Conflicting Perspectives

Diana in the Dock: Does Privacy Matter? (1998)

Dianas Case
Builds up towards his argument against Diana to avoid alienating people
immediately
Initial on Diana: Diana, calm and confident, pitted against a fitness
machine, gloating tabloid, deep humiliation and sense of violation
However in the next paragraph he downplays the issue, claiming they
were sneak pictures and Diana was a victim of a dirty trick as opposed
to calling it a criminal act or a severe invasion of privacy.
Language portraying Diana as old money and privileged in comparison
with the reasonable-seeming Taylor. He offered to give Diana all his rights
and profits in the photographs if only she would call off the lawyers
(connotations of calling off the hounds)
Selective quotation of Time Out: the least private gym in London and
humour in the motto for shirkers being you have no hiding place
one giant room, criss-crossed by catwalks (metaphor of catwalks
showing the desire for publicity), analogy it was like working out in a shop
window
o Humour = trivialising the case.
Humour surrounding his imagined cross-examination on the topic of
cardio-funk
Characterisation:
o Monarchism: puns (Taylor giving her free reign)
o grace the premises with her presence
o chat them up and light them up
o Word choice of Diana seeking revenge (not justice)
o Andrew Mortons book (revealed after her death that she did
collaborate with him): it revealed the tawdry secrets of the royal
marriage
The Princess of Wales had, in effect, invaded her own
privacy (even choosing to refer to her by her title
emphasises her public position)
o She chose to marry into a role where the paparazzi were an
occupational hazard
o revel in the role of Queen of Hearts
o She made fleeting visits to AIDS clinics and hospitals where she
used the diseased and dying as visual props (acting metaphor)
o enthroned on the leg press
o Made a Faustian bargain with the media (deal with the devil)
Logos: works through common sense (possible objections)

Gym wasnt private but manager owed Diana some measure of

consideration
o Diana didnt pay but there was still a fiduciary relationship and
there ought to be a law against it. But was there?
Analogies: attending a gym is like going to a disco or eating in a
restaurant (relating it to a common event to make the breach seem less
important to the reader)
o

The Mirror and the Media

Public interest justification
If Bryce Taylor could shoot her with a secret camera, the IRA could shoot
her too. (play on words with shoot)
940 journalists had applied for the seventy-five seats available and
their coverage would have little to do with the rights and wrongs of the
case
Uses a militaristic metaphor to describe the tabloid lynch mob as they
hunted down James Hewitt (a lover of Diana)
Press Complaints Commission (self-regulating body for the press) always
finds an excuse for the saloon never closing (wild west metaphor,
lawless)

Legal System

Analogy/metaphor: our ethics are those of the cab-rank on which we ply

for trade.

Privacy
Robertson perspective (clever wordplay): must distinguish what is in the
public interest from what is of interest to the public
Society is hypocritical: the despised papers which invade privacy are also
the most read. They mirror rather than create the national character

Techniques
Different levels of register create faith through legal jargon (e.g. fiduciary
relationship) and connection through colloquialisms (e.g. chat them up
and light them up)
Sentence variety: Voluntary self-regulation is a fraud.
Robertson carries reader through his thought process logically using
rhetorical questions, starting with But could she, and if so should she,
sue?, moving on to the lack of privacy of the gym and asking But did this
matter? and then agreeing that there ought to be a law against it but
asking But was there?

Michael X on Death Row (1998)

Death Penalty

Michael X
most vocal black power prophet

 A changed man due to death row: Thats why you should do it, not for me
but for them. They will hang me, whatever happens.
CP: quotes Darcus Howe in The Guardians 1993 retrospective saying, He
made absolutely no impact on anybody and directly juxtaposes this with
He made an impact on me, directly challenging an accepted view of
Michael X
Michael gave the media what they wanted: he played the uppity nigger
with a soul of ice
o Robertson portrays Michael X as someone who hopped on the
bandwagon of civil rights issues and didnt have much to add to the
movement. So he played up his radicalism to draw media attention.
He was at best a provocateur
o He did do some decent things
Robertson creates sympathy for Michael X through the irony that he was
the first person prosecuted under the Racial Relations Act of 1968, created
to protect the blacks.
Doesnt deny his guilt but seeks to portray him as more human than
mainstream representations
o Represents the media perspective as hyperbolic to create sympathy
for Michael X and thus for his crusade against the death penalty.
The News of the World headlined him as Michael X The
Devil on Death Row
Death Row
Convinces us of his perspective by demonstrating that his perspective had
changed
o He thought that I would prefer five years on death row to five years
of death but didnt appreciate that this choice shouldnt be offered
to men the state has decided to kill until he met Michael X
sweating in the heat, fingers scratching through the wire of their
concrete-floored cages, screeching and shouting at each other and at the
warders (continuation of zoo analogy, word choice of cage)
Michael alone is quiet and self-contained, looking nothing like the blackpower revolutionary with face twisted in bitter defiance
Jars readers with his matter-of-fact description of the ritualism of death
row. The governor would stride up and down, taking a small sadistic
pleasure in stopping in front of one man before moving on to the actual
victim and reading a sonorous declamation full of legal jargon
proclaiming their imminent death.
Black humour serves to dehumanise the inmates
o The details on the rope, which was imported from a Birmingham
firm and packaged with the desired weight range, would only be
used once before being sent to the Royal Trinidad Blind Society for
use in weaving
o In Jamaica the bodies were buried in the kitchen garden at St
Catherines Prison to make the vegetables grow
o Pun: death by hanging was in full swing
The death house is a hot-house, doomed men who do not have a kill-by
date, pace their cages in limbo-land
Quotes psychologist who says death row is a grisly laboratory

Death penalty corrupts humanity

They slyly preserve it
Argument for Michael x had sufficient impact for him to write the
judgement immediately for Michael Xs death which was rushed and
brutal.
o Deaths are carried out based on politics
o Humour (pun) : It is an unhappy fact of life on death row that the
best way to save your neck is to keep your head down
Defendants are advised to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty
Behind the excuses and arguments of the state officials lies a grim
determination to kill
International Committee to Save Michael X
Kunstler = the white celebrity lawyer, parachuting in to tell the dumb
local blacks that they could not hold a fair trial if they tried.
these antics had so poisoned public opinion that there was no prospect
of local appeal
Robertsons perspective on this group shows him to be more rational and
reasonable by comparison.
Jamaican Lawyers
Irony: staying at one of Londons most expensive hotels while arguing
Jamaica didnt have the resources to attend closely to human rights.
the government is merely carrying out the will of the people, the supreme
law
o Robertson doesnt quote them, says to the effect of
But the purpose of the judicial system is to deny that the will of the
people is the supreme law whenever that will inclines to barbarism.
Public
Michael X became the cancer that the good people of Trinidad wanted cut
out of their society
Juxtaposition of Michael X could have been executed at any moment,
while his impoverished lawyer was waiting for someone to cancel their
Caribbean holiday
Pro-Death Penalty
Reagan supported due to a boyhood of watching injured or sick animals
being shot on his family ranch (dehumanising comparison)
Techniques
Word choice:
o punishment by way of human sacrifice
o the living dead
o ritual slaughter
Dehumanising description of death row using imagery and metaphors
leave the reader more inclined to agree with his argument against the
death penalty, or at the least, against a prolonged stay on death row
Breaks up legal jargon with quotation from prison warden in everyday
language, his eyes pop almost out of his head, his tongue swells and
protrudes from his mouth he urinates, he defecates, and droppings fall
to the floor while witnesses look on

 Rhetorical questions such as Might one colonial law cancel the other
out? take the reader logically through Robertsons thought processes
while he is attempting to find a solution
Alternative perspective presented using a rhetorical question If death row
was a place of torture, why was Michael de Freitas so reluctant to be put
out of his misery? He expands upon this perspective before simply
refuting it with a 2-line quote from Lord Scarman providing a moment of
high modality clarity after the argument of the opposed perspective.
Extended legal arguments then simple high modality sentences such as
Riley was wrong., The death penalty does not deter murder, The
court-approved death penalty is wrong.

The Legal System

playing every trick in the textbook
I do not, as a rule, love my clients, it leads to tactical errors, to overemotional arguments and, most dangerously, to lies.
It is the death penalty, which defies the logic of human rights, which sets
the level of the argument
o Sometimes tricks and loopholes are necessary in order to change
unjust laws
Shakespearean allusion to Portia in the Merchant of Venice provides the
reader with a comparative situation
o She upheld the validity of Shylocks contractual right to cut his
pound of flesh, so long as he cut not a fraction more or less of the
appointed weight, or shed one drop of blood.
Privy Council
five men in lounge suits are listening, sometimes with ill-concealed
impatience to the bewigged barrister at the centre-stage lectern. Theatre
metaphor continued with its description as an amphitheatre
jurisprudentially orbiting in space (imagery emphasises its separation,
socially and physically, from the issues it decides)
Interest in preserving the penalty because to admit it was inhumane was
to admit theyd been inhuman in their judgements and participation
Metaphor of judges as hitmen

Romans in Britain
National Theatre, under Sir Lawrence Olivier, put on a play called The
Romans in Britain in 1981. It was about the Roman conquest of Britain in
54BC but also a commentary on the psychology of any invading/occupying
force (Britain in Northern Ireland)
Perspectives
Mrs Mary Whitehouse (conservative public moral conscience) vs. The
National Theatre/Michael Bogdanov
Mary Whitehouse took offence to the play
Robertson finds the issue ridiculous, and doesnt see what the fuss is
about
Event: prosecution of the National Theatre

 Personalities: Mary Whitehouse, Robertson, Jeremy Hutchinson, Mr

Graham Ross-Cornes
Situation: Theatres Act 1968
Techniques
Characterisation:
o The situation:
Uses an expletive as a direct quotation from the play to draw
our attention and perhaps disapproval. Goes on to say hes
not sure why this line gets a laugh, and suggest possibilities
through the use of rhetorical questions. Thus Robertson
places himself in the role of interlocceteur, as someone who
doesnt know what all the fuss is about and will try and find
out on our behalf
o The play
crudely sums up the current state of the peace progress in
Northern Ireland characterised as a political play
emetic and not erotic
presented, bleakly and bitterly, the atavistic behaviour of
men at war and those who get in their way
heavy handed in moral outrage
Seems to say that if the prosecution were intelligent enough
to see it, theyd realise they were actually on the same moral
side
o The opposition
Sir Horace Cutler
stormed out of the play at halftime, threatening to
cut grants
Attention seeker: his outbursts had brought much
publicity for himself, as he had intended
Mrs Mary Whitehouse
Religious nut: private prosecution was what the Lord
would have me do, tone was rapturous,
Militant: devout legal battalion, girded her loins
Ignorant: battle against a play she had not seen in a
theatre she had never attended (sarcasm, irony)
the play is fiercely moral in a way that Marys courtroom
crusaders cannot understand, although perhaps it was the
political parable they could not stand the opposition are
either woefully stupid or have a xenophobic political agenda
Mr Graham Ross-Cornes (lawyer who went and saw the play
as evidence)
Positive early characterisation plainly a truthful
witness, however this is disingenuous
Case rests on where the star witness was sitting.
Judge says mark it with an x. R uses simile, as if it
might be buried treasure for the prosecution
o Allies
Jeremy Hutchinson
infectious sardonic humour, his questioning mind, his
courage, and his disdain for judges, opposing counsel
and Mary Whitehouse.
o The case:

Immediately established that the case had little backing. The

Attorney-General had refused to prosecute as a public case,
so it had to become a private prosecution
Based only on a legal loophole
precisely in order to prevent vexations or partisan
prosecutions, parliament decreed that no legal action could
be brought (alliteration of hard p sounds hammers home
the ridiculousness of the case)
Juxtaposes legal jargon of a neat little offence in Section 13
of the Sexual Offenders Act 1956 of procuring grossly
indecent homosexual acts in public with The fact that this
offence was designed for men who masturbate themselves or
others in public toilets did not matter (humour)
Historical examples which are more obviously political
censorship are used to frame our thinking to consider them
similar:
Henry VIII as Mrs Whitehouse predecessor
(continues negative characterisation of her as a
religious nut) decreed that plays criticising his closure
of the monasteries should be abolished
Called it An Act for the Advancement of True Religion
(Robertson chooses a religious example in order to
draw more links with the National Theatre Case)
Lord Chamberlains power of censorship used to quell
political criticism: banned plays sympathetic to
communism, irreverent references to fascist dictators,
any plays conceding the existence of homosexuality
Old law vs. new law:
Dry, sardonic tone presenting the ridiculousness of the
old laws to a modern audience allows the audience to
feel superior and fall in line with Robertsons
perspective
o ability to split pubic hairs over what could be
prosecuted (pun)
o The law requires a tighter clenching of the
buttocks, I would solemnly advise on close
perusal of sagging flesh.
Ridiculous specificity of the law
o Direct quotation from cross examination
o Jeremy flung open his silk gown with his left
hand while placing his right fist, thumb erect,
over his own groin. It was a coup de theatre
more dramatic than any our client had achieved
in The Romans in Britain. drama ridicules the
court proceedings, which should be serious
The law
Illogical and selective
The law was an ass, and that was that. (If Michael
Bogdanov had been a woman director there would
have been no grounds for prosecution)

The Great Global Warming Swindle (2007: Martin

Durkin)
Their Perspective

Perspectives of movie: earths climate is always changing, nothing unusual

about current temperatue, scientific evidence doesnt support the
conclusion that climate is driven by carbon dioxide (man-made or
otherwise)
It is no longer a theory about climate. It is the defining moral and political
cause of our age.
Rational-appearing men in suits present their opinion in high modality
language
Co-founder of Greenpeace, Weather Satellite team leader from NASA
It is the story of how a political campaign turned into a bureaucratic
bandwagon
Global warming = a great industry
This is a story of censorship and intimidation
Use graphs: selective choice of supportive evidence. E.g. graph showing
steep decline in temperature in the post-war economic boom was based
off Arctic, not global, temperatures and graph showing correlation
between sunspots and temperatures stops at 1975, where the two
diverge.
Global warming is a political movement
o Hindering industrial development in developing world
o Money-making and job-generating business
The whole global warming business has become like a religion. Im a
heretic. The makers of this program are all heretics
Lord Lawson of Blaby: inquiry resulting in becoming the first politician to
put money into global warming prevention
o Evidence was flimsy
Shots of hurricanes juxtaposed with peaceful shots of ice and beaches
(climate has always been changing)
o The little ice age
People skating on the Thames and setting up stalls
o Balmy golden era known to climatologists as the Medieval warm
era
When there is warming it seems to be associated with riches
Time of cathedral building and vineyards flourishing
o Holocene Maximum during the Bronze Age (temperatures
significantly higher than now for almost three millennia)
Warming began before planes and cars were invented, most of the rising
occurred before 1940 but in the post war boom they fell (when CO2 was
increasingly exponentially)
Respectable scientists (e.g. Professor John Christie awarded NASA medal,
award from American Meteoroly Society, lead author in UNs IPCC,
professors from MIT, Harvard etc.)

 Surface warms more than upper air suggesting warning isnt due to
greenhouse gases (take care in backing this with detail and shots of
weather balloons etc.)
Their alternate proposal: climate change is caused by solar activity (sun
spots)
o Both through direct sunlight and solar winds dispersing the particles
which make clouds
o Climate controlled by clouds controlled by cosmic rays controlled by
sun
o Eerie shots of sun as dangerous and burning with eerie music
Carbon dioxide is irrelevant So why are we bombarded with man made
global warming? logical flow (disprove CO2 then show history of global
warming scare)
o The Weather Machine showed the theme of the time
(temperatures were falling so it was feared there would be an ice
age)
o amid the doom and gloom there was a voice of hope Berd Bolin
suggested increasing carbon dioxide may help to warm the world
(highly criticised for this theory though)
Two things created support for this:
Temperatures started to rise
Miners went on strike (this is where the politicisation
started) Thatcher used carbon dioxide theory to
support her push towards nuclear energy
o Now money was being put into research to prove
the theory
o Environmentalists latched onto this to spout anti-capitalist and antiglobalisation doctrines (under the guise of environmentalism)
o Prior to Bush elder funding for climate-related sciences was $170
million a year which then jumper to $2 billion
Analogy: my cars not running very well so Im going to ignore the engine
which is the sun and Im going to ignore the transmission which is the
water vapour and Im going to look at one nut on the rear right wheel
which is the human produced CO2. The science is that bad
o News reports show great big chunks of ice breaking off in the Arctic
but what they dont say is that this is as ordinary an event in the
Arctic as falling leaves on an English autumn day
Developing world coming under intense pressure not to develop
o Draconian methods to cut carbon dioxide omissions just in case
(precautionary method)
o 4 million children under 5 die from respiratory diseases caused by
indoor smoke (families in Africa have no electricity so they have to
burn fires)
o Food cant be kept because there is no refrigeration, there is no
heat, no hot water
o a few miles away, the UN is hosting its conference on global
warming in plush gated quarters. Shots of men in suits on the
manicured lawn looking at native African souvenirs.
o Theres someone keen to kill the African dream

o I think its legitimate for me to call them anti-human

discuss every aspect of manmade climate change from how to promote
solar panels in Africa to the relationship between global warming and
sexism (ridiculous humour, highlight the industry of global warming)
Those who stand up to global warming industry are like Holocaust
deniers and can receive death threats
o The global warming alarm is now beyond reason

Portraying Environmentalists

Representation of Al Gore
o emotional film, regarded by many as definitive popular
presentation
o Rests wholly on ice core surveys
Agree with Al Gore in that it does show a correlation between
carbon dioxide and temperature (appear reasonable)
But argue that temperature leads carbon dioxide
Representation of environmentalists:
o British based corporations are some of the worst climate criminals
on the planet. Shell is based in the UK, right here in London. We
have the right and the duty to take it back into public ownership,
dismantle it, break it up and send its managers to rehabilitation
training. But reasoned debate isnt the only casualty in the global
warming alarm
o climate criminals, climate genocide, protestors
o Politicians do not dare doubt climate change
o Any representation is through the media (no scientists portrayed)

Techniques
Very dramatic opening sequence with montage of dramatic weather and
capital white letters on a black background reading The ice is melting,
The sea is rising, hurricanes are blowing, and its all your fault. Scare?
Dont be. Its not true (high modality): conflicting perspective shown right
here
Then a montage of authority figures Its not science, its propaganda (in
film you can create a barrage of authority quotes and facts which would be
dull and uncreative in a text medium which bombard the audience with
high modality perspectives and give credence to the films perspective)

The Ideological War on Human Rights (26 September

2014: Ben Saul)
Full title: The Ideological War on Human Rights: Why Are Australian
Politicians So Hostile towards Basic Freedoms?
Given at the NSW Council for Civil Liberties Annual Dinner
Professor Ben Saul is a Professor of International Law at the University of
Sydney
Perspective

 The government is blatantly ignoring human rights, and is on a path

contradictory to the progression of other countries and contradictory to
international law
Government makes a show of action, which doesnt have the power, and
fails to address the big concerns
True action would involve action in repealing bad laws and not adopting
new ones. Furthermore, the government should adopt a bill of rights
o Australia doesnt have a bill of rights because we have never
experienced oppression and social revolution like countries such as
America, colonies in Asia and Africa, or Europe following Nazism
Quotes/Techniques
Humour:
o Naturally we invited our friends ASIO to buy a table or two but they
politely declined, assuring us that they are already under every
table, and inside the phones of quite a few of you too. And
suggesting the audience should update them throughout the night
on twitter using the hashtag #HeyASIO
Battle metaphor:
o We meet under the shadow of a federal government that is waging
a relentless war on some of our most precious human rights
Characterisation:
o Attorney General George Brandis:
Plays on his controversial membership of the private, malesonly Savage Club, calling him the Savage man, and
describing him as chest-thumping
o Immigration Minister Scott Morrison:
dispensing Old Testament tough love through his new
refugee laws and packing off refugees to Hun Sens one party
state in Cambodia contrast of Christian values with cruel
behaviour, or using Christian values to justify, outdated?
o Government: outdated, traditional conservatives
acolytes
o Refugee policy:
detention factories that manufacture mental illness
o Australias human rights protection agencies and laws:
we have a lame statement of compatibility attached to new
bills, which whitewash and legitimise rights violations, and
another joint parliamentary committee which wrings its
hands at violations but is powerless to stop them.
Threat of terrorism:
o Agrees with the view that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria needs
to be combated, but then argues that the threat in Australia is small
makes his position seem more reasonable
o Government is shamelessly over-cooking it
o Selective quotation: The government speaks in inflammatory terms
of a death cult that hates our freedoms.
o Instructs audience to change their viewpoint, and look at recent
events as ordinary crime, not terrorism: One man attempted to
murder two police officers. Another has been arrested for an early
conspiracy to murder. There was some chatter about Parliament
House.

Uses statistics: perhaps 60 out of 23 million are fighting in the

Middle East, only a few of which are likely to target Australians if
they return
o Analogy: Terrorism in Australia is a minor irritation more mosquito
than lion.
Speech:
o 2nd person, or collective 1st person: inviting audience engagement,
instructing, uniting the audience together
But if you look at recent events here as ordinary crime
We need to take a deep breath, get a grip, and get some
perspective
Analogy:
o Your own furniture is more likely to kill you.
o Falling televisions are especially dangerous, but we dont make it a
crime to visit Bing Lee without the Foreign Ministers permission.
Team Australia = divisive, untrue
o Abbotts divisive rhetoric about everyone having to be on Team
Australia
o Quote from Abbott: Everyone has got to put this country, its
interests, its values and its people first, and you dont migrate to
this country unless you want to join our team.
o Saul: This from a man born in England to an English father, telling
us how to be Australian.
o Characterises Abbotts view: some absurdly jingoistic, reductive
view of national identity
o After discrediting Abbott as a traditional Australian, Saul argues
that his ancestors dating back two centuries were Australian,
descended from convicts, and as such I can say that Tony Abbott
does not speak for us.
o Short, high modality sentences: Human rights and mutual respect
are our values. Politicians should champion them.
Often ends a point/argument with these, to enforce his point
of view verbally, and to indicate a new point.
Backing up his arguments with references to other countries and to
international law
o The bill erases all reference in our law to the Refugee Convention.
The Immigration Minister spat the dummy on international law
o Humour: The Minister assured us that Australia will comply with its
international obligations, which is presumably not difficult if
international law is now simply whatever the government says it is.
o We are the 12th largest economy in the world Who will defend the
victims of human rights violations if we dont?
o In their refugee policy, Australia is bribing poor neighbours,
coddling dictators, and undermining constitutionalism in their
effort to create an offshore processing system
o Compares Australias intake of refugees to other countries
Half of Jordans population now are refugees. In the past
week alone, Turkey has received 140 000 refugees more
than Australia has received in decades. That is on top of over
one million already there.
We have no sense of proportion or perspective, like a child
that cannot control itself We have catastrophized and
militarised a pedestrian challenge.
o

Stinginess, selfishness, paranoia, and racism have become

defining characteristics of our nation. contrasts with the
traditional view of the ANZAC legend
Courts diminish the sovereignty of parliament
o It is nave to seriously believe that parliament alone is sufficient to
safeguard human rights. Majority tyranny is not democracy.
o Indifference to human rights is a legacy of our history: It is selfevident to the peoples of countries founded in blood or violence
that human rights should enjoy the strongest possible protection.
o Combats opposing perspective by agreeing, but then urging it on
It is true that giving courts power to uphold human rights
makes them more political, but if this means
empowerment to strike down these injustices then bring it
on.
Enforces this with short, high modality sentences: The price
is worth it. The costs of inaction are unspeakably cruel.
Freedoms agenda
o an ideological war on human rights that pretends to defend them.
o Sarcastic comparison: the Freedom Commissioner is especially
concerned with native vegetation laws impinging on farmers, and
councils preventing ocean front land development. Nelson
Mandelas freedom agenda pales next to this.
o Personifies the agenda using a repeated sentence structure,
beginning with It and then a strong verb, such as It is obsessed,
It denigrates or It fails. This anaphora is an aural technique,
building the momentum and persuasive power of the speech.
Structure
o About halfway through the speech, Saul uses a list of grievances
over human rights breaches. This is important in signposting a
speech, and creating a build-up of arguments, making Sauls case
seem stronger. This is especially the case given that he uses
paragraphs filled with rhetorical questions, starting each with the
confrontational interrogative, why.
Conclusion
o Concludes with a series of instructional statements, using anaphora
of We must to emphasise the need for confrontation and action.