ANZAC Day 2011

In an article about ANZAC Day in Good Weekend (a supplement to the Sydney Morning Herald), Mark Dapin reminds us:

"In the 1930's, April 25 was a funeral mass for the 60,000 (Australians) who died in WWI. Solemn marchers walked through the silent cities, with thoughts of the butcher, the postman, the railway man whose names were engraved on the memorial plinths at the crossroads in every country town."

A very different vibe to the propaganda circus we have today...

Celebrating mass murder.

"With the forthcoming ANZAC celebrations later this month, any of you guys
planning on attending any of the parades? If so, which parade(s)?" the biker asked.

"What is it about the insanity that is war, that you want to celebrate, mate?" I replied.

Fighting against imperialism...

Out there in the murky mists of the blogosphere, a blogger who shall remain nameless said:

"(My father) died defending Australia against 'imperialism' in 1945."

But Australia was already very much usurped by an empire. The British Empire. And it had no problem with that whatsoever.

And subsequently, by the early fifties, White Orstraya, feeling decidedly paranoid now that the British Empire it had been sucking up to was crumbling, quickly ducked in behind the apron strings of the White Supremacist American Empire.

Phew... Our whiteness was looking safe once more...

So you see, his father died trying to defend a racist, white supremacist empire against the imperial manouverings of a racist "yellow" empire. We only resisted because of race and our own imperial imperatives (which were very much race-based anyway.) It was all about asserting or defending race-based empires.

Mind you, at the time it was what one did. And if you were "our mob", it was a very pukka thing to do.

But the writing was already on the wall, so to speak. Joseph Rudyard Kipling, writer, poet, and noted celebrator of British imperialism, wrote, after his son's death in WWI, "If any question why we died, tell them, because our fathers lied."

* * *
Postscript: It's clear from emails I have received that I need to clarify what I'm on about here. My aim was to highlight the hypocrisy of an empire which, in the longer view of history, had no qualms about invading a whole swag of countries and committing all manner of atrocities, suddenly gets all self-righteous when it finds itself on the receiving end of similar dynamics.

Reality and survival - redux

This, from three years ago, still has traction for me.

Gerard Henderson's Logic - Episode 2

This guy never ceases to amaze me. I'm not sure he's ever understood what a fallacy of logic was, or why. Here's a case in point: In today's Sydney Morning Herald, talking about Spry and Menzies, he offers this statement:

"That they acted in accordance with their perception of the national interest, and not for party political reasons, is evident from the fact that it took over half a century for their decisions to become public."

Come again? So, according to Henderson, the fact that it took over fifty years for their decisions to become public is proof that they acted in the national interest. Really? How does that work?

I'd like to see a schematic diagram of this guy's logic circuits. I bet there's a bad solder joint somewhere.

Episode 1 can be found here.

Has socialism lost its social responsibility?

A guy from elsewhere in cyberspace wants to comment on this question and he wants to do it here, so I've created this post to facilitate it.

America, you're fired!

Sarah Palin's Rabid Right failed to bring the US government to a halt the other day. Seems wiser heads among the Republicans have locked those loonies in the broom closet for now.

But just when you thought sanity might re-emerge in US politics, Donald Trump has reportedly dropped hints that he might run for president.

Now there's a man who could lead the US into the wilderness faster than you can say "you're fired!"

Musings of a village idiot - part 1

Well, it's been a while, eh?

So I'll deal with some of the bigger topics first, to get them out of the way. And by far the biggest topic is The World and The American Empire which thinks it's the world's ruler, judge, sheriff, and executioner.

So, dear reader, how should we of the 21st century think of our world? As a global village, or a jungle in which each tribe struggles for its isolated survival?

I think common sense tells us it's way too late to see the world in any way other than a global village. But there is a problem with the global village model. Villages of old existed within a single tribe or nation which could be identified by a single culture. The global village comprises all tribes, all nations, and all cultures.

Which brings us right back to The American Empire. It makes up only a small fraction of the global village, yet it seeks to impose its will on the entire village. It has convinced itself that it's culturally superior whilst murmurs of "only in your lunchtime, buddy" are getting ever louder out there in the rest of the village. Trouble is brewing. The arrogance and hubris of The American Empire is seriously being questioned.

And right now trouble is also brewing within The Empire itself. Extremists are trying to hijack The Superior Culture and are threatening to shut down its government. Amazing.

We live in interesting times. Waiting is.

Blogaholic...

For ages now I have been grappling with these questions:

[1] To blog or not to blog?

[2] If I do blog, should I start a new one or continue with this one?

Well, this morning I woke up with this realisation: "Ich bin ein Blogger!!!"

And god spoke to me, and she said "Thou shalt continue Diogenesian Discourse or thou shalt incur my wrath."

So there you have it...