Buts, Butts and Gareth Evans' Bullocks

Buts, Butts and Gareth Evans' Bullocks

Careful reading of his article Peaceful way in a world of grey The Australian 29/12 the former foreign minister Gareth Evans seems ignorant of his contradictory constructs. This is the way of the left - admirably purport to be ignorant - and if if high - flown leftist tripe gets in the way - simply ignore it /  reality.

However I am postulating that Evans could not be as ignorant as he is so manifestly depicts himself: he is indeed willfully blind! Another modus vivendi of the socially aware.

 

If it is not the troika [oops - it was four - but I could not resist troika!] of but - based modifiers - it is the carelesness he manifests in purporting to play the vainglorious ''good international citizen - activelly helping solve global public - goods challenges such as climate change human rights protection ...''

 

Puhleez!

Climate change and the meaningless conferences? Actually - the ''double - talk'' of these conferences!

How did this get here? One would think E would be ashamed to defacto excuse  climate change conferences!  In his brand of  socialist non - reality - anything can be explained with inane modifiers of buts, butts and bullocks!

 

Butt it does get worse. Evans really gets lost when he continues: ''cross - border protection flows'' - and the left's favourite - ''weapons of mass destruction''.

[Read Iran, North Korea.]

 

Evans has the chutzpah of using  'not only - butt also' trick:  the Hawk government' favourite leftie / intellectual minister insist that the regimes of North Korea and Iran are susceptible to ''boy scout good deeds'' and by us being ''good international citizens.''

 

By the end of his soft - left rant - Evans no longer cares how he vitiates reality and contradicts himself as follows:

 

''And a story couched in realist terms is likely to be easier to sell to domestic constituencies than one pitched as disinterested altruism.''

 

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So much for boy scout / good deeds: it seems he now calls on reality as at the same time indicting realpolitic as ''disinterested altruism'' - which later contradicts as ''selfless co - operation'' and the need for a ''story to be couched in realist terms''

 

Oh there is so much more of the humbug the left seems incapable of avoiding.

 

Geoff Seidner
13 Alston Grove
East St Kilda 3183
03 9525 9299

 

con·struct   (kn-strkt) tr.v. con·struct·ed, con·struct·ing, con·structs 1. To form by assembling or combining parts; build. 2. To create (an argument or a sentence, for example) by systematically arranging ideas or terms. 3. Mathematics To draw (a geometric figure) that meets specific requirements. n. (knstrkt) 1. Something formed or constructed from parts. 2. a. A concept, model, or schematic idea: a theoretical construct of the atom. b. A concrete image or idea: "[He] began to shift focus from the haunted constructs of terror in his early work" (Stephen Koch). [Latin cnstruere, cnstrct- : com-, com- + struere, to pile up; see ster-2 in Indo-European roots.] modus vi·ven·di   (v-vnd, -d) n. pl. modi vivendi 1. A manner of living; a way of life. 2. A temporary agreement between contending parties pending a final settlement.

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''But if doubletalk were an indictable offence, there would be few left to attend international summits. The task is neither to pillory nor to sanctify political leaders caught in these traps, but somehow to reconcile what they will often see as hopelessly competing demands of moral values and national interests, and to find ways to get them to do more good and less harm.

A useful way forward in this respect may be to rethink fundamentally the concept of national interest. Traditionally seen as having just two dimensions, economic and geostrategic, there is a strong case for adding a third: every country's interest in being, and being seen to be, a good international citizen. Actively helping to solve global public-goods challenges (such as climate change, human rights protection, international piracy, drug trafficking, cross-border population flows and elimination of weapons of mass destruction), even when there is no direct economic or strategic pay-off, is not simply the foreign policy equivalent of boy scout good deeds. Selfless co-operation on these issues can actually work to a country's advantage by boosting its reputation and generating reciprocal support: my help in solving your drug-trafficking problem today will increase the chances of you helping with my asylum-seeker problem tomorrow.''