Rude Britannia & Australian Values

Dec 31, 2020 | Australian Values, Capital Punishment, Citizenship, Cultural Values, Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Lifestyle & Life, OzPol Values, Religious Values, Values

Rude Britannia & Australian Values

How Very Dare You!

 

Yes, we know, the British are the world leaders in “la politesse”  and “cortesia” (ironically*). They will never be impolite to anyone. They would never call a black person a “nig-nog”. Not to their face.

They would never call an Australian a “colonial” or a ” convict”. Not these days at least. Except in private huddles amongst friends, or if they are frustrated that their inferiors refuse to do as they’re told.

To be fair, this is no longer the case in general. Only in the upper echelons of the well-bred, entitled and deluded.

One is required only to refrain from impoliteness. One is required to refrain from the appearance of disrespect, but not at all to actually respect those beneath one. The more politeness you can fake, the more superiority you display.

Politeness is so central to British authority that its absence in a social setting—seemingly, although anything but, an oversight—has become, as a diplomatic tool, a floating signifier. The story goes that if a foreign country was doing the wrong thing and the British were furious about it, MI5 would call in a representative of the offending country. To indicate the level of anger, the foreign official would not be offered a cup of tea.

Politeness as a mark of superiority is not limited to the increasingly Dis-United Kingdom of course [see, “No Longer Great Britain”  1,2,3 ]. The French are masters of a cold politeness.

Democrats in the US are politically hobbled and strangled by it.

Spain and Portugal are home (and motherland) to some of the most generous and polite people, their languages very courteous, por favor.  

The Dutch are not so much polite as “pleasant”. At least these days.

Not unrelatedly, the Italians long ago invented the concept of “Sprezzatura“.  The inventor of the term, Baldassare Castiglione, Count of Casatico, wrote his most famous book, Il Cortegiano, The Book of the Courtier. , in which he described Sprezzatura as:

“a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it”. 

According to Wikipedia,

“It is the ability of the courtier to display “an easy facility in accomplishing difficult actions which hides the conscious effort that went into them”. Sprezzatura has also been described “as a form of defensive irony: the ability to disguise what one really desires, feels, thinks, and means or intends behind a mask of apparent reticence and nonchalance”   

. . . .

Wescott states that Sprezzatura was, in a way, “the art of acting deviously“

So for centuries the royal courts and their dominions have been suffused with the studied nonchalance of Sprezzatura. To put this another way, most western countries remain suffused with a culture of social deception. Hiding, disguising, masking the truth.

  • An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country. (Henry Wotton)
  • All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means. (Zhou Enlai)
  • DIPLOMACY:  The patriotic art of lying for one’s country. [Ambrose Bierce]

You might think that the rude, impolite, professional liar, Trump, is worse than this dishonest politeness but, despite the ugliness and the stench, his malignancy, poisonousness, narcissism and subnormality, his mendacity and fraud, are palpable. Not hidden, not masked. There’s never been any pretence of politeness. (He doesn’t know how.) At least his vulgarity is honest in a way because it’s utterly transparent. At least as transparent, unapologetic and foul as a Giuliani fart.   

In Australia, we are still clutching at the last fine thread of spider’s silk blowing out of Mother’s spinneret. . .

. . . the last sticky piece of the (once Great) British web to leave her arse.   

You see . . .

There is a thing that is pretending that what is so is not so—that the fortune; the titles; the servants and land; the privilege and status you enjoy, were not stolen by you or your murderous, barbarian ancestors—and that what is not so is so—that the world is cucumber sandwiches for tea; silk dresses; that the forelock tugging minions admire and respect you; and the divine right of robber barons). 

The British don’t like you to disturb these pretensions. They will say you are “uncouth”. Uncouth literally means “unknown”, or unfamiliar, unfriendly, unkind, or to put that another way, ‘you do not, as we do, hide your malignity behind a mask of stinking courtesy, refinement and elegance’. 

The sons of the British landed nobility have a necessary limit to their ambitions. They must join the military (as an officer of course), parliament, the clergy, the bureaucracy, or the diplomatic corps. These are perfect vocations where politeness is required.

Yes, even the military.

“I say, you there. You. Fellow, How d’you do? Pleased to meet you. We have been admiring your very pleasant country. You and your peasants have done an wonderful job of looking after it, don’t you know. It’s very beautiful and very large and you’re to be congratulated on the hard work you’ve done. However, we note that you have not made the most use you could of all the oil and ores that sit below your magnificent cities and gardens. In fact. it’s so beautiful and full of financial opportunities that we’re going to relieve you of it. So if you would be so kind as to hand it over immediately. . .  I understand that this will have come as somewhat of a surprise. Unfortunately, if you choose to decline this generous offer we will have no alternative but to destroy it all. You are an intelligent fellow and I think you’ll agree that this is the last thing either of us wants. I don’t know if you can see those large machines over there. They’re very powerful, ah, thingamawhatsits that blow up things and will wipe your towns and gardens completely away. I’m sure you will agree that this would be a very sad ending for your people after all of their hard work. But before you decide . . .  cup of tea?”

The most polite countries are also, under the skin, the most violent, brutal, murderous, barbarous, merciless, savage and, frankly, rude cultures. They are historically empire builders, looters, sackers, pillagers and thieves. Their roots go back to the warmongering Picts, Romans, Angles, Saxons and Jutes. Etc., etc. 

The Spanish and Portuguese shredded and annihilated rich Central and Southern American cultures for gold and glory. 

The Romans came, saw and conquered England, as did the French, and as the English did to the French. 

Christian—and therefore of course loving, as Jesus commanded—Europe for centuries ran numerous religious crusades against the Islamic tribes of the Eastern Mediterranean with varied (to put it, you know, politely) success. For example, In the Fourth Crusade the western Christian countries, rather than defeating Islamic Egypt as per plan and as advertised, decided to sack the Greek Christian city of Constantinople instead. For which they were excommunicated by Pope Innocent III. Spectacular own goal.

Italy in the un-distant past summarily made a ruthless grab on Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935. It was Mussolini’s idea and you would surmise that he had, nonchalantly, made the decision with full-on sprezzatura. So what was the extent of this Italian politeness, this cortegia, raffinatezza, eleganza? 

“The war was full of cruelty. Italian troops used mustard gas in aerial bombardments (in violation of the Geneva Conventions) against combatants and civilians in an attempt to discourage the Ethiopian people from supporting the resistance. Deliberate Italian attacks against ambulances and hospitals of the Red Cross were reported. By all estimates, hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian civilians died as a result of the Italian invasion, including during the reprisal Yekatit 12 massacre in Addis Ababa, in which as many as 30,000 civilians were killed.[    

 Not particularly polite, courteous, refined, or elegant then. 

In the US only the Democrats are truly “polite”. Only Democrats would rather lose an election than be rude. In the most recent election they have had to rely on the “uncouth” anti-Trump, disillusioned ‘Lincoln’ Republicans to do their dirty work. 

No Democratic First Lady would ever say, “Who gives a fuck about Christmas?” A Republican FLOTUS did.

But Democratic as much as Republican administrations have done horrific damage in the world and to indigenous and black Americans. They have razed countries on spurious grounds; Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq. With a polite, have a nice day, botox smile they continue to deny all Americans the decency of universal healthcare which all other “civilised” countries have take for granted for decades.  

To the extent that Americans are polite it is astonishing how much they hate themselves.

The rate at which they kill each other is bewildering both in the streets and by judicial murders. 60% of states still have the Death Penalty. Americans have long loved to kill Americans by lynching, stabbing, shooting, dragging them behind a truck, and even more entertaining ways. They have basked in the joy of legally killing people by firing squad, hanging, electrocution and lethal injection.

As Texas Governor, George W. Bush executed a record 153 people. His successor (2000-2015), Rick Perry, was not to be beaten. He executed 279 people. In Texas (12% of its population black) 70% of the executions were of black people. 

Americans are masked barbarians, who smile the polite smile of moral certitude and white supremacy. 

The rate at which Americans imprison each other is, if anything, even more bewildering. With 4.3% of the world’s population it has almost 20% of the world’s prisoners at any time. About 5%, one in 20, of all Americans but 33%, one in three, of black Americans can expect to spend time in prison in their lifetime.     

Israel? [Note: this is not about any religion but about the State of Israel. Note 2: Sir Roger’s Great Great Grandmother was a French Jewess and he can trace this ancestry down through the maternal line to his mother, which makes him Jewish if he chooses to be (even if secular) so . . . ]
Not sure if Israelis are polite, although the ones Sir Roger has met have been both pleasant and interesting. Many Israelis are very refined and their social culture goes back centuries, millennia, steeped in the arts, science and humanities. However, despite many being interesting and pleasant some Israelis have been as cruel and inhumane as any. Several Israeli Prime Ministers and politicians—including Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, Shimon Peres, Ariel Sharon—honed their skills in “militant” groups like Haganah, Lehi (the ‘Stern Gang’), Irgun, and the IDF, which grew through the 20th Century in the period up to and after the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. 
So despite our understanding of the horrific conditions faced by Israelis and their forebears throughout their history, we might have thought that with their intellect and humanity they would be more, you know, humane when it came to the plight of those who also for millennia had called Palestine home and who now were, and are, themselves systematically displaced. But Israel has not hidden the single, central tenet that drives the Israeli state:

NEVER AGAIN
WHATEVER IT TAKES     

So really there’s no subterfuge here. They are ruthless like everyone else and they don’t pretend otherwise.

 

 

The great British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgian, Russian, German and Dutch empires were all created through brutal invasion. 

At the height of European civilisation, civility and enlightenment the wealth of many western countries was built on African slavery.

The polite British did their best to wipe out the Australian indigenous peoples and the polite Australians themselves tried to finish the job in the 20th Century under the disguise of “Aboriginal Protection”. Unsuccessfully.

The courteous Dutch and English fought the Boer War to win ownership of the South African people, their land and their resources.

The ‘Dutch’-speaking white supremacist (baasskap) Afrikaners held the non-white South African people down through ruthless and inhumane segregation and through Apartheid from 1948 to 1991. (We did say the Dutch were pleasant rather than polite.)   

 

Ah, France! Douce France, land of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, Déclaration des droits de l’Homme et du citoyen, country of surely the most refined, most elegant, most cultured. most diplomatically polite (well, if you pronounce French correctly). Chère France, sentimental home of the Guillotine, although the “display of severed heads had long been one of the most common ways European sovereigns exhibited their power to their subjects.” Cultured. Refined. Awfully polite sovereigns. 

But this was long ago. In fact the last beheading by guillotine in France was as long ago as 10 September 1977.

Nevertheless the French have worked hard to maintain their reputation for barbarism obscured by refinement.

Mon Bleu! Paris, city of Romance, as recently as 17 October 1961 hosted the intentional massacre of up to 300 peacefully demonstrating Algerians under orders from the head of the Parisian police, Maurice Papon, formerly a Vichy Gestapo collaborator in WWII.  Many were murdered by brutal police beatings. Others died in mass drownings, when police threw demonstrators, who sometimes had been knocked unconscious, into the river Seine.

And Australia?

British patricians brought their politeness to Australia along with the convicts and free settlers. We wanted so much to be like the “real British”. 5th generation Australians used to call a trip to England on a P&O boat “going home“. We copied the British. We learnt how to pretend to be polite, even when we were angered when the Aborigines refused to understand that they no longer owned ‘their’ land, and that we couldn’t care less about their savage “culture”. We still offered them a cup of tea. 

But in the fullness of time Australians got sick of the English bullshit and dissimulation. On the upside it was useful to know that language at the same time we were becoming more and more pragmatic about language. We were busy working, creating a nation. That took all our effort. We didn’t have time for bullshit. The British thought we were uncouth because they didn’t understand this unfamiliar idea of truth. With all this we developed as a culture of openness, straightforwardness and a remarkable talent for bullshit detection. We have the British to thank for that.

Not that we don’t still have many polite liars in our midst but they are mostly limited to politics and religion (now worryingly closing in on each other), the law and bureaucracy, banks and finance, real estate and advertising, and other scams.  

It’s not that politeness is not one of Australians’ endearing qualities along with friendliness and openness.

It’s just that when we’re polite it’s because we’re actually polite. And when we’re polite it’s real.     

. . .

Post Script: 
Sir Roger has asked me to point out that he does know Australian values and culture are slightly more complex than your interlocutor has suggested above  

 

* (go for it)

Oliver Sacks and “Soul Murder”

May 21, 2016 | Australian Values, Border Security, Capital Punishment, Citizenship, Cultural Values, Democracy, Education, Immigration, Legal, Lifestyle & Life, Media Values, OzPol Values, Racism, Religious Values, Values

Oliver Sacks and “Soul Murder”

 After:  Oliver Sacks  by Luigi Novi  9.13.09

. . . the arms that long for love

  Sir Roger was listening to the ABC Science Show today. It was Robyn Williams’ homage to Oliver Sacks (Awakenings, The Man Who Thought His Wife Was a Hat, Seeing Voices, Uncle Tungsten etc. etc. etc.) and was jolly-well enjoying it immensely. The sun was shining into the conservatory, the hounds had been exercised, the ice was clinking cheerfully in the Glenfiddich, all was right with the world … when suddenly his Lordship was shaken by these words:

 Listen to the complete ABC Science Show feature on Oliver Sacks

In the show, Sacks recalled his early (wartime) childhood experience after being evacuated to the country from London during the blitz.

He called it “soul murder”.

Sir Roger’s glass slid from his hand and he watched it slowly fall, like an overcranked silent film, to be dashed on the Italian tiles of the conservatory floor.

The idea of murdering a child’s soul – what would that mean? To thrust a knife into the heart of the spirit of playfulness and enthusiasm and joy, to cut off the hands that grasp so eagerly for learning, to amputate the arms that long for love, to sever the legs that long to walk tall, to blind the imagination and every dream, and to gut the body of hope.

To replace it all with what — an interminable desert of dust and ash and despair, and the nightmare of blank nothingness.

Repairing to the Library Sir Roger blew the dust off an article about “soul murder” by Leonard Shengold who said:

“ Soul murder is the term I have used for the apparently willful abuse and neglect of children by adults that are of sufficient intensity and frequency to be traumatic. By that I mean that the children’s subsequent emotional development has been profoundly and predominantly negatively affected.”

The mind of the master of Migently Estate flashed into flame, like ancient nitrocellulose film in a poorly maintained projector on a hot day, with the thought that the treatment of asylum seekers by successive Australian governments, and particularly their Prime Ministers and Ministers, their bureaucracies and bureaucrats, and their profit-driven corporate contractors, matches the description of “soul murder”.

Especially — though not only — when it is perpetrated against children for whom as a society we are collectively responsible. And more damningly, as a Culture — which we so pridefully contrast with others we call barbaric, backward, primitive, knuckle-dragging, inhumane – we are deeply shamed.

And so Sir Roger slumped into the rattan and pondered to whom, on Shengold’s definition, the term “soul murderer” might be applied. Who had publicly and wilfully perpetrated, advertised and perhaps boasted of abuse against children who are, after all, in the broad sense in Australia’s care (you know, to discourage people from getting on boats and to break the people smugglers’ “business model”)?

And, he mused, those would include Dutton, Morrison, Turnbull, Abbott, Rudd, Gillard, Howard, Keating, Evans, Bowen, Ruddock, Vanstone.

Who else?

All those who voted in parliament for them and their policies.

All those facilitators, such as bureaucrats and others, who were ‘just doing their jobs’. Heartlessly. 

And all those who are complicit because they voted to put those people in parliament.

And he shouted to the cat, “You can say ‘not in my name‘ as much and as loudly as you bloody well like, but actually it is in your name and you are not absolved unless you do something about it. It is in your name if you vote for either of the major parties party.”

“And that’s all right, puss,” he said quietly, “as long as you are clear and okay with yourself that that is who you are: someone who is okay with the murder of children’s souls.”

Migently Mountain Manifesto: 2

Jan 2, 2013 | Australian Values, Capital Punishment, Lifestyle & Life, Uncategorized, Values

Migently Mountain Manifesto: 2

 

6.

When we swear to something, that is kind of a proper commitment.

The word “swear” comes from an ancient word that means “to speak”; to say words.

In one of the most savagely beautiful and exceptional works of fiction, the Book of John begins:

“ In the beginning was the word…”

Sir Roger prefers his own variation:

“ In the Word is the beginning.”

Speaking your word — “swearing” — makes possible the real-isation of your intention or your desire.

When you “give your word”, do you mean it as a commitment, a guarantee?
Or is your word just something you said?

If you say you will be somewhere at 1 o’clock, can people know that you will be there at 1 o’clock?
Or do they make allowances for you?
Do they tell you lunch is at 12.30  because you’re always half an hour late?
How does it make you feel to be a person that people make allowances for, that other people “manage”?

How do you relate to your word?

When you make a promise is it just “aspirational”, or is your word who you are?

When what you say is guaranteed — when you are your word, when what you say becomes what you do — then you have enormous power, because what you say unquestionably comes to pass.

People will want to hear what you speak, so that they know what is going to happen in the world and make their plans.

7.

 

I don’t believe in capital punishment and I am not a murderer.
Nor am I remotely murderously inclined. 

But, like you, I know that if someone threatens or touches my child I am capable of killing them without compunction.

This might give you pause next time you bray (from a safe distance) for some poor bastard’s blood.
One day they could be braying for yours.
And in the circumstances you may suddenly not agree so enthusiastically that your own execution would be such a good thing.

Or that judicial murder in general is a good thing.

 

8.

 

Either you control your emotions or they control you.

You have your emotions or you’re at their mercy.

It’s up to you.

This thought gives you a place to stand outside your emotions.
There you can consider them from some distance if you need to.
It doesn’t mean you don’t have emotions — you always will — or that they’re bad (they’re good), or that you shouldn’t enjoy them (you should).

It just gives you choice if you need it.

And it puts you in charge of them when you need to be.

 

9.

 

Either you run your life, or plenty of other people are happy to fill the gap and run it for you.

To get what they want.

At your expense.

It’s your call.

10.

 

Thank the universe for hot showers.

Manifesto Tablet 1
Manifesto Tablet 3
Manifesto Tablet 4

On War: Notes For My Son

May 27, 2012 | Arts, Australian Values, Capital Punishment, Corruption, Democracy, OzPol Values, Values, War

On War: Notes For My Son

 

…and for yours, and for all of us.

 

Sir Roger is currently in the land of the poppy (the other one) but not near Flanders fields. Yet there are poppies here in the South of France and the whiff of war and bloody conflict is inescapably, faintly, background to all.

And so it was a cold and brassy wind which blew through Sir Roger’s eye sockets and resonated in his skull and rattled the bones of his skeleton when Les recited this poem, perhaps the angriest, truest, most biting and chilling verse of war Sir Roger has ever heard.

  

Notes for My Son

~  Alex Comfort

Remember when you hear them beginning to say Freedom
Look carefully – see who it is that they want you to butcher.

Remember, when you say that the old trick would not have
fooled you for a moment
That every time it is the trick which seems new.

Remember that you will have to put in irons
Your better nature, if it will desert to them.

Remember, remember their faces–watch them carefully:
For every step you take is on somebody’s body.

And every cherry you plant for them is a gibbet
And every furrow you turn for them is a grave

Remember, the smell of burning will not sicken you
If they persuade you that it will thaw the world

Beware. The blood of a child does not smell so bitter
If you have shed it with a high moral purpose.

So that because the woodcutter disobeyed
they will not burn her today or any day

So that for lack of a joiner’s obedience
The crucifixion will not now take place

So that when they come to sell you their bloody corruption
You will gather the spit of your chest
And plant it in their faces.

  

Assange – Wanted: Dead or Dead

Jan 11, 2011 | Australian Values, Capital Punishment, Cultural Values, Democracy, Legal, Media Values, OzPol Values, Terrorism, USPol, Values, War

Assange – Wanted: Dead or Dead

 

“Why wasn’t Assange garroted years ago?”

 

Sir Roger had thought that there was a limited number of people who had urged or advocated the murder/assassination/execution of Wikileaks’ Julian Assange.

Two people had stood out particularly – Canadian Professor Tom (“Obama should put out a contract”) Flanagan and US Army Lt-Col. Ralph (“Assange should be killed”) Peters.

Now he discovers there is a small website where you can find a much larger number of people involved in what looks to Sir Roger a lot like incitement to murder.

It’s “People OK With Murdering Assange“.

So it’s the usual suspects except it’s not all FoxNews or crackpot Republicans (but I repeat myself).

Australian terrorism law defines a terrorist act as

“an action done or a threat made with the intention of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause including the intention of intimidating the public or a section of the public and where the action causes serious physical harm to a person or causes a person’s death, or endangers a person’s life.”

Advocating a terrorist act means directly or indirectly counselling the doing of a terrorist act, or directly or indirectly providing instruction on the doing of the terrorist act.

The US Code of Federal Regulations defines terrorism as

“…the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives”.

The UN General Assembly resolved (non-bindingly) that

…Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them…

So in general…

…surveying the various academic definitions of terrorism, Vallis concluded that:

  • “Most of the formal definitions of terrorism have some common characteristics:

    a fundamental motive to make political/societal changes;

  • the use of violence or illegal force; attacks on civilian targets by “nonstate”/”Subnational actors”;

  • and the goal of affecting society. This finding is reflected in Blee’s listing of three components of terrorism:

1. Acts or threats of violence;

2. The communication of fear to an audience beyond the immediate victim, and;

3. Political, economic, or religious aims by the perpetrator(s).”

See if you can discern the vaguest hint of any sentiment or intent described in the definitions above, in any of the following statements made in the American media.

 

BOB BECKEL – FOX News commentator

“A dead man can’t leak stuff…This guy’s a traitor, he’s treasonous, and he has broken every law of the United States. And I’m not for the death penalty, so…there’s only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a bitch.”

Reading this over very carefully, one is wondering whether a person can be a traitor to a country of which he is not a citizen and wondering, too, whether it’s actually possible for one individual to break absolutely every law of a country with 50 states and numerous territories, and indeed how a Fox News “analyst” could have completely examined the facts of Assange’s life in relation to every single law of the United States – civil, criminal and corporate – and come to his conclusion so swiftly.

One is left only in awe of such an intellect. And yet one struggles to grasp the logic of a person who is “not for” the death penalty nevertheless advocating the intentional punishment of a person with death by gunfire. But perhaps one is indeed dwarfed by genius and can never hope to comprehend the product of such an advanced intelligence.

  

ERIC BOLLING – FOX News commentator

“[Assange] should be underground — six feet underground. … He should be put in jail or worse, hanged in a public forum.”

 

 JOHN HAWKINS – townhall.com

“5 Reasons The CIA Should Have Already Killed Julian Assange

[ … ]

” … there’s no reason that the CIA can’t kill him. Moreover, ask yourself a simple question: If Julian Assange is shot in the head tomorrow or if his car is blown up when he turns the key, what message do you think that would send … ?”

Sounds a lot like advice – instruction, even – on how to carry out an act, do you think?

 

RUSH LIMBAUGH

“Back in the old days when men were men and countries were countries, this guy would die of lead poisoning from a bullet in the brain.”

Just wondering … does this bring a flutter of recognition? Why does Sir Roger have flashes of Dallas? Tucson?

RUSH LIMBAUGH

“(laughing) Ah, folks, even Greg Palkot of Fox News interviewed Assange, which means that Roger Ailes knows where he is. Ailes knows where Assange is. Give Ailes the order and there is no Assange, I’ll guarantee you, and there will be no fingerprints on it.”

 

WILLIAM KRISTOL Chairman, New Citizenship Project 1997 to 2005, co-founder Project for the New American Century (PNAC), board member of Keep America Safe, a think tank co-founded by Liz Cheney and Debra Burlingame, board member of the Emergency Committee for Israel.

“Why can’t we act forcefully against WikiLeaks? Why can’t we use our various assets to harass, snatch or neutralize Julian Assange and his collaborators, wherever they are?”

You gotta love the political sophistication of the guy who fought so hard to get the “Coalition” into Iraq to root out those pesky weapons of mass destruction at the cost of only several hundred thousand lives.

 

G. GORDON LIDDY – Former White House Adviser

“This fellow Anwar al-Awlaki – a joint U.S. citizen hiding out in Yemen – is on a ‘kill list’ [for inciting terrorism against the U.S.]. Mr. Assange should be put on the same list.”

Sir Roger is musing whether Mr Liddy would therefore logically agree that all people whose statements and actions coincide with the generally agreed definitions of advocating terrorist acts ought to be on the same list? But no, Sir Roger fears that Liddy and the others in this list would subscribe to the doctrine of American exceptionalism.

 

JOHAN GOLDBERG – Editor-at-large of National Review Online

“I’d like to ask a simple question: Why isn’t Julian Assange dead? …Why wasn’t Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago? It’s a serious question.

Is it also a serious suggestion?

 

 DONALD DOUGLAS – Right-wing blogger

“I won’t think twice if Julian Assange meets the cold blade of an assassin, and apparently a significant number of others don’t care for the guy.”

Sir Roger wonders if Mr Douglas realises that a prerequisite of thinking twice is to have thought once.

 

 MARC SCHENKER “Vancouver American Politics Examiner” whatever that means

“So if you look at Peters’ call to have Assange killed analytically, it makes a lot of sound sense, and he probably even has a legal footing to stand on.

What might it mean to kill someone ‘analytically’? Would that mean having a pedant bore them to death, Sir Roger wondered pedantically. What might it mean legally for Schenker to be making the suggestion – to who knows which unstable or merely fanatical mind – that a person who followed his exhortations and actually killed Assange would meet with legal approval?

The question is, when it is clear that all of these people are advocating and urging an illegal and potentially terrorist act and, whether or not the act is done they could be charged with offences under US federal and state laws, why has no action been taken or warning given by any legal or political official in the US, or any representations been made by anyone in Australia?

Sir Roger is left after all this with the most disturbing mental image of a mass of men, of advancing age and declining virility, greying hair, bloated bellies, wrinkling skin, sitting in a circle, their pants around their knees, trying to excite their various and reluctant erections, jerking as fast and hard as they possibly can to the pornography of death in a mutual masturbation society.

“God damn, Earl! Ah hain’t bin so hard since the last time we burnt a cross and linched a nigger! Ah think ah might be a-cummin’!”

 

But that’s Sir Roger’s mind for you.

 

Costello and Iran

Jun 17, 2009 | Australian Values, Capital Punishment, Cultural Values, Democracy, Freedom of Speech, OzPol Values, Religious Values, Values, War

Costello and Iran

Peter Costello reaching out to his future subjects

Our loyal visitors,

 

Wanting to know how to react to Peter Costello’s decision to disappear up his own arse at long last, may have been waiting with bated breath to hear Sir Roger’s wisdom on the issue.

 Sir Roger’s view?

Who gives a fuck?



I’m at dinner,  Jan!

On the building Iran crisis Values Australia modifies what it said two weeks ago about China and 6/4:

“ [/dropcapif you have to force the people … to obey the dictates of your Glorious Religion, if you have to kill people to force them to agree with you, then you are doing something very wrong, your basic religious premises are seriously fucked and your religion is after all not nearly so glorious as you might want to believe, however desperately.

The same goes for any religion.

Here is what is probably as close as anyone has come to our view of politics, democracy and religion, and from a Christian, no less: C. S. Lewis 

I am a democrat because I believe that no man or group of men is good enough to be trusted with uncontrolled power over others. And the higher the pretensions of such power, the more dangerous I think it both to the rulers and to the subjects. Hence Theocracy is the worst of all governments.

 

If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and since he dimly knows he is going wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.

 

And since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any government approaches to Theocracy the worse it will be. A metaphysic, held by the rulers with the force of a religion, is a bad sign. It forbids them, like the inquisitor, to admit any grain of truth or good in their opponents, it abrogates the ordinary rules of morality, and it gives a seemingly high, super-personal sanction to all the very ordinary human passions by which, like other men, the rulers will frequently be actuated.

– Of Other Worlds,