A comment I made on the SMH blog

There was an article a few days ago about the Exclusive Brethren, a fundamentalist Christian sect/party that operates in the US, Australia and New Zealand. In a nutsehll, the article highlighted the groups strong right-wing views, their cult-like qualities and interestingly enough, their apparent abstinence from voting. The crunch in the article came when John Howard refused to condemn the group, offering up the lame excuse that they were entitled to their views and we had to respect that. Given the group's contempt for the law, or 'Australian values', the hypocrisy in Howard's statements, when compared to the anti-Muslim bias that he so clearly favours, promotes and loves to ride on, is staggering. Democracy is dead when demi-gods rule the airwaves...

In anycase, I couldn't find the article proper (well, I could but I wasn't going to pay $2.20 to have it sent to me!) but here is a link to the blog regarding the article:

http://blogs.smh.com.au/newsblog/archives/your_say/006467.html

My response was finally passed through the filter and is reprinted below.

"Howard's lordship over Australia has seen him gradually reveal his onion-layered bigotry. What is most astonishing is that he exhibits an almost deluded arrogance and confidence in the validity of his 'mandated redneckism'. Only those who are amicable to this underlying fear of the other, fail to recognise it for what it is.

In the decades to come, when Australia finally hurdles over it's cultural birthing pains, we will all look back at the last two hundred-plus years and shake our heads that a man like Howard ever ended up with the authority that he did.

Smug satisfaction in the lowest common denominator is not a quality worthy of admiration. Poor Australia."

• Posted by: solly at September 27, 2006 11:36 AM

(Do you like the onion comment? Howard, what a vegetable...)