Ever since Gina Rinehart came into this world, sprouting from an infected mole on Lang Hancock’s shoulder, she has been a thorn in the side of lovers of freedom and democracy and haters of money and various metals.
It would seem that in her recent activities she has driven her iron tentacles ever further into the orifices of public life in an attempt to prevent anyone opposed to her dream of an Australia which rides on the rock’s back.
Yes, not satisfied with raping our land with all the gusto of an amphetamine-fuelled coyote mistaking a Chihuahua for its life-partner; not satisfied with leaving Western Australia a barren wasteland of enormous holes and topless waitresses; not satisfied with writing bafflingly horrid poetry; Ms Rinehart has embarked on the path of mass-media domination, buying up stock in Fairfax, demanding three seats on the company’s board and the right to hire and fire editors.
She has clearly gotten out of control, and must be stopped before everything good and worthwhile about this country is laid to waste, or at least dug up and flogged to China.
Rinehart’s intervention comes at a particularly difficult time for the Australian media landscape. Fairfax’s problems have been well documented, and although the impending switch to tabloid format will solve the biggest problem facing the company — the difficulty of folding the paper up. There still remains the problem of the internet, which since being invented in 2009 has seriously impinged on the business model.
Fairfax’s content itself may be the most troubling problem of all; not only is it too focused on entertainment at the expense of hard news, but it’s also not entertaining enough. Politically, The Age and SMH have veered too far to the right while hypocritically remaining propaganda sheets of the far left. It’s no coincidence that Fairfax Media won the Walkley for Most Confusing News Strategy last year. In the circumstances management had little option but to take the drastic steps they did.
Not that things are much better at News Ltd, which has also announced major job cuts. The company had already set off down the paywall path — agreed by all media analysts to be the only option for media organisations hoping to maximise the number of readers willing to copy and paste headlines into Google — but was operating under a considerable handicap already, what with the human sacrifices and Black Masses getting in the way of day to day operations.
We know her plans. We can predict the consequences. If the only point of view we get is the right-wing digger-upper’s, it will be disastrous for our democratic freedoms. But how do we stop her?
Well, my freedom-loving friends, I have an answer. Gather around and listen close, because my plan will blow Gina Rinehart and her shabby metallic carpet-bagging clean out of the water. Once we are through with her, she won’t be willing to show her face around this country, let alone embark on a campaign of media manipulation and editorial distortion towards a specific political and economic aim — to put it bluntly.
Here is the thing: you may not have noticed this, but Gina Rinehart, iron-ore queen, is fat.
Ha! I know! It’s not talked about much, because of political correctness and the military-McDonald’s complex, but it’s true. Gina Rinehart is fat. Like, really fat. She’s one of those women who, when you look at them, you go, "Hmm. She’s quite fat". So, totally fat.
But Ben, you say, how can the fact that she’s fat help us stop her strangling the Fourth Estate with her sausage fingers? Well maybe if you let me FINISH, dammit.
You see, nothing hurts a powerful, wealthy public figure like a campaign of public ridicule, and nothing is more likely to make a billionaire pull her head in than being insulted by thousands of people she doesn’t know.
So here is what I propose: we call Gina fat. In public! Out loud! We say, "Hey, Gina Rinehart, why so fat?" and such things. "Ouch!" Ms Rinehart will cry, as our fat-tipped arrows penetrate her fat skin.
But that’s only phase one of OPERATION GINA RINEHART IS FAT. We don’t just call her fat, we make jokes about her being fat. It’s brilliant in its simplicity, no? We’ll have her running for the hills in no time, but no matter how many hills she runs for, she’ll never have the moral high ground. We’ll have that because we have right on our side and we are not fat. At least, not as fat as Gina Rinehart is — hoo boy, she’s very fat! She should go running up some hills — she’ll lose some weight. Although I hope she doesn’t, because if we’re ever confronted by a greedy oligarch with no weight issues, God help us all.
The point is, together we can slay the Rinehart dragon, with ridicule and mockery based on her waistline, not her politics, her greed, or her willingness to exploit the poor and pillage the environment. It’s like they always say — hit ’em where it hurts, in the hip-pocket, and in the vast amounts of hip-flesh beneath the hip-pocket. Well known ABC communist Phillip Adams showed us the way on Twitter just yesterday:
"What do financial heavies Kerry/Clyde/James/Gina/Tinkler/Palmer have in common? They’re good at counting $$ but hopeless counting calories."
Haha! Take THAT fat cats! You so fat! You so fat that when you sit around the overpriced Pilbara shipping container, you sit AROUND the overpriced Pilbara shipping container!
It’s zingers like "There aren’t even any mines in WA — those holes are just where Gina sat down" that will return sanity and liberty to this great country.
So if you want to strike back at the oligarchs; if you want to stand up for justice; if you want to prevent our free press falling into the hands of unethical wealthy vested interests; you will sit down at your desk, and you will start writing.
Start knocking up some killer jokes to post on Twitter, or Facebook, or in the TXT The Editor section of your local paper, or even just on a nearby wall in spray paint.
Try to come up with some real rib-ticklers, so we can send a very strong and very definite message to Ms Rinehart: You may be rich, but you’re also a big fat pig, and we all think that’s HILARIOUS.
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