnbull’s repetitive behaviour. It’s titled Turnbull’s end, written as recently as the end of last year.

Again, you will see that nothing about Turnbull’s behaviour ever changes.

Here is the link: http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/posts.aspx?postid=bc62ba67-6c98-4321-819c-12e8b29c2eeb  

Ad Astra

22/08/2018

Folks

It's impossible t keep up with the reprise of the Turnbull saga on a blog site - we have to rely on TV and radio, the only live media we have.

janice

23/08/2018

It seems 'Turnbull's end' has actually eventuated, even if Dutton's end comes before it began.   

Maybe some good will come from the Libs leadership struggles that have consumed all before it this week.  If the odious Dutton happens to shove his way into the top job, or ScoMo gets it instead, this ghastly government is finished.   As well, the voters may just give the boot to a dozen or so others who're so deserving of being sent back from whence they came to actually earn a living instead of sucking from the Public teat.





Joe Carli

12/09/2018

If I may add my contribution to the discussion?... :  https://freefall852.wordpress.com/2017/05/03/on-cicero-turnbull/

I have two politicians and add 17 clowns and 14 chimpanzees; how many clowns are there?