Richard Jones' Log: Expert to Brandis: you're a tool
The commonalities between contemporary green politics and old-fashioned fascism and Nazism are chilling.
... from his recent speech in the Australian Senate during a debate on the protocol used during speeches from overseas dignitaries. Not that he actually put forward any statements pertinent to the debate at hand. By chance, I was actually listening to the broadcast of the Senate at the time. The Senator Faulkner followed up (and actually debated the point at hand) and had some fun things to say:
I listened enraptured to Senator Brandis's contribution. What a wonderfully pretentious speech that was...
Well, Peter Staudenmaier, co-author of one of the books George Brandis used in his rambling attack on the Greens, has responded (you can listen to him on ABC radio too - about 16 1/2 minutes in):
Historians rarely enjoy their fifteen minutes of fame, particularly when their work covers an obscure topic...my scholarship offers little support for the conclusions Senator Brandis reached.
Brandis, you're a tool. And the official response of John Howard to all of this? As with every other unsubstantiated, vicious attack that's been put forward by someone in his government, he just says that's their views, and he might not have put it quite like that. And shrugs it off. Made of teflon, that man.