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We live in shadowy times and white men who inhabit it lead us further into darkness

As a man who is but months away from turning 80 I hope that I have inherited some characteristics of the prudent sage.

A man with awareness, and knowledge, which enables me to speak through my longevity with authority about the society, I have grown up in, taken from and invested in.

Many things disgust me about many societies of the world, none more so than the people’s aptitude for electing moronic individuals who show no understanding of life and the living of it.

In the fool’s paradise of America – who the world once viewed, rightly or wrongly, as the world’s policeman – the people elected a president who in his madness matches that of the Roman Emperor Caligula for his decadence and depravity. He is, in fact and inaction, a mass murderer of his own people.

America has always thought of itself as being exceptional which “as a lie,” has been a magnificent propaganda success.

When Donald Trump promised he would make America great again, “Instead,” writes Noel Turnbull;

“… he has presided over a significant collapse in belief in American exceptionalism.

While the rest of the western world … has always been conscious of what really makes the US exceptional – racism and limited democracy; constant waging of war; appalling health care for poorer citizens; worker exploitation; religious extremism; massive inequality; organising coups and assassinations in nations around the world; torture of prisoners; and the ignorance, hypocrisy and myopia which allows many citizens to deny it all. …and to add to that list of the exceptional, The Economist (20 June 2020) reported that the US is one of only 13 countries (along with Venezuela and Syria) where the maternal mortality rate increased between 2000 and 2017.”

It is time that those with the capacity to change laws that might prevent the mass murder of people and refuse to do so were made to account.

We live in dark times.

The Brazilian people elected a right wing conservative politician in Jair Bolsonaro, 65, as its president. In the past few days he has announced the he has tested positive for COVID-19.

He has repeatedly flouted all of the rules of combating the virus. If infected, he would quickly shake off the illness thanks to his “athlete’s background,” he said.

“There’s no reason for fear. That’s life,” the president added. “Life goes on. I thank God for my life and the role I’ve been given to decide the future of this great nation that is called Brazil.”

Has he really been tested?

In Russia the people have voted to give their president an unprecedented lifetime in office. He is reputed to have made a fortune of $70 billion. How did he get it? No one knows.

We live in dark times.

In Australia where political apathy has grown year upon year it would seem that the worse the government governs, the more popular they become.

We have a Prime Minister on an annual salary of close to half a million dollars (in the top three in the world) saying that the Government will not be increasing the unemployment benefit of $40 a day because it might dissuade people from applying for a job.

It is then that you  understand there is something profoundly wrong, something seriously flawed with his understanding of the world and how people survive in it.

In 2013 Australia’s citizens elected the far-right politician Tony Abbott whose sole aim in life seemed to be to destroy things, not to build things. His first budget was universally acclaimed as the most uncaring ever.

Now approaching their 8th year in power it is hard to point out any major advances made by the three conservative Prime Ministers of the period. Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison have all been consumed with the power that personal entitlement brings to the job rather than what they could have done bettering the lives of the people.

So corrupt has Australian politics become under these scoundrels, its democracy in tatters, that on questions of trust, Transparency International’s recent research found that 85% of Australians thought that some federal politicians were corrupt.

And now the art of diplomacy has also suffered … in favour of an aggressive defence policy toward China.

We live in dark times.

British citizens, of course, not to be left out of the world’s irrational need of the far-right brought about by endless fear campaigns rejected any hope of a leftist revival by snubbing Jeremy Corbyn over the buffoon Boris Johnson. Now with Brexit behind it the people expect that Conservatives will make things right again.

We live in dark times.

Throughout Europe, France excepted, a swing to the right is occurring with Italy, Germany, Spain, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Poland, Hungry, Slovenia and Greece are tending toward anti immigration, nationalism and far right-policies.

Why then do ordinary folk vote against their own self-interest? Conservatives in Australia have never given pensioners, for example, a raise in their pension. As I said earlier, the dole will be kept low and benefits to the rich and privileged won’t be touched. Yet it is amongst this cohort that the conservatives have their greatest strength. The over 65s form a solid base.

“Just why these people put their faith in conservative leadership?” you might ask. “Why do they instinctively vote for the LNP when it is Labor who is more likely to address their concerns?”

The answer is in a psychology of fear that conservatives portray. A fear of change of instability, insecurity, having something taken away. Conservatives are averse to both change and science.

The conservative has a need to convince his potential followers and adherents that they are always under threat, real or imagined, and it is only their leader who can control events that might affect their well being.

Conservatives also have a built-in fear of the aforementioned and when it overlaps with the same fears in the poor and middle classes they form a mighty powerful voting group.

The left of politics is concerned with people who cannot help themselves. The right is concerned with those who can.

Religion too plays its part in the psychological fear campaigns of the conservatives. They focus on religions (particularly the Pentecostal) aversion to change and the preservation of life as is.

I previously wrote that:

“I remember as a young boy seeing pictures on posters in trams, in the newspapers, and news shorts at the cinema with pictures depicting the communist hordes thrusting their way towards us. There were others with hundreds of Chinese rolling across Sydney Harbour Bridge in their rickshaws with guns and communist flags.”

Less-informed voters unfortunately outnumber the more politically aware. Therefore, conservatives feed them all the bullshit they need. And the menu generally contains a fair portion of untruths.

If their religion is under threat then so to is their well-being. Threats come in abundance, anything from foreign military threats to domestic terrorism, exaggerated fears of minorities and immigrants, pluralism, disease, violent crime, or government overreach. Even a virus that is a sign from God.

Fear draws people into protection from it. It gives poor people approval to vote against their own best interests.

I began this piece by saying that.

It is so true of Australia. Australian conservatives have long been the champions of fear. They have won many elections with it and will continue to do so until confronted.

We live in dark times.

My thought for the day

It’s difficult to cast yourself in a new light when you’re surrounded by the politics of darkness.

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44 comments

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  1. tom baxter

    I read the title and no more because I’m sick and tired of these racist rants against the lighter skinned people of this planet. It’s disgusting in fact! And people like the author John Lord are demented if they think racist attacks against a certain skin colour will correct the daunting issues we all face in these current times.

    Take your Hate elsewhere John.

  2. John Lord

    Hi. Tom.

    “Perhaps a greater understanding of what I am saying might be obtained by exercising a greater willingness to think more deeply”.

  3. Terence Mills

    It has been suggested to me that the new security measures adopted in Hong Kong have been welcomed by the silent majority of Hong Kong residents who are fed up with their streets and infrastructure being wrecked on a daily basis by so called democracy advocates.

    It also seems that these new security measures imposed by Beijing could lead to secret trials – you know, the sort of thing that Bernard Collaery and Witness K have been subjected to !

  4. Baby Jewels

    Thanks John, a great summing up of the situation Australians and those in most Western countries find themselves. Dark times indeed.

  5. Ken

    Well said John. Yes we are living in dark times and the MSM (Main Stream Media) has a lot to answer for.

  6. New England Cocky

    @Tom Baxter: Tom, FYI I agree with and support the opinions JL expresses in this article. Indeed, I believe that Noel Turnbull has been correct:

    “While the rest of the western world … has always been conscious of what really makes the US exceptional – racism and limited democracy; constant waging of war; appalling health care for poorer citizens; worker exploitation; religious extremism; massive inequality; organising coups and assassinations in nations around the world; torture of prisoners; and the ignorance, hypocrisy and myopia which allows many citizens to deny it all. …and to add to that list of the exceptional, The Economist (20 June 2020) reported that the US is one of only 13 countries (along with Venezuela and Syria) where the maternal mortality rate increased between 2000 and 2017.”

    There is little doubt that the Hollywood American Dream has morphed into the American Nightmare for working class persons exploited by the economic system of the USA (United States of Apartheid).

    But take heart Tom. Population studies predict that by 2050 the Latino numbers in the US will exceed Caucasian numbers and the European domination of American thinking will be severely questioned by the new majority.

    As for “racist rants” ….. I would have thought that you would be more concerned with the Australian unChristian Prim Monster being paid about $500,000 plus car, residence and business travel while at the same time condemning the Australian arts industries (that draw bigger crowds to Art Galleries than ever attended weekly football fixtures) to penury, starvation and possible homelessness. Something about “sell all your property, give the money to the poor and follow me”‘ appears to have been overlooked somewhere.

  7. tom baxter

    @John Lord

    “Perhaps a greater understanding of what I am saying might be obtained by exercising a greater willingness to think more deeply”.

    You posted a personal opinion piece with a clickBait title on an obscure news feed John, how much “deep thinking” do you really believe it warrants?

    Opinions like yours are not uncommon today though, it is a typical example of the confusion that comes out towards the end of an empires run, or indeed in the final stages of a civilization’s collapse into the dark ages we as humans frequently experience, every 400 years on average if you look at the historical record.

    It’s a time when the people of the dominant civilization have lived in luxury for generations, grown soft, weak morally, and are generally exhausted by their pointless consumerist lifestyles. They have done all the hard yards in the heroic generations; constructing their civilization, taming the natural world around them. For reference just look into the final days of the Roman Empire, or the Ottoman Empire, among many others. Toward the end, these now, un-heroic people, begin to turn inward and attack their own culture, their own society. In essence they secede from their own culture and willingly concede power to what in history amounts to the invading hoards. This is exactly what I see happening in the U.S. and Europe today, and to a lesser degree here.

    You’ve just grown old and tired like our culture has John and are attacking its foundations, that’s the gist of it.

  8. Keitha Granville

    Oh my dear, poor Tom. I can only assume, perhaps wrpngly, that you have a home of your own, a secure income of some sort, no health concerns and you don’t actually have any contact of any kind with people of other races, religions or colours.

    There is NO excuse anywhere in the world today for people to be hungry, to be homeless, to be without education or healthcare. The wolrd has enough for every human on the planet. And yet in EVERY nation there are homeless, starving, sick people because a tiny percentage have decided they deserve to have more than anyone else.

    Simple greed. Nothing more.

    Yes Tom, eventually the masses revolt, and that doesn’t help anyone in the end because the leaders of those revolts eventually decide they deserve more than …….. and so it goes on again. I reckon your average Russian citizen is thinking that Putin now behaves like the Romanovs.

    How about this for an idea? People in positiins of power now could decide to exhibit some basic humanity. Feed and house everyone, make sure that all children get the same basic education, look after the planet, SHARE. It’s not hard.

    Thanks again JL for hiting it on the head as usual.

  9. Jack Cade

    The wealthiest nations of the world, those that profess to be a Christian (and I am, seriously, not sure what that means) are led by Governments in thrall to ‘Christians’ who think poverty is the sufferers’ own fault, and who absolutely ignore the Biblical caution (I don’t think it’s NT, but it may be) that ‘The love of money is the root of all evil.’
    In fact Scott Morrison’s church not only ignores it – It actually glories in the ‘love of money.’

  10. jim

    There is no country except the USA that has had so many of it’s own Presidents assassinated , nothing to see here? , it’s just propaganda right.

    A lie can travel half way around the world before the truth has put it’s shoes on.

    Churchill 1920 ; “This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States)… this Worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilizationand for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible inequality, has been steadily growing. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the 19th century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.”
    Writing on ‘Zionism versus Bolshevism’ in the Illustrated Sunday Herald, February 1920 Churchill.

    Zionist at The United Nations Replacement Migration plan is to open the borders and bring more than 200 million people into Europe until 2050. This plan is already in motion with the help the European Union, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, George Soros and various NGO’s.

    Churchill quote…”I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes”.
    Writing as president of the Air Council, 1919.
    “I do not admit… that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia… by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race… has come in and taken its place”.
    Churchill to Palestine Royal Commission, 1937.

    Quote, from1870s “I fear the Jewish banks with their craftiness and tortuous tricks will entirely control the exuberant riches of America. And use it to systematically corrupt modern civilization. The Jews will not hesitate to plunge the whole of Christendom into wars and chaos that the earth should become their inheritance.” – Otto von Bismark .

    Churchill…”The choice was clearly open: crush them with vain and unstinted force, or try to give them what they want. These were the only alternatives and most people were unprepared for either. Here indeed was the Irish spectre – horrid and inexorcisable”.
    Writing in The World Crisis and the Aftermath, 1923-31.

    IMO… if we want to stop WW3 we must know the Exact hard truth of the last two World Wars . the world has been told massive lie after massive lie about these two wars.

    Six million jews were dying and in need of help $$ in 1887.

    W Churchill: One may dislike Hitler’s system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as admirable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.”
    From his Great Contemporaries, 1937.

    Churchill; So far as Britain and Russia were concerned, how would it do for you to have 90% of Romania, for us to have 90% of the say in Greece, and go 50/50 about Yugoslavia?
    Addressing Stalin in Moscow, October 1944. Israel was already in the  bag.

    Just quoting the propaganda right.

  11. Jack Cade

    The machinations of the ‘winners’ after WW1 caused WW2. And then, what the victors did to the Palestinians was inexcusable and allowed the USA, intent on empire building after ORDERING the UK to dismantle its own, to forge a de facto extra state in the cockpit of civilisation, with the cream of US weaponry on hand to cowe its surrounding countries and no say in the UN because Uncle Sam and his catamites veto every ani-Zionist idea.

  12. wam

    ‘Socialism is not taking money from the rich but stopping the rich taking money off the poor.’ I read it somewhere but google has hijacked ‘socialism’ and I can’t attribute the quote. To me that is a great definition.
    ‘a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of Communism.’
    is the marxist definition and the driver of fear,
    A fear that is so deeply ensconced in the American and Australian psyche. that it has become a belief. What we believe to be true is true and is easily exploited by the use of ‘buzz’ words. ‘Socialism’ and Left are scary words to the ‘normal’ Australian. They are used by the conservative to utilise the fear. In Australia a la townesville??
    ps
    Some people live in dark times permanently both here and in America, John.

  13. Dr Tom Loveday

    A divisive article it seems – poor Tom. I’m a Tom of a different stripe altogether and agree with the sentiments of the article, despite the obscurity of the website (is it really that obscure?). The division in the comments represents the division along which the next civil war will be fought, probably in America.

  14. Egalitarian

    Jim; Thanks for the quotes on Churchill. I know Australia needs weaponry like a hole in the head.Because of a Nuclear Energy war .

    The world just needs good sane leaders.

    America had a good one in Obama and China needs to embrace confucianism again.

  15. guest

    In The Australian today, Greg Sheridan showed his undying love of the USA – and even supported Trump, who at Mount Rushmore was pretending he was on Mount Olympus with all the gods.

    There is some kind of blindness in Sheridan’s loyalty. He knows Trump is not a great President when he says:

    “It goes without saying, Trump brings some of the misinterpretation on himself. He has said so many intemperate, foolish, offensive and just so many plain wrong things that it’s what people have come to expect. At the personal level Trump is an appalling figure to embody the defence of Western civilisation.”

    And yet he praises Trump for his speech, which no doubt Trump did not write – it was written by a team of speech writers.

    The heading for this piece of puff piece is: “It is not Trump but America the left hates”.

    What on earth does that mean? That the left half of the US population hates itself. What kind of nonsense is that? And it is all because of “misinterpretation” in the minds of Trump’s detractors?

    Trump can be seen for what he is by all the world – a narcissistic bully-boy who embodies all the kinds of nastiness outlined in comments above.

    His buddies, the tyrants of the world, are laughing up their sleeves.

  16. Harry Lime

    Thankyou Mr.Lord for articulating sentiments with which I concur.It constantly amazes me that so many people in this country are so easily gulled by bullshit.When did we lose the ability to think for ourselves?
    jim, quite the charmer, Churchill.
    Thanks again John, I feel I can take the rest of the day off now.

  17. Jack Cade

    Guest

    Sheridan Aka the talking toilet brush – is the creme de la creme of Murdoch toadies. Calls Tony Abbott (remember him?) one of his best mates and thinks ‘Big George’ Pell was innocent.
    Cant, as they say in London; total cant.

  18. John Lord

    Tom. It seems to me after reading my piece you agree with my opinions.

  19. Jack Cade

    When reading articles about politics and alliances, I always revert to a piece of advice Sir Humphrey Appleton gave us; ‘One must never give credence to a rumour until the government officially denies its veracity.’
    Or words to that effect.

  20. Jack Cade

    Sir Humphrey Appleby. I can’t believe I misprinted his name.

  21. Terence Mills

    guest

    There is an unhealthy relationship between Murdoch and Trump and while Murdoch continues to support Trump the underlings like Sheridan get their riding (writing) instructions to honour this emperor with no clothes and they do as they are told.

    Sky-after-Dark is a weird world where all of the presenters are one hundred percent Trump supporters but this can’t be a coincidence, they must be dancing to the Murdoch hymn-sheet dictated by the old codger in New York.

    What is particularly disturbing is that Newscorp portray themselves as a news organisation yet they lack that most crucial ingredient : objectivity.

    I remember seeing the IPA list of demands that Tony Abbott signed on to, and in particular #15 :

    15 Eliminate laws that require radio and television broadcasters to be ‘balanced’.

    Scary stuff !

    IPA’s 75 point list for Abbott. from australia

  22. Jack Cade

    I have brandished Quora as a vehicle advertising Americans’ total lack of knowledge about world history and Uncle Sam’s place in it. A moment ago I opened a Quora email to read the following question: DID BRITAIN HELP MUCH IN WW2?
    This ranks alongside other such gems like ‘WOULD CANADA HAVE DECLARED WAR ON GERMANY IF WE HADNT DONE IT FIRST,

    WHY DIDNT GERMANY JUST INVADE ENGLAND THROUGH THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.

    Leaders of the free world FFS

  23. jamie

    Hey John:

    You are too kind to greedy merchants of death, depair, poverty, slaughter and planetary piracy and eco-genocide.

    “an aggressive defence policy toward China.”

    Defence policy . . . . bahahahahahaa It’s a DEATH PLAN.

    Only folks here that had a ‘defence policy’ would have be the folks that were invaded and genocided by white fellah murderous rapist thieving sun-neveah-sets Brittania.

    Oh and them Opium Wars. What’s bout them John? Defence policy????

    Parrotting the DEATH MERCHANTS MANTRA u be.

    Times is Dark is it? Dark is bad and White is good?? Just go back and watch your Croc Dundee/John Wayne white fellah propaganda!!

    SHEESH!!!

  24. jamie

    Gee Tommy did you get all that heroic stuff bout the Incas, Mayans, Egyptians, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Kenyans, Iranians, Iraquis, Mongolians from your IPA kinder colouring book?

  25. totaram

    Terence Mills: Thank you for bringing IPA list No. 15 to my notice. To think that they could be so brazen! But there you go!

  26. Denise

    Tom baxter: i pray that you (and everyone as backward as you) would dig a hole and jump in head first.

  27. Andrew Smith

    We can observe in many developed and developing nations and/or democracies a common political electoral strategy, gaming and manipulation of ageing electorates by the right.

    This has been argued by many but Campanella in Project Syndicate 2018 explains well ‘Is Pensioner Populism Here to Stay?’:

    ‘The right-wing populism that has emerged in many Western democracies in recent years could turn out to be much more than a blip on the political landscape. Beyond the Great Recession and the migration crisis, both of which created fertile ground for populist parties, the aging of the West’s population will continue to alter political power dynamics in populists’ favor’.

    It turns out that older voters are rather sympathetic to nationalist movements. Older Britons voted disproportionately in favor of leaving the European Union, and older Americans delivered the US presidency to Donald Trump. Neither the Law and Justice (PiS) party in Poland nor Fidesz in Hungary would be in power without the enthusiastic support of the elderly. And in Italy, the League has succeeded in large part by exploiting the discontent of Northern Italy’s seniors. Among today’s populists, only Marine Le Pen of France’s National Rally (formerly the National Front) – and possibly Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil – relies on younger voters.’

    https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/aging-populations-fuel-pensioner-populism-by-edoardo-campanella-2018-10?barrier=accesspaylog

    While in Australia we are warned to be alarmed by ‘population growth’ and ‘immigration’ of young people, it’s younger generations whom are being short changed as (for now) less diverse older generations dominate electoral rolls, especially in regions vs. urban areas.

  28. B Sullivan

    Andrew.Smith The concern about population growth may be greater amongst older people because they have seen the world population double, treble and even quadruple all in the length of their own lifetimes. A century ago, when the Spanish Flu pandemic struck, the population of the world was around 1.5 billion. Now it is pushing 8 billion. This population growth has come at the expense of the rest of the natural world which is now facing human induced mass extinction. Population growth has already exceeded sustainability and makes every other problem we face so much harder to overcome. Younger generations will be the ones that suffer most from the consequences of overpopulation.

  29. leefe

    Tom Baxter:

    When you are used to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

    There is no such thing as racism against white people. Personal discrimination, yes, but not racism. Racism is a systemic thing, and the system has been set up by, and maintained for, white people. Wanting to fix the problems that has caused is not about trying to undermine civilisation.

  30. Stephengb

    Leefe
    I will this just here so you can actually understand what racism is.

    Racism – Oxford Dictionary

     first defined by the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition, 1989) as “[t]he theory that distinctive human characteristics and abilities are determined by race”; the same dictionary termed racism a synonym of racialism: “belief in the superiority of a particular race”.

    As a white Englishman I have experience racism from the so called white dinky die Ozzy.
    Yes it is mild compared tomthe racism shown by white Anglo’s toward none white but it is still none the less racist.

  31. leefe

    No. It. Isn’t.

    The usage of words and their meanings change over time. Having the people at the top of the pile, those for whom the system is set up, claiming to have experienced racism is derailment. It is not for the oppressors to define oppression to the oppressed and to then claim it for themselves. You’ve experienced personal bigotry. You’ve experienced negative reactions from others based on your nationality. You have never experienced a system set up to diminish you, your life, your opportunities, purely due to something over which you have no control, such as your melanin levels.

    (And, by the way, thank you for the patronising, outdated and totally unnecessary OED definition of racism because, after all, that is the ultimate authority on just about everything, isn’t it?)

  32. Matters Not

    Yes leefe, people use words and give different meanings to same over time. As Lewis Carroll wrote:

    “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

    And while I largely agree with your sentiments expressed re oppressed and oppressor (shades on Paulo Freire?), then surely Stephengb is entitled to give what meanings he wants to particular words? Particularly when he’s prepared to define same.

  33. Phil

    ” As a white Englishman I have experience racism from the so called white dinky die Ozzy.
    Yes it is mild compared tomthe racism shown by white Anglo’s toward none white but it is still none the less racist.”

    Agree. What’s more, I never heard the words Dago, Ding, Grease Ball, Spick, Nigger, Kike, Wop, or indeed Pommy bastard before I came to this great country .No I’m not deaf. I will never forget coming into Fremantle in 1965 and hearing the shouts from the groin ” Go home you Pommy Bastards. ” It didn’t really ease off until I lost the accent. Funny some ignorant dolt called my old man a Pommy bastard in a pub, which was a double insult he was from Aberdeen. He chinned the arse hole. Of course dad didn’t know what a Pommy was but, he was familiar with the word bastard. My old man RIP didn’t really suffer fools gladly. Like Jack Cade who comments here my old man was a champion boxer as well. It came in handy settling in a new country.

  34. Joseph Carli

    Phil…my old man was a quiet Italian who came to Oz before the war to get away from Musso’…but he used to get swore at after the war on his way to work…one place that he walked past every day had this one bloke used to give him a mouthful every morning until my old man took him to one side and quietly informed him that…” You hear that we Italians carry knives…so tomorrow, when I come past and if you call me those names again, be certain that I will show your friends here what you ate for breakfast!”……no more cheek…

  35. Jack Cade

    Phil and Joseph

    I think all migrant groups experienced that. Surprisingly, Scots didn’t.
    Because I worked in offices I quickly got to meet the decent Aussies but most of my friends on the hostel – Finsbury and later Gepps Cross -never met an Aussie for years after they arrived here because they played football (association football, of course) and worked in migrant-stacked factories.
    Being called a pommy bastard didn’t bother me until I knew what it meant, and by then I didn’t care. But the only people who ever used that term were old purple-nosed thickos.
    I worked in an office in Sydney where a retired rugby league international said to me ‘Jeez, you’d never take you for a pom!’ despite my still evident Scouse accent.
    He meant it as a compliment. Mind you, his deputy WAS a pommy bastard.
    What intrigued me most in those days was that people sitting on buses hearng migrants abused never spoke up in their defence. And there were phrases like ‘Mediterranean back’ for worker’s compensation malingerers. But ALL the hard work in Australia was being done by migrants. Like the Snowy Mountain scheme.
    The racial abuses stopped by about the mid-70s and the waves of Vietnamese migration. It seems to me that it started again around the time of the Coogee disgrace, racism egged on by kerb-crawling identities.

  36. Joseph Carli

    Jack Cade…I’ve had the exact words said to me regarding my Italian heritage/name..but you reckon he wasn’t offended when I replied that I’d rather be thought of as Italian!…that’s the thing about racism..and I can feel it on this site too..a kind of tacky snideness of condescension…though that’s not quite the right word, because it isn’t necessarily directed AT you, but from one Anglo-centric to another…a kind of dismissive sideways disdain or wink of the “I don’t need to consider them” cabal…
    But it’s the history that has been taught, you see…I know it, being born and raised here, I was taught the bullshit history…the Anglo-crap of “Nation Builders” history…when all the time the lazy butchers couldn’t even grow a potato to feed thamselves but nearly starved to death speculating on property rather than grow their own food…and if it wasn’t for the German pioneers here in SA. they would have starved to death!…the same in Darwin with the rebuild after the war…the Italians and other labourers did the hard yards out in the sweat, mozzies, fever and sand flies while the Anglo-slackos kept the office jobs with the fans and lattice shades to keep them cool while dictating laws and oppression from their ivory towers…
    I am tired of writing of this subject and it’s injustice…if anyone wants a complete, uncensored history of how we have got where we have gotten (F#ck the grammar!)…you can read it here… https://published.collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/placenamesofsouthaustralia/Appendices.pdf …..you don’t have to read far into the manuscript to see why his histories were both rejected by the Adelaide establishment and he was black-balled from the historical society…the last I heard of Geoffery Manning, was that he was over 90yrs and resided in an aged care home south of Adelaide…and that was several years ago…
    Go for it!
    Ps…I would suggest bookmarking the above link as there is so much of pertinent interest to read there.

  37. Joseph Carli

    Phil… It’s “groyne” …NOT : “groin”….you Pommya bastardo!….

  38. Jack Cade

    Joseph

    Thanks for the link. It’s 400+ pages. Pretty good stuff, too.
    Maybe Phil associated his groin with groynes. Lots of groinal things happen in the vicinity of groynes.

  39. Joseph Carli

    Yes, Jack… that mention in the appendicies of a book by Charles Bright ; “The Confidential Clerk” contains a wealth of inadvertently given information about the absolute bastardry of those early administrators…I say inadvertently, because the author ; Charles Bright was a Magistrate and very “deep-state” with the Adelaide Establishment…and his wife was a descendent of the subject of the book ; Charles Flaxman..THE “confidential clerk” of George Fife Angas…and in consequence did a lot of the dirty swindling for his boss…we are told this in the most “airbrushed” way by Magistrate Bright as HE could not see anything wrong or deceitful in the behaviour of his own “consciousness of kind” class….I had to get the book from the State Library and sent to my local library as there are only a limited edition prints…the author died before it was printed out…

    You may be right about Phil and his “association with groins”…I wonder what he would think of that theory?

  40. Phil

    To Jack and Joe.

    Oh dear it’s hit him in the groin again.

    Yes Jack and Joe it was the Vietnamese that came in by boats that took the heat off the other immigrants back in the seventies. It is now the Muslims and the Chinese that are getting all the love. You can see how easy it is to manipulate the populace. I always wondered how the Nazi’s got the sophisticated Germans, who gave us high brow culture to murder millions of Jews, Gypsies and other Untermensch it’s as easy as shitting in bed.

  41. Joseph Carli

    The thing that has changed the nature of the game just now, is the “Black Lives Matter” movement….it not only has shone the spotlight on the indigenous peoples distress, but it has given strength, vicariously, to the many other ethnic minorities to call attention to the disparity of “justice” to their situation…add to that this covid19 chaos and the situation is such that I do not believe the field will be ever again left to the Anglo-centric players or their “pet” ethnic performers domination to run the show……unless that heyena ; Dutton starts to flex his Gestapo muscles.

  42. Phil

    Joseph Carli

    The ” Black Lives Matter ” movement scares the establishment to death. It is small potato’s at the mo but for mine, bringing troops out on to the streets is just the start of things to come. Covid – 19 will imho get out of control. The effect on the economy has been bad, it’s early days yet and it will be a disaster for all concerned. Morrison wants his ‘ Business as usual ‘ mantra in the middle of a pandemic. Someone should whisper in his ear, that it’s the push and carry boys and girls that carry this economy not a load of public servants standing around a water cooler discussing the size of their appendage. My Doctor who I have a great relationship with, tells me not to believe the numbers it is worse than they are telling us, make of that what you will. I think this all going to end in tears.

  43. Joseph Carli

    I must add here a “concerned citizen” letter to the editor included by Geoffery Manning that demonstrates his wry sense of humour…

    Extracts from SA Register, 3 August 1868, page 3c ..” Would it be too much to ask of the namers that any district having already a suitable native name should be allowed to keep it…? Who the Annas, Joannas and Carolines are, no one I suppose knows or cares to know; the… opinion in the bush is that they are the names of those kindly-disposed young ladies who so frequently call on Mr Beddome* in the forenoon… by-the-by I fear that something serious has happened to one of them as I see in the Gazette of July 16 the Surveyor-General refers to the ‘west part of Blanche’. And now Mr Editor… you know that nearly everybody in the colony pays you threepence daily to be saved the trouble of thinking for themselves. If then you agree with me that the native names should be retained, and will be so good as tell your readers so, it will prevent our future maps being disfigured with the names of any more Betsey Jones or Jemmimer Anna.”
    * He was a Special Magistrate -the inference, surely, alludes to prostitutes! -see Register, 1 July 1870, page 6b where he is confronted by ‘ladies of the night’.

  44. Joseph Carli

    Agree, Phil..and to make matters worse for the “Pals that be”, they are caught in a bind…they cannot deny the good citz’s of the State the financial support needed to keep THEM afloat because the consequences of NOT doing anything are too horrendous to imagine (for their health!) and because THAT is the only way the businesses of the state can keep afloat…BUT ..in doing so they are rubbishing their own precious mantra of capitalist doctrine “above all” by turning their governance into a socialist experiment of the most extrordinary expensive proportions!!…something the bankers and the IPA will never forgive them for.

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