The Stranger's Case

The immigration issue is front and centre in the Australian media, both social and legacy, at the moment.

There's an irony in the historical fact that our original settlers were outcasts, strangers, and people the British deported as criminals, at the same time as some are calling for deportation of "undesirables". Originally, the raison d'etre of our nation began with solving a problem of "undesirables".

Some of the posts on social media expose a deep seated fear of the "other", the "stranger". 

I look back on my lived experience, gentle reader, and remember how the presence of the "other", the stranger, influenced my attitudes and values.

I have an early memory of my mother giving a pair of my shoes to an aboriginal lad of my age when she was his teacher. The school was in central Queensland, and the bitumen road used to burn his feet when he walked to school. I wasn't happy, because they were my "good" shoes, and I was very proud of them, but understood in my child's mind, her motive.

Mum's values of compassion have been passed on to me and my five siblings.

When I was posted to an infantry unit (7 RAR) in 1969, I ended up in a rifle section commanded by a West Indian corporal who was our boss, and many of the platoon members would be regarded by some as "others".

They included a bloke who was Polish, born in Berlin of refugee parents, a British migrant who was unlucky enough to be in Australia when he turned twenty, and was thus included in the national service lottery draw, a Sri Lankan with a Scottish name, a Murri from Central Australia, and a Bundjalung man from NSW. 

I remember at Canungra when we were practicing contact drills and shouting orders, that one of the Canungra staff observed "These blokes need an interpreter".

Nevertheless, we worked well as a unit, and were consequential in 5 platoon winning the best platoon competition.

During my working life I taught in special schools, and ran five of them at different stages. I remember a very effective Asian Occupational Therapist, and staff from all over the globe. 

Later, in a regional management position in remote North West Queensland, I was the only non-Aboriginal person on a NATSIEP* committee, and spent hours travelling and working with the committee, many of whom were members of the stolen generation.

So when I hear some of the bile directed at migrants ("others") it makes me wonder what these people fear.

Perhaps we have to go back to the immortal bard to understand where this bile is coming from. Sir Ian McKellen appeared on Stephen Colbert's Late show in February this year, and read a piece written by Shakespeare in 1593.

This 400 year-old piece puts it very clearly. It's worth a watch and a listen. 

*National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders' Education Programme

Kerry O'Brien's Thea Astley Address

 

Image Courtesy The Echo

Kerry O'Brien's Thea Astley address at the Byron Bay's writer's festival on Saturday 15th August is a pretty good diagnosis of what ails our country in 2026.

His address is introduced by Richard Flanagan and is described ain the official programme thus  - "In lessons from history Kerry traces traces the two revolutions that have shaped the perfect storm we now find ourselves in - the digital tsunami and neoliberalism - that have seriously undermined the democracy we've taken for granted since federation". 

He's not wrong.

You can read extracts from the address here published in the Echo, but I'll take a few quotes to give you idea of what he's on about, in case you don't have the time to listen to the whole address which takes about an hour.

He covered both neoliberalism and digitisation, describing the first of these two as "The ideology that has driven and coerced government as we once knew it to make itself smaller, privatise its services, nobble the trade unions - which have been one of humanity's great civilising forces - and cede the dominant role in determining the kind of society we want to be to the free market and the alleged freedom of the individual, rather than the imperative of the common good".

He described the social media phenomenon that has developed on the back of digitisation as "rapid, personalised, global, more accessible, largely ungoverned, and is far more widely opened to toxic manipulation and the perpetration of evil".

He's nailed it; as he always did as a working journalist.

The Difference Between Arson and a Barbecue

 

Pic courtesy Holocaust Encyclopedia

No doubt, gentle reader, if you are interested at all in local (Australian) politics, you're across the controversy about Pauline Hanson's appeal against her conviction for a breach of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act of 1975. That law makes it unlawful to act in public in a manner that is reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate a person or group based on their race, colour, or national or ethnic origin.

There's no doubt that she is in breach of that law. It's only necessary to read what she posted on X (formerly Twitter) in September 2022 telling Senator Faruqi to "pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan".

That evidence is clear, as is the likelihood that those words were designed to offend, insult or humiliate migrants like Senator Faruqi. No court could find otherwise. Appealing that verdict in the High Court would be either an attempt to keep the issue in the news cycle or to keep lawyers in business.

Hanson's supporters claim that the senator was simply exercising free speech. The term "free speech" can be used to cover a multitude of sins, but it does not include a call to violence or hate. Telling a senator belonging to a religious group hated by a minority that she should leave her country of citizenship is precisely that - hate speech.

It resembles closely the kind of speech directed against minorities throughout the last century which invariably led to episodes of institutional violence towards that minority. That's simply history.

Calling what Hanson wrote in September 2022 "free speech" is the same as calling arson a barbecue.

Trump in Drag

Pic courtesy The Australian

Last Wednesday we saw Pauline Hanson front the Press Club.

She was given a free pass to talk for almost twice as long as most speakers, and we were exposed to all the ugliness of her grievance politics.

She abused journalists, trotted out a range of the same cliches that she's been whining about for over thirty years, and continues to be unable to pronounce the name of our country. That ought to tell you something.

But to me, the most alarming feature of her address was its resemblance to the style and delivery of Donald Trump.

First of all, like Trump, her style is incoherent and aggressive. Her delivery was peppered with half-truths, insinuations, and condemnations.

It was an appeal to the darker sides of our national characteristics, those of xenophobia, arrogance and paranoia. The Australian values of tolerance, a fair go, and generosity didn't get a guernsey.

And her speech was replete with figures which, when subject to analysis, are largely confected.

She said - 

Again, the 2021 census showed that 1 in 4 people, 23% speak a language other than English at home, the most common being, Mandarin and Arabic.

Then -

How can you generate social cohesion if people can’t speak the language? In that same census, 872,000 people self-reported, as speaking English “not well” or “not at all.”

When this is examined, there is a clear inference that 23% of people who speak a language other than English at home are a problem. She tries to conflate bilingual Australians with non-English speaking Australians. Whilst she doesn't explicitly state it, her followers will conflate the two sets of statistics. It's not what she said that's the problem, it's what her followers heard. That's classic dog-whistling.

Then there was this -

Forty-three per cent of low-income renters were experiencing rental stress. Up to 3.2 million people in Australia were at risk of losing their home, and we know that around 130,000 Australians are sleeping rough every night.

She provided no definition of "low-income renters", nor did she reference her figures. Then she said - 

According to official data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics  7,600 people sleep rough on any given night across Australia. 

This figure represents roughly 6.2% of the total homeless population, which exceeds 122,000 individuals. It looks as if she's done some more dodgy conflation, inferring that all people classified as "homeless" always sleep rough. Again, she talks about two separate sets of statistics, and uses the breakdown of one set, then applies them to both. She doesn't do this explicitly, but the inference is enough for many of her followers who can't see past the confected outrage, to wrap them up together. 

Again, her statistics are dodgy, as is the notion that there is a direct connection between the homeless crisis and immigration. It simply doesn't add up. She confuses common sense with ignorant assumption, and encourages her followers to do the same.

She talks about the Salvation Army's Red Shield report, and lists a series of figures from the respondents to that survey. Again, she neglects to mention who those respondents were. The survey pool was a total 4400 respondents across the country. The respondents were vulnerable community members who had accessed the charity's Emergency Relief services (such as Doorways services) within the prior 12 months. So again, she's referencing 4400 people from a population of 28 million.

She then goes on the quote percentages from this group of 4400 people, and pretends to apply it to the total population. Again, she doesn't explicitly do this, but leaves it to her supporters to join the dots, even though what they will come up has only a casual relationship with the truth. This is textbook Trump.

 Food insecurity is unacceptable in a country like Australia, but with a population of 28 million, it's nowhere near the crisis that her dodgy statistics imply. Most of what she says is skillfully designed to generate outrage, and outrage plays well with semi-literates on social media. It feeds the algorithms, puts money in the pockets of big tech, and contributed in no small measure to the popularity of Trump. 

Trump's relationship with Musk puts the social media-populist politician relationship in stark relief. Hanson's relationship with Rinehart is a horse of a similar colour. Many billionaires are quick to chum up with politicians that can get into a position of power, and legislate to enhance their portfolios. Besides, Rinehart's father was renowned for his answer to what he called the Aboriginal problem, He advocated that indigenous Australians should be bred out by doping their water supply to make them sterile.

Much of what I see in Hanson resonates with my lived experience in the sixties and seventies. The injection of fear into our political culture at that time had me sent to a futile war as a conscript. The fear was communism, used by a lazy Coalition government. The political manipulation of that fear went close to costing me my life, and it killed a couple of my mates. 

Hanson sells fear of Muslims, Asians, and Aborigines. Selling fear to gain power is often catastrophic. A quick scan of twentieth century history reveals this solid truth. 

Australian voters woke up by 1972, but much harm had been done by then. Let's hope they wake up to Hanson a bit sooner.

She resembles, after all, Donald Trump in drag.

Another Country

 

The phrase "the past is another country" is often quoted, but it is actually a corruption of "the past is a foreign country" from the opening lines of L.P.Hartley's 1953 novel The Go-Between.   

I won't pretend to have read it, gentle reader, but the work deals with loss of innocence, the nature of memory, and the ripple effect of a single event.

Yesterday, with a group of men about my age, I visited what used to be called the Canungra Jungle Training Centre after an absence of fifty seven years.

I went through Canungra in October 1969 as a member of 5 platoon B Coy 7 RAR. We did the battle efficiency course, and I recall 5 platoon actually winning the battalion prize for the best score on that course, which was a surprise, as none of us were individually brilliant. We were, however, a good team, with good leadership.

After being refused a vote at the federal election (held on 25th October), we headed South towards Wiangaree where we completed a post course exercise, characterised by rain and mud, and lots of slippery slopes.

The base has completely changed, although there were relics of the original confidence course still visible. These days, they're museum pieces, as most of us are. Back in 1969, the accommodation was mostly tentage. These days, there are some very fancy buildings, including an officers' mess built in neo-colonial style.

Photography was prohibited on the actual base, but we were allowed to take pictures at the Vietnam memorial just outside the barrier fence.

The photo shows a plaque commemorating those lost in Vietnam, and was written by a veteran. It reflects very well what many of us returning from Vietnam feel about the men who did not return.

A Welcoming Commemoration?

Pic courtesy Wikipedia

Since Anzac Day, gentle reader, we've been inundated, in both social and legacy media, with stories about people booing at dawn ceremonies.

The targets of the misbehaviour (because that's simply what it is) have been the welcome to country ceremonies delivered by a local indigenous person.

Almost without exception, people responding to the issue take opposing sides, and often become very aggressive about it.

For me, there are three aspects.

The first is about how we should behave at public commemorations. I was brought up in the tradition of respectfully observing these commemorations, and that booing (for example) is very bad behaviour. To me, it matters not form what the piece of public ritual takes, the mere fact that it is publicly symbolic means it should be publicly respected. 

If you object to it, you take it up with the organisers. You don't publicly abuse the presenter. I'm a lifelong republican, but I don't boo "God Save the King".

Then there is the nature of the ritual. In the case of Welcome to Country, it's a gesture of welcome. It can be seen as a measure of reconciliation. There is a ritual involved which has been appropriated from indigenous culture, and its intent in that ancient culture was to avoid conflict.

On that ancient traditional level, it's about peace. On another level, especially since the failed referendum, it's about reconciliation. How it can be seen as offensive on either of these two levels is beyond me.

Finally, there's the context of the significance and solemnity of the Anzac commemoration. My attitude to this has been coloured by personal experience. I was conscripted to fight in Vietnam in 1970, and finished up in a rifle section. Two of my companions in that section were Murris. One was from Alice Springs in Central Australia, an Eastern Arrernte man.  The other was a Bundjalung man from Kyogle. 

The digger from Alice Springs was seriously wounded when we hit bunkers in April 1970, and ended up on a  medevac flight back to Australia. He never completely recovered and died in 1996 at age 49. Both these men were respected members of our unit, but were not well treated on return to Australia. As far as I'm concerned, any misbehaviour directed at a Welcome to Country ceremony is a personal affront to every indigenous veteran.

The fact that some politicians have jumped on the outrage bandwagon (on the one hand outraged that there is a Welcome to Country at the dawn service, and on the other outraged at the booing) is sad.

We ended up in Vietnam on the back of a political exercise, and that did not work out well for us or the Vietnamese. It was particularly tragic for the five hundred plus Australians who died there, and the thirteen hundred plus wounded.  

Let's keep grubby politics out of the issue.

It dishonours all of those who served, especially the scores of indigenous men who defied regulations prohibiting their eligibility to serve and signed up anyway.

A Just War or Just a War?

Pic courtesy Leunig and Jason Goroncy

 No doubt, gentle reader, you have come across the criticism of Pope Leo by the POTUS.

On the face of it, none of Trump's Truth Social post  makes a great deal of political sense. He needs the conservative Catholic vote in states like Pennsylvania, michigan and Wisconsin, which were fundamental to his election in 2024.

What is also hard to fathom is his grounds for this criticism. His Truth Social post talks about Leo being "weak on crime, weak on nuclear weapons", and mentions a meeting with David Axelrod. 

Now Leo has not made any definitive statement about crime since he began his reign as pontiff,  apart from criticising state crime in Iran after the reported killing of protestors. Maybe Trump doesn't believe there is any such thing as state crime..

As for nuclear weapons, Leo has described nuclear weapons as "a profound horror" and "an affront to humanity".

So maybe Trump is unhappy about the Pope's criticism of the war against Iran.

That criticism did not name either Trump or the USA, but did call for deescalation. 

In any event, the Pope is qualified (unlike J D Vance) to talk about the moral theology underpinning the notion of a just war. For a war to be just, a number of criteria have to be met. Frank Brennan discusses this in his homily given on the Third Sunday of Easter.

He quotes Cardinal McElroy of Washington, who pointed out that the war was not necessary, that diplomacy had been bulldozed, and that there was ambiguity about the intention and purpose of the military commitment.

The principles of a just war are that it has just cause, is a last resort, is declared by a proper authority, has a right intention, and a reasonable chance of success, and that the end is proportional to the means being used.

Trump's "just cause" has ricocheted between preventing Iran accessing nuclear weapons and changing the regime. Strangely enough, there was an agreement called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) supervised by the International Atomic Energy Agency, limiting Iran to nuclear material insufficient to construct a bomb, but that agreement was dissolved in May 2018.

Guess who withdrew from the agreement. I'll let you guess. It wasn't Iran.

Trump appealed to the Iranian people to overthrow the mad Mullahs, but was unwilling to provide any material support, so any sane observer might be tempted to doubt that genuine regime change is part of a just cause.

As for "proper authority", Trump doesn't have congressional approval, and the "reasonable chance of success"  seems to have evaporated with Iran's persistent intransigence.

The USA's attack on Iran in the middle of diplomatic negotiations reminds me eerily of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour on 7th December 1941.

Was Imperial Japan's aggression part of a "just war" back then? The lead up and sequence events are similar. There's a fair chance that the outcome for the aggressor this time will also be similar.

Groundhog Day

M109 at the Horseshoe

Back in May 1970, I was a reluctant member of 5 platoon, B Coy, 7 RAR, and about one third into my sojourn in South Vietnam which lasted two hundred and ninety eight days.

I had been told that I was there to support a commitment to achieving freedom for the people of South Vietnam.  The fact that back home people were preparing for the Moratorium marches which were about to be the largest turnout of demonstrators in Australian history was a complication to that simple notion.

Another complication was that the people shooting at us, and routinely laying landmines to kill us, were actually Vietnamese. They apparently had a different idea of freedom from ours, and had dug up the mines the task force had deployed from Dat Do to the sea to use them against us.

I was bothered less by these complications than the media commentators. My focus was on keeping myself and my section mates alive, and I worked very diligently at that. Obviously, I was successful.  

The closest I went to being killed or wounded  during my tour was by our own people, in two different "friendly fire" incidents. I think the Americans coined the phrase. It has a similar ring to it as does "collateral damage". We're hearing plenty of US coined rationalised euphemisms at the moment, many of them coming from their president. 

The first friendly fire incident occurred during Operation Finschhafen on Friday 13th March. The second was a bit later, in May, although I can't recall the exact date.

By May, we had been doing heaps of ambushing. On this particular occasion, we set up an ambush on a track junction. It was within artillery range of the Horseshoe where there was a detachment of US mobile M109 howitzers.  These things had a bore of 155mm and a range of 20 kms depending on what they were firing.

We radioed our position (Locstat) back to ATF headquarters who would have notified all friendlies in the area of the grid reference of our location, and set about standing to just as the sun was setting.

We heard primaries at the Horseshoe going off in the distance. This was routine, as the Yanks used what they called Harassment and Interdiction (H & I) to annoy the VC. They would pick what they thought was a likely location for the presence of the enemy, and fire off a salvo or two in the off chance that they might kill someone. Their view of a "likely location", the track junction, coincided with ours. 

What was not routine was the incredible noise these things made as they tumbled over our heads and landed just forward of our position. Next morning we found that the distance they landed from our harbour perimeter was about 75 metres. Given that they were advertised as having a lethal killing effect within 50 metres, that was far too close.  

Our platoon Sig got on the radio without reference from our platoon commander, and called "checkfire all locations". We heard an acknowledgement simultaneous with the sound of a second set of primaries, and understood with terrifying clarity that a second salvo was on the way. The next 45 seconds or so was a very long time.

The second salvo was, if anything, closer than the first, but as the rounds were coming from behind, the shrapnel mostly went forward. We had not dug shell scrapes. The ground at that time of the year was not conducive to quick digging, and the soil rocky with a mixture of clay and granite.

On returning to the Horseshoe at the end of the operation, we would notice the sweet smell of marijuana wafting across from the lines of A Battery, 2nd Battalion, 35th Field Artillery, the unit in question, on many humid evenings. The gunners were obviously seeking solace from time to time. Perhaps there was a distraction which had prevented them from checking for friendlies.

Fifty six years later, the Yanks are still firing off ordnance without, apparently, any clear understanding of the consequences.

In my lifetime, not a lot has changed.

 

Regime Change?

Mass gatherings of Iranians filled the streets of Tehran and other major cities - Image courtesy newsgram 

Given the current US intervention in the Middle East, gentle reader, maybe it's time to  conduct a quick and dirty review of American previous attempts to create regime change.

Let’s go back over fifty years to the war in Vietnam.

The 1956 Geneva Accords provided for elections to unify Vietnam. 

The Americans dismissed this agreement and no elections were held. If they had been, Ho Chi Minh would have won in a landslide, which the Americans understood, and was the reason they welched on the agreement.

The war ground on for another twenty years, killing millions of Vietnamese, fifty seven thousand Americans and over five hundred Australians before the country was unified in 1975.

The regime that landed there was not what the Americans wanted.

Then we could look at Iraq.

The 2003 American shock and awe exercise ended in an ISIS caliphate which lasted until 2019, the lead up to which killed hundreds of thousands of  Iraqi casualties, killed 4492 Americans and left Iraq in a divided mess from which it is slowly emerging.

Then there was Afghanistan. The Americans came and went (and we lost 47 Australian diggers in the process) and the country is now run by a thuggish quasi theocracy which has returned it to the Middle Ages.

So forgive me if I am unimpressed by Trump telling anyone who will listen that he is going to save the Iranian people and deliver them democracy.

I’ve heard it all before….

Names on the Wall

Wall of remembrance

On a recent trip to Canberra to participate in the 75th Anniversary of National Service, I took the opportunity to attend the daily last post ceremony held at the pool of reflection at the Australian War Memorial.

It was a moving ceremony, attended as it was by a lot of Vietnam veterans. There was a sea of grey hair and the setting sun glinted on Vietnamese campaign medals.

Pool of reflection

The soldier remembered was signalman Alexander Henry Young, a Nasho killed at the Battle of Coral Balmoral on 16th May 1968.

The wall of remembrance reminded me of the Vietnam veterans' memorial in Washington which I visited in 2018. There are 57000 plus names on that wall. There are 521 Australian names on the Canberra wall.

Washington memorial

The first two names from 7RAR on the right hand column are from B Coy, and record the deaths of two diggers who died in April 1970 when we hit a bunker system. I remember it well.

One died of heat exhaustion after our overnight company insertion on foot into the AO, and the other was killed by shrapnel from a rocket propelled grenade when 4 platoon assaulted the bunkers.

The third name down from top right was a soldier who initially transferred out of 7RAR when his father complained to the local federal member that his son's thick glasses would be a major problem in a rifle section in Vietnam. This soldier was put before the Eastern Command Medical Board and declared fit to serve. He was reposted to C Company on 14th May and killed on 6th June in a mine incident, the day after my twenty-third birthday.

May they rest in peace.

Gum Free Capital

 

I had a reason to be in Canberra for a few days, gentle reader, in connection with speaking gig at the 75th Anniversary of National Service Commemoration.

Canberra is different.

It's like another country. There are small things.

For example, I wanted to freshen my mouth after a long flight, so I asked for chewing gum at an airport newsagent. I was told, quite sternly, that there was no gum available. Asking "why", I was informed that it is "unhygienic".

Now I thought that Singapore was the only place where you couldn't buy gum, but not so.

Then there's driving in Canberra. It's also different. Apart from the extensive network of ring roads and roundabouts, there's also a limitation on the word "street" I kid you not. There are few streets in Canberra.

There are Drives, Crescents, Closes, Avenues, Circuits and Places. The streets are there, but generally only residential areas contain them. There obviously was a need for a posher term, when it came to titling the roads in the national capital.

The setup of traffic lanes is also unique. Apparently the connecting roads are designed to allow higher speeds than is typical in most cities. It works if you know your way around. I didn't, and even with the benefit of a navigation system in my hired car, got lost frequently.

The fact that the car I was given was not what I'd selected didn't help. It was European (Volkswagen Tiguan T-Roc) and I was told it was an "upgrade". The indicators were on the wrong side of the steering column, which meant much windscreen wiping when cornering, and the connections for my phone cable incompatible.

Those issues, accompanied with the start-stop fuel saving engine feature, and the dual clutch automatic transmission made it a pig of a machine to drive, and I eventually parked it in my hotel car park and used taxi vouchers.

Finding eating places is also a challenge. The familiar commercial strips were absent, and if there are supermarkets I couldn't find them. Apparently there are five altogether (Coles and Woolworths) but They proved elusive.

Canberra is different....

 

Deja Vu

About 56 years ago, four students at Kent State University were shot dead by the Ohio National guard.

I remember it well, as I was at the time a rifleman in 7 RAR and we were patrolling on operation Concrete. The news filtered through to us when we got back to Nui Dat at the end of the operation. The students were protesting the invasion of Cambodia, an event that was happening only 100 Kms to the North West of our location. 

Neil Young released "Ohio" shortly after the massacre, and despite the fact that Nixon was re-elected in 1972, the impact of this song, together with publicity about the My Lai Massacre  (which was in news at about the same time) began to have a profound effect on public opinion against the war.

Bruce Springsteen has released Streets of Minneapolis which is already having an impact given the extent of its shares on social media.

There has been, and always will be, a visceral reaction across the Pacific  to US citizens being shot by uniformed people in their own country.

This incident may represent a turning point in US public opinion.

It's certainly deja vu. 

(The words mean "already seen").

 

Advice for the Troops

 

When I was on the way to Vietnam on the HMAS Sydney in February 1970, we were given a pamphlet outlining how we were expected to behave as soldiers in our interactions with Vietnamese civilians.

We had very little contact with civvies, except on leave in Vung Tau, so it wasn't all that useful, but coming across this little piece of history online the other day, reminded me that the military did make an effort to provide some factual information for its soldiers.

In the fact sheet above, issued to American GIs in World War Two, the military explained the phenomenon of fascism, the ideology that these same GIs were fighting.

Taking some of that advice, and applying it to the current situation under the Trump administration, is a revelatory exercise. 

The Fact Sheet #64 was entitled "Can We Spot It?"

The second paragraph begins with - 

Any fascist attempt to gain power in America would not use the exact Hitler pattern. It would work under the guise of "super-patriotism" and "super-Americanism". 

Trump's slogan is "Make America Great Again". 

It goes on to list three fascist aims -

1. Pitting of religious, racial and economic groups in order to break down national unity - In the United States native fascists have often been anti-Catholic, anti-Jew, anti-Negro, anti-Labor, anti foreign-born"

That is a pretty accurate summary of what is happening in the USA now, where members of minority groups are being taken off the streets into detention. It has an application in this country as well, when you look at the hate that is daily posted on social media, usually referring to Indigenous Australians, Muslim Australians, and Asian Australians. It's the bread and butter of One Nation.

2. Fascists cannot tolerate such religious and ethical concepts as "the brotherhood of man". Fascists deny the need for international cooperation. 

This has a very familiar ring when Trump's railing against globalism is considered.

3. It is accurate to call a member of a communist a "communist" - Indiscriminate pinning of the label "Red" on people and proposals which one opposes is a common political device. It iis a favourite trick of native as well as foreign fascists.

This labelling is used with boring frequency. It has the advantage for the neo-fascists in this country and abroad in that it removes any possibility of debate. The label is enough. It is particularly popular on social media, as it operates as a type of shorthand which suits those who are too lazy or ignorant to describe what they actually object to. 

My father fought fascists in World War Two, a war in which forty thousand Australians died.

The ignoramuses who post about the communist menace have short memories, or no understanding of history.

History Rhyming

Pic courtesy holocaust encyclopedia.

If you have any interest in history at all, it's not difficult to detect a pattern emerging aligning the current Trump administration with Weimar Germany and from there the rise of Nazi Germany.

The Nazis needed scapegoats. They had the Jews. Now it's completely obvious that undocumented (or documented) immigrants are the scapegoats. They are building internment camps, (called concentration camps until that term went out of fashion).

You could have assumed the US military command would save the day because they would refuse Trump's illegal orders. They didn't. The motorboat strikes were the litmus test. US military command is getting frog-boiled.

Senator Mark Kelly and Representative Elissa Slotkin saw this coming a mile away. Kelly has been threatened with demotion and loss of his military pension.

Slotkin has received bomb threats at her home, and numerous death threats. The Nazis used intimidation to silence their critics although they were slightly less sophisticated. Remember Trump labelled her actions as "seditious behaviour punishable by death."

The ICE crackdown, is getting incrementally more violent by the week culminating in the shooting of a protestor in Minnesota. Remember Hitler's Brownshirts. Intimidation worked well for them.

That's the domestic stuff. Now for foreign policy.

Hitler first annexed Czechoslovakia and the Sudetenland (1938) and Bohemia and Moravia in 1939 on the basis that the populations were German speaking.

Trump has kidnapped Maduro and threatened Greenland, Cuba and Columbia. There have been reasons given which talk about the security of the USA. Hitler talked about Lebensraum.

Without drawing too long a bow, you could say that under Trump, the USA has been Weimar Germany for awhile. The Germans, however had an excuse to feel aggrieved post Versailles, but Americans aren't dealing with hyperinflation.

Pic courtesy Wikipaedia

Perhaps the MAGA cult, spread by oligarchs like Musk, has been a major influence.

Is Greenland is the new Poland?

Wasn't it JD Vance who said Trump is America's Hitler?

We live in interesting times....

A Royal Commission?

Pic courtesy CPA

We're hearing, gentle reader, a clamour for a Royal Commission after the Bondi tragedy.

I have written that this clamour can be classified under the heading of "cashing in" on that tragedy, but beyond that, perhaps the notion has some merit. 

Let's put aside the politics and the ghoulish behaviour of most of the media, (especially social media) and consider terms of reference for a Royal Commission.

The generality of the call is all we're hearing at the moment, not the specificity* of its terms of reference.

Here are my humble suggestions of what those terms of reference should be -

1. Was there a connection between the events of October 7th 2023 on the Gaza/Israel border, the IDF's response since, and an increase in anti-semitic rhetoric and behaviour in Australia?

2. Was there a connection between the activities of Islamic State Franchises in the Philippines and Australia and the radicalisation of the shooters at Bondi?

3. Was the granting of a firearms licence to Sajid Akram an oversight on the part of the NSW firearms registry?

4. Are the various state firearm's registries competent to ensure that militants don't gain access to weapons, and are they sufficiently resourced to ensure this?

5. Are the National Intelligence Community (NIC) agencies competent to cooperate and share information that will prevent a recurrence of this atrocity?

If this is to be a good faith enquiry to prevent another attack like Bondi, these are the factors that need to be examined. The brief of the commission needs to be narrow and specific to prevent it weaponizing the politics of the situation.

A simpler brief will also allow the findings to be expedited. A Royal Commission needs to heal divisions, rather than exploit them, to unify rather than to blame, and to provide a strategy to prevent this obscenity from happening again.

Any outcome that doesn't ensure the last one is futile. 

*With apologies to Kevin Rudd.

 

Advent

Our family group's hampers

Advent is here, gentle reader. It marks a space on the Christian calendar which involves preparation for Christmas,  and is a season of hope and anticipation.

Given the current international outlook, hope is important right now.

In our local parish, in recognition of the families doing it tough leading up to Christmas, we get involved in the Saint Vincent De Paul advent activity.

This means identifying needy families, donating money to buy mostly non-perishable foods and small goods, and donating them, as a parish to the charity.

SVDP* have the task of identifying the families, and collecting and distributing the hampers. 

Each family group in the parish has the responsibility of buying goods with money donated, putting the hampers together, and getting the hampers to SVDP.

Just a few of the local collection.

Our family group raised a four figure sum, and with that we were able to shop for goods and vouchers until all the funds were used up. The shopping process is interesting, involving couples, the wives doing the selection of goodies based on the description provided of the family, and husbands following around like bookies' clerks tallying up the expenditure.

Fellow shoppers must have wondered what was going on.

Yesterday we delivered the carefully decorated hampers, and they will be distributed tomorrow.

Whilst this level of generosity in our community is positive, the dimensions of the need it seeks to meet is not. 

A combination of factors including housing and energy costs, declining wages and corporate greed is responsible. At least this activity provides an opportunity for ordinary people to do something about it.

Our political leaders don't appear to have any answers. 

*St Vincent De Paul

Scots of the Riverina

 

Pic courtesy John Schumann - The Vagabond Crew

Today, gentle reader, I offer a poem.

The poet is Henry Lawson, and as a consequence of studying a surfeit of his works at primary school, I have never been an admirer of Lawson. Perhaps it's all my Dad's fault. He was, after all my teacher from grades five to eight, and was very fond of Lawson.

Sixty two thousand Australians were killed in the First World War, and the narrative of the poem no doubt held true for many. 

We forget the deep wounds left by this conflict until we understand that with a population of 4.9 million, as it was then, the casualty figure set proportionally in today's Australia would have generated three hundred thousand deaths.

Scots of the Riverina Henry Lawson 1917 The boy cleared out to the city from his home at harvest time — They were Scots of the Riverina, and to run from home was a crime. The old man burned his letters, the first and last he burned, And he scratched his name from the Bible when the old wife's back was turned. A year went past and another. There were calls from the firing-line; They heard the boy had enlisted, but the old man made no sign. His name must never be mentioned on the farm by Gundagai — They were Scots of the Riverina with ever the kirk hard by. The boy came home on his "final", and the township's bonfire burned. His mother's arms were about him; but the old man's back was turned. The daughters begged for pardon till the old man raised his hand — A Scot of the Riverina who was hard to understand. The boy was killed in Flanders, where the best and bravest die. There were tears at the Grahame homestead and grief in Gundagai; But the old man ploughed at daybreak and the old man ploughed till the mirk — There were furrows of pain in the orchard while his housefolk went to the kirk. The hurricane lamp in the rafters dimly and dimly burned; And the old man died at the table when the old wife's back was turned. Face down on his bare arms folded he sank with his wild grey hair Outspread o'er the open Bible and a name re-written there. John Schumann put the poem to music on the Vagabond Crew's Behind the Lines album. It's worth a listen - one of Lawson's better works and Schumann does a good job of it.

"Peace" in our Time

 

Pic courtesy NYT.

We're being bombarded with media (both mainstream and social) about the arrival of "peace" in the Middle East.

When you've lived as long as I have, and observed the history of that part of the world, the notion that there is now "peace" is greeted by at the least incredulity, and at the most derisive laughter.

I am the same age as the state of Israel, after all.

Granted, credit should be allocated to Trump, as he seems to have driven much of the negotiation. His financial connections in Saudi Arabia though his son-in-law have no doubt greased the palms of the oligarchs that run the show in that country, and his family businesses will no doubt benefit from the reconstruction benefits and the contracts they generate.

He needed them to be onside, and along with the Qataris, the Egyptians and the less compromised Europeans, in the end they were.

He is, after all, in the same business as Osama Bin Laden.

Let's identify what has actually changed after the agreement.

First, and most critical, the Israelis aren't continuing to kill scores of Gazans using air-delivered high explosives daily. I have personal experience as a conscript, of being on the receiving end of misguided ordnance. It was a long time ago, but it's not something you forget. To be delivered from that is, I suppose, a kind of "peace".

Second, the living hostages have been released, along with thousands of Palestinians imprisoned by the Israelis. 

And there is hope of something more permanent. Excuse my cynicism, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Migration

 

It's a long time since I've heard Gaelic spoken in a church, gentle reader, but I had that experience on Sunday.

The last time was August 1980, when my bride and I were visiting the Irish Republic and we went to mass in Cork. Forty five years is a long time, and viewed from the perspective of the marches a few weekends ago, we've actually gone backwards in this country in our views on migration.

Yesterday was celebrated as Migrant Sunday in our local parish, and speakers of different languages, all migrants, read the prayers of the faithful in their own tongues. 

Thus we heard Irish, Spanish, Swahili, Pidgin, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Fijian, Arabic, and Bahasa Indonesian. 

The fact that one of the speakers was native Irish, and physically indistinguishable from the bulk of the population was especially significant. 

My father, a descendant of Irish migrants used to describe being called a "dirty little tyke" as he was horse whipped by an Orangeman in Warwick back in the day.

This in a relativelly conservative regional city like Toowoomba, could be considered remarkable, but it isn't. These people are members of our community, welcomed and contributing. Unfortunately migration is frequently used as a dog whistle by those who are happy to use fear and bigotry as their ticket to political influence. 

That was very clearly demonstrated in the recent marches.

Perhaps our Filipino parish priest expressed it best with a garden metaphor. 

He noted that the magnificent floral displays witnessed in our carnival of flowers are comprised of a wide variety of diverse blooms, and this diversity is largely responsible for the spectacle. 

It's an Ill Wind

 

Pic courtesy Military History & Heritage Victoria

Australians called up during the second National Service scheme (1965 -72) have been to a large extent whitewashed out of our history. 

Those 15381 who served in Vietnam have to some extent been redeemed by a cultural shift assisted by the Welcome Home March in October 1987, and John Schumann's "I Was Only Nineteen", albeit fifteen years after the last of us left Vietnam. Better late than never, I suppose.

The forty thousand plus who did not serve in Vietnam have never really been recognised nor adequately compensated, but there is a smaller cohort who did contribute significantly to the peaceful independence of Papua New Guinea in 1975.

These were the "Chalkies", or Nashos who were called up as teachers, assigned to Education Corps, promoted to rank of sergeant, and shipped to New Guinea to teach Papuan members of the Pacific Islands Regiment. The rapid promotions put many regular soldiers' noses out of joint, but these men did a low key but significant job in enculturating unifying values into members of what is arguably the most significant institution in PNG.

Remember that native Papuans come from very different environments in that country and speak 840 living languages which makes it the most linguistically diverse country on the planet.

Into that diverse mix were sent over three hundred young Australians, who had worked as teachers for twelve months post call up and were then conscripted and trained as members of one of the most effective jungle fighting armies in the world. They were tasked to create and provide a meaningful and relevant curriculum to Papuan soldiers.

Given the peaceful outcome of PNG  independence, despite dire predictions of conflict such had developed in ex colonies such as Kenya, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and Angola, that contribution should be recognised, fifty years down the track.

As a personal note, if I had been allocated to Education Corps, which as a teacher was my preference, I may have spent the rest of my brief and unspectacular army career contributing something useful.

I should, I guess, be grateful I got home from Vietnam in one piece, unlike two hundred other Nashos killed, and thirteen hundred significantly wounded.

Remember the Chalkies.

It's an ill wind.