DISGUSTED WITH PICKERING AND HIS CRONIES

I am ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED at the unsubstantiated, speculative, even imaginary scenarios being pursued by a prominent cartoonist and others against our PM, Julia Gillard over an incident in her life that occurred over a quarter of a century ago.  And contrary to the argument put forth by Paul Zanetti on The Pickering Post, Ms Gillard was not reacting to the way she was depicted in political cartoons, but to the utter vitriol contained in Larry Pickering's opinion pieces on his blog and on his face book page. I'm also dismayed at the tirade of bullying and personal insults that are being posted on both Julia Gillard's face book page from people who are supposed to be her fans. Attacking each other in her name is surely not what she would wish. The fact that people tend to use social forums of a way of venting their anger about all manner of things not related to the actual discussion is also worrying. Is this the kind of communication we want or applaud? Is this what we mean we we say we want 'freedom of speech'? Free to say anything even though it may be untrue, free to make slanderous comments, free to dirty some one's name just by asking a question that begs a negative response? Free to hunt people down for something they may have been implicated in, in the past, in order to invite questions about their status in the present? All I hear these days is individual concern about the government's 'big brother' activity of delving into our personal lives and yet those same people would have us all do that in order to expose past mistakes of those in public office. I feel for Julia Gillard having to bear the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, however I also feel for us as a society, for if face book and other social media sites are a barometer of our humanity, then we are degenerating fast into something less than human and it isn't pretty!