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.

 

Not the Pajama Game

 

Pic courtesy The Weekly Times

I had expected, gentle reader, to be listening to test cricket today.

I say "listening", because watching it on television means being unable to do much else, whilst listening allows opportunities for other simultaneous activity.

No doubt this is a product of a lifelong habit which began when as a child, I made a crystal set, and listened to the cricket with the earplug that was part of the kit.

This had the advantage of not disturbing anyone else when Australia was touring in the UK, and the broadcast was going out in the early hours of the morning. As the eldest of six, this was important, as school residences (in which I grew up) were designed for smaller families. Sharing a bedroom with a sibling was routine.

I'm not listening to cricket today, of course, because the Melbourne ashes test lasted only two days, following the pattern established earlier in the series.

There's much wailing and gnashing of teeth, from Cricket Australia and the barmy army. The former has lost a motsa, and the latter group has spent a great deal of money on travel and accommodation, only to find big gaps in their planned itinerary.

There are solid reasons for tests not lasting more than a couple of days. It's an obvious trend, which in my humble opinion is a reflection of the influence of white ball cricket.

I don't know a lot about cricket, although I've been following it for over seventy years and played as a schoolboy at boarding school. I was a hopeless batsman, because my eye/hand coordination has always been poor, but I fancied myself as an off-spinner.

Almost all the test players play the pajama game which demands a very different approach to both batting and bowling than test cricket. They have developed a set of skills which suit the shorter form of the game, and much of this approach to the game has leaked into test cricket.

Hence "Bazball" with its range of shots including the ramp shot, the switch hit, the helicopter shot and the reverse sweep which are now appearing in test cricket. From the bowler's point of view techniques such as bowling dry and angle creation have come into favour.

I guess cricket is evolving. To be honest, I would prefer to listen to test cricket which is closer to what I was used to back in the day. Test cricket should be cerebral rather than physical. 

What really irks me is male cricketers being described as "batters". What's wrong with "batsmen?" To me "batter" has always been a method of cooking fish.

Cashing In

 

Last Sunday's obscenity at Bondi has elicited a range of responses.

The most rational are shock, grief and anger. There is also, for me, at least, a sense of numbness. This probably relates to personal experience.

A friendly fire incident on the 13th March 1970 had me within centimetres of half a belt of M-60 at 200 metres. It struck the soldier next to me on the side of his face. He went out on a medivac chopper,  had plastic surgery and recovered. He probably used up all his luck. but is still hale and hearty and living in Perth, fifty five years after the event. 

That sense of numbness occasionally returns to me, probably as a flashback. I'm sure that those caught in the cone of fire at Bondi will encounter this feeling for the rest of their lives.

The victims need all the support we can give them, but beyond the victims, there are two cohorts cashing in on this obscenity. I use the word "cohort" because it is a neutral term. Perhaps "cabal" is a better expression.

The first is the media. They have an obligation to report, but what I've seen in the last few days is way beyond reporting. They are wallowing in the sensational nature of the tragedy, and milking it ferociously. They have to sell newspapers, attract clicks, and pay their sponsors. The repetitious nature of much of what is posted in social media has become ghoulish.

Then there are the politicians. They use blame, abuse and misinformation to make political capital. Again, I have personal experience of being used as political capital (or more accurately cannon fodder) by those in power in 1969/70.

The issues of gun regulation and radical Islam are in a sense peripheral. To blame the current government and public support for Palestine is completely spurious. The two gunmen were obviously radicalised long before October 7th, and events since would hardly influence such extremists one way or another.

Whether we like it or not, there exists a tiny minority of psychopaths in our population, and nothing government, police, or security agencies can do will ever completely identify them, let alone eliminate them.

Considering that, if we can't eliminate the psychopaths, we can make it more difficult for them to get their hands on the means to carry out slaughter. Imagine the consequences had they carried full automatics.

Best we can do is to live without fear, support one another, and accept that whilst lunatics have the means and motive to frighten us, we should not allow ourselves to be controlled by them.

 

 

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