Kevin Andrews: Farewell

Feb 1, 2021 | Australian Values, Border Security, Citizenship, Corruption, Cultural Values, Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Immigration, Legal, OzPol Values, Racism, Religious Values, Terrorism, UK Politics, USPol, Values, War

Kevin Andrews: Farewell

& Good Riddance

So, great news this week in Australian politics!

 

At least and at last some of the scum has begun oozing out under the parliamentary doors. Important slime in this case.

But why is it that the “Father Of the House” is always the worst of the worst?

Before, it was Ruddock, the Nazgul, the nastiest, slimiest bastard who ever pissed and farted his way into the House pretending to be the friend of the People, as long as the “people” were white and/or wealthy. Oh, and straight. And didn’t arrive by boat. He was an abusive “Father” of the House as a Minister. He was malevolent and merciless as the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, particularly for his heartless treatment of desperate refugees escaping from wars that Australia’s arsonist “Liberal”/Nationalist politicians had gleefully and enthusiastically (and frankly cock-suckingly) helped to ignite. As Attorney General in 2003 he “introduced the Marriage Legislation Amendment Bill to prevent any possible court rulings allowing same-sex marriages or civil unions.” Nice guy—other crusading decisions on same-sex marriage suggest he was channeling god’s hatred of homos. Worst of all perhaps was his hypocritical wearing of the Amnesty International badge at the same time he was systematically and brutally denying aid to the very people Amnesty International was fighting to support.

But that was before.

The current Father of the House is not long for this political world, and in contrast to the abusive “Father” of the House Ruddock, this one has been a “Deadbeat Dad“; a useless, stupid—and therefore dangerous—piece of shit. They love him in the House because he’s perfect for the Libs—a Useful Idiot; a biddable dickhead; Australia’s version of America’s Lindsey Graham, or the UK’s Chris Grayling.

 

What happened?

 

Well . . . ‘Howard-era stalwart’ Kevin Andrews was (what they call in the US) “primaried“ for the seat of Menzies by the barrister and former soldier Keith Wolahan. Everything is right about this, if more than a decade late. Values Australia has been calling for Andrews’ dishonorable discharge since 2007. He has lost the ultra-right seat honouring the crumbling horror that was Menzies.

Not only that, but he was vigorously supported in his reselection by the top conservative powerbrokers:

  • Health Minister Greer Kunt 
  • Education Minister Ellen Bludge
  • Assistant Treasurer Michail Sucks
  • Treasurer Jess Friedeggburger 
  • Scum from Marketing
  • and, best of all, John Hunt the Coward  

A really delectable and comprehensive FAIL.
 

Why did Values Australia call for Kevin Andrews’ removal/ departure/resignation/whatever it takes?

 

Because he was/(is) incompetent, inhumane in the way only self-righteous christians can be, and—because unintelligent, weak and biddable—dangerous as a loose cannon.

In a post on 2 November 2007 we reported on the ongoing Haneef scandal:

“They were ripping up the doctrine of the separation of powers,” Mr Barns said.

“What you are seeing here is the politicisation of an investigation …”

“It shows there was a pre-judgment by Minister Andrews and the Government, prior to the magistrate’s decision being taken, and this decision was politically stage-managed rather than being done according to law.”

Andrews was at the time Minister for Immigration under the soon to be unceremoniously jettisoned John Howard.

As Sir Roger said at the time, Andrews was “now reduced to being the bumboy for a frail, doomed old man.” 

He dog-whistled racist bullshit about Sudanese refugees to Pauline’s base in the run-up to the election. Unsuccessfully. 

But mostly he should have resigned 13 years ago (or earlier if possible) because for party political advantage, for religious and ideological reasons, contrary to the impartiality of the law, contrary to the interests of the country, you might think well and truly contrary to his oath, and solely in the interests of re-election (oops), he politicised a criminal investigation, prejudged a defendant, preempted a magistrate’s finding and in the process nearly destroyed and sacrificed an innocent man’s life to the racist, morally corrupt Liberal Party.

Sir Roger couldn’t be happier to see the last of Andrews and to see the power of the Power Elite of the government tumbling, crumbling, collapsing, decaying, decomposing, degenerating, deteriorating, disintegrating, dissolving, fragmenting, perishing, putrefying, going to pieces

 

 

Here are some of the Values Australia historical blog posts that are more or less relevant to Andrews:

 

You Can Be Charged for What You Did Today

Keelty Must Go At Last

Who is DIC’s Grima Wormtongue

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)

Porter Loo

Nov 24, 2020 | Australian Values, Citizenship, Cultural Values, Democracy, Economic Values, Legal, Lifestyle & Life, OzPol Values, Values

Porter Loo

The Guardian

When Christian Is a Dirty Word

 

This won’t take long.
The Department of Home Affairs (“the Potatocracy”)  stirringly asserts that people love to come to Australia because: 

” ​​​​​​​​Australian values are based on freedom, respect, fairness and equality of opportunity are central to our community remaining a secure, prosperous and peaceful place to live . . .

Australian values include:

  • equality of opportunity . . .
  • a ‘fair go’ for all . . .

And that’s all good. We like that.

If only these were actual values held and supported and practised by actual politicians.

You might hope that a guy with a “christian” name like Christian might have been infected by nominative determinism, that ‘Christian’ had been an aptonym that suited Christian Porter, because he might have felt at least some moral pressure to consider the needs of the meek and struggling.

But sadly, it seems it is an inaptonym.

 ____________________

Do you know what casuals dread the most?

Christmas.

Because most don’t work at Christmas/New Year and they can’t afford a proper Christmas, or gifts for their children or whoever. Or a holiday. And they still have to pay the rent. It’s demeaning and embarrassing. 

 

A Third of Workers in Australia Don’t Get Sick Leave

 

Victoria is looking at a scheme which would provide five days of paid sick leave and carers’ pay to some casual workers and people with insecure employment.

Five days a year.

Without holiday pay.

You would think this was the very least they could do, except that throughout Australia the standard government support for such people is:

the very least they can get away with. 

Aside:

In our social system all people are of equal value.  

In our political system all voters are of equal power.

The power is in the people, not in the politicians.

The power IS the People.

All the people.

Importantly:

Power does not emanate from the politicians. 

The People’s power does not go to the politicians.

The People’s power goes through the politicians.

  Keeping this in mind 

when a politician is managing the needs of all of the electors of whatever status. . . 

Christian Porter is, apart from Attorney General, the minister for Industrial Relations.

This apparently means that he is effectively the minister for industrialists.

We know this is who he is because he sees a tiny attempt to help people who need help as “a massive tax”, as “killing business”.

Casual work is inherently insecure.

Casual work tends to be poorly paid, without penalty rates and sometimes they’re not eligible for a trickle of Super.

If they’re Job Seekers any income reduces their Centrelink payments. Sometimes casual work is the only work they can get. Yes, they get paid more to ‘compensate’ for the uncertainty and the lack of benefits, but on the pay grade of most it’s an insult and not enough to assure against the unforeseen. They can be easily trashed when they’re not needed.  

And yet the economy depends on them and the low cost of their work. 

But forget about their problems. They’ve only got themselves to blame, They’re a nuisance and they can’t complain because they could lose their shitty job.

And let’s be blunt; they’re the peons of industry. They’re not nearly as valuable as the rich and powerful. If casuals cost a little bit more, business owners might have to spend hours less on the ski slopes.

Businesses would collapse—Collapse!—if casual workers were treated fairly.

And, according to ‘Christian’ Porter, employment would collapse—Collapse!—if workers were treated fairly and with equality as Australians (a core Australian value).

And yet business depends on casual workers and the low cost of their work. 

Christian Porter’s base salary is $357,247.50. His superannuation rate is 15.4% (while everyone else gets 9.5%), or a minimum of roughly $55,000 per year.

What is it about the far right (and the Christians) that they fight against help for those who struggle while supporting, and courting the favour of, those who need no help at all?

Australian Value #1

Oct 27, 2020 | Australian Values, Border Security, Citizenship, Cultural Values, Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Humour, Immigration, Legal, Media Values, OzPol Values, PedoPriests, Religious Values, Values

Australian Value #1

Values Australia’s Aussie Values T-Shirt on display and immortalised in Museums Victoria

Ellen Sludge Breaks the Cardinal Law

Many moons ago, Sir Roger wrote the First Law of Australian Values. 

Australian Value #1:

 

Politicians do NOT own Australian Values

 

The fact that John Hunt, the Coward, and “Slim” Beazley had engaged in a battle to hijack Australian Values was the reason that Sir Roger had himself taken up arms against this anti-social piracy and became a global celebrity. 

The least qualified human beings to be aware of, to understand, or to protect Australian Values are, of course, bloody politicians. Politicians have continually attempted to kidnap our values and debauch them into the authoritarian beliefs of the alt-right, the international catholic paedophilia ring and the born-again theocratists. 

Values are not created by fiat, by law, by act, charter, legislation or decree.

Real values are organic, historic, and always evolving. Values are created by the mass of free, individual humans. (Unless they’re members of the Hillsaralive Church of the Sound of Music, in which case they’re just the brainwashed living dead.)  

This said, Sir Roger was delighted to see a delightful piece of work by the Grauniad’s Frant which asked all the right questions and provided some excellent answers:

So the latest dickhead in charge of controlling Australian Citizens and what they are required to believe is Ellen Smudge, Acting Mincer for Denizens, Immitation, Migraine Surfaces and Multicuntural Affairs, including responsibility for O’Pears.   

What are Ellen’s qualifications for nurturing Australian Values? Well, mostly fudging: 

“In June 2017  Smudge, and Liberal Party colleagues Greer Kunt and Michelle Sucker, faced the possibility of being prosecuted for contempt of court after they made public statements criticising the sentencing decisions of two senior judges while the government was awaiting their ruling on a related appeal. They avoided prosecution by, eventually, making an unconditional apology to the Victorious Court of Appeal. Conviction could have resulted in their expulsion from the parliament under Constitution s 44(ii) and, as a result, the government losing its one-seat majority in the House of Representatives. 

 And of course more recently there was this: 

“In March 2020, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal ordered that an Afghan asylum seeker who had previously been a part of the Afghan National Army be granted a temporary protection visa. Smudge, who was Acting Immitation Minister at the time, instantly appealed the judgement of the AAT to federal court, which failed. However during the 6-day appeal process, the asylum seeker had been kept in the detention centre. Six months later, the Federal Court found that Grudge, “engaged in conduct which can only be described as criminal,” and that Drudge had deprived the asylum seeker of his liberty, which has prompted calls for his resignation. 

As you will be unsurprised to learn, Ms Nudge (full name Nudge-Nudge-Wink-Wink-Saynomore)  is an old hand at dog whistling and, as Joe Biden said of the Trump, “This guy has a dog whistle about as big as a foghorn.” She doesn’t really like anyone who is not a white christian who speaks English. The Western Suburbs love it.  

Miss Judge wants it to be very clear that her government deeply believes in and supports Australians’ Freedom of Speech.  This is presumably why there is no actual statement in the Australian Constitution permitting or mandating Freedom of Speech, and why no government has ever proposed any referendum to establish this right, and why freedom of speech is a thinly technical presumption devised by a few narrow majorities of High Court Judges, and only with respect to political speech. You might say that all speech is in a sense political and you would be right but you might not wish to be the one to fork out the cash to run a case in the matter in the High Court. All citizens are equal under the law and have equal rights of access to justice as long as they have the funds to afford a decent lawyer.  

The Australian government’s tolerance and its attitude to free speech are demonstrated by its amendments to Wikipedia, and its action to kindly inform Values Australia in March 2007 that if it didn’t pull the site down it would send it to gaol on the basis of a variety of laws. This was in addition to its actually closing down a parody site of the Prime Minister. So aspirational immigrants need to understand that by “free speech” the government means you can say anything you like, anything at all, that agrees with the government and does not hurt its feelings.

Mateship of course is the value most often and most fiercely promoted as the essence of being Australian . . . because no other country has such a value. Australia is so mateship-oriented that we even celebrate it as a black grease called VEGEMATE.

You might think that Mateship is just a kind of friendship and other countries have friendship so what’s so special. But no. Mateship is something far more deep and complex.

Here’s what Sir Roger says about Mateship:

1) Mateship is the one and the only Central Pillar of Australian values;

2) Only men are permitted to have mates;

3) Women are banned from having mates because women have actual meaningful interpersonal relationships with actual friends. which is against the Rules of Mateship.

4) Mateship is not the same as Shipmate, which suggests a different kind of relationship.

5) Mates do not touch each other.

5a) unless they are pissed, when a mate might use the term “Matey” and profess an unseemly level of affection. This transgression is only tolerated because the mates are so pissed they won’t remember it in the morning. This is the evolutionary function of the hangover. 

So what is mateship?

Mateship is pretending to be friends with someone who doesn’t want your job.

A mate is someone who won’t sleep with your mistress without asking you first.

A great mate is a rugby league footballer who invites you to a gang bang with the other members of his team.

 

Ruby Murdocraci will be your TRUE Mate if you are a biddable politician and you stroke him just the way he likes it, at least for as long as you are useful.

A mate is what men have who are incapable of attracting actual friends (see “Politician”), or of forming any kind of vaguely intimate relationships, particularly in their own families (ibid).

As Sir Roger says, the only strange thing about mateship is that the people who have promoted this value most loudly over the last several decades—and now, as we see, Minister Bludge—have never had a real mate in their lives because they are such dorks and bogans. (Minister Sludge is a certified Bogan, being from rural Victorious.) The people who call them mates only do it because they have useful stuff they can give them, like TV stations, or Australia (they gave that away to their “mate” Ruby Murdocraci). 

TAKE THE VALUES AUSTRALIA MATESHIP TEST

Values Australia has prepared a special alternative Mateship Test which we guarantee no Australian politician or fat-arsed bureaucrat would pass, particularly the Minister for DIC and his silly pen-pushers.

Take it yourself. Use it for trivia nights. 

There is more about Australian Values here.

 

Jefferson Says – Reboot

Sep 28, 2020 | Australian Values, Citizenship, Cultural Values, Democracy, Legal, OzPol Values, USPol, Values

Jefferson Says – Reboot

President Kennedy told a gathering of Nobel Prize winners at the White House,

"I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

This post was first published ten years ago. Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States, was writing 200 or more years ago. His words were wise and prophetic. Especially today, particularly at this time when tyranny seems more than ever before to be threatening the democracy of the United States.

 

We the People

 

Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States, a man of the Enlightenment, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, one of the most influential Founding Fathers, who envisioned America as the force behind a great “Empire of Liberty”.

Sir Roger knows that his loyal readers are impatient to hear what the great Jefferson, Father of the American experiment and of whom all Americans are so rightly proud [except Glenn Beck] would have said about the Wikileaks matter.

Here is what he did say:

“ Information is the currency of democracy.

[ … ]

If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves.

[ … ]

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

[ … ]

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

[ … ]

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

Just so.

Sir Roger also notes that the Constitution of the United States begins with the words:

“We the People … do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America”.

Not 'we the politicians', or 'we the Executive Branch', or 'we the diplomats', or 'we the oil companies', or 'we the bureaucrats', or 'we the bankers', or even 'we the military'.

“We the People…ordain”.

Nothing could make clearer the source of all authority in the United States — as it is in every other democracy in the world —  and any authority arrogated otherwise is illegitimate.

 

Coronavirus? Pandemic?

Aug 31, 2020 | Australian Values, Citizenship, Cultural Values, Democracy, Economic Values, Education, Global Warming, Lifestyle & Life, Love, New Normal, OzPol Values, Racism, Religious Values, Science Values, Values

Coronavirus? Pandemic?

What the Actual Fuck?

Has this been the worst ever social and economic disaster in our lifetimes? Or has it been the squealing brakes we needed, to curb our pre-pandemic headlong, tunnel-vision rush towards . . . well, where? . . . We were too busy to think about that.

And is it unprecedented? Or is it just one of the smaller, if not insignificant, health crises in roughly 300,000 years of the human story?

The answer is Yes. Or no. Or all of the above.

For some it hasn’t been so drastic; it’s even been interesting, a wake-up call, an eye-opening surprise, intimations of a new world waiting for us.

For others—millions, billions of people—this has been dreadful. Shocking. Crushing. Life was already tough enough and suddenly the little that they had has been locked down, or ripped away, or they are forced to endanger their own lives and others just to survive. And many have seen their businesses, their jobs, their weddings, and funerals, without warning, abruptly disappear into a ruthless black hole.

For some ‘luckier’ ones it has just been a horror show of seemingly interminable boredom doing the same bloody things, or nothing, day after day after blursday.

While some have clung to crosswords, jigsaw puzzles, binged on Netflix and blown the dust off childhood board games, many others have discovered TikTok or embraced Instagram and explored their latent talents and skills, joined online courses, or worked on projects they never had time for before. But even this can drain enthusiasm if what we also need is the stimulation of other humans physically close to us. 

People who already work from home, and are more used to it, might have escaped the worst of the trauma.

For introverts and people who enjoy their own company there is the added benefit that avoiding going out in public becomes a good deed.

 

What next?

What has roared up to surprise us is an incredible global treasure-trove and display of creativity and ingenuity that hadn’t displayed itself quite so publicly or broadly before. A lot of people are suddenly engrossed in something they love doing that has become more than a frivolous hobby.

We have discovered new ways of doing things and embraced new rules for living. There has been an extra flourishing of kindness and caring.

Many of us are longing for the time when this uncertainty is all over and everything returns to ‘normal’ – what the politicians are falling over each other to call “the other side of this” as if we’re going through a tunnel that doubles back on itself and we’ll pop out the other end into an unchanged world.

But it won’t work like that. We are already creating a new world with novel expectations. Many of us are praying that we never go back to that pre-2020 ‘normal’ because returning to those days would be to endorse the negatives and stress of that time, abandoning so much of value we are freshly learning. It would be like resigning to the hopelessness, like embracing our abuser.

What before we had considered ‘normal’ isn’t normal in the history of humanity, not in the history of science or technology, not even in the stagnant history of politics. What we called ‘normal’ before this time wasn’t ‘normal’ as recently as 20 or so years ago.

The world of 2020 is not at all the same as the world of 2000, and it is starkly different from the world of 1980. Millennials were born in the dark ages; many before the internet and smart phones which rule our lives today.

Everything is always changing in the subtle blink of a historical eye. It morphs subliminally as we watch but don’t notice. And it sneaks up on us so surreptitiously that it feels as if things have always been this way.

Except . . .

. . . except that this very recent jolt sits on top of centuries where the central pillar of human society hasn’t essentially changed – like an Easter Island statue, set in stone that goes literally deep underground.

This central pillar of modern society, in effectively all cultures, and all politics, is the gaslighting coercion and commodification of humans by the wealthy and powerful in relentless pursuit and protection of power and wealth.

While everything else is always changing, the underpinning fundamental principles of political philosophy change glacially. Most politicians and their parties almost anywhere in the world still wade up to their armpits through the foul morass of opportunist cronyism; still harvest the noxious sludge of the distant past; still, head down, trying to navigate, with stained, fading, tattered and obsolete maps, the quagmire of ancient myths of crumbled worlds millennia ago; still shadowing the spectral call of long-dead heroes, buried in dark ages, or in the more recent beige years of hopelessness and resignation imposed upon us for a quarter century by Ming the Grim; still desperate to claw up and restore a long-vanished, and fictitious, world of fairytale childhoods; still hawking concepts that decomposed centuries before they were born.

While the horse and buggy politics of early Australia – forever ago it seems – were often steeped in inequality, prejudice and discrimination, at least some few of those early federalists were people who had achieved something in their own right before they became members of Parliament, people of principle who had a sense of service, social conscience, ethics and fairness and worked for the good of the country. They fought for the People, for a basic wage, fair working hours, a national broadcaster, and an equitable health service. And if they were found breaking the rules they resigned.

It has not lately been like this. As you know.

What Parliament really looks like on a normal day. Where are all the dedicated people (paid by Australians to do a job) who really care and are working hard for the welfare of the Australian people?

‘Normal’ in the 21st century has been the seats of Parliament, on both sides, filled (when they are filled) with the polished arses of chancers, grifters, opportunists and carpetbaggers; arrogant, self-impressed, self-congratulatory, amoral branch-stacking careerist apparatchiks without principles, conscience, or ethics; with limited experience, no understanding of the complexity of the real world, empty of any sense of service (or what ‘service’ even means), oozing with greed for power and money, uninterested in the good of the country and its people, willing to lie and cheat in order merely to “win” and enrich their mates. And amongst them are more than the country’s share of racists, fruitcakes, conspiracists, conspirators and clowns.

As American Professor Heather Cox Richardson puts it:

 [Politicians] create their own reality for the end that they will be able to continue to stay in power, come hell or high water [and] will do anything it takes — anything it takes — to make sure that this [US] government continues to be responsible only to a very, very small elite in society.”

  

So winning at some dick-measuring game, the game of “staying in power” for the sake only of staying in power—without regard to the actual issues and potentially destructive outcomes of the game, or of the effects on the country, its people, or their future—this is what politicians all around the world think and have long thought is ‘normal’ and ‘appropriate’. Of course it is despicable and we all despise them for it.

 

 

‘Normal’ before 2020 was good in many ways but it was never a perfect time, was never good enough and often it was contemptible. Our greatest challenge—Global Warming, far greater than this pandemic—has not been seriously addressed, at least not by our global “leaders”. Inequality, prejudice and discrimination have not dissolved. Political cruelty is rife. Those who struggle are scorned as weak. Unemployment is cast as a moral  issue, portraying the almost universally unwillingly unemployed as bludgers, when the fact is it is an economic issue linked to inflation and party politics.

  

“ The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us.
But, we don’t ask for their love; only for their fear.”
― Heinrich Himmler

If we settle again for the political and economic slop and mush we know it has been, all our suffering and our admirable communal discipline and sacrifice through 2020 will have been for nothing.

 If we ignore the gift of this pandemic, if we fail to take personal ownership of our society, and the quality of our lives, that will be a choice we have collectively made and we will each own the responsibility for it.

 Too much about the CoVid world has changed for us to want to reboot the past; but a ‘new normal’ will not be an improvement unless we keep reminding ourselves of what we have been taught here and the visions of the future we are all already imagining.

We have had the opportunity to take a stark, honest look at the way we have actually been living. In the gift of this frozen moment we have seen through the deception of the cultural illusions and delusions we’ve been wrapped in for so long. Our suspended lives are an opportunity to choose who and how we really want to be, and what is truly possible in life.

The power ‘elite’ will try to convince us to return to a past they already royally buggered up (in the case of many priests, literally) . We know we can’t trust them. In a private wine-glazed moment they would admit that lying to us is in the core of their craft. We can’t live into a new future by relying on them, or anything they say, when everything they think they ‘know’, or want us to believe, was dredged up from the fossilised past. 

 

Imagining the future

 

Human society has always been organic, even (or perhaps especially) when faced with the horrors of despotism. It is always the mass of the people who take on the big challenges and decide the big corrections. And it is always when the people are tired and shrink in fear that the great possibilities are stolen from us.

We have already imagined so many ways a new normal might look and feel and how it might work. It is this envisioned, projected future, our combined belief that it is possible, our expectation of it, that will generate the new future, with a firm intention that it is beautiful, free and healthy.

And exciting.

We’ve been given the opportunity to learn to recognise, in the cold, calm, quiet light of this suddenly suspended time, the levers and pulleys of the flimsy fantasy machine of the systems we have permitted to command the quality, the colours, the contents, the contours, and the meanings of our lives.

Now is an opportunity to learn to deeply appreciate life itself, the actual miracle of being alive, the right to enjoy it fully, in an impossibly unlikely and (as far as we are yet aware) otherwise lifeless universe. It is an opportunity to appreciate being; not just having; not just doing; and not just going somewhere.

Until now, in our urgent rush toward the void, we haven’t really had time to grasp that we’re not actually going anywhere anyway. Full of stress, anxiety and fear, we’ve been sprinting towards . . . what though? . . . winning at life?

There’s no payoff at the end, no trophy, no pat on our deathbed head. We don’t get a certificate for making it to the end (unless we score a telegram from the queen).

If we’re always in a hurry to get to the end we rush past all the amazing things that truly enrich life because we’re too busy to notice them and don’t have time for them on the way to nowhere.

 

“What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention?

A dash, one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone.”
~  Eckhart Tolle 

What will be left?  Yes, in that brief dash will be the fear, all the hatred and all the good we failed to do. But also in that simple hyphen will be all the good we did do, the love we gave, our positive influence, the lessons we learnt and taught, how we lifted others up, the difference we made in the world, how we helped to protect the world, improve the world, create new ideas for the world.
The money we made and the stuff we owned will not be engraved in stone.

What will be left of value in the living world?  Our kindness, our wisdom, the love we shared and received, the joy we gave to others and the joy we found for ourselves. These things will continue on, in the eternal present.

 

We don’t win at life; we win IN life.

 

 

The whole of life is in

each moment of life itself

What if we were to spend our infinitely precious time, here and now, appreciating the juicy, exciting, amazing, exuberant, cornucopia of the present.

What if we play in it, experience it, embrace it, grasp and suck and swallow it, in the present. And what if we do all that with feral enthusiasm? Or in meditative stillness? Luxuriously bathe in it?

Right now.

Yes we can sit with our back to this moment nostalgically yearning for the past, but the past is just a sketchy memory we experience in the Present. We can enjoy good memories and be grateful for them.

In the Present.

We can understand that whatever our bad memories, they are not real, they’re just imperfect recollections.

In the Present.

We can thank them for the learning and smooth their pillow. They have no real claws. They can’t hurt us in the present without our permission.

 

Yes we can scream forward with our head in the future trying to reach it before it arrives.

Or we can savour the joy and the miracle of right now.

Because the future, inexorably and without our help, will come in its own time. In the present we can enjoy the possibilities of the future. And when it arrives we can appreciate its reality.

We’ll recognise the future when it comes.

It will be called “The Present”. 

“It is our suffering that brings us together.”
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed 

Many things have emerged during this lockdown, some of them upsetting; but also good has emerged because of our shared experience.

There has been an increase in generosity, a stronger sense of local and global community. Complete strangers wave to each other, chat to each other, form more intimate relationships. We see it in people from all over the world joining together in creative activities. Remotely making music, performing plays.

Even dressing up to put out the bins has created an international community of over a million people. Community is the core to being human. We are social animals. We need each other. We are incomplete without others. That’s hard-wired. We need connection whether we’re introverts or extroverts.

We need that real, warm sense of personal connection and belonging to a community.

Homework’ Takes On A New Meaning

In 2020 we’ve discovered — or rediscovered from the cottage industries of the pre-Industrial era — that employees can work perfectly well from home and be productive and collaborative without being micro-managed.

One of Sir Roger’s acquaintances reckons the data show an increase in productivity of 25% among those working from home. We can continue to do this. And it’s scalable.

This has benefits for both workers and companies.

Workers have found that they can put in the same or more hours from home but don’t need to spend hours and money travelling to and from work. And that means they have more time at home spending more time with family and more time doing the personal things they never seemed to have time for before.

In many cases companies won’t need enormous elaborate premises with expensive leases to accommodate the workforce that they have. They won’t need to be in the centre of the city, Costs can go down and salaries can go up without a loss of profit.

 

We spend most of our lives first being trained to be compliant and docile and then bringing those gifts to a job which is, for most of us, not wholly satisfying; not the job we chose but the one we could get; not really who we are; learning to pretend to be the person we are expected to be; all for rewards which are never quite enough.

Just in order to survive.

For what?

 

For that awful realisation, as we get older, that we wasted most of our lives wrapped in a blanket to protect ourselves from dangers that never happened.

How do you know that your job is not everything you could wish for and you are wasting your precious time?

  • Do you look forward to Friday?
  • Do you call Wednesday “hump day”? 
  • How quickly would you leave your job if you won the lottery?
  • Would you stay in your job (and put up with the boss) if you didn’t need the money?
  • What would you do if you didn’t need your job?

What are we thinking?  

Despite our unremarkable, humble neighbourhood, we are extraordinary.

We are entities with minds the size of the universe (literally).
We are the universe. We are the universe conscious of itself—probably for the first time in its 13.7 billion years.
We extraordinary beings, full of thoughts, emotions, imagination, stories, creativity, wonder, are the only beings aware of their mortality and the mortality of the universe itself.
Yet we willingly surrender our too brief and finite lives, our gifts, our dreams, the miracle of our minds.
We surrender to a dispassionate, fabricated system; to an artificial and deeply dysfunctional construct called ‘the economy’; and most of us to a suffocating story of compliance and conformity and the safe, orthodox, mediocre life. Religion has a lot to answer for, for this, because . . .

The immense majority

of human biographies
are a gray transit between

domestic spasm and oblivion.
George Steiner

What can we do?

This pandemic has given us time to become more aware of the environments where we live and the people who live there. It is giving us time to be more aware of, and to think about, what society and community really mean.

It is also an opportunity to see how we have overlooked the breadth, the depth and the vitality of community, and why; and to draw out the forensic UV torch to reveal the blood on the walls; to unveil the fictitious story, to reveal the witchcraft, to expose the illusion, to unmask the conspiracy, and instead to see the reality. To grow into a way of living and of really experiencing and exploring our real lives, with other real lives, freely, richly and autonomously.

It is an opportunity that we can all share.

How exactly it will look and how it will be achieved we can’t know. Not yet.

What we can know is that any outcome hauled out of the grave of the recently passed world will inescapably mean inviting the undead to inhabit, and inhibit, the future.

But if it’s drawn from the future that we are already imagining, that will be something new and better.

In the meantime we can reach out in our lives to others. Value others – and not just humans – as fellow creatures. Make a joyful difference to their lives. Value our own lives fully, for everything they are, be grateful, and find joy in our own lives.