Corporate Surveillance

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I noticed something a mite uncanny the other day.

Every three weeks I drive my bride to a hospital on the other side of town for breast cancer treatment. This routine will continue for six months. We both enter the appointment time into our smartphones, and the first time we drove there, I used Google maps to identify the best route.

When I connected the phone to the car’s Bluetooth the other day on our way to the hospital, a message popped up on the screen, correctly predicting our destination, and arrival time. This means, I assume, that some corporation (obviously Google) knows our habits and remembers them.

“Not an issue”, I hear you say. Well, perhaps not, but I don’t remember giving permission in my Google setup for this to happen. I no doubt did give such permission, but It’s honoured in the breach, not the observance.

Corporate surveillance is alive and well, and if we own and use a smartphone, we are stalked routinely. Using the word “stalked” may be over the top, but I challenge you, gentle reader, to come up with a better description of the reality.

What should change?

Perhaps there should be an on-screen dialogue describing (briefly, and in words of one syllable) how the corporation in question uses what it knows about you to sell you products and services. This could pop up each time you log into the platform. It would be a little annoying, but hey, no more annoying that dialogue popping up uninvited as I described above.

The issue has already resulted in Google being breached in the EU.

On January 21, 2019, French data regulator CNIL imposed a record €50 million fine on Google for breaching the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. The judgment claimed Google had failed to sufficiently inform users of its methods for collecting data to personalize advertising. Google issued a statement saying it was “deeply committed” to transparency and was “studying the decision” before determining its response.

Frankly, I reckon their commitment to transparency is about as deep as the puddle in my driveway after a summer storm.

Hastings’ Vietnam

I haven’t covered a book review for some time, gentle reader, so will fix that right now.

The book is Max Hasting’s masterful Vietnam, An Epic Tragedy, 1945 – 1975, a hefty read at 680 pages, but it took me about a week to complete. It is riveting.

It was a Christmas gift from one of my sons, who knows I’ve read just about everything published on the conflict, but successfully found something I hadn’t.

Most works on the war in Vietnam can be classified into one of three groupings – dry military histories, exploitative narratives, or political tomes. This book is none of these. It resembles a journey through events, incidents and personalities, and engages the reader through its use of vivid detail, unique perspective, and thoroughly researched context.

Hastings is aided by the fact that he is about the same age as I am, which means he lived through the events. I think this helps, as they were indeed exceptional times.

The author (an Englishman), has worked as a foreign correspondent for the BBC, editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph, and editor of the Evening Standard. He is also the author of numerous other works, chiefly on defence matters, which have won several major awards. He was knighted in 2002.

His approach is to present a series of narratives centred around specific episodes or incidents, starting with the siege of Dien Bien Phu in 1952 and ending with the fall of Saigon in 1975. His attention to detail is spectacular, and the contextualisation it provides brings the work to life. He has obviously researched the topic comprehensively, but the wonderful detail never slows the impact of the narrative.

If there is an underlying theme to this tragedy (and his summary of the title is apt) it is the contrast between the consistent cynicism of the great powers (the USA, the Soviets and the Chinese) and the consistent faith of the North Vietnamese Communists. The great powers never gave up using Vietnam as a plaything; the North Vietnamese never gave up seeking to unify the country under Communism. 

In the end, faith trumped cynicism - but at a terrible cost.

 The Americans saw the conduct of the war (once they had blundered into it) only in the setting of domestic politics, specifically the way in which it would affect Presidential elections. The Soviets and Chinese saw it as an opportunity to influence and manipulate the outcome of the cold war.

Neither the Americans nor the Communist bloc seemed to have any care or understanding of those directly involved – the combatants and the Vietnamese people. They were always collateral.

Hastings seems to divide the Vietnamese into two groups – those who supported the NVA, and those who simply wanted peace and survival. There was never, according to Hastings, a sufficient critical mass of Vietnamese in the south with anti-Communist sentiment strong enough to persevere. There were a few, but often they were sidelined by the Americans, a notable example being Ngo Din Diem, assassinated in 1963 with CIA approval partly because they were worried that he was showing signs of being beyond their control. The South Vietnamese had a dog in the fight, but the Americans wanted to keep it on the leash.  

The NVA, inspired initially by Ho Chi Minh, and after his death by Vo Nguyen Giap, probably one of the twentieth century’s greatest military strategists, never gave up. When asked how long the North was prepared to fight, Giap is quoted as saying -  ''Another twenty years, even a hundred years, as long as it takes to win, regardless of cost." He meant it.

This war was a war of images. You will recall the images of the naked Vietnamese girl fleeing a napalm strike, the footage of a Viet Cong being shot by a South Vietnamese commander during Tet in Saigon, and many images of the siege of Hue. In my experience, the best metaphor contained in an image is presented below, a Zippo lighter that could be bought for a few greenbacks at roadside stalls all over Phuoc Tuy when I was there in 1970.

These things sold well because the inscription tells a symbolic truth as experienced by the GIs and the diggers, and on another level by the Vietnamese people, except that the references to the “unnecessary” and the “ungrateful” have a deeper meaning. The great powers obviously believed that the conflict was necessary. The political leaders were certainly ungrateful in terms of their attitude to their returning soldiers.

The other little piece of symbolism refers to the Zippo lighter itself. Here was a saleable object that provided street vendors with an income. Many pragmatic Southerners used any opportunity to make a living from the war. First they had to survive; then they had to make a living.

The book has a great collection of images, and one illustrated above resonates with me. The shot is in the AWM collection, and depicts an incident involving my rifle section in March 1970. The digger being carried to a dustoff clearing is Gil Green, who had collapsed and become very ill after he reacted badly to camouflage cream we used. Strangely, the shortest man in the section (Bernie Cox - left) is paired with the tallest (Russ Hollings - right) at the front of the litter. I remember the desperation and confusion, and this physical mismatch depicts it clearly - a great shot. I think the bush hat to the left of Bernie Cox is mine, by the way, but the rest of me is hidden by Bernie's pack - probably a good thing. 

This juxtaposition of the suffering and privations of those directly involved in the conflict, and the cynicism of those directing it, is clear in Hasting's book. The same juxtaposition is a feature of Spielberg's The Post. The movie begins with footage of a VC ambush, and then switches immediately to Robert McNamara being interviewed after he had been briefed by a victim of the ambush. The reality of the war on the ground was well understood by McNamara, but he was unprepared to admit it. His eye was on the next presidential poll. Given the poetic licence used in the movie (it was actually the New York Times which first exposed the Watergate scandal), the point is valid.

Soldiers and civilians are collateral when politics is involved. Let's face it, the same applied in this country. Menzies commitment of Australian troops in Vietnam was political pragmatism. He needed to keep the DLP on side, to ensure their preferences. Fighting in a war against Communists, even if it was in peacetime on foreign soil, kept them on the leash.

It took until 1972 and cost 520 Australian casualties (200 of them conscripts) before it was over. Forty Vietnamese died for every American, and 4500 for every Australian. That is the real tragedy.

I can thoroughly recommend it, even if you're not, like me, a history tragic.

For Christmas

Pic courtesy Type-Writer.org This was in our parish newsletter, gentle reader. It's posted because of its message about not kowtowing to fear. Happy Christmas! 'Be not afraid.' Richard Leonard on the greeting we all need to hear this Christmas (published in The Tablet on 12 December 2018) At the risk of wrecking your Christmas, we have to clear up a few things. I know all our carols and cards say that Jesus was born in December; in a snow-covered stable; was wrapped in swaddling clothes; lay in the manger with the animals around him; that a star stood vigil; and was later visited by three Kings whose names were Balthazar, Caspar and Melchior. But the Gospels don't say any of this. It could have snowed on the first Christmas, but the Scriptures don't say that it did. No animals are mentioned. The star in the North did not stand still in the night sky because stars just don't behave like that. And Jesus probably wasn't even born in December. Pope Julius I declared that Christmas was to be celebrated on 25 December in 350 AD, after the Christians had given the pagan Roman calendar the thorough make-over it richly deserved. Rather neatly, the pagan feast of the "birthday of the unconquered Sun" became the "birthday of the allconquering Son" — the birthday of Jesus our Lord. The worst Christmas I ever celebrated was in Manger Square in Bethlehem. By the time I had finally negotiated the traffic jams, the security checks, and the guards on patrol and joined the thousands who had been packed into the church, the adventure had lost some of its appeal. In all the accounts of Christmas we have in the New Testament we hear the angel begin her announcement of Jesus' birth with the words: "Be not afraid." Given the world events over recent months, this greeting is just what we need to hear this Christmas: Be not afraid. Fear cripples us into passivity. It ruins our memories of past or present events and undermines dignified, trusting and respectful relationships. There is an important difference between being vigilant and being frightened, but since the 9/11 terrorist attacks this difference has become blurred. We have seen people become anxious, change their lifestyle and travel plans and worry for their future and for that of their children. But we don't need to look to international terror to explain the nature of our fear. Broadly speaking, we fear four things: God, nature, other people, or something in ourselves. It is usually a combination of these things; for some of us, tragically, it is all of them. But to whatever degree fear has come to rule our lives, we need to hear again God's greeting at Christmas: "Be not afraid." St Paul tells us that love drives out all fear. That's what — and who — we celebrate at Christmas: perfect love took human form in Jesus Christ the Lord. Throughout this joyful season we celebrate the one whose life, death and resurrection showed us the way out of our fears; revealed the truth that sets us free; and gave us the life that we can live to the full in this world, and the next. Christmas is the feast day when God calls us to be as active as we can in bringing Christ's Kingdom to bear in our world. Christmas is the time when our memories are joined to God's, who has remembered us in our fear. Christmas is the season when all Christian relationships are defined by the dignity, trust and respect they bestow on us and on those we relate to. As a result of the Babe of Bethlehem, God has shown us that fear is not our calling and that the saving love of Jesus impels us to take risks in how we live out our faith, hope and love. On any day, then, in the coming year, when we face down our fears and live our Christian life to the full we will discover that Christmas is a moveable feast. My favourite Advent poem is from John Bell, of the Iona Community in Scotland: Light looked down and saw the darkness. "l will go there," said light. Peace looked down and saw war. "I will go there," said peace. Love looked down and saw hatred. "l will go there," said love. So he, the Lord of Light, the Prince of Peace, the King of Love, came down and crept in beside us. No fanfare. No palace. No earthly prince. Christmas celebrates that God crept in beside us. And as a result there is no part of our lives he will not enter with mercy and love. So this Christmas let's invite in again the Lord of Light, the Prince of Peace, the King of Love and live as boldly as we can.

What has Changed?

Pic courtesy Canberra Times

I have a subscription to the Vietnam Veterans' Museum on Phillip Island, and they send me newsletters from time to time.

The most recent edition has an article on Vietnamese boat people, and I'll post it here in its entirety -

On 26 April 1976, the first boatload of refugees fleeing from Vietnam sailed into Darwin Harbour, heralding a series of arrivals over the next few years.

The vast majority of refugees from Vietnam, however, arrived in Australia by plane after selection officials in refugee camps established throughout South East Asia. Since 1976, Australia

has become home to a thriving Vietnamese community. In 2011, the national census showed that 185,000 people in Australia were born in Vietnam. By early 1975, it was apparent that the North Vietnamese forces would soon overrun the south.

Just before the fall of Saigon, the U.S. and other foreign forces evacuated the first wave of people seeking to escape. The second wave of refugees emerged as the Communist government began to dismantle the old regime. Those associated with the former government were sent for re-education, others lost their jobs or were moved to work on rural reconstruction projects.

The very first Vietnamese refugees to reach Australia were orphan infants evacuated by Operation Babylift in the weeks before Saigon fell in April 1975. Amid fears for their safety, more than 3000 infants were flown out of Vietnam, mostly to the U.S. but also UK, Canada and Australia. The Australian public was supportive of Operation Babylift, for example, the Women’s Weekly ran a two-page article that emphasised the impact of the war on Vietnamese children. The first adult refugees arrived in the 20m Kien Giang, which sailed into Darwin Harbour on 26 April 1976. 

The 20-year-old captain, Lam Binh, with his younger brother and three friends, made the 3500 km journey to find refuge. Lam was not a sailor by trade, but taught himself navigation as part of his escape plan. His original map was nothing more than a page torn from a school atlas, and while getting better charts later, it extended no further than Timor. The rest of the journey was done by dead reckoning.

The exodus of refugees from South Vietnam continued in 1977, boats carrying 21,267 people arrived in neighbouring Asian countries including Hong Kong. In 1978, 106,489 arrived, and before
June in 1979 another 166,604. These people encountered dangerous sea, overcrowded vessels and attacks by pirates and we only know about the ones that survived, countless others were probably lost at sea. 

Australia has benefitted by the arrival of these people and with their hard work ethic, they have proved to be an asset to Australia. Very often when we get Vietnamese visitors at the Museum, we sometimes give them a little badge of the crossed fags of Australia and South Vietnam.

It's a pretty fair summary of the history, gentle reader.

Recently, (in August) a boat load of Vietnamese asylum-seekers was refouled (sent back to the place they were escaping), after they managed to elude border patrol vessels.

I can't help noting the contrast between what happened forty years ago, and what happens now.

It tells us a great deal about what has become of our national psyche as a consequence of the politics of fear and loathing. Back in the seventies, asylum seekers arriving on boats were never used as a political wedge. The potential was always there when it came to the Vietnamese.

I witnessed an incident in 1978 which made it obvious that there was always a rich vein of xenophobia simmering below the surface which could have been used.

At the time, I was Teacher-in-Charge of a Special Education Unit at a High School in Brisbane's western suburbs. There was also a migrant unit located in the same school at the time, catering almost exclusively for students who were Vietnamese refugees.

I had access to a wheelchair accessible bus, and a licence to drive it. Occasionally, the Teacher-in-Charge of the migrant unit and myself would get our heads together to solve the problem of getting the Vietnamese kids out and about in the community to access a range of valuable experiences.

I would drive a combination of the Vietnamese kids and my own cohort of students with disabilities. It worked well, because the wheelchair bound kids were helped by the able-bodied migrant kids in terms of mobility and access.

There was a screening of "To Kill a Mockingbird" at a small cinema at Enoggera. The book was on the curriculum of the English as a Second Language programme at the migrant unit, and it was also part of the Year 10 English curriculum for some of the kids with disabilities, so we organised a joint excursion.

Upon arriving at the cinema, and just as the Vietnamese kids were helping the students with disabilities into the theatre, a bloke turned up and started abusing the migrant kids in the foulest terms. There was an army base at Enoggera and this character, out of uniform but identified by his haircut, was obviously army. He used the same jargon that I had occasionally heard in Vietnam.

I got the kids out of the way into the theatre (and out of earshot) and used two words (one with four letters) to tell him to take himself somewhere else immediately. He got the message, and jumped into a car and drove off. Fortunately the Vietnamese kids didn't really understand what he was saying - their English wasn't up to it - but the kids with disabilities did. They were indignant.

If the government in power at the time had decided to take political advantage of the kind of paranoia exhibited by my mate at the cinema, the flow of refugees would have been stopped cold. There are sufficient idiots in the community to make this strategy work in a close election.

Howard used fear of asylum seekers in 2001 to win what had looked like an election the Coalition was bound to lose. We're hearing the same rhetoric again, of course.

Contrast the behaviour of the Fraser government in 1978, with what we're observing now, particularly from the hard Right of the Coalition, and the nutters in PHON, and you can see how far we have fallen as a nation.

Once we were a proud and compassionate people. Now we have a government that panders to paranoia, fear and loathing to cling to power. Perhaps the "base" that the Conservatives are always referring to describes pretty clearly the instincts to which they appeal.

After the result in the recent by-election in Turnbull's old seat, perhaps the old technique has passed its use-by date.

We can hope....

Aftermath

Ambush position on Song Rai - March 1970

I'm putting this on my blog not because it was posted by my son, but because it's a striking and elegant piece of prose.

It resonates with me, and I reckon many Vietnam veterans.

I think what horrifies me most about war is how it never actually ends. 

Long after the guns fall silent, the effects linger on for decades - in the minds of those who were psychologically scared by the conflict - In the bodies of those wounded. 

In the hearts of those who grieve. 

In the lands rendered sterile through discarded chemicals and ordinance. In the thousands who still fall victim to weapons left behind long after armies have stood down - to poison, and explosives, and cancer. 

To the families of those directly affected, who themselves deal with the second-hand consequences of being raised by wounded people. 

To the nations and media who lie their histories into mythologies, to the populations who forget just enough that it seems like the consequences are worth it.

Ford - My Chequered History

Cranky car

We've disposed of our last Ford.

Over the years, we've owned (in sequence) two Falcon SRs, and two Focuses (Foci???).

All except for the Focus Trend illustrated have been reliable and good cars to drive. Not so this one, and this is the reason for unloading it. We've also signed up for the class action.

It has been off the road four times as a consequence of the completely unsatisfactory dual clutch auto. Ford calls it "Powershift". Others have coined a different moniker.

The last episode was a broken half shaft, no doubt as a consequence of the juddering that was a characteristic of the transmission during most of our ownership. This last episode, occurring as it did simultaneously with my bride's discharge from hospital after breast surgery was the last straw.

The local Ford dealer (no doubt as tired of these recurring episodes as the owners) was brilliant. They loaned us a Ford Escape for the duration of the repair, which took over a week. The repair didn't cost us, as I'd taken out an extended (5 year) warranty when we purchased the car in 2014. That turned out to be a very good decision.

We traded two vehicles (our Commodore ute and the cranky Focus) on a 2016 Kia Cerato hatch. It has the benefit of a seven year warranty, and because it's a hatch is both dog and bike friendly. If I need to shift stuff, I'll revert to ute hire.

The Replacement

Kia has come a long way in a short time on the Australian market, and they make very good cars as demonstrated by their rapidly improving market share.

Ford, on the other hand, are going backwards. It's a shame, as the small Fords were always fun cars to drive.

Virgin knows Any Publicity is Good Publicity

How they do it in the USA (Pic courtesy Daily Mail)

Picture it, gentle reader.

You're queueing to get on your Virgin flight.

You're surrounded by the usual crew - bearded hipsters, sweet young things wearing headphones secured to all manner of electronic trickery, grey haired boomers and noisy kids.

An announcement is made - impossible to decipher because the airport PA makes everything sound like the auditory equivalent of shrdlu, the printers devil.

As a result of this announcement, sundry passengers, a mix of fit looking young males, and decrepit appearing grey headed types, go to the front of the queue, and board first.

Once aboard, another announcement is squeezed between the safety briefing and a promotion for on-board refreshments. This announcement asks you to show respect for the people who were advanced to the front of the queue because they are "veterans".

You're not sure whether you should stand and applaud (difficult unless you're in an aisle seat), or simply nod appreciatively.

Sound dodgy?

Well that was what was suggested by the CEO of Virgin Airlines yesterday, with the apparent endorsement of the PM and Newscorp.

We hear that it is designed to show respect. Not for this "veteran". Embarrassment would be the likely outcome.

If my fellow travellers have to be asked to show me respect, I'd rather do without.

We hear it's all the go in the USA. Perhaps. After my visit there in July, I'd be reluctant to ape their practice. I saw too many veterans begging on the streets of NYC and Washington  to suggest their "respect" is anything more than lip service.

The term "veteran" has been in use in this country for a relatively short time. Like so many other chunks of our mother tongue, it is an American import. We used to be called "returned soldiers".

I am perhaps a little cynical, but I reckon it has more to do with marketing. After all, it doesn't offer any actual benefit (upgrades/reduced fare) and it costs both the corporate sector and the government nothing.

Our new PM was a marketing guru, after all. Every time I see him make an announcement, I'm always expecting to hear "But wait, there's more.....".

Michael Pascoe sums it up pretty well.

The postscript is particularly enlightening -

P.S. It is a curious thing that the military skews right, given that it was a Labor government that provided leadership through our most threatened hours and Liberal prime ministers who betrayed our servicemen by sending them to Vietnam and Iraq on lies.