Boltbrechtsen ‘fisks’ the Cat

By Piers Boltbrechtsen

Applied Hermeneutics’ token right-wing commentator, Piers Boltbrechtsen, takes Cat Stevens to task on the seam of crypto-fascism underlying a hitherto much-loved song.

Cat Stevens: Well I think it’s fine, building jumbo planes.

Or so he says... But I detect a definite trace of irony in his tone, betraying an attitude to building jumbo planes which is ambivalent at best.

Stevens will undoubtedly seek cover behind the sanctity of artistic creativity or his flaky search for ‘deeper truth’, but I’ve become convinced his words are evidence of something darker, indeed uglier.

Yes, get what you want to if you want, ’cause you can get anything.

More irony, obviously. So, just exactly what is wrong with “getting what you want”, huh? The unprecedented abundance of affordable consumer goods is one of the triumphs of the world market economy.

It’s so typical of the nouveau-mega-riche such as Stevens to want to deny the rest of us those very basics he’s able to buy for himself with the loose change in his pockets. While pretending to champion the poor, it seems he couldn’t care less — if he doesn’t actually hate them.

Well you roll on roads over fresh green grass.

A hatred of development and economic progress also seems a recurring theme in much of Stevens’ work. This kind of thing is so typical of leftist romantic hankering for ‘nature’ in some kind of pristine, Arcadian state, which has never existed and will never exist.

And anyway, for heavens sake, development is not a zero sum game.

But they just go on and on, and it seems that you can’t get off.

Roads go on for precisely as long as they need to, no more, no less. If his chauffeur can’t read a map, then Stevens probably ought to review his HR training requirements. But all this empty carping against healthy progress is just beyond silly, moving into paranoid territory.

But will you keep on building higher ’til there’s no more room up there?

Of course, I knew it — another Club of Rome ‘Limits to Growth’ henny-penny doomsayer.

Stevens hates growth, hates development, and hates the poor plebs who enrich him and feather his nest buying his intellectually and morally bankrupt recordings. I’m willing to bet he also hates the very idea of the poorer people of emerging economies achieving the development and growth they need and deserve.

But tell me, where do the children play?

Helloooo — earth calling Stevens!

There are, and will continue to be, ample designated children’s play areas wherever and for as long as they are viable. These will be determined by the market, which is the best mechanism yet known for the guidance and management of human affairs. The market, indeed, is a far superior alternative to the fatally flawed, utterly discredited, dead hand of human moral agency, for which Stevens seems so nostalgic.

The typical modern designated children’s play area is better, safer, brighter and more cognitively stimulating than any children’s play area previously known in human history. These will improve continuously for the long-term foreseeable future, if not in perpetuity.

The better-balanced and better-informed children who’ll reap the benefit of all this progress and prosperity will not be gulled by whining haters such as Stevens, who’ll ultimately stand condemned for opposing the unerring march of the market towards prosperity for all.

I hope he’s ashamed of himself, but sadly I doubt it. Oh, and by the way, the tune stinks too.

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More raspberries provoked

As an Infidel, my expectations of Muslim clerics have never been terribly high, but it’s disappointing to see these so-called ‘Christian’ idiots continue piously adding their bile to the sum-total of blind hate in the world:

An evangelical anti-gay US church plans to picket any memorials to Australian actor Heath Ledger, who died this week, because of his portrayal of a gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain. ...

Shirley Phelps, of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, has told Sydney radio station 2Day FM that they will also picket any attempt to honour Ledger, 28, at next month’s Academy Awards ceremony.

“I’m going to stand outside of any public memorial service that he has here,” Ms Phelps said.

“And then the other place I’m going to picket him is when they prop him up to worship his dead, rotting carcass further at the Oscars. I’ll be right outside by the red carpet.”

These nutters have been harassing the bereaved for years, and needless to say they have no qualms about clambering aboard Mr Ledger’s “dead, rotting carcass” and riding it into the headlines to shout their sad, little version of the Lord’s message.

Don’t these hate-mongers wonder what Jesus would say about their antics? My guess is that JC would cast them out of the Temple even before He turned His attention to the money-changers. Shortly before blowing a big raspberry after their sorry arses.

All together now...

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Bugger!

The condition of former Indonesian dictator Soeharto has improved and he has a good chance of recovering, his doctor said yesterday.

I guess it takes more than hoping.

Doctors said privately he had been near death.

Near enough ain’t good enough for the Castro of the Far East...

Soeharto ruled Indonesia with an iron hand for 32 years and has been accused of hundreds of thousands of murders and disappearances.

Hanging’s too good for him! The tyrant should, like Saddam, have been ‘taken out’ years ago...

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