Thanks for the link however the paragraph preceeding your quote is even more telling.

All this intellectualising is achieving nothing in terms of the real issue.

While you people are telling eash other what fair, reasonable, and unbiased people you all are, Clive and co are pushing buttons and achieving results. Nobody reads or cares about your long winded comments.

If you want any chance at winning this debate you have to push the buttons and force Clive and his mates to respond to you. Keep it simple; keep it short. Remember that the average punter wants the Reader’s Digest version or shorter.

“On Line Opinion readers are being misled by denying them this information, which would be mandatory in any newspaper opinion piece.

The editors of On Line Opinion cannot consistently appeal to one tenet of journalism (so-called balance) and ignore others (allowing the reader to know the relevant affiliations of its authors).

In short, On Line Opinion has been captured by propagandists. For some years, On Line Opinion fulfilled a very useful role in Australian political life. Sadly, it has decided to change. I for one will not be paying it any more attention.”
http://onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7580&page=1

It is worth reading in the context of this discussion. The comments section has some interesting views.

Also, in the context of the superblogs, where you have the managers of iiNet and Webshield clearly speaking for their companies (Anthony Pillion’s superblog expressly states that, and includes a disclaimer that he is NOT speaking on behalf of the Consultative Working Group or the federal Government), I think its reasonable to say that it *appears* that Clive Hamilton is speaking in his role as an academic and on behalf of his institution, and not as a member of the public. Therefore, you could construe his comments as being representative of the university’s position.

I’m not an academic, and I don’t know the rules and regulations and what other academics might consider reasonable, but as a general member of the public (which is who these blogs are aimed at), it appears to me that Clive Hamilton is speaking on behalf of his institution.

Here’s Zizek from “The Pervert’s Guide to the Cinema”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUwvaxpMxGw

Bob

http://www.clivehamilton.net.au/cms/media/documents/articles/defending_the_last_taboo.pdf

Defending the last taboo

A contribution to the Art Censorship: the bigger picture forum

Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 12 June 2008

“I for one, with all of my history of progressive advocacy, am willing to
stand up and say: “Thus far, and no more.” Perversion is not subversion.”

Refer also Clive’s blog

http://www.clivehamilton.net.au/cms/index.php

“Free Speech and Net Porn”

http://www.clivehamilton.net.au/cms/media/documents/articles/crikey_19_nov_internet_filtering.pdf

What’s so special about the internet? All but the most unthinking libertarians accept
censorship laws that limit sexual content in film, television, radio, books and magazines.
Yet the hysterical response from the internet industry and libertarian commentators to the
Government’s proposal to require ISPs to filter heavy-duty porn shows how the internet
has become fetishised.

It is not viewed as another useful mode of communication but as the source of ultimate
freedom. Home alone in front of my computer I can travel where I like and evade my
responsibilities to society.

The internet has spawned a community of devotees who operate in a cow-boy culture that
thinks itself beyond the normal reach of social control, as if they inhabit an independent
cyber-nation that applies it own laws in the form of voluntary protocols for those who
choose to accept them.

The individuals who live in cyberland often display a contempt for social rules and moral
norms that would put post-modern academics to shame. Attacking Labor’s filtering plans,
the CEO if iiNet, Michael Malone, declared: “We live in a world of multiple sets of
morality, all of them equally valid”.

=================

Bob

http://www.youtube.com/user/nocensorshipaus

——————

A seven minute teaser from the Bill Henson Art Debate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-INRl3uJOlM

“There is no censorship worth noting in Australia”

comments are made regarding civil libertatians..

“perversion is not subversion”

———————

Clive Hamilton on sex morality commerce and pornography (August 2008)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IyZ4-0kRfQ

“the porns of commerce at it’s most vulgar”

.. and once again

“perversion is not subversion” (a quote)

Clive seems to believe that sex is now divorced from intimancy leading to women’s sexual liberation which is a boon to the male (“men in their raw state”) of the species who seek “penetration” while the female of the species seeks “intimacy”.

Clive utters “the mind boggles actually” at the suggestion that a female author can wear three hats.

ending with a comment from a novel…

“at no moment in their lives would they ever know love – they were free”

Bob

People listen to Mark, with interest, because he has things to say that are worth listening to.

‘Public Ethicists’ might consider emulating this approach, if they can.

It is possible to read the UT rules in that rather narrow way. But it’s possible to interpret them more boradly.

Clive’s by-line includes ‘Professor of Public Ethics’ at Charles Sturt University. When he writes about ‘ethical’ issues such as sex and sensorship, many readers may well infer he’s speaking on behalf of the Uni – or at least on behhalf of his Department.

Easy to make it clear that he speaks as an individual. But he chooses not to, as far as I’ve noticed. Perhaps he does in fact speak for Charles Surt Uni – in which case Kieren’s complaint is unarguably appropriate? Don’t you think it reasonable we find out?

Compare Mark Newton’s by-line in the Australian’s ‘spuer-blog’ (LOL) series: Mark Newton is a network engineer with a large Australian ISP, and a long standing member of the System Administrators Guild of Australia (SAGE-AU)

There. No need to brag about one’s current employer or bring them into an issue involuntarily. Mark doesn’t even name his employer. He speaks for an organziation.

Why doesn’t Clive take a similar approach? How about “Spokesperson for the Association of Highly Ethical Australian Prudes” (AHEAP) or some such thing?

On the matter of Zionist bias, we shall have to agree to disagree, I think. You keep presenting an idealized situation. The reality has been different, at least in some situations. Many academics have been hounded for taking an anti-Israel position. Jimmy Carter was prevented speaking on some US campuses becuase University Administrations were intimidated by The Lobby. But here’s not the place to discuss that issue in detail, which you correctly describe as ‘thorny’.