Mortal Enemies

Down here in Australia, we can feel isolated from the really big items on the world agenda. Most of the action seems to happen in the Northern Hemisphere, and those of us below the equator are just watching from the sidelines, catching the occasional stray ball that heads our way: an Olympic Games, a royal visit or a G20 meeting. It makes me wonder how much really interesting stuff goes on in the world that we never hear about.

For example, did you know that last week, the Oklahoma House passed a new bill which will prohibit local governments in that state from entering into any agreements with any organisations that have been officially accredited by the United Nations?

What’s that, you say? One of the flyover states on the other side of the world doesn’t want its local councils getting cosy with the UN? Is that kind of legislation even necessary? Does the great state of Oklahoma do a lot of business with organisations recognised by the UN?

Well, the Republicans in Oklahoma certainly don’t. According to Republican House member Sally Kern, it’s essential that proud state shuns all contact with the UN. it’s all about something called Agenda 21.


Hey, don’t feel bad. I didn’t know about Agenda 21 either, until the Galileo Movement tweeted about it last week.

Sometimes it’s better that we don’t know what’s going on in the Northern Hemisphere, although sadly, it’s looks as Agenda 21 is about to become one of those terms we hear in reference to Australia.

Rather than an infestation of alien life-forms or a new corporate management fad. Agenda 21 is, according to a paper by Graham Williamson and quoted by the Galileo Movement,

…a fundamentally undemocratic, sovereignty threatening, UN designed and monitored program which is being banned overseas because of the threat it poses to fundamental human rights. Agenda 21 is found to pose a serious risk to freedom and human rights and is unnecessarily foreign in its origin and control.

Run! Run away! Agenda 21 is coming to take away your rights as a human being! Don’t worry about who is the preferred Prime Minister in the Neilsen Poll – this Agenda 21 business is going to threaten our right to exist as a country! We won’t have a PM because we won’t be Australia any more! This is serious!

But before we start commandeering the boats (you know which boats) and steering them back from whence they came, I’m on a mission to find out what Agenda 21 is, and why we should be afraid. Call me cynical, but a tweet from the Galileo Movement holds about as much credibility as a Milli Vanilli hit. I think I’ll do my own research, thanks anyway.

And there it is, is black and white: a statement from the Australian Government Department of the Environment and Heritage, June 2002 and revised January 2004.

Agenda 21 is an international blueprint that outlines actions that governments, international organisations, industries and the community can take to achieve sustainability. These actions recognise the impacts of human behaviours on the environment and on the sustainability of systems of production. The objective of Agenda 21 is the alleviation of poverty, hunger, sickness and illiteracy worldwide while halting the deterioration of ecosystems which sustain life.

The document goes on to present some basic detail:

Agenda 21 is divided into four sections:

• Social and Economic Dimensions –

examining the underlying human factors and problems of development, along with the key issues of trade and integrated decision-making;

• Conservation and Management of Resources for Development–

the largest section of Agenda 21, presenting the range of resources, ecosystems and other issues, all of which must be examined in detail if sustainable development is to be achieved at global, national and local levels;

• Strengthening the Role of Major Groups–

looks at the social partnerships necessary if sustainable development is to be a reality. It recognises that Government and international agencies cannot alone achieve sustainable development and that the community, through representative and industry organisations, must be a key player in the development of policy and in achieving the necessary changes; and

• Means of Implementation–

examines the question 'how do we get there?'. The section looks at the resources which must be mobilised in support of sustainable futures. While finance and technology are key elements, this section also deals with aspects of education, institutional and legal structures, data and information and the building of national capacity in relevant disciplines.

Now according to the Galileo Movement, that wily group of Climate Science Deniers I discussed a few weeks ago, the Government version is not the truth. In fact, Mr Williamson states in his report.

“Agenda 21 is being implemented in the U.S. under various names to deceive the unsuspecting public as to the source and real purpose of the program. However identifying the programs is relatively easy. All you have to do is look for the keywords……..Everything associated with this program is deceptive. The language they use, the names they give the projects, the means by which they lure local governments into the trap and then slam the door - absolutely everything is deceptive from beginning to end.”

Ooooh – aaaah. Everything is deceptive, eh?
The only thing deceptive about Agenda 21 is how the Climate Science Deniers, that minority group of conservatives who reject the weight of scientific knowledge because it doesn’t suit their agendas, has hijacked the term and made it something menacing.

But don’t think for a moment that this is an Australian phenomenon. Like so many of our cultural influences, blame America. One driving force behind the demonization of Agenda 21 is the John Birch Society, an American radical right-wing political group whose members are somewhere out there beyond Tea Party Land. This group rose to infamy in the 60s when they stated that the Civil Rights Movement was a creation of communists. The JBS doesn't like communists.

In fact, if we had to catalogue the concepts that the John Birch Society fights against, the big two would be global governance and communism, followed by liberals of all kinds, social welfare, fluoride in drinking water, parent teacher associations (PTAs), the United Nations, free trade, taxes, Democrats, women’s liberation, the Reserve Bank, non-Christians, economic meddling and the entire 1970s. I could go on, but I had to stop reading there. I was losing the will to live. 

Thankfully, the JBS is not a mainstream political force in the USA, just as the Galileo Movement is not a player in the Australian scene, despite having Alan Jones as its public face. Both are enamoured of this Agenda 21 Conspiracy Theory and both are considered too extreme to worry about.

The greatest fear amongst these people isn’t that the world continues to exist with developed nations hoarding the wealth and developing nations still trying to stagger out of poverty and into a world unwilling to share. It's that someone, or anyone, or the rest of the world, might just decide to redistribute some wealth. If anyone – me, you, a Labor Government or the United Nations tries to balance the inequality, we’re socialists or worse. Just check out the John Birch Society homepage – a veritable treasure trove of dangerously extreme right-wing propaganda...or, if you're that way inclined, the biggest conspiracy theory ever hatched.

There will be more on this fascinating plot to steal the world. Stay tuned.

Car Crash Radio

People like to watch action-disaster movies; the slow detailed and often preposterous unravelling of a plot where a single, unlikely hero leads a group of misfits to a miracle survival, defeating the bad guys along the way. Just how many times can Bruce Willis save the world? (At least once more, it seems!)

From the televised insanity of OJ Simpson’s car chase through the Los Angeles freeway system, to September 11, to scout troops of eager weather reporters getting blown off over and washed away just to prove that…well, I never knew what they were trying to prove. It’s a hurricane, you fool! Get inside!

Even better, if there is any chance that we can experience the disaster first-hand, we’ll chase the ambulance. It’s a race to get the best pics on your mobile phone and post them on Twitter before anyone else does.

The point is, when something bad is happening, we watch. If nothing too bad is happening, we watch fictional substitutes. Somehow, within the last century, we’ve become a society of rubber-neckers, always on the lookout for the next disaster.

Today is radio ratings day, that day when the results of the most recent metropolitan radio surveys are released by Nielsen. In Australia’s biggest radio market, and around the country, eyes are on Alan Jones, whose ratings have gone up 0.5%. Up. Half a percent. Jones.

But that can’t be right, can it? Surely all of this agenda-setting joint-destroying activity has had an impact? Hasn’t it revealed Mr Jones as the disgusting woman-hating right wing spokesman for all that is wrong with society? That’s an exaggeration, although just how much of an exaggeration varies, depending on my mood (and his).

How on earth could Alan Jones audience have increased during a time when his very right to exist as a broadcaster is being questioned?

It’s not that hard to fathom, if you look at the detail.

Firstly, take into account the dates of the survey. The Survey released today covers two distinct periods: July 29 – Sept 1 and Sept 16 – Oct 20. Overlay that with the dates of Alan Jones’ two major faux pas, and you get this.

There’s no doubt that the “destroy the joint” comment was not well received, and stirred up some media attention. Out of that emerged #destroythejoint – one of those annoying internet memes that are a Big Thing for about two-and-a-half minutes, while the hipsterest of the hipsters play with them, then the rest of us cotton on and meme away happily for another few hours before never thinking of it again.

Except Destroy the Joint is still going strong two months later, with a national and international profile. Destroy the Joint has a flourishing Facebook page with over 20,000 Likes, and they have spearheaded the campaign to encourage advertisers away from Alan Jones. DtJ is not just about Alan Jones though – it’s the new expression of female pride in Australia. The Destroy the Joint Facebook page was established on September 2nd, and highlighted crass behaviour by men towards women for almost a full month before Mr Jones’ “died of shame” comment became public.

Logically, if there was going to be a fall in Mr Jones audience, it would’ve been during the weeks after the “died of shame” comment, when Destroy the Joint actively campaigned to major advertisers to remove the Alan Jones Breakfast Show from their advertising schedules. Of course, a fair number of non-traditional 2GB listeners would’ve tuned in to hear what all the fuss was about; some may even have found Mr Jones’ style of talkback to their liking and stayed. Some listeners may have been attracted to his bombastic style of bigotry and dominance.

Mathematically, the Destroy the Joint Campaign was only active from September 29, and the ratings period closed on October 20. That’s 22 days out of a 63 day ratings period. 36.5%. On that basis alone, anyone who thought that Destroying the Joint would destroy Alan Jones ratings is living in fantasy land.

Let’s go back to why ratings are measured: it’s a way of providing a number, a commercial convenience that says is B has more listeners than A, then B is a better vehicle for advertising than A, and therefore B can charge more than A. Alan Jones ratings are up 0.5%, so accordingly, 30 seconds of his airtime is worth more than 30 seconds on opposition station 2UE…except that there are no major advertisers who are willing advertise on his show. Only small, local businesses are safe – and they aren’t the businesses with the big dollars to spend.

2GB took a financial hit close to half a million dollars per week during the period when the Alan Jones Show went to air with no advertising at all, and their parent company’s share price dropped significantly, although it’s now bounced back.

What we don’t know from the radio survey results is the week by week breakdown of the audience, so we simply can’t map numbers against specific events.

What we do know is that Alan Jones credibility is increasingly in doubt. More people may be listening – or the 0.5% increase may reflect a larger increase earlier in the ratings period, followed by a decrease. In any case, he’s not worth what he was as a radio property, and he has lost his influence, which was always his power base.

He’s just preaching, loudly, at the converted.



As unpalatable as Alan Jones’ opinions and bombastic style are for many of us, he is one in a long and distinguished history of commercial radio in Australia. It’s like listening to a toddler commentating on a slow motion car crash every morning. If you’ve never listened to one of his broadcasts, put it on your bucket list for sooner rather than later. I doubt that Mr Jones will be broadcasting much longer.

Pro-Choice

If Tony Abbott felt that he needed prove his great relationships with women, his superior understanding of women and how we work, he should have stayed in bed this morning, or sent Margie in his place. Instead, he fronted the post-MYEFO media and declared that the Government doesn't really understand families; if they did, they would never have monkeyed around with the Baby Bonus.

Echoes of 2007, when Bill Heffernan called Julia Gillard "deliberately barren" bounced around Twitter. Was the Leader of the Oppostion really drawing attention back to the Prime Minister's choice to remain childless, and using it as evidence that the Government doesn't understand the pressures on Australian families...during a time when he's trying to appeal to women voters?

Journalist and academic Julie Posetti tweeted:

"You've got to be kidding me - Abbott played the 'Gillard isn't a mother' card. Again?! Interesting misogyny accusation deflection strategy."

Gold Coast Columnist Sue Lapperman tweeted:

"I can't believe @TonyAbbottMHR has not learnt anything from the past couple of weeks. Badly done Mr Rabbit, badly done."

There are probably more than a few people who are surprised that the conversation about equality, misogyny, sexism and respect has lasted longer than just a few days. It's more than a wistful post-mortem to a surprisingly successful social media campaign. The latest opinion polls are reflecting the gender divide, with Prime Minister Gillard pulling away as preferred PM.

The initial blast was triggered by Alan Jones claim that the 'women are destroying the joint', the murder of Jill Meagher, and the emergence of Tony Abbott's family on the national stage. The rage subsided just a little, only to have Alan Jones throw an entire warehouse full of ammo with his "died of shame" comment in front of a room full of future conservative leaders.

After worldwide attention, countless editorials, panel discussions and blogs, plus fifteen minutes of unforgettable honesty from the Prime Minister, the women of Australia show no signs of sitting down or shutting up. Even women who acknowledge that they avoid the news are talking about Jones, Abbott, Gillard and why its so much harder for women. Plenty of men are standing beside the women this time. A new generation is learning the lyrics to I Am Woman.

That early conversation about destroying the joint has made way for a whole range of new discussions, from the acceptability of the word "vagina" in polite conversation, to questions about the continued existence of a corporate glass ceiling, the cost of tampons and the right to choose to be a stay-at-home Mum.

More importantly, it's not just hipster-talk. As late as yesterday, big companies were still choosing to withdraw their advertising from the Alan Jones Show on 2GB. Assuming that they'd allowed enough time for the heat to dissipate - or figuring that they'd lost enough money - 2GB reintroduced advertising during the Alan Jones show. It didn't go well for them, with several ads from companies who had withdrawn from the Alan Jones Show "accidentally" going to air. 2GB has underestimated the attention span of their foes.

We'd have to include MRN's Mr Jones and Mr Tate in the list of men who are surprised that the women are still destroying the joint. This is no storm in the Royal Doulton, dear. This is serious.

It's no longer a protest or a campaign; it's becoming an oestrogen-propelled perpetual motion machine with the power to reignite the processes of change our mothers and grandmothers started back in the sixties. This time there's a difference: women have nothing left to prove. We can choose whether to burn our bras, run them up a flagpole or strap ourselves into lacy underwired torture devices. They're our bras, and it's our decision.

Equally, we can choose to focus on career and crash through the glass ceiling like Julia Gillard and Julie Bishop have done, we can reproduce like bunnies and care for the family full-time, or we can plan to balance career and family.

If you stay on the right side of the law, and well away from those who need to apply their version of propriety to everyone, you're fine, but right now, the focus remains on the levels of balance and respect between men and women.

The latest Essential Poll asked about perceptions of sexism. The results aren't good for anyone, with the possible exception of Prime Minister Gillard. Sexism is very much alive and well, and this goes some way to explaining why her infamous speech about Tony Abbott's misogyny is still reverberating.

Margie's Abbott's appearances to help her husband look softer and more (politically) appealing to women are backfiring too. With the greatest respect for Mrs Abbott, putting her in front of a cynical media simply strengthens her and weakens him further. She becomes the story.

Those of us still fighting the battles against misogyny don't mind if women want to stay home with the kids. In fact, that might have been my choice, had my situation been different. The point is, it's a valid choice, every bit as worthy as any other choice a woman makes - what to wear, when and if to have children, how to cook a decent sponge cake. That's the point that Heffernan, Jones, Abbott and the rest of the Misogyny-R-Us Superleague just don't get.

It's our choice. We don't need permission, approval, or guidance...but if we want any of those, that's fine too.

There was one guy on Twitter this morning who had a 140 character pouty. His point was that he was sick of hearing every gender-related comment reframed against the current environment, and measured for sexism. His frustration is understandable...but he might need to get used to it, at least for now. We don't want our daughters and granddaughters fighting the same old battles.

Don't Mess with the Womenfolk

It’s no wonder that earnest conservative men have a problem with women. We girlie-types got sick of their grunting caveman attempts at communications, ventured out of our caves and started talking to each other, and there’s been no peace for anyone, male or female, since.

From Sappho and Cleopatra over 2,000 years ago, to Joan of Arc, the Queens Elizabeth ( 1 & 2 ), Mary Wollstencraft, Florence Nightingale, Emily Pankhurt, Rosa Luxemburg, Eleanor Roosevelt, Oprah Winfrey, Germaine Greer, Benizir Bhutto... these women and so many more have made themselves heard.

I ask you, what did those inspirational women do that was so revolutionary? They talked. They wrote about their lives and how things could be different. The spread concepts like respect and equality and hope. They conspired with each other and hatched plans to improve their lot. They went to war for what they believed in. They found whatever it is inside that made them women, and they used it. We’re still using it.

Well, that was never gonna work.

The Women’s Lib movement in the 1960s and 70s gave this girlie-thing a name, a logo and a few hairy-armpitted figureheads, but women have been begging, nagging, arguing, organising and fighting for equality since before the human race learned to speak in complete sentences. And the Women’s Lib movement was half a century ago.


Look around, Ladies, Gentlemen and random Cave-dwellers: women have come a long way, but there are still too many thugs in positions of power, trying very hard to shove us back into their image of what a woman should be: a bikini, a spritz of Chanel No 5, a maternity ward. In fact, we could be forgiven for thinking that the boorish cave-dwellers are fighting back. They’re not even trying to sound politically correct anymore, much less intellectual, educated or aware. With some of these brutes we can’t me more than a rearward evolutionary step or two away from Fred Flintstone.

I’d certainly never accuse Opposition Leader Tony Abbott of being a cave-dweller. I’m sure that his lovely wife Margie, who is again doing the rounds of the media to try to temper her husband’s poor image with The Women Voters, keeps a lovely home for her husband and daughters. In keeping with her special position as the spouse of a senior politician. Mrs Abbott runs her own business in the childcare industry. Good of her, really, and good of Tony to let the wife have something useful to do when he’s off being Important.

Mrs Abbott told News Limited, "Tony gets women. He is surrounded by strong women. He grew up with three sisters, has three daughters, is supported by a female deputy in Julie Bishop and has always had a female chief of staff."

No, Margie. Saying that Tony "gets" women because he's surrounded by them is like saying I can play the piano because I listen to a lot of music. Besides, no two people are alike, and simply making that comment devalues us all. Someone else who doesn't get women is American Republican Congressman Tood Akin. Several weeks ago, he told us that few women get pregnant as a result of being raped because the female body has some magical properties that makes the pregnancy go away. He was told, quite forcefully, that it was factually wrong...but you know these conservatives and their distrust of science...
Another, even better Todd Akin clanger has emerged this week. In 2008, the Congressman from Missouri was caught on camera in a rambling bluster linking the dangers of Sharia Law with evil abortion doctors. So great was this danger that some of these doctors were even performing abortions on women who weren’t pregnant.

Now I’m a woman who likes to use words, but in this case, I’d use an appropriate emoticon if I had one, because I really don’t have any words. Oh – yes I do! Can you believe that this clueless troglodyte has been re-elected to congress five times, and has begat a handful of children? I’m surprised he knew how…

Yet perhaps through all this thinking and talking and scheming, we got it wrong. Maybe we should be listening to these wise alpha males, lest we Destroy the Joint completely and for all time.

Clem Bastow shared her thoughts in the Sydney Morning Herald a month or so ago.

But what is #destroyingthejoint if not gleeful indignation? That the hashtag has hung around longer than a few days illustrates exactly that. Surely instead of hanging on to it to prove a point, we'd be better off getting on with actually "destroying the joint", and not defining it with some sort of winking slogan. It's not particularly funny and, after a week of constant hashtagging, it's pretty boring.

Ms Bastow was right too: we destroyers had to actually do something with our Jones-induced fit of pique. Luckily for us, and the men who are afraid of us, Alan Jones provided us another, even bigger outlet for our indignation. He insulted our grieving Prime Minister and her family in a secret little soiree for conservatives.

Well, you wanna see some joint destroying? Come watch the response, driven largely by an online petition and the Destroy the Joint Facebook Group. Over sixty of them have now committed to pulling their advertising dollars in some way from Alan Jones, whether its via advertising on Jones; radio show, advertising on 2GB, sponsoring their traffic reports or their website, slicing over $80,000 per day from 2GB’s bottom line.


That’s not a bad effort for a bunch of angry women, a common cause and a few communication tools.

Keeping Up With The Jones

Keeping up with the Jones story has been almost impossible in the last 48 hours. Just when you think you know what's going on, something else happens, and much of it is just plain ridiculous. The irony is that this blog post will be obselete before I've finished writing it.

Jones started yesterday fired up, defiant, ready to stand his ground against the baseless attacks born of jealousy and spite.

RT @latikambourke Shock jock Alan Jones says he is ‘astounded’ by the ‘hatred and jealousy’ shown in the aftermath of his PM’s Dad’s died of shame comment.

With that out of the way, it was business as usual:
From his previously secret position as Marine Biologist specialising is Climate Change and it's impact on tropical reefs, Alan Jones railed against the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Professor Jones, a graduate of the Far Right University of the Closed Mind, claimed this morning that "research on shrinking fish populations and rising ocean temperatures is a joke".

I may have taken a few liberties there, but hey, it works for Australia's number one talkback broadcaster, doesn't it?

Tony Abbott addressing Alan Jones' disciples

Meanwhile, advertisers are dumping Alan Jones in a display which puts his recent comments into a commercial perspective, makes Kyle Sandilands look like an amateur, and makes his conservative audience blush. At last count, over 40 businesses had cancelled their advertising during Alan Jones' show, pulled their advertising from 2GB, or had their online ads removed from the 2GB website. The damage to MRN’s cashflow is estimated at $80,000 per day. Yesterday, Macquarie Radio's shares fell 6%, reducing their market capitalisation by about $3milllion.


The businesses that have walked away from Jones have the support of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, too.  I would not have called Mr Jones "deluded" on air, but Kevin Rudd did, and I can't find it within myself to disagree.

In fact, many politicians have chosen to weigh in on the issue of whether or not Mr Jones' comment about Prime Minister Gillard's death is acceptable, and indeed, whether the insult was political or personal in nature. It was, of course, a vicious personal assault on Ms Gillard and her family, yet the motivation was also political, and the fallout even moreso. From the initial, apolitical response on Twitter from former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull, at 6:57am, Sunday...

RT @TurnbullMalcolm Alan Jones' comments about the late John Gillard were cruel and offensive. He should apologise to the PM and her family.

...things turned ugly, quickly, particularly if you are Alan Jones. Suddenly, both sides of politics had turned on Australia's most shocking Shock Jock. Throughout the day, politicians, commentators, journalists and members of the public expressed their disgust. In fact, if Mr Jones could, I'm sure he'd shove the whole affair in a chaff bag and dump it far, far out to sea. Liberal Party Elder Statesman and former PM Malcolm Fraser has this to say about Jones', who had failed to secure pre-selection five times for the Liberal Party:

RT @MalcolmFraser That is just an absolute disgrace. No one should be allowed to say that regardless of who you are or who it's about.

Kevin Rudd, Australia's most followed politician on Twitter, had his say:

RT @KRuddMP: Alan Jones’ comments are lowest of the low. Abbott must dismiss Jones from Liberal Party now & ban him from future Liberal events. KRudd

Even Jones's most loyal buddies conceded that he'd gone too far. Andrew Bolt weighed in early with comments on his blog:

“Those who were there and are quoted in the article deny hearing any such comment, but if it was indeed said it was very cruel, very wrong,"

“UPDATE: No, the tape confirms it. The remark is shameful. I wish the few Young Liberals who laughed in apparent surprise or scorn had booed or otherwise protested instead. Alan Jones is a colleague, and I've long valued his courage. But this is very wrong."

Jones made the decision to man up. Instead of a media statement and a personal, handwritten apology to the Prime Minister, Jones' ego took over, just as it did when he chastised Ms Gillard for being late for an interview. He decided to front a 45 minute media conference in which he almost apologised to Ms Gillard, ranted that it was all Labor's fault, and boasted that his advertisers weren't about to leave him.

Jazz Hands

It's a media conference he should never have attempted. The apology was weak, rudely impersonal and insincere. On 2GB, Mr Jones gets away with his unique view of the world because he's shouting at an audience that believes his distorted perspective. In front of a real-world media mob, the shouting, the insults, the natty pocket kerchief and the jazz-hands only emphasise the gap between his reality and ours.


Ms Gillard, the target of the initial attack, is not prepared to speak with Mr Jones; according to Mr Jones few supporters, her refusal is petty. The fact is, she's not talking at all, about anything.

Several hours after Mr Turnbull’s condemnation, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott made a wishy-washy two line statement, considered by everyone to be inadequate:

''Alan's remarks regarding the PM were completely out of line. It's good that he's recognised this and apologised for them."

And then it the whole disastrous (for Jones) chapter became less of a controlled bonfire being fed by a few malicious leftie trolls, and more like a raging-bushfire heading for his house. Facebook campaigns, hashtags, petitions, accusations, boycotts, polls, promises, denials.
One Shock Jock said something disgraceful, and it consumed the country for days.

Attorney General Nicola Roxon was amongst the first to suggest that it was Tony Abbott's fault that Alan Jones is dragging the tone of Australian political discussion into the gutter, and making personal attacks acceptable. Ms Roxon may be right, but it was the wrong response at the wrong time. The issue was not political…until it was. She also suggested that it was time for 2GB to take Jones off air. Anthony Albanese followed up with a press conference of his own, and fell into line behind Ms Roxon, and a collective sigh wafted through the suburbs: Rise above it, for god’s sake!

Tony Abbott waited to see which way the wind was blowing before committing himself yesterday to a full throated condemnation of Alan Jones putrid comment:

"What Alan Jones said was wrong, unacceptable, and offensive. I was shocked and dismayed."

The rest of Abbott's presser was more about how mean the Government is for blaming poor Tony for everything, and about how he always tries to keep himself nice, focus on policy and avoid personal nastiness.

Insert your favourite Pot Calling Kettle Black cliche here...except that in this one instance, he is correct. Tony Abbott has driven a spiteful, negative and personal campaign against the PM for two years, but we all know that the only person who runs Alan Jones' mouth is Alan Jones. Let's not blame anyone except Jones for this.

Was that good for you?

It had been a debate about civility, about holding grudges, about the expectation of privacy. These are concepts worthy of discussion over a bottle of decent red. By yesterday evening, we had Leigh Sales interviewing a bewildering John Laws about his former colleague. It’s bizarre, must-see television.

Now there's talk boycotting the advertisers that boycott Jones, and of rallies to support Mr Jones' god-given right to free speech. I don't know that anyone is trying to censor his opinions, as batshit-crazy as they might be. I think most of us would be happy if he’d just show some respect. He doesn’t have to like Ms Gillard, but he should respect the office of Prime Minister. Similarly, as noted American Senator and thinker Daniel Patrick Moynihan said,

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

It's not about left and right, Gillard and Abbott. It's still about the casual callousness with which Jones mocked the death of a woman's father, and it’s about this being the latest in a series of scandals for this one man: the London loo, the plagiarism, Cash for Comment, climate change denial, the chaff bag, destroying the joint, and now this.
Neil Mitchell summed it up nicely on Twitter:

RT @3AWNeilMitchell Talk about trashing the brand. Jones the insensitive gorilla and Laws looked like a Dickensian buffoon. Help!

While there are very few ways in which I would want to emulate Mr Jones, perhaps constructing my own reality might just be one of them...at least for a while. I think I'd leave the rules of science as they are, and tinker with the rules of broadcasting instead.

Jonesing

The Alan Jones insanity continues to gain momentum, with several high profile advertisers pulling their support from Radio 2GB in the past 24 hours. Like thousands of others, I've signed my name to petitions; I've emailed companies that I buy from, and I've asked them to consider whether they want their brand name associated with 2GB. 

Half a dozen nationally known brand names have publicly disassociated themselves from Mr Jones; Woolworths, Freedom Furniture, Lexus of Parramatta, Challenger Financial Services, Captain Snooze, Dilmah and Mercedez Benz have pulled the plug. More will follow because this campaign has not peaked. 

One of my favourite tweeters is the ABC's Philip Adams. This morning he tweeted this dose of reality check: 

RT @PhillipAdamsABC: No dead parrot at 2GB. Look at Sandilands's career .0r Limbaugh's. sewer radio? Flows into rivers of gold.no bottom  ...

So far, Adams is right. 2DAY-FM was the target of a near-identical campaign when Kyle Sandilands displayed his complete lack of class by calling a journalist a "fat slag" on air. His faithful listeners didn't desert him, even though his advertisers did. He still has a job - the same job - and he still earns big money doing it. His on-air behaviour is monitored more rigorously, and the station has some extra conditions related to on-air standards attached to its licence.

In America, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have weathered similar campaigns. They are still on air, although Beck is no longer presenting his increasingly bizarre Fox News television show. New sponsors barely hesitated to backfill the gaps left when sponsors deserted Limbaugh after his comments about Sandra Fluke. Despite their extreme positions on all manner of issues from sexuality to the environment, they have audiences who follow them with near-religious fervour. Jones' pompous right wing blathering and Sandilands' unsophisticated "humour" have similarly loyal audiences.

Commentator and academic Peter van Onselen tweeted this today, as 2GB's advertisers started looking for their escape clauses:

RT @vanOnselenP: The best way anyone on social media can fight back at the likes of Alan Jones is to name and shame sponsors who stick with him...

We can do that, and we will. But why? What do we want to achieve? We could take the high moral high ground and wait for Mr Jones to make real apology, but it won't happen. He still believes he had every right to make those despicable comments in private. Personally, I'd be ashamed for just thinking that way. So right now, we're campaigning to add pressure, forcing advertisers to cut ties with 2GB on the assumption that if we hurt the mothership financially, it will cut Jones loose. It's working insomuch as advertisers are pulling out, yet what is the end game? What do we want to change? Do we want

to

hurt 2GB financially?
force 2GB to sanction or suspend Alan Jones?
force 2GB to sack Alan Jones?
force shock-jocks in general to raise their standards?
change Australia's attItude to media commentary?
raise the standard of public debate in Australia?

...or are we just creating a stink because Alan Jones has, again, stepped way over the line that divides what is acceptable and what is not, and we're angry. I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, it's no longer enough to participate in a group tantrum, have a little nap, and wake up a little less disappointed and a little less angry. 

Of course, when the offender is politically motivated, there's an additional layer of approvals and condemnation. A five-time failed Liberal candidate, Mr Jones' appalling comments about the Prime Minister's father have become politicised with members from each side blaming and shaming each other. While universally condemning Jones's words, some conservative politicians - Tony Abbott and Campbell Newman in particular - have been less than committed to distancing themselves from Jones. Karl Stefanovic is another who failed to cut his old friend loose. I suspect their regret is in line with Jones's remorse: he regrets being caught, he regrets the hullabaloo it's created, but his words remain in his heart.
Mr Jones own piece in today's News Limited publications have done his own cause more harm than good. Jones uses his "apology" to simultaneously attack the Prime Minister, while playing the victim because Ms Gillard won't take his calls.  

Recent experience suggests that we're getting good at making a noise when one of these serial radio offenders forgets to use his inside voice - and his brain. Nothing seems to change, though, and I'd suggest it's because we don't know what comes next...and that's because we don't know where we want to go. 

Think about it. Get serious for a minute. We already know we can effect change. We just don't know what to change. If you're not sure, take another step inside your mind. If you're angry with Alan Jones & 2GB, think about why....Then think about how to fix it. 

A campaign to hurt Jones' employers will be effective, if that's what we want. I want more. 

No More

There have been so many blogs that I've wanted to write this week, from some very personal stories about hope, to my thoughts on Jill Meagher, to Australia's campaign for  seat on the UN Security Council, to Alan Jones. I didn't write any of these. I watched the twitter feed scroll, and concentrated on my own life: Rob's new job, my new project, my mother's medical procedure tomorrow, two birthdays and the overdue realisation that a friendship has ended.    

Two things won't leave me alone: Alan Jones and Jill Meagher. It feels as though a tipping point was reached this week: two acts, very different in motive and scale, brought defiantly positive responses and proof of power in numbers. 

Yesterday, the streets of Brunswick were filled with people. It wasn't an organised Reclaim The Night function; it was people, the majority female, coming together to share their different emotions: grief, solidarity, relatedness, fear, revolt. What happened to Jill seems to have effected us all so much more...I was going to say, more than other rapes and murders we hear about. And then I remind myself that this is not an episode of Law & Order SVU. I am disgusted with myself, with us. This is not acceptable. Every single violent crime, regardless of who or where or when, whether captured on CCTV or not, is abhorrent.

For all the different people that gathered today for Jill, because of Jill, and for those who weren't there but shared the emotion, it was as simple as this: No More. We are not going to accept this.

When my psychologist was taking my history, she asked, straight out, if I had been abused. Attacked? Raped? She was surprised when I answered no; few women that walk through her clinic doors can answer no to those questions. It's far too common, and not talking about it, not fighting it, is tacit acceptance.

I remember in the 70s, Grandma Queenie was in her 60s and a shade under five feet tall, and at 11pm, she would walk home alone from her Wednesday night canasta games. It was a small country town, but we didn't think twice. She would not have accepted less.

And then Alan Jones "did a Romney", and I'd hate to think what she'd say about that. At a private function, this far-too-public man uttered one of the most insulting statements I've ever heard. His attempted apology yesterday did nothing to help his cause. It was a mishmash of "It wasn't me; I just repeated what someone else said", with "it's not my fault; I didn't know the media was there". 

So it's okay to be a complete arsehole unless the media gets wind of it? No! It's not! The simplest way to be perceived in a good light is to act in a good light. 

Alan Jones has long had a credibility problem with many Australians. Over twenty years ago, when I was a junior publicist, the company I worked for represented Radio 2UE. At that time, Radio 2UE boasted a lineup that included Jones, John Laws, John Stanley, Mark Day and Stan Zemanek. One of my tasks was to take the more controversial comments from Jones' Breakfast show, and try to place them in Sydney's afternoon paper. It wasn't that hard, despite being being just a year or two after his adventures in public loo in London's West End, and his switch from Fairfax to News Limited after being exposed for plagiarism. He was controversial, with high profile guests, but he wasn't unhinged. Yet.

Not long after, when I no longer working for 2UE's publicity agency, I was set a challenge by Jones' manager: get him on the front page of the Saturday Telegraph. It was easy enough to do: he was a big deal - not a celebrity, exactly, but extremely well known. He'd been in hospital - I don't recall why - and the Tele ran with a huge shot of Jones, sitting up in a hospital bed, waiting to be discharged. I wonder how I'd go if met with the same challenge today.

At what point do we say "No More" to Alan Jones and 2GB? In the past few months, he has targeted the Prime Minister, particularly regarding Carbon Tax, and referred more than once to shoving her in a chaff bag and dropping her out at sea. He's shared a laugh with Barnaby Joyce and commented that these women are "destroying the joint." He's been called out by ACMA for broadcasting lies about climate change, and now, he's suggested that John Gillard "died of shame".

I'm saying "no more" right now, and so are JJ Metro Airconditioning, Lexus of Parramatta and Freedom Furniture, who have cancelled their Advertising buys during Jones' show. I'm not in Sydney, and I wouldn't listen to 2GB even if I was, but I can choose not to deal with companies that spend their money with 2GB. Sure, it sends a message. Is that enough to change the situation? 

So here we are. We've said "no more". What's the next step?



   

Eve of Destruction

For much of the last 48 hours, Australian women have been talking about destroying the joint. Sounds like something Pete Townsend and his mates might've done to a hotel room 40 years ago. Instead, these are the words that radio shock jock Alan Jones used on Friday morning to describe our current Prime Minister, Victoria's former Police Commissioner and Sydney's Lord Mayor.

"She (the Prime Minister) said that we know societies only reach their full potential if women are politically participating," he told listeners.

"Women are destroying the joint - Christine Nixon in Melbourne, Clover Moore here. Honestly."

Is this really what Mr Jones thinks? That women are destroying the joint? That women are incapable of filling leadership positions? That it's wasteful to spend money on developing female candidates to participate in the political arena?

That's the context here. Mr Jones was joking with Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce about the sale of Cubbie Station, Australia's largest cotton farm, to foreign interests. Mr Jones thought it would be funny to point out that the amount Australia had pledged to assist women in the Pacific Region would have saved Cubbie from falling to foreign ownership.

Incidentally, the audio isn't crystal clear, but it does sound as though Senator Joyce may have described Prime Minister Gillard's grant to help the women of the South Pacific into leadership roles as "putting it up against the wall." He's no fan of the women either.

And before we move from Mr Jones and Senator Joyce, I'm wondering where in the Coalition Handbook does it mention that the federal government should step in and buy failing businesses like Cubbie Station? It must be in there somewhere, because Mr Jones and Senator Joyce both see it as a viable option. If I was to whisper the words "state-owned farms" into Barnaby's ear, I'm pretty sure the images in his mind would be grainy black and white shots of toothless peasants digging potatoes for the Greater Good.

I still can't quite believe that anyone, anywhere in the world, would say that "women are destroying the joint". There is nothing acceptable in that statement.

It wasn't the only comment of that ilk made this week. Liberal Party Thought-Leader Grahame Morris referred to ABC journalist Leigh Sales as a "cow" because she pushed Tony Abbott during a television interview.

Let's apply the Reverse Test here. If the journalist had been a man instead of a woman, and the questions and tone had been the same, would Mr Morris have called him a cow? For that matter, we should apply the Reverse Test to Mr Jones comments too. It's no secret that he doesn't like women...

At the same time, the Republican National Convention in Tampa was trying to diffuse the idea that they were waging a war against women. Their key arguments to prove the non-existence for the war on women was that candidate Mitt Romney had employed women in key roles in his campaign team. In the frantic days of the Convention, no-one was able to ask why. No-one was able to ask if he was paying these women what he'd pay men in the same roles. No-one was able to ask about his view of the never-passed Equal Rights Amendment that's been floating around Washington for 40-odd years.

We do know that Mr Romney privately supported limited rights to abortion. He's said so, but he's also said the opposite. He objects to various women's health issues being covered in "Obamacare" - in fact he objects to the entire scheme - and he introduced a similar version in his home stats of Massachusetts, prior to the federal scheme.

It's only weeks since Republican Todd Akin exposed his ignorance by suggesting that rape victims rarely became pregnant because the female body would just stop that from happening. He's wrong to the tune of about 32,000 rape-related pregnancies per year in the USA, and has been chastised by Governor Romney for saying it.

Now, his statement has been defended by a female Republican Party official, Sharon Barnes, who said she believes Akin only "phrased it (his statement) badly."

Barnes was quoted by The New York Times saying, "abortion is never an option." Barnes went on to biblically claim that, "If God has chosen to bless this person [the rape victim] with a life, you don’t kill it."

No Ms Barnes, it wasn't phrased badly. Todd Akin's statement is factually incorrect. As for Ms Barnes' statement, I hesitate to use the word "bless" in relation to the product of violent sexual abuse.

Governor Romney's running mate Paul Ryan is far more conservative than even the Mormon Romney, which is one of the reasons he was selected. He is rock-solid in his anti-abortion stance, where his pro-life record was reported on Al Jazeera, earning screaming fits of rage from the Ryan-loving, Muslim hating Tea Party crowd. While he's not waging war on women, he also voted against the Fair Pay Act, and wants to make some forms of contraception, and IVF illegal.

It's chicken-and-egg question: are you a conservative because you have issues relating to women, or does being a conservative cause the problems with women? Probably neither; most likely, the conservative attitude towards women is just one of a complex series of values that defines conservatism.

I use the word "values" deliberately. It's a word most closely associated with conservative politics. Add the word "Christian" and you're defining the voter base of the Republican Party in America and to a lesser degree, the Liberal Party in Australia. I find the term "values voters" to define conservatives quite ridiculous: it suggests that the more progressive you are, the further to the left you move, the less "values" you have.

Oftentimes, the opposite is true. Those to the right, the conservatives, tend to be driven more by economic policy than issues of morality and ethics, while the true lefties are always concerned with values first. Lefties will vote according to policies on gay rights, the environment, and government support for the most vulnerable in our society: disabled, elderly, sick, poor, illiterate, and those outside our society via asylum seeker, refugee and foreign aid. These are the true values of most religions: hope, charity, generosity, sharing, loving.

How do conservative women sleep at night?

In any case, the question of a woman's place in society is still a dividing line between the political right and left in 2012. I'm genuinely appalled. I thought this fight was all but over. I thought we'd moved onto other, less basic fights: fat acceptance, anti-bullying, mental health, gay marriage. But I'm wrong, and we need the next generation of women activists - and our male supporters - to get this womens' issues back on the national agenda.