Tuesday, January 26, 2016
An extraordinary outpouring of hate for Australia day
On 26th January, Australians celebrate the arrival of the first British settlers in Australia. We celebrate it as the founding of our nation, which it is. As the Left try their best to rip away all of our traditions, it has become an increasingly popular day. People like their connections to their past so those connections we still have become better appreciated. The supermarkets sell all sorts of patriotic merchandise and you will see lots of cars driving around with Australian flags fluttering from them -- a flag in which the Union Flag of the U.K. is quartered. No ambiguity about our British origins there!
The far-Left do however condemn the day. Just as they condemn Columbus day in America, they call Australia day, invasion day. They regard the prior Aboriginal population as dispossessed. The fact that the Aborigines dispossessed the prior Negrito or "pygmy" race they cover up. But I come from a part of Australia that was the last redoubt of the pygmies so I know the facts of the matter. I have actually seen some of their descendants.
So it was fairly predictable that the far-Leftist Australian webzine "New Matilda" would publish a prolonged howl of rage in the lead up to this year's celebration. I am rather amazed by how prolix it is. It is a very long screed that finds many ways to repeat its condemnations. It must be driven by a white-hot furnace of hate. I give just a few excerpts from it below. I am not going to attempt rejoinders to any of the hate-speech. It is just a re-run of all the old Leftist themes so one would have to rehash most of politics if one wished to refute its assertions. Suffice it to say that it is just about as unbalanced a critique as you could get, unbalanced almost to the point of mental illness.
My family do celebrate the day in the traditional way, with a get together over a BBQ at my brother's place. I think we upset the Leftist stereotype a bit however, as our family includes some people of both Aboriginal and Han Chinese ancestry. All are native-born Australians, however and we do take a considerable interest in our ancestry -- with which we are well-pleased.
Some excerpts from "New Matilda":
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We can all agree that Australia Day is a sickening celebration of jingoism and toxic masculinity that buries beneath its own excretion the invasion, dispossession and genocide on which this nation was built. The argument that Australia Day is just like 1988 satirical science fiction action horror film They Live is more contentious, though no less true.
There's the dominant ideological view of Australia Day which is a god awful hotpot of clich‚s, BBQs, boats and militant racism. Then there's the critique which contains some hard truths about the Indigenous population, asylum seekers, environmental destruction, poverty, homelessness, alcoholism, mental illness and domestic abuse.
This reality is painful for many and leads to aggressive opposition. It explains a lot about the public discourse of our national day, mainstream responses to daily examples of sexism by public figures, and probably the comment section at the end of this article.
Aussies love their garbage ideology.
The two-minute music video is an ultra-conservative fantasy draft of every boring clich‚ you've ever heard about Australia. Set to the tune of Outcast's party anthem `Hey Ya!', it flashes through images of flag umbrellas, the harbour bridge, koalas and kangaroos, BBQs, the baggy green, fireworks, novelty size things, beaches, Uluru, white people, mullets, singlets, cork hats, sports, vegemite, boomerangs, lamingtons, VB and Midnight Oil.
Worse than this inventory of the who's who of the 1970s are the capitalist, gendered and racist messages the song reproduces. We're supposed to `Thank God for our resources coz they are the sources for our wealthy land' as we see footage of mining and the smiling faces of Gina Rinehart, Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer. Thanks be to our capitalist overlords for destroying the environment and feeding us hatred of women and minorities.
We're told `mateship is forever', oh except if you made it to the continent first, you don't eat pork, or you arrived here by boat recently. In fairness, in between all the white people drinking and eating baby sheep, Indigenous folks do get a run. Though only really for their paintings which white people like to hang on the wall, for their athletic ability which white people are obsessed with, and for their dancing which white people like as entertainment.
We also learn that it's cool to binge drink and it makes us really happy. Let's not forget the suffocating masculinity which drowns most of the song. Australia at its core is all about mining, cooking BBQs, being mates, having a beer with the fellas, big things, watching cricket, mullets, singlets and go karting.
It also goes to Zizek's point that ideology is not something imposed on us but instead a spontaneous and natural expression of how we see the world.
As you bowl a few bouncers this Oz Day, recognise that we've never really owned our bloody history of invasion, dispossession, and genocide. Violence and disease decimated the estimated 750,000 Indigenous people living here across 400 nations in 1788. By 1920 there remained 60,000 and they were labelled a `dying race'.
While Paul Keating once gave a nice speech in Redfern and Kevin Rudd said sorry to the Stolen Generations, mainstream Australia has never properly come to terms with our violent past and our discriminatory present. Howard derided an honest reckoning as a `black armband view of history', while in contemporary politics, Abbott said there was `nothing but bush' before white settlement and Bill Shorten can't even bring himself to say the word invasion, opting for the more anodyne `settlement'.
Our failure to fully recognise past atrocities bleeds into our continued execution of them. A long line of white governments have denied Aboriginal people the right to self-determination and as a result these communities suffer the grossest social, economic, legal and political inequality.
Life expectancy is about fifteen years lower, infant mortality three times higher and youth incarceration 24 times higher compared to these rates for non-Indigenous Australians. Meanwhile the Recognise campaign stumbles on interminably to distract us all from the slashing of Indigenous services, the closure of Indigenous communities and the urgent need for a Treaty.
As you drive your Ute to Bondi next Tuesday, see that for a society founded by boat people, we have very little empathy for them. Australia runs remote pacific prison camps with endemic physical and sexual abuse, described by Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry as `factories for producing mental illness'.
Our detention regime has killed Reza Barati, Hamid Kehazaei, Fazel Chegeni and over 30 other innocent people since 2000, and deported many others to their deaths in their home countries. 159 children currently languish behind barbed wire offshore and on the mainland, while in Nauru, children are forced into schools where they are abused and sexually harassed.
Over 100 nations lined up late last year to spotlight our crimes against humanity. In 2013, the United Nations Human Rights Committee found Australia had committed 143 violations of international law. We've breached not only the Refugee Convention, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, but also the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention Against Torture.
Take a moment during `Fitzy and Wippa's Blokey Bonanza' to think about how Australia not only systematically abuses the rights of Indigenous peoples and asylum seekers, but also ruthlessly despoils the environment. Since coming to power in 2013 the Coalition government has really stepped up the assault on the natural world. They've tried to delist 74,000 hectares of Tasmania's World Heritage listed forests and weaken the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act, hoping to hand over environmental powers to the states. They've reviewed marine reserves and defunded environmental defender's offices and the CSIRO.
They've dismantled our climate policy, attacked the renewable energy industry and approved mega-mines in Queensland which alone will be the world's seventh largest polluter. They've approved dredging and an immense coal port expansion on the doorstep of the Great Barrier Reef. They've retained $10 billion a year in fossil fuel subsidies. Meanwhile, 2015 was in the top 5 hottest years ever for Australia, climate change is intensifying floods and bushfires across the country, and Peter Dutton thinks it's a good time to have a laugh about entire Pacific Islands going under water. Lol Peter, Lol.
As you re-watch `The Best of The Footy Show 1994-2002' for the 10th time, spare a thought for Muslims who experience racism at three times the national average as Bolt, Jones, Morrison, Abbott and the like stoke Islamophobia, riots and Reclaim Australia.
As you rub sun cream on your pet Koala's back, cast your mind to a decade of war in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria and the over 1 million civilians Australia and our allies have killed in the process. See Australia's shared responsibility in the destabilisation of the Middle East, the rise of ISIS and the global refugee crisis.
As you tuck into a vegemite coated novelty sized lamington, try not to throw up as you read that Australia's wealthiest 1 per cent have more money than 60 per cent of the population, and the nine richest people have more than the bottom 20 per cent. Know that the gap between rich and poor has grown by 13 per cent over the past decade and will jump another 10 per cent over the next 10 years. While the Australian media cares a great deal about which mansion our $200 million Prime Minister might grace with his presence, it seems to give less than two shits that there are 105,237 people without a bed to sleep in. Perhaps you could have a couple over at your spare mansion tonight Mr Turnbull?
More HERE
DEFEND OUR CONSTITUTION
Message from Michael Darby, a Patron of Queenslanders for Constitutional Monarchy
The Prime Minister and the Premiers have reached agreement! Have they resolved to exert all possible effort to abolish slavery worldwide? Are they united in a desire to eliminate all mosquito-borne diseases? Do they now share a commitment to a timetable for delivery of the inexpensive energy craved by nearly a billion of the world's poor who presently do not own a light bulb? Are they committed to cleaning up the trash which blights the world's oceans and waterways?
No indeed, in Australia our elected and unelected leaders have different priorities. They want Australia to become a Republic, so that time-honoured constraints on the power of governments will be removed.
And whether through ignorance or dishonesty or both, this bunch is pretending that their campaign is about installing an Australian Head of State. The splendid Australian Constitution does not mention a Head of State, but for the benefit of those obsessed with the term, the most practical definition of a Head of State is the individual who commands the Armed Forces. In Australia that is the Governor-General, who performs all the functions expected of a Head of State.
When a bunch of high-taxing, high-spending opportunists all agree on something, we can be certain that the potential beneficiaries will be the high-taxing, high spending opportunists. Shame on them! God Save the Queen.
For all the ABC producers who have wished for an opportunity to present the Monarchist viewpoint, my phone number is 0402 558 947.
SOURCE
Lynton Crosby: Conservative strategist named Australian of the Year in the UK
Lynton Crosby, the top Liberal Party strategist and adviser to the British Conservative Government, has been named Australian of the Year in the UK.
Australia's High Commissioner Alexander Downer bestowed the award upon Mr Crosby at a gala ceremony at Australia House in London.
In the past, it has gone to people such as singer Kylie Minogue, performer Barry Humphries and bomb survivor Gill Hicks.
Mr Crosby was awarded the honour for being a "world leader in his profession and a great Australian", according to the Australia Day Foundation.
He helped steer the UK Conservative Party and Prime Minister David Cameron to an unexpected re-election victory last year.
Mr Crosby was also behind MP Boris Johnston's successful campaign to become Mayor of London in 2008 and played a key role in keeping John Howard's Liberal government in power in Australia.
He was controversially awarded a knighthood in Britain's New Year Honours.
UK Opposition MPs were critical of the decision to award him a knighthood, given his work had been for the benefit of the Conservative Party rather than for Britain.
Mr Crosby was paid $4.9 million by the Conservative Party for his services during the election campaign.
The Australian of the Year in the UK award is selected based on their "achievements in the year immediately prior... and ongoing contribution to the Australia/UK community" as well as being an "inspirational role model", according to the Australia Day Foundation.
SOURCE
A day to unite or divide the nation?
Australia Day means different things to different people. For some, it is a day for flag waving, citizenship ceremonies, and backyard barbeques. Yet for many Aboriginal people, the day commemorating when the British first settled in Australia, is not a day for celebrating, but a day of mourning — known as Invasion Day.
Every year on Australia Day protest marches are held around the country with people proclaiming: "We won’t celebrate Invasion Day” "No pride in genocide” and "Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.”
While people are free to do what they like on Australia Day, focusing on past injustices and portraying Aboriginal people as victims does little to empower Aboriginal people.
Contrast the ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality that organisations such as Warriors of Aboriginal Resistance and First Nations Liberation embody with the words of Bess Price’s daughter, Jacinta Price — who wrote, in a recent Facebook post that has gone viral:
"Instead of teaching our kids to feel pain and resentment… and painting white people as oppressors and racists and black people as victims…let’s teach them love, strength and acceptance.”
As the daughter of an Aboriginal mother and a white father, Jacinta is acutely aware she would not exist if it weren’t for Australia’s history. Instead of emphasising people’s differences, she advocates focusing on what Australians have in common.
"Ultimately we are all human beings and our physical differences should not set us apart.”
So on Tuesday, ignore the media reports about the protestors marching down George Street — and take on board Jacinta’s message about celebrating what unites us rather than what divides us.
SOURCE
Patriotism: chop chop
Australia Day looms, and once again the nation is embroiled in a heated debate about Meat and Livestock Australia’s lamb ads.
The interesting thing about this year’s fuss is not that the 2016 campaign has become the most complained about advertisement in Australia’s history, but that MLA has successfully transformed consumption of one its products into patriotic duty. Forget a marketing coup: in 2016, even mild indifference to chops nears risking prosecution under Part 5.1 of the Criminal Code Act.
Of course, loving lamb is just one of our solemn obligations as citizens this Australia Day. Here are some others:
Putting things on the barbie
Tied to our duty to eat lamb is the requirement to cook it outdoors. Ideally, this should be performed only by family members who are incapable of even boiling an egg. This ensures the meat surface is transformed into a charcoal bark but the inside remains raw. As the Australian Constitution reminds us on every page, this is exactly how the Fathers of the Federation intended us to eat.
Quarrelling about the Australian flag
It would not be Australia Day without a national argument about the relevance of our flag. For one day every year, litres of ink are spilt in violently debating whether we need a new one. A series of pundits are trundled out to rubbish the idea, and then on January 27 we return to the real world without another whisper about the flag until next Australia Day.
Watching Lleyton lose
Since the dawn of the Federation, it has been a cherished Australian tradition to cheer on Lleyton Hewitt as he jousts in the Australian Open — and then act surprised when he is defeated on day two. With Hewitt’s ageing bones now disintegrating into dust, 2016 is his last year at the Open. To miss it would be tantamount to treason.
Now go and have a chop, please.
SOURCE
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