Liberal party zealots still don’t get it, or more likey do and don’t give a damn if they think can impose it on the Oz equivalent of the citizens of Springfield, VA. I remember someone leaked some Crosby-Textor research to Possum which he deftly analysed to show what marginals were in jeopardy, but El Rodente was not for moving much on the crucial issue.

paddy, I don’t have an difficulty with your “random thoughts’ nor with your twisted sense of humour. Yes, it’s a wonderful book, an excellent Seppo-Cultural cornerstone tome.
The example of “practical Christianity” you cite in the supermarket queue is truly touching. Reminds me of reading the autobiography of Wilfred Burchett many years ago. When young Will left his family farm at 15 or so to pursue his living on the farms of coutry Victoria in the Great Depression, he noted that the people who were kindest to him, who always gave him a verandah to sleep under and a chunck of bread and dripping were those who had the least to give. He lost count of the time he’d had the dogs set on him by “squatters”.

If only “financially disadvantaged” decent people realised that they didn’t need all the guff and hypocrisy that goes with money-sucking vengeful religious practice. What shits me most about so called moderate religious followers is that don’t demand a stop to the fanatics perpetrating their barbarities under the banner of THEIR religion. It’s tantamount to giving the fundies; Christian, Muslim, Hindu whatever—tacit support.

From Ch. 7, An Authorised Place to Die, p 226:

{Dottie continues: “Honest to damned! I think these doctors are here to take out the old and crippled in this country. Kill ‘em off in out of the way places where the publuc can’e see. They treat all of us like they expect us to die and like they expect to make money on us right up to the last minute.”}

Fifty million Americans are without health insurance, and 25 million are “underinsured.” Millions being laid off will soon be added to those rolls. Medical bills cause more than half of personal bankruptcies in the U.S. Desperate for care, the under- and uninsured flock to emergency rooms, often dealing with problems that could have been prevented.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090113_nothing_to_fear_but_no_health_care/

KL and paddy: back after sundown to reply to your thoughts at 13 and 14.

It certainly didn’t take him long to surprise me.
By p7. The following passage left me utterly gobsmacked.

For example,I am standing in the checkout line at one of the most low-rent supermarket chainstores. Food Lion, watching the fellow in front of me, Eddie Coynes, receive his change with nicotine stained fingers and stuff it into the breast pocket of his shirt. His wife is telling the clerk how her church rallied to buy her and Eddie a secondhand truck after theirs was repossessed. “It needs a spare tire, but we can come up with that”.
“Praises be to him!” exclaims the clerk, as if God had come down with a five-piece band and personally delivered that 1990 Toyota himself. Obviously they are all born again. The wife grabs up her purchases, a sixer of Diet Pepsi and a carton of Little Debbi cakes, then moves towards the door.

The reason I found that passage so stunning, was the way it confronted my own prejudices and preconceptions.
My own (atheist) views on religion have never been particularly positive. Esp the US evangelical kind that fill our own airwaves on early Sunday morning TV.
But suddenly, Bageant describes a simple example of a church community offering *real* support to two of its members.
Not the religion of Jimmy Swaggert spouting fatuous hypocrisy and greed. Nor the Pat Robertson school of preaching hate and rapture.
Just the sort of stuff that involves actually caring for one’s neighbours.

There’s also a certain irony to the storm of confected outrage, that greeted Obama’s comments about people clinging to religion and guns.
When the state won’t even grant it’s citizens the right to basic health care and the realistic opportunity of a job with a living wage…. Of course they’ll stick to what they’ve grown up with and just hope (and pray) they can make the next payment.
BTW thanks cardster, for reminding me of that mind blowing illiteracy statistic. 90 million!!!! FFS
Truly scary stuff and not something that’s going to be changed in less than a generation.

Anyway…I’ll try to cobble together some more thoughts later on.

Oh yes. One more thing that did stick and impress with regard to Joe B and guns, was his description of the “antipersonnel” gun fetishists on p.151/152
He obviously didn’t enjoy writing that bit. But he was too good a journalist/writer to leave it out.