Monday, April 6, 2009

Piers Akerman, cheap shots, and the fanatic who never changes the subject

Piers Akerman, the fat owl of the remove, can always be relied on to soil a message, taint a parable, spit in a burger and serve it up as fresh goods, and sure enough This gentle humanity is born in the heart is as good an example as any we've seen.

In the guise of a tribute to the response of people to the Victorian bushfires - and in particular the donation of $620 by 15 mildly intellectually disabled people to the cause - Akerman offers up the following thoughts:

It is a cheque for $620. Not as much as the Rudd government is sending this week to some jailed criminals, to some who have died and to others who haven't lived in Australia for decades, but the amount is not the point.

The donors are the point. Those who saved this $620 are a group of people who live in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, the suburbs that are mocked by Labor politicians looking to score cheap laughs.

Even poor old Waverley Council who designed the Community Living Program for these donors cops a right-handed sideswipe:

Waverley Council is not as whacky as Marrickville or some of the other more lunatic councils, but it has had its share of loopy-Left and poisonous-Green councillors and received its quota of well-deserved brickbats.

And all this is part of a tribute to a cause and a donation the fat owl found extraordinarily moving.

What was that he wrote the other day?

Manners do maketh the man and the woman ... Graciousness and humility are bywords in the ranks of the truly great and the truly good ...

Actually I think Winston Churchill captured the essence of Akerman: A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

On and on Akerman grinds, like a cracked record or a steel needle stuck in the groove of a 78 r.p.m. shellac recording. Even when he tries to be generous he doesn't begin to understand the meaning of the word. He just can't resist turning any subject to his own venting of spleen, his love of regurgitated bile.

One hapless reader waxed indignant: 

All class Piers.

Using the death and destruction wrought by the Black Saturday bushfires to a make a political point against Rudd’s stimulus handouts, Labor and the Greens.

This could have been such a positive and affirmatory column about the spirit of giving imbued deeply within Australians but instead you turned it into a cheap, political diatribe. Such a shame.

Martin of Sydney

And immediately Akerman shot back with another cheap shot about Labor and the Greens not comparing well with the donors. Leopards. Spots. Tigers. Stripes. Monkeys. Peanuts.

It seems to Akerman that half the population - those that voted for Labor - are loons, and anything and anyone who helps him prove the point - be they mildly intellectually retarded bushfire donors, or Waverley councillors - can be dragooned into his point scoring.

Here's a few other thoughts:

Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity - Edward Gibbon.

There is no place in a fanatic's head where reason can enter - Napoleon Bonaparte (now is that an irony or what).

Wisdom becomes nonsense in the mouth of a fanatic - Otto Schuwdrmer.

Normally we'd vote the fat owl of the remove as our first place winning loon of the week on most weeks, and up against strenuous competition a lot of the time, but really that misses the point. He's actually a first class, rabid, loony fanatic, and true to form for such animals, can't recognize the face in the mirror, it's so distorted by hatred for others. 

Never mind, Martin of Sydney. You did your best, but perhaps you were a tad optimistic expecting to convert a fanatic in a few apposite lines.

The fanatic is incorruptible: if he kills for an idea, he can just as well get himself killed for one; in either case, tyrant or martyr, he is a monster - Emile M. Cioran.

Tell us all again Piers about gentle humanity born in the heart ...

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