Janet Albrechtsen, Kevin Rudd, The Monthly essay, poor old Hayek, the joys of the free market and craven cowardly custard attacks (except on the CIS)

(Above: Friedrich Hayek, who in his 1944 work The Road To Serfdom, wrote Probably nothing has done so much harm to the liberal cause as the wooden insistence of some liberals on certain rules of thumb, above all the principle of laissez-faire.)

Dame Slap is outraged, I tells ya, she's mad as hell and she's not gunna take it anymore.

One of her least favourite pupils, the snotty nosed little Kevin Rudd, who used to sit up the front, and always put his hand up and tried to answer the question (and always got the answer wrong), and had the cheek to flaunt his ability to speak Mandarin in front of her, and then went on to be a bureaucrat (and what would they know about anything), before becoming a politician and then PM (and what does that prove about anything), had the cheek to write an essay, a supposed intellectual exercise in the arena of politics, economics and the free market and the need to regulate the markets, for that Melbourne rag The Monthly.

It's a scandal, I tells ya, and to rub salt into the wound, it seems that the Ruddster has had the monstrous ego, the galling hubris, the shocking pride, to circulate his attack on free markets to world leaders ahead of the G20 meeting in London this week.

Oh weep, shattered readers, for the tragedy of the free markets, and for the enormous suffering of Janet Albrechtsen as she pours out, distills the essence of her despair, in Hayek hatred a handy dog whistle.

For readers who came in late to our ongoing jungle story, we like to think of Janet Albrechtsen as the fierce Dame Slap, headmistress of the land above the tree in Enid Blyton's The Magic Faraway Tree, and gee, does she give the Ruddster a good slapping this week.

The nerve, the impudence, the sheer gall of this dog whistling politician, and what's worse, while he attacks all and sundry, and especially the Liberal leaning Institute of Public Affairs, he doesn't attack the think tank the Centre for Independent Studies.

That's right, he doesn't mention CIS once in more than 7000 words (I'll take Janet's word for this). Agreed, I don't think he mentioned Jared Diamond's compelling The Rise and Fall of Civilizations, nor did he mention Shakespeare, the Elizabethan Sensibility, and the implications for free market economic theory (soon to be available at this site), but can you just please explain why he's so coy about pointing the finger at the CIS mob?

Well it's because everything the Labor party stands for is stuffed. That's why Kevin Rudd's PM and has high approval ratings. Sorry, that didn't parse so well, did it. Well, it's because the pathetic Fabian Society had to advertise on its website a speech by Labor's Emerson to the CIS in 2007. The tragic clowns. Fancy that, and none of the rest of them, those so called progressive think tanks, have anything to offer the world or their childlike followers.

Nyah, nyah, sucks boo to you, ya childlike progressives, ya drinks ya bathwater. Why not have a sophisticated debate, ya mindless metallic morons, ya blathering blithering boobies?

Anyhoo, it seems the Labor party often went off to the CIS for debates, and were profoundly comfortable with free market ideas, then it all changed. The relationship went sour, and the Ruddster revealed himself as - gasp - a shameless politician.

Before late 2006 (remember that date), those at CIS events heard not a peep from Rudd about the need for social democratic governments to save capitalism from itself, or about his distaste for Hayek.

Funnily enough before 2008 (remember that date), those at CIS events hadn't heard a peep from assorted banks and financial institutions and behemoths like GM about the need for social democratic governments to shove gazillions of taxpayer dollars down their throats to save them from themselves (but not touch their bonuses).

But forget all that, the CIS has been used, shamelessly used by the Ruddster, like a maiden spurned by a callous lover once he's had his way with her.

Yep, in 2006, when he wanted the leadership, the Ruddster fired off two essays, one attacking Brutopia (but hang on Clive Hamilton says we netizens are the Brutopians), and the other a fiendish, lengthy diatribe against the hapless, innocent Hayek.

Next thing you know, he's the leader, so what's he do, but go on to pretend he's John Howard. More shrewd politics.

And then, just when you might think enough is enough, Kevin goes and does it again, and attacked Hayek in his heartland at a CIS Consilium dinner (consilium happens to be Latin for a gathering to advise the lord at his court, with the decisions binding on the vassals. Quaint folk at the CIS - do they end their Consilium dinners with the stonecutters' song?)

And yet the Ruddster was given every opportunity to engage with these kindly folk. Why one Somalian born guest (writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali) offered to send the Ruddster Hayek's the seminal 1944 work The Road to Serfdom (you know, the one where vassals follow orders to obtain liberation), and in the spirit of ideas, the CIS founder and director Lindsay offered to set up a debate with Rudd to test his new-found antipathy towards Hayek and the free market.

The weasel worded Ruddster refused to respond. What a craven coward, what a cowardly custard. I mean, Hayek just creamed Keynes, creamed him, which is why governments are now pumping dollars as fast as they can into financial institutions, stealing taxpayer dollars to pump up the bloated fat cats at the top of the food chain.

Yep, what would Rudd know about all this. He's not a man of ideas. That's why he doesn't attack, or even mention the CIS in his essay. That's why he attacks the Institute of Public Affairs in his essay, because they're Liberal leaning. What a consummate politician, what a fuddy duddy phoney.

Hang on, still not quite getting it. You're mad at Rudd because he didn't publicly attack you and your mates in the CIS?

Huh? Moving right along:

The more you return to Rudd's words - and their timing - the more the layers peel away like a smelly onion, revealing a politician trying to make political mileage out of an economic crisis with neither consistency nor conviction.

That's right, not once has he shoved home the blame where it belongs - the workers, the greedy lower class lumpenproletariets beguiled by loans and the notion they could live above their station, the bludgers who live on the dole, the unions, the grasping fiends on the minimum wage, the blacks and their drinking, the gays who refuse to abandon a cross dressing lifestyle, and any other lazy slackers I've forgotten to mention, and yes that includes you. Do you really think Lotto constitutes a proper financial plan? Get off to the casino at once and help out James Packer, who's down to his last billion or two (or maybe there's still time to pick up a share or two in BrisConnections and help out Macquarie Bank).

Meanwhile, in the real world, rarely inhabited or seen by Dame Slap (since she never seems to step outside the classroom or the consilium), people are losing their jobs, people are suffering, people are in real fear. And yet in her bizarro land, none of it has anything to do with the greed is good mentality, the free reign of capitalism, or malfunctioning of free markets in the way too clever for their own good financial institutions that set the collapse in motion with an orgy of dodgy debt (and let's not blame the victims yet again, as opposed to the con artists who wrote the loans they knew could never be repaid). 

She's too worried about Hayek and slurs on the CIS.

Yep, it's all about Kevin Rudd playing politics and refusing to attack the CIS. Lordy, lordy, Dame Slap, get a life, and to help you along, at your next consilium gathering make sure you sing these lyrics (loudly and drunkenly):

All: Who controls the British crown?
Who keeps the metric system down?
We do! We do!

Karl: Who leaves Atlantis off the maps?
Lenny: Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
Alien: We do! We do!

All: Who holds back the electric car?
Who makes Steve Gutenberg a star?
We do! We do!

Skinner: Who robs cavefish of their sight?
Homer: Who rigs every Oscar night?
All: We do! We do!