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.

Abusers, Predators, or Exploiters?

Pic courtesy Med CPD

I am not sure, gentle reader, of the best title for this post.

Read it, and take your pick.

Many years ago, I was the principal of a small special school in the Northern suburbs of Brisbane.  Just up the road from the school was a corner store, which amongst other things, sold sweets.

Occasionally, parents would give their children pocket money, and because it was safe traffic wise, we'd let the physically able kids go to the shop to buy sweets at lunch time.

I began to get visits and phone calls from parents who were complaining because they'd give their child a small note - five or ten dollars to spend, and at the end of the day when they arrived home, there was no change. 

The majority of those children involved had Down Syndrome, and it was obvious that they had an intellectual impairment.

It didn't take too long to work out what the shopkeeper was doing. Because the children never questioned him, he would take their money and offer no change. 

I challenged him, and he became abusive and told me to mind my own business. The shop was declared "out of bounds" and what had been a useful chance for the children to practice living skills evaporated.

Today I read about NDIS providers defrauding clients. While the majority of providers operate honestly, the scheme has been exploited by predatory operators and organized crime syndicates. Instances of fraud cost taxpayers and vulnerable participants millions of dollars annually through false claims and overcharging.

On social media I see the word "retard" used as a form of insult.

These two examples reflect the attitude of a few people in the community who are users and abusers. 

They reflect it both in their language and behaviour. It's pretty sad, as it provides a barrier to best quality of life for people with disabilities, and defrauds both this cohort of our community and the Australian taxpayer.

 

A Conference

 

Melbourne always looks black and white.

Last weekend, gentle reader, I attended a conference in Melbourne, looking in hindsight at the war in Vietnam.

It was attended by delegates from all over the country, and the keynote speaker was a Yank. His address was comprehensive and well researched.

The Saturday proceedings are listed below, and full transcripts will be posted soon. 

Walking into the conference resembled having a close encounter with my bookshelf. The authors of a large proportion of my books about the war were present.

The reason for attending was to develop a network of military historians, amateur and professional, who can help me with my doctorate looking at the subject of national servicemen between 1965 and 1972 who served in Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Malaysia.

Obviously, this conference was about Vietnam, but when you consider that during that seven year period, the whole raison d'etre for the size and deployment of the army was Vietnam, it was well worth attending.

The only downside was its location. Melbourne is my least favourite Australian city, and nothing during my sojourn there, has altered that opinion.

Now that I've been accepted as a doctoral candidate, the hard work starts. 

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.

The Mug Lair

Pic courtesy South China Morning Post

I've blogged before, gentle reader, about the relevance of language, and observed how it has changed and developed during my lifetime.

According to the Dictionary of Australian Slang, the term "Mug Lair" means a "flashily dressed young man of brash and vulgar behaviour". 

The Oxford Dictionary definition describes a "person who is stupid and vulgar", adding for effect "a two bob mug lair, all bleach and trousers", although I've heard "all mouth and trousers"

And finally, Acronyms and Slang uses "a bothersome show-off" as its definition.

If we break it down, a "mug" is generally accepted as a gullible person, and a "lair" as an attention seeker, although putting the two words together subtly alters the impact of the description.

It's a great shame that the Australian slang term has largely been left behind in common use. My grandfather and father would have been very familiar with it.

Mind you, they inhabited an Australia which was unsullied by language dragged across the Pacific by social media.

Across the pacific, one third of American voters* set up an electoral college that gave power to a classic Mug Lair. There were 241,184,779 eligible voters in 2024.  Of those, 32% voted for the Mug Lair; 31% voted for Harris; and 36% did not vote. 

The definition is a perfect fit, except he is no longer young.

*One third didn't vote, one third voted for his opponent, and one third voted for the Mug Lair.