Oz Oddity
Did someone downunder lose an asshole? He's been found. I wonder if they want him back.
MURDOCH SCRIBE FIGHTS BACK Bush-bashing leads inevitably to Dubya trouble
Bruce Wilson
July 6, 2002, Saturday
Courier Mail
ONE week ago I wrote a piece that said that much of the world was getting to terms with the fact that President George W. Bush is a fraudulently elected nitwit.
This from a guy whose country has political parties whose members decide which party to join based on who they are presently going to bed with.
You always expect some kind of reaction from statements like that.
(Snip)
By the end of the week there were more than 1000.
A handful were from Australia and the world. All the rest were from the US and for days they handed it to me as if I were the greatest threat to democracy since Joe Stalin. The hatred and invective was quite staggering.
Then I found out what had happened. I had been picked up by the Drudge Report, the website started by a right-wing zealot called Matt Drudge.
Right wing zealot. Hmmmmmmm. Someone who links to YOUR words without comment. Them right wingers are everywhere on the innernut.
(Snip) Well, whee-hoo, as they say down on the ranch.
You have a ranch where they say that?
Drudge obviously aims at a lowest common denominator, since most of my electronic correspondents failed to catch on that I was an Australian.
Yeah, those dimwit Americans can't even tell that "Bruce Wilson" is obviously an Australian name. We even imported one to sing with the Beach Boys. Oh, sorry, that was Brian. Read your insulting little article again and show me where you said you were an Australian. Then you can complain that people thought you were British.
They saw the London dateline, and said: "OK, let's trash this limey."
Mainly I got it for being a limp-wristed nancy-boy (Bruce is thought to be a poofie name in the rednecked areas of America) whose nation (Britain) was twice saved by ever-brave American military might and GI know-how.
It couldn't possibly be a result of:
The complete absence of any knowledge on your part of the US political system, or for that matter, the US economic system.
The fact that the basic premise of your article is that half of the American electorate voted for a nitwit, which, of course, means that they were taken in by a nitwit. Now why would those stupid people take offense at that? Jeez!
The fact that you cite Tom Cruise, for God's sake, on political issues. Do people downunder take their political advice from actors? They should know that we tried that in the 1960s and 70s with Jane Fonda. Didn't work out too well.
The fact that you try to tie the present corporate scandals on Bush based on absolutely zero evidence, when the fact of the matter is that they have been going on since well before the 2000 election.
The fact that you think that democracy and free elections in the Middle East is "batty".
Could it?
You simply don't have time to read 1000 e-mails and they clog up the memory.
No worries mate, reading 1000, even 5000, emails will have absolutely no effect your memory. It's already clogged.
I took them randomly while wiping them out, reading about one in 20, and then replying if the sender was making some kind of a point or other, saying I was Australian, not British, and used to work in the US and some of my best friends were Republicans.
Wilson sounds like a 60's era racist who repeatedly says, "Some of my best friends are nig ... um ... Negroes."
Then I detected the pattern. It was clear that a network existed to organise the outraged responses.
They ran on two levels: "Come to Texas . . . and we'll show ya." And, "We saved your asses and if you keep this stuff up we won't do it again."
Some were so offensive I replied in kind. Some I tried to tell that the US came very late into World War II and Britain already had fought its two major battles without them.
Did Britain fight those battles without Lend/Lease or the "Arsenal of Democracy"? But Wilson is correct that we got into the war late. After the French surrendered in a week and Britain got its butt kicked around the entire Pacific Ocean and off the European continent.
Then, as the week went on, there came a slow and then increasing inbox of what might be described as the still, small voice of reason.
"Thanks. Nobody's saying this stuff often enough here," was the general theme.
You reason with them. The other 98% of us can't.
September 11 had created a president wearing false clothes, said one. But nobody would say so. Or if they did, not loud enough.
About 150 Americans e-mailed me -- from Seattle and Denver and Tacoma and New York and Smallsville, Ohio -- asking me not to pay attention to Matt Drudge, or the organised Right, and to keep at it.
150 Americans emailed their support. Out of, what, 100 million with access to computers? Congratulations. Do you really think its wise to let your editor know that you got 1000 "con" emails immediately and 150 "pro" emails eventually? Does he know that, in the world's largest market, you have only a handful of readers who concur with your Homeric (as in Homer Simpson) opinions scattered across the continent?
Actually, what September 11 seems to have created is two things:
A class of idiots, largely concentrated in the press, the radical left and the French government.
An idiot proof society in the US.
I will.
Looking forward to it.
bruce.wilson@newsint.co.uk
