Thursday, October 05, 2006

 

Who's Afraid? - another brief update

Long-time readers might remember my brief, contemptuous dismissal of Michael Duffy's moronic anti-football piece from the Sydney Morning Herald.

For a detailed, vigorous response to Duffy's absurdities, I commend you to Simon Hill's excellent article in the November edition of Australian FourFourTwo. Sadly, there is no link available, as far as I know.

Comments:
the duffy article is basically a transcript of AUGUST 21 Radio National Smear on the counterpoint program.
 
Duffy is a "headline chaser" desperately trying to inflate his profile. He even recounted the various complaints of footballistas on his radio show, thereby getting further traction on his flawed line.
Make no mistake, in time he will sink without trace, while football in OZ will grow from strength to strength!
 
The attack is a strand of the anti multicultural political agenda being run by the liberal party. Johnny Warren's Wogs Sheilas and Poofters documents the tension between anti football and pro football forces in Australia. Duffy is doing the work of his employers.
 
Mikey, just a point I wanted to raise.

A while back, Ray Chesterton wrote a half-baked article attacking the Aus v Kuwait game attendence and 'new football.' In response to this article, Les Murray devoted the first few minutes of TWG laying into Chesterton.

At the time, my attitude was very much a 'why bother' stance. Football has nothing to fear in this country and its figureheads shouldn't go round seeking assurance or responding to inflamatory idiots. I seem to also remember an article on this blog that was essentially identical to this view.

So my question is, how can you reconcile praising Hill on this occassion but then attacking Murray in the past? I think a firm 'party line' needs to be taken to such people within Australia. They will not seek to discredit administrators , players or playing quality. They seek to attack the game itself. But much like radio shock jocks, I feel if you ignore the obviously inflamatory remarks, they have a habit of simply going away.

Just a thought.
 
...At the time, my attitude was very much a 'why bother' stance. Football has nothing to fear in this country and its figureheads shouldn't go round seeking assurance or responding to inflamatory idiots. I seem to also remember an article on this blog that was essentially identical to this view.

So my question is, how can you reconcile praising Hill on this occassion but then attacking Murray in the past?...

Yeah, fair point. There were two things about Murray's attack on Chesterton that made me cringe, (1) it was just so uptight and overblown, giving the impression (as I think I mentioned at the time) that it was Murray who was "afraid" - to give credit where it's due, Craig Foster's comments afterwards were far more appropriate, (2) it was very much ad hominem rather than ad rem, bagging Chesterton rather than picking off his arguments one by one, as Hill does to Duffy in this FourFourTwo piece.

IMO, if responses are going to be made to these smug idiots, they should be reasoned, dispassionate and just a tad incredulous that they would even make these sorts of arguments.
 
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