World Economics. As simple as “ABC”

An open letter to Michelle Guthrie

Dear Michelle, axing all those music programmes really did the trick. Consequently, we at pcbycp would like to apologise for the tone of the last piece on radio national as it was uncharitable.

reading from the ” Book of Murdoch”

The truth is, we thought you were trying to diminish the national broadcaster. WE were wrong.

We have a policy of never mentioning ratbags. As journalist, entertainment, and agitator none comes closer than Axxxxx Bxxx. he reads from “the Book of Murdoch’ and seeks to impoverish us. Why mention him then? And Axxx Jxxxx, the bleak shock jock from the near north is of the same cast. They offer a sort of aural pornography as ‘infotaintment’. Been doing it for years before Txxxx became president of the U.S. And way before anyone ever thought of the connection between ‘Alternate facts’ and George Orwell. That’s ‘info-tainment’. Titillating to some, but lowering the standard to a residual sub standard. They’re popular these days. That’s the essence of populism and provided they don’t challenge the conservatives politically, the coalition love em. That’s why we don’t want to talk about Dxxxxx Txxxx anymore. It’ boring. We know he’s a looney right wing ideologue who doesn’t care about much other than himself and his family. He just confirms what we already knew. That in our time, the apogee of the Anthropocene era, is marked by a hollowed out fundamentalism which makes the smallest of things very large indeed. And Mencken, who doesn’t quite get the coverage of Orwell nailed it. We’d never heard of Mencken until recently. Now he’s a sage who’s commentary on the great experiment of neo liberalism sings true. Not beer and circuses, reduced wages, the future, and everything, rings as he predicted, hollowed out and sadly true.

So, its with incredible relief to learn that the ABC under Michelle Guthrie is going stratospheric in its effort to make the ABC “NEW” again.

Just the other day it was remarked that those senior tiered abc executives who hadn’t jumped ship to the pubic galleries and museum sector were all Murdoch flunkies. Apparently the ABC is brim full of Murdoch’s. ‘A miasma of Murdoch’, collectively you might say. Consequently as we see the thinking identity of radio national diminished, and the aural side depleted with the loss of Lucky Oceans, who by definition had to go, ‘luck’ has nothing to do with it, and ‘oceans’ being a metaphorical shorthand for broad, expansive and infinite human potential was counter-cultural. Further evidence that Guthrie is on the ball. And what better evidence could you have now that PM and AM, have changed their jingle.

That’s it. Change and innovation. No longer the (very hard to type the musical nuance) ‘der da da da der da da da da’… but a much more explosive , percussive, deeply serious intro akin, to a morphing of the gun sequence of the 1812 overture, with Tannhauser, and a bit of “Funky town” thrown in. it’s for everything and evidence that in the senior management, the corridors are bringing full of thought bubbles, new ideas and innovation.

We’re hoping that the ABC national news may change it’s signature tune as evidence of further innovation and broadening the appeal of radio national to those normally tuned to Axxxx Bxxx and Axxx Jxxxx. We would like to suggest Liszt’s, funeral march or perhaps Mahler’s, kindertotenlieder, (songs for dead children) to truly reflect the narrowing of the national ethos as we succumb, willingly to fear, inwardness and the smallness of everything.

So it”s a hearty thanks to the ABC for reminding us, that we don’t need journalism. Science reporting is bunk, and ‘The Book of Murdoch’, is the song sheet from which all Australians must sing to ensure that we are Safe, and free from the taint of Imagination. ‘Our” ABC says it all , it’s text shorthand for ‘ON U Rupert’!!!