Why has Australia gone stark raving mad?
Actually, it sometimes feels as though the entire world has gone stark raving mad lately. But some places have gone more mad than others:
Case in point, Australia:
It’s hard to know exactly when Australia’s pandemic response crossed the line from tragedy into farce. But future historians could do worse than pinpoint the moment when Sydney’s chief health supremo told the city’s residents to stop being friendly to one another when they ventured out to buy essentials, lest they get themselves and others killed.
“Whilst it is in human nature to engage in conversation with others, to be friendly, unfortunately this is not the time to do that . . . don’t start up a conversation,” scolded Kerry Chant, the endlessly tut-tutting chief health officer of New South Wales, at a news conference last week. “We want to make sure as we go about our daily lives that we do not come into contact with anyone who could pose a risk.”
Never mind that you can’t even go near a shop without a mask, she said. Masks aren’t foolproof and this is, in her words, “no time for complacency.” A simple g’day, in other words, could be deadly.
Happily, most of us who live in Sydney ignored the warning.
So maybe it’s not Australia as a whole that’s gone mad, but Australia’s health officials and the politicians who support them:
Australians need permission from the federal government to leave the country—applications succeed about half the time—and Australia’s states throw up their borders against one another at the slightest hint of trouble. Residents of Sydney may leave their homes only if it is “essential,” and not stray more than six miles when they do.
This is before discussing the economic fallout from the latest lockdowns. Billions will be spent by government or lost by businesses as a result.
It’s especially ironic considering that Australia’s case and death numbers are low – but, as the article goes on to explain, that may be part of the reason the government keeps the Draconian rules in place:
So how did Australia become a hermit kingdom? Geography plays a large part. By mistaking their good luck for brilliance in being able to pull up the drawbridge to the world at the start of the pandemic, Australians quickly became trapped in an “elimination” mindset that is now officially referred to as Covid Zero…
Elected officials have allowed their judgment to be replaced by that of the new priestly class of health mandarins like Dr. Chant, on whose edicts the country hangs. Hiding behind the “health advice” of such officials has become the national sport of Australia’s politicians.
I would say “read the whole thing,” but it’s behind the Wall Street Journal paywall. That’s why the initial link in this post is to the Instapundit piece about it, which liberally quotes the article.
I agree that Australia fell into the trap of thinking it could keep COVID at bay almost entirely and almost forever, if it just did the right thing. It was easier for Australia, compared to nations with land borders, to limit the goings and comings of both foreigners and of its citizens. It committed to that, and now it doesn’t seem to be able or willing to turn back.
I’ve never been to Australia, but I heard as a child and young adult that it was a land of bold, independent people. I’m sure some Australians still fit that description; YouTuber “Ozzy Man” certainly comes to mind (an irreverant sense of humor is often part of it). But I’ve heard that in recent years – even prior to COVID – leftism, sheepish obedience, and wokism have taken over to a large extent, particularly in the big cities where the vast bulk of Australia’s population lies. When did it happen?
[ADDENDUM: Australia and the 1918-1919 flu pandemic.]
Saturday morning saw a clip from Sydney TV news saying how everything needs to be shut down immediately, shops, construction, gatherings and oh by the way 1 person has died from Covid.
Sydney might have had more die in traffic accidents in a day.
Elected officials have allowed their judgment to be replaced by that of the new priestly class of health mandarins like Dr. Chant, on whose edicts the country hangs.
And we all know that it ain’t just Australia that has deified certain health officials. Just the other day I saw a car that was completely festooned with all sorts of leftist bumper stickers including one that unironically said “In Fauci We Trust” (which given that he’s an absolutely demonstrable liar about several Covid topics is both comical and sad).
It’s well known that sometimes people with god shaped holes in their lives fill them with secular saints and dieties. And there’s a zealotry about following the edicts of these officials and attacking anyone daring to question them.
Skip…
KungFlu deaths in Oz? (Feb 2020 – July 2021) 918 (76% in the 80+ age & 93% in the 70+ age categories and 75% of all deaths were in some way attached to aged care networks…In other words the most vulnerable were not protected…the vast number of those were from the state of Victoria)
Road/Traffic Fatalities 2019? 1195
The new round of restrictions that show no sign of relaxing…Complete insanity. Up to last week more people had died in Oz in 2021 from vax side-effects than from the Wuhan virus. (2 versus 1)
Sheepism? At the “protest” in Sydney this weekend…more people are “dobbing in” aka “ratting out” friends & family “protesters” to the 5-0 than were at the bloody “protest.”
Beautiful country. Magnificent people. Deep history both first nations and everyone since. I love this place.
How do things come apart? Slowly at first, then all at once.
How will this ever end in these places?
Even if literally everybody in these countries is vaccinated (assuming they work) they are probably going to get more of their beloved ‘cases, cases, cases’ just by pure math.
In fact, probably more than they are getting now.
I saw an interview with the Australian actress Rachel Griffiths last year and it was all about how so many Australian actors were moving back home from the US because of the racism (eye roll) and the poor handling of Covid.
Wonder how many are still feeling good about that if forced to answer honestly.
But I’ve heard that in recent years – even prior to COVID – leftism, sheepish obedience, and wokism have taken over to a large extent, particularly in the big cities where the vast bulk of Australia’s population lies. When did it happen?
neo:
I first heard that from Zaphod. I’m sure he has a version to tell.
It seems Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have all gone woke, more than in the US.
I’m not sure about Australians but I’m sure the Australian media industry is very much like its American and European counterparts. This is one of the downsides of the social media revolution. It’s hugely intensified how people from upper socio-economic classes identify more with people from those same classes in other countries and less with their fellow citizens.
Mike
“Whilst it is in human nature to engage in conversation with others, to be friendly, unfortunately this is not the time to do that . . . don’t start up a conversation,” scolded Kerry Chant, the endlessly tut-tutting chief health officer of New South Wales”…and, as usual for people of Kerry Chant’s type, no data or analysis is presented to support the edict.
In declaring it to be done for the safety of everyone when data so strongly argues otherwise, the health authorities and politicians are destroying their own credibility with the public.
By the time this is over, we’ll all have a far greater understanding of the violence that was visited upon the French aristocracy…
The longer and more grindingly an oligarchic elite oppresses, the more violent the eventual reaction. Australia’s elite are literally destroying the lives of its middle class. What is the appropriate consequence for those who destroy your, your family and friend’s lives?
Griffin:
Australia has a low COVID vaccination rate of 11%, “the lowest of the OECD’s 38 countries. “
neo,
Think I saw somewhere it’s now 15% but yes.
Either in that WSJ piece linked at Instapundit (all I saw) or in an interview on YouTube I saw that Australia’s top health official a few months ago was saying it’s not a race to get people vaccinated.
Their entire approach is beyond bad. It’s not even consistent.
There’s a very practical sense of independence (fixing your own toilet rather than calling a plumber) and a philosophical understanding of independence and they are not linked in any way – to my surprise.
Griffin:
It’s actually somewhat consistent, although strange, if looked at in the following way: Australia thought it could keep COVID at bay, and therefore felt it didn’t need to have that many people vaccinated quickly. If Australians have become very risk-averse, they might reason that they can avoid the risk of both COVID and whatever risks the vaccine might entail, until we get more data about the vaccine. The price of that was keeping Australians strictly restricted for a very long time (which of course has its own risks, but I guess those weren’t factored in).
neo,
Ok, but were they planning to never have any foreign visitors ever?
Were no Australian citizens ever going to go abroad and return home?
Finally, I guess you could make a case for that strategy maybe early this year but there have been countless countries that were hailed as ‘doing it right’ only to see cases eventually go up.
Griffin:
No not forever. They were planning to vaccinate everyone – just slowly, more slowly than most Western nations. They didn’t feel the same sense of urgency because they thought they had it under control. The urgency of people’s need to travel, and to have liberty, didn’t seem to be of concern to the government, though.
neo,
I guess. What a complete failure.
As they warm us up for the coming mask mandate in WA my only solace is it could be worse. Could be in Canada, Australia, UK…
I fear that when this is all over, the most dire consequence will be that people no longer trust science. It will be an “own goal.”
At bitchute i watched a video of an Australian official commenting on the current situation – 141 recent hospitalize Covid-19 patients. 1 partially (1 of 2 shots) vaccinated, 1 not vaccinated, and 139 completely vaccinated. I am not sure what to make of that. Actually I do, but dang, it’s hard to believe.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Nuq1wlVf5GKL/
Despite people like Joanne Nova, WUWT has long documented Oz’s descent into madness with respect to climate change. So the government’s reaction to the Wuflu really isn’t too much of a surprise.
All of this everywhere is just the Cult Of Safetyism.
Some sects are more strict than others but they all follow the same principle.
Any risk is unacceptable. Period.
P.S.- Why are cigarettes, marijuana (among other things) allowed by The Cult of Safetyism?
Chris:
I very much doubt that’s correct. If it is, then what’s happening in Australia is unique. It would mean that the virus is now targeting vaccinated people in particular and avoiding the unvaccinated. Some vaccinated people in all countries are getting breakthrough cases of COVID, but they’re less likely to be serious cases – plus, when more than half the population is vaccinated, there will be a significant percentage of such cases. In a country such as Australia, where most people are unvaccinated, it would make no sense if almost all the serious cases were in fully vaccinated people.
This article about Australian cases is ten days old, but it certainly runs counter to what you report.
“I’ve never been to Australia, but I heard as a child and young adult that it was a land of bold, independent people. … But I’ve heard that in recent years – even prior to COVID – leftism, sheepish obedience, and wokism have taken over to a large extent … When did it happen?”
Is it too late (or early) to blame The Bee Gees?
JimNorCal,
Ha ha, trying to get yourself banned!
I was in a restaurant in Los Algodones, BC, Mexico last November. I was talking to an Australian (who was going around unmasked). I mentioned the video, then recent, of a policeman dragging a pregnant woman off the street while she fought him tooth and nail, screaming “What the hell are you doing?”
You see, the idea that an Aussie policeman being even rude to a woman doing nothing more than walking on the street would have been unthinkable in 2019. She was resisting arrest because to her, the cop was behaving like a street thug.
To my amazement, this 65 year old man thought that was right and proper, because they had to fight the disease. Of course he could travel and walk around unmasked, but it was a good idea to destroy the whole concept of policing to fight the virus.
Buh if it saves one life….
they have been gaslighting in australia, using the guilt about aborigines as a pressure point
http://invisibleserfscollar.com/epistemically-secure-society-phraseology-to-explain-this-coming-decade-of-plans-for-us/
Chris:
By the way, many (I think the majority, although it’ hard to get the data) of the vaccinated people in Australia have had the Astra Zeneca vaccine, which is considerably less effective against COVID, and in particular against the Delta strain, than others like the Pfizer.
JimNorCal:
Not the Bee Gees. They were only there for about 8 years and left in January of 1967 for England.
Blame it on the bossa nova instead.
Or put the blame on Mame.
Watch out for that second video. You may need a fan to cool you down.
I believe there is an infectious mental illness, highly contagious, that has spread throughout the English-speaking Western world. It is characterized by irrational, unthinking unreason, a profound sense of hysteria (e.g. You cannot LEAVE Australia without permission because of COVID) and the willingness to be oppressed by one’s government (a wear-masks mandate even though they are useless!) like the “Good Germans” in Adolf’s time.
How else can one explain the delusional thinking that affects Tasmania, New Zealand, Australia, America, Canada, Ireland and Britain? In Canada, pastors are imprisoned because their Sunday congregations were too large.
There are corollaries to this thought disorder, like electing a Biden, a manifestly incapable but destructive man, to lead what was once the world’s strongest country, because one did not “like” the personality that is Trump. Reminds me of the Brits voting out Churchill right after he’d got them out of WWII.
People just go nutty. But all at once? let’s do some brain biopsies!
Cicero,
Yes, but to be fair France is pretty crazy right now also.
Something happens when a society becomes so safe that the people need to create threats. Climate change, racism, and the mother of them all Covid.
P.S.- I saw that about LEAVING Australia what’s the logic there? Guess it makes a little sense to say you can’t get back in but are they saying you can’t leave without permission period?
Kerry Chant seems like a fuckin’ wanker to me, Mate.
It’s all preparation for civilizational surrender. Unconscious of course but when a nation’s populace and leadership is committed to a mindset of safety-above-all… is inevitably confronted with nuclear armed, totalitarian ideologues… surrender will be the only option considered. As no other option will be admissible.
They’ll embrace enslavement as the only ‘rational’ choice because… “violence never solved anything”.
When faced with an unequivocal mortal threat, those unwilling to die if necessary for liberty… surrender it. Isn’t that exactly what’s happening with Covid?
As Griffin says. Crazy begets more abuse.
Meanwhile, an update on the potential viral escape from the Trump Vax.
John Campbell gives us the expert opinions on this, citing an Oxford evolutionary virologist opinion that they are now – with declining infections – at the peak point where such a possibility can emerge, but only if the virus has this potential.
See video 10 to 15m
https://youtu.be/hed0TgaprMI
SAGE, the Science Advisory board to the UK government, thinks this probability is low. Others disagree.
So, we wait and find out.
Life in neighboring NZ, I have taken a few trips to different cities in Australia. their ‘wokism’ is nothing compared to the States madness. Their citizens are protesting lockdowns instead of, ‘you hurt my feelings’, ‘you are a racist’, and Antifa’s ‘lets burn the city down’ protests.
NZ is striving for Covid Zero and locked borders the same as Oz, but there hasn’t been a lockdown for almost two years. I have heard and read, that the harshness of Aussie lockdowns comes from the regional heads of government. Tasmania and the Northern Territory haven’t had the extreme lockdowns of Victoria and New South Wales.
I understand that Fauci wants more masks? It is all stark raving mad.
JHCorcoran,
Saw somewhere that Victoria and South Australia may end lockdown soon but NSW may last until the end of August. That is unbelievable to lock down a major world city like Sydney for months.
I think — could be wrong — that Australia is a gun-free zone. Essentially.
I’ll check it out.
Oh well. Not “gun-free” exactly but very “gun restricted” with all firearms requiring registration and it seems a special permission slip for owning a hand gun.
Not the kind of population with a lot of latent pushback power.
Cicero asks “How else can one explain the delusional thinking that affects Tasmania, New Zealand, Australia, America, Canada, Ireland and Britain?”
While not an answer to your question, I would call attention to the fact that the citizenry of only one of those countries is armed to the teeth.
Where I grew up, we shot mad dogs – not because we didn’t like dogs, but because we didn’t want to be bitten by them.
Aggro Twitter Karen Sheilas. Weak Cucked Men.
It’s a mess.
Very close to a gun-free zone. Naturally every ethnic gang in the country is armed to the teeth with smuggled handguns and long guns. Legacy populace had better be a farmer or belong to a closely-monitored sporting club to own any kind of iron. Having said that, general populace is so cucked that (like the English) if you bring up guns, they congratulate themselves on not being violent ‘Americans’ and then segue (what happened to that word?) into an incoherent rant about your lack of a nationalized health system.
If we didn’t have such relative control state wise the US would be much worse. Likely everywhere would be like California, NY, NJ, Oregon, Washington.
Arizona, Texas, Georgia and especially Florida saved us all by forcing other states along to varying degrees.
I am a die-hard supporter of the use of “segue” at every opportunity lest the debate spins off into a series of incoherent rants!
Yes GvdL, didn’t Oz have a forceful buyback? Hillary was praising it as a policy we should do in the States.
I remember images of guns being crushed …
Australia is also probably one of the most over-governed countries with three levels of government for ~26M people. This gives very few of the benefits of Federalism and Subsidiarity and just results in more busybodies to boss everyone around. Of course there are massive quasi-government bodies and NGOs which feed off government and as expected promote more aggressive policies and more expansion which they feed off. Beyond that there is Big Business which is just about how you would expect it to be vis-a-vis being just another arm of enforcement.
Naturally same High/Low against Middle Class Cold War going on. The people who make the rules about lockdowns and handouts are part of the Managerialist Bugmen Elite and rather enjoy sticking it to the Peasantry. Those who cannot work online from home are getting it Good and Proper and the Bugmen get to enjoy seeing others suffer whilst *their* relative purchasing power goes up. What’s not to like?
Add to that the usual corrupt left-wing media where the local version of NPR (ABC) is the 300 pound government funded Cathedral propaganda organ and Bob’s your Uncle.
I follow Australian Media fairly closely and you’ll be pleased to know that they’re ramping up the White Supremacists under the bed hysteria too.
Final brain dump point. A lot of the reporting doesn’t make sense unless you decode it and get that the latest Sydney outbreaks have largely been amongst ‘immigrants’ (of course non-white) who typically don’t follow any rules, and exhibit the normal expected woggish swarming behaviour that makes a Lubavitcher Wedding look like a meeting of 3 introverts in Death Valley. Official Media (i.e. all of them) have to sanctimoniously lecture the entire population because it’s a Crime (literally) to offend or scandalize non-Whites in Australia.
Joint is a mess living on the fumes of tired myths about rugged individualism and freedom. Sound Familiar?
GvdL who has kept me entertained and informed for nearly 2 decades:
You’ll have to tear my incoherent rants from my cold dead hands!
Australia’s case and death numbers aren’t “low”, they’re microscopic. In a country with only a bit more people than the state of Florida, they have 1/40th the number of deaths, still less than 1000 overall, and 1/75th the cases overall. And right now you can count the number of deaths from Covid in the last month, on one hand (almost – 6). That they’re still in the midst of a ridiculous lockdown regime is absurd.
Forced buyback came after a psycho killed 20+ people at a tourist site in Tasmania.
The politician who took advantage of the whipped up national hysteria afterwards to instigate the compulsory gun buy-back was John Howard. Supposedly the greatest ‘Conservative’ Prime Minister of the last 50 years.
Same globalist shill started the massive third world and Indian + Chinese immigration tsunami.
Ah Huxley,
The New Zealanders are starting to complain about Ardern, and they tend to flip back and forth from National to Labour. The situation is strict towards the outside world, but life in Kiwiville is easy. It is surprising to see a mask, unless you are on a plane. They hand them out, but toddlers are not required to wear a mask. It’s pretty silly.
Kids go to school without masks and they are taught the three R’s. CRT? Our High Schooler says they are taught the ‘golden rule’. If a police officer is shot it is front page news, sometimes for days, and they received respectful funerals with bagpipes.
No place is perfect, but people are not hating because of the race of the person, which is becoming all to common in the State’s media. The current administration is outrageous and encourages the fear and hate. But I remain optimistic, because I believe as a whole, the vast majority of Americans are decent and good people.
JHCorcoran,
I heard a clip here today of the NZ PM saying that only trust the gov’t to tell the truth or something like that. That’s kinda troubling.
Griffin,
That is good news for Adelaide and Melbourne. Actually, I was wondering if Sydney would go all “gonzo” like Melbourne had. I am with the Sydney protesters!
JHCorcoran:
Glad to hear that NZ is still in decent shape.
I’d read some woke items such as the NZ transwoman lifter in the Olympics that suggested NZ was fully onboard the Woke Express.
Neo asks When did it Happen?
Imperceptibly at first and then more quickly.
But there’s always been a thing for Big Government — e.g. centralized wage fixing from Federation until the 1980s when some smart Labor politicians reinvented Mussolini just about the time Globalist Financialisation of Everything was beginning to kick in.
I have a theory too that during C19 the rugged individualists emigrated to America on their own dime and initiative. The more feckless took subsidized passage to Australia.
OT, but an understanding of differences between Australia and NZ starts with climate and people. Native Australians Stone Age savages. Native NZ’ers far more advanced Polynesians exhibiting more refined savagery. Whitey found it expedient to cut a deal with them. Australia mostly inhospitable. NZ Garden of Eden. Australia got all the surplus aggro Irish who couldn’t afford fare to Ellis Island. NZ got canny Scots who became yeomen farmers and prospered and created an agrarian paradise of little socialist farming co-ops until that was busted open in the 80s.
@Huxley:
NZ full on woke now. Don’t you worry about that. Only matter of time before they find excuse to pull down statues of Sir Edmund Hillary for having offended some Nepalese in 1953.
Interestingly the first serious study of Chinese infiltration of Everything in a Western Society was done in NZ by a NZ female academic. It’s now more fashionable to notice it happening in Australia, but I doubt anyone earning a living off the public teat in Australia would have had the courage to get the ball rolling.
JHCorcoran, Zaphod:
You two seemed to be saying opposite things about NZ. Do you disagree or are you pointing to different parts of the elephant?
I gather you are both closer to the action than I am.
@Zaphod;
“Only matter of time before they find excuse to pull down statues of Sir Edmund Hillary for having offended some Nepalese in 1953.”
HRC’s namesake? Hell forfend.
Zaphod’s comments here have been highly enlightening. Thanks!
@JHCorcoran is in New Zealand, so you can give full credence to his reports on normal daily life and no lockdowns, etc. I do, too. If it’s daily life, trust him. If it’s a big picture rant… be entertained by me. JHCorcoran please feel free to set me straight on any big picture stuff or have your own rant. I like a good rant.
As far as I am concerned, at the Macro level NZ is as pozzed as the Rest of the West. Add to that, runaway immigration of people who should not be there, and an intractable native population issue. The Maoris are not all bad… but will take a thousand+ years to breed the latent cannibal out of them.
Worth noting that NZ is very popular with the global elite. Ever since Kim Dotcom bought himself sanctuary (Obama put FBI on his case to get the Hollywood you-know-how donor money in 2012 — Kim Dotcom ran world’s biggest movie piracy site at the time) in NZ, the rich and powerful have been buying bolt holes in NZ.
Problem in NZ as with all countries is simply the ‘Elites’. I don’t want libel anyone so won’t overdo the details, but I got to know a retired senior NZ Military (they even have one?) guy a decade plus back. Bumped into him when he was working for an international aid agency somewhere in Asia and went out drinking a few times with him and *his* buddies and picked up a lot more life-history from chitchat and gossip. Once you reach a certain level, you just seemingly ‘float’ effortlessly through the world and through cushy jobs provided you don’t rock the boat — had gone to command college in more than one country — did a stint in NATO HQ — ran a large institution on a stint back in NZ — last seen doing Something Important in one of the Pacific Islands which come under NZ’s semi suzerainty. This is a guy who had been ‘retired’ for 10+ years when I met him. He was still getting paid handsomely to order people around 5 years ago when I last met him. Started out in life as a New Zealander and imperceptibly became someone with some very nice homes in New Zealand. This guy was small fry. Multiply him by 10,000 bigger fry in NZ and you begin to see how the poz spreads and prospers. These people don’t have to do well by *their* fellow countrymen to do very well for themselves.
Zaphod:
In your view how well have Australia and New Zealand integrated the Aborigines and Maoris respectively?
@huxley:
Abos can’t be integrated. Mean IQ 60-something. They should have been bred out. This was the policy until some idiot do-gooder socialists stopped it mid C20. Now all they’re fit for is life on reservations. My view is should be run like Sentinel Islands. Fence off and let them be themselves with no modern tech. They’re too dangerous to be in the general population.
These are guys who rape 2 year old girls. The whites who work on reservations now doing policing (it is to laugh) and medical work have to live in what are effectively cages — to avoid being beaten and raped at night. Serious Stone Age shit.
There was an anthropologist called Roger Sandler. Now deceased. Had a blog where he talked about the disappearing of all the early colour films of aboriginal initiation and other rituals. The official excuse was that it’s sacrilege for them to see images of dead people and therefore all needed to be buried. Sandler who was there in the field back in the day doing some of the filming said that it was because official policy decided that if the public ever saw the levels of insane bestial violence it would be BAD. Very bad. We’re talking horrendous sexual mutilations, forced fellatio for young males being initiated, the whole nine yards. If you’re living in an extremely harsh ecology under Stone Age conditions.. the things you evolve to do to force social cohesion are not going to be pretty.
There are a lot of Fake Aboriginals obviously. It’s the way to get into university and job quotas and to win awards and government grants. The number of white faced people or red-haired freckled types claiming to be indigenous grows annually. Nice racket. Helps get gold-plated quick access to special public health clinics, too.
None of this can be reported straight up. What I have just written would get me fined if not imprisoned in Australia and I certainly could never expect to be employed again afterwards.
A popular journalist came very close to being imprisoned for writing about Fake Aborigines some years back. Got shut down with massive fine for his publisher and warning to never do it again.
Maoris more integrated and some have been very successful. Still, they’re mostly not a great fit with modern cucked society which cannot handle their innate propensity to violence and need for clear dominance hierarchy. GloboHomo sellout I referred to in post above said that they do very well under military discipline and make great soldiers. I believe him. They’re warriors. The ones who weren’t got eaten. That simple. JHCorcoran please fill in my blanks 🙂
Catholic and Lutheran Missionaries were doing as good a job as possible with remote Aboriginal populations until the 1950s/60s when the various usual suspects did the copycat Civil Rights Thing and had them shut down so that the Aboriginals could be free to be themselves and set their own destinies.
The whole thing is a tragedy, a farce, and if you live near the Real Deal something to be very scared of. I mean you can’t even defend yourself against one — if you do you’re a Racist and guilty before trial… at which trial Aboriginal(s) will be represented by Aboriginal Legal Aid and other official bodies.. whilst you are bankrupted by legal fees even if you win. The Police make sure to be more than 15 minutes late in these kinds of situations for obvious reasons.
Just another Case of High and (Lowest of the) Low against the Middle. The High don’t have to live near or encounter a Full Blood or Half-caste Aboriginal ever.
Power mad? Mentally ill? A bit of both I’d say.
Zaphod:
So all that brave talk I’ve read about Aborigines moving to the city and getting jobs as mechanics because we’re all human is … overstated a tad?
I recall the vogue in the Bay Area for Marlo Morgan’s book, “Mutant Message Down Under,” which had all the local New Agers agog with respect and fascination for Aborigines. I had already been inoculated by Castanenda’s “don Juan” hoax, so I knew better.
Turned out that “Mutant Message” even annoyed the Aborigines:
____________________________________________
In 1996 a group of Aboriginal elders, seriously disturbed by the book’s implications, received a grant to travel to the States and confront Marlo Morgan about her book and to try to prevent a Hollywoodisation of it. She admitted publicly that she had faked it but this received little publicity in the USA.
–https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlo_Morgan
Re: Roger Sandler…
Zaphod:
If you’ve got his name right, Sandler has been sandblasted out of the internet.
@Huxley:
Aboriginal ‘Elders’ Receive a Grant? Stop the Earth and let me off if the sun ever comes up on a day when they don’t Receive a Grant! 😀
It’s overstated. Obviously not all aboriginals are total savages. You’ll generally find that the more integrated ones who can function properly in modern world have significant admixture of White or more rarely Japanese blood.
Japanese you ask? Pearl Divers in the Far North back in the day. Male pearl divers… not the famous female pearl divers of yore as seen in You Only Live Twice.
Full Bloods and Half-Castes can do well as horsemen on cattle and sheep stations. They make excellent trackers and horsemen and tolerate the climate — they’re bred for it after all. All that brain space should be devoted to non-violence and understanding the jokes in Futurama has evolved to be great at navigating in trackless wastes and finding water. They’re good at what they’re good at. Unfortunately that has nothing to do with Western Civ or Western mores about violence and sexual behaviour or equality.
Mucho New Age and PC Bugpeople worship of anything ‘Indigenous’… so everything you read, every uplifting tale has needs rose tinting removed and addition of some grains of salt.
Also there are Torres Strait Islanders who get lumped in with Aboriginals under the more PC Rubric ‘Indigenous Australians’ — although they’re racially very different — more like New Guinean / Melanesian.. too lazy to look them up. Bit smarter than your average Mainland Abo… but you probably would want to give them a miss on the evening after government booze money shows up in their accounts. I mean you wouldn’t drop your teenage daughter in the middle of ethnically similar sorts in Port Moresby, New Guinea either… you’d rather sell her to the meanest Somali camel breeder and hope for the best.
Sorry Huxley. Memory playing tricks.
Here he is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Sandall
https://www.rogersandall.com/
Come to think of it… How could a ‘Sandler’ be a non-worshipper of the primitive and not a Boasian Bogomil? I’m slipping!
…not the famous female pearl divers of yore as seen in You Only Live Twice.
Zaphod:
I realize you enjoy challenging our assumptions, but You Can Go Too Far.
Thanks for the correction on Sandall. That’s one of the most brilliant wiki entries I’ve ever read.
________________________________
In an appendix in his book, Sandall describes the Disneyfication of the noble savage, a term that encapsulates many of his beliefs in just a few sentences:
“Sentimentalism begets puerility. The ruthless scalpers of yesterday become Loving Persons. One-time ferocious fighters are discovered to be Artists at Heart. Hollywood becomes interested. … Soon the primitive is elevated above the civilized. … The moral transfiguration of real-life tribal culture into the imaginary landscape of romantic primitivism is now complete. The defining texts of this last stage are two: The Man-Eating Myth by William Arens, an influential book denying that cannibalism ever existed; and the 1995 Disney epic: Pocahontas”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Sandall
@Huxley:
We should have a Bond Movie title invention contest one of these days to drive a boring thread off topic. Could be fun.
I’m pleasantly surprised that the RationalWiki (sic) Crowd hasn’t defaced Sandall’s Wikipedia Entry.
Back to Australia in General… although I do enjoy unloading on the Abo Industry.
Here’s an anecdotal datapoint.
19 years back I was based in Jakarta for a while. Whilst there, met a youngish GloboHomo Acolyte. This before I dreamed there was a thing such as GloboHomo. She was half French, half Scottish, and working for the local UN office.
So.. fast forward one year and I’m back in Australia for a year or two, infesting a nice condo with a view and doing my thing when she sends me an email telling me that she and her girlfriend are backpacking (tr. into TruthSpeak: Riding the C*&% Carousel) up the East Coast of Australia whilst taking a Gap Year (O, Ineffable Signifier of Good Breeding!) before heading off to a nice EU job in Brussels.
Well.. eventually they get to my neck of the woods and I go pick them up and they stay for a few days and then keep on humping their merry ways up the Coast to Cairns and the Islands.
What’s interesting is that this young female… whose father is/was a specialist in EU Law and who lived and breathed bureaucracy in her Day Job said to me on meeting in AU: ‘You Australians Love Rules!’
I asked her to explain and she said that she noticed wherever she went — from airports to shopping malls, to backpacker hostels, to highway electronic signs.. the country was plastered with Admonitions, Instructions, and Warnings. After that, I started noticing, too.
Australia is a very Bossy Place. And I think that the people have just gotten used to it.
And don’t get me started on the bit about needing to beg faceless Covid Nazi bureaucrats for permission to travel abroad.
To be fair to NZ, whilst it’s still mega-pozzed, it hasn’t infringed the rights of its citizens to travel abroad.
141 recent hospitalize Covid-19 patients. 1 partially (1 of 2 shots) vaccinated, 1 not vaccinated, and 139 completely vaccinated. — From a bitchute.com video
From some commenter on bitchute.com video:
I’ll see if I can find the article, but I’ve read that there is a widespread notion in Australia that the vaccines don’t work. Certainly, massive gaffs like the one from Dr. McAnulty don’t help.
Zaphod;
Yes, New Zealanders are as greedy as the next person. Apparently our PM by limiting who could buy homes in NZ, believed prices would drop. However, homes still skyrocketed in price. Last month she suggested limiting the number of homes Kiwis could buy. Apparently, there are a lot of citizens with means that own 3 or 5 homes in NZ.
Also, you talk to people who are financially comfortable and they love our PM. You talk to everyone else and the response is quite different. They are polite, but they do not like her. MAGA (make Arden go away) bumper stickers exist here.
I feel because I am a transplant, I stay out of it and vote 3rd Party. The 3rd party did pretty well the last election.
Widespread disinclination in AU to get the Astra-Zeneca vax… people are unhappy about the reported clotting side-effects.
AU Government bet heavily on Astra-Zeneca early on and licensed it to manufacture domestically.
Public wants Pfizer-Biontech. It’s one thing to want it… another thing to order it.. and yet another thing to be in the constrained supply queue for it with most of the rest of the world at this late stage in the game.
Not interested in debating relative merits of these two vaccines. However it is an interesting and rare case of mass civil disobedience and fight back against the Rulers whom no election will ever remove.
Yes Zaphod. I should have said, the Aussies feel that some of the vaccines don’t work well.
This was the EpochTimes article.
Many people scoffed when some gave credence to historical accounts of the Aztecs making monuments with tens of thousands of human skulls. Then the archeological digs partially uncovered one with 650 skulls, so far …
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/01/tower-human-skulls-mexico-city-aztec-sacrifices
TommyJay,
Interesting article. So Australia is going to be locked downs for years maybe decades I guess.
I like the ‘Australians Do Not Respond Well To Being Forced Or Pressured’ header. Haven’t they all been pressured and forced to stay in their homes for extended periods and aren’t most doing so willingly?
The next time we have widespread civil disobedience in a western Anglo country over Covid restrictions will be a first.
How about hundreds, thousands of small businesses all open. What are the authorities going to do?
TommyJay:
That makes a great deal more sense.
Huxley and Zaphod:
The Maoris are warriors and they are clever. They were great navigators by having settlements all over NZ. Good business people; Kaikoura Whale watching was started by the local Maoris, and when the borders were open, brought visitors from all over the world. All Blacks rugby team is a force to be reckoned with, and the players are predominantly Polynesian.
The Maori fought each other before/and after the Europeans (mostly Scottish) settled in NZ. Think Musket Wars;
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/musket-wars/overview
Important point is that the Maoris and European settlers married each other. There are not a lot of 100% Maori. A Maori culture does exist, but people are mostly integrated in NZ.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-king-s-school-reports-teacher-for-attending-lockdown-protest-20210727-p58dew.html
*Ozzy Man Voice Mode On*
“FFS… just shitcan the joint! This is more @$%^ed than a Patpong Ping Pong Tournament! Geez Louise!”
From the article linked just above:
“Counter-extremism experts said the people behind the protests came from a loose coalition of far right, conspiracy and libertarian groups, joined by people who feel disenfranchised by government.
In his letter to parents, Mr George said he encouraged all members of the school community to be vaccinated as soon as practical and to support leaders in dealing with the pandemic.
The King’s School, founded in 1831, is Australia’s oldest independent school. Fees are more than $40,000 a year.”
…It’s All Over, Red Rover.
Interesting big picture comment on the US vs Australia. Sounds like a good point to me.
_____________________________
Australia and the United States are completely different situations, and it goes back to each of our foundings. America was born from a culture of self-defense. Australia was born from a culture of ‘the government will protect me.’ Australia wasn’t born as a result of a brutal war. We weren’t invaded. We weren’t attacked. We weren’t occupied. That makes an incredible difference, even today.
–Joe Hockey, Australian ambassador to the U.S.
https://bongino.com/the-truth-about-australian-gun-control/
_____________________________
Hockey is a strong gun-control advocate, but doesn’t believe Australian gun control would work in the US.
The article author argues that Australian gun control doesn’t really work in Australia either.
Bill Bryson’s eminently readable book on Australia, “In A Sunburned Country” takes him around Australia. His references to the Traditional Peoples–aborigines–in the historical sense are what you’d expect. His descriptions of the current situation are different. The aborigines exist, they are there but it’s as if they and the whites are passing each other on two different, not entirely connected, planes.
Doing some research to pass the time, I find that Iowa has 85k working farms, averaging 300 acres. Farmland is about $7200 per acre. Was sitting down when I opened a John Deere catalogue. That’s 85k small businesses. You can google earth the grain belt, which goes on and on, and the mountains of the old South. Lots of room for rural culture. Note. Almost every town–those incorporated, not just place names for intersections–has a library.
Look around Australia. For all the noise about the bronzed Diggers and the outback, it’s a highly urbanized culture because you can’t very well have a culture of any size where there is no water, a situation describing the bulk of the place.
Wonder if rural culture bleeds over into our suburban culture. I’m seven miles out of town and in the not distant past, somebody’s needed my chainsaw and me. And my polesaw and me. And my first aid pending arrival of EMT. Somebody needed to borrow my come-alongs to help a neighbor move a rock. CPL classes are a dime a dozen–but not cheap. The legal deer take in Michigan is 300k, which means another 300k guys walking around the woods with rifles got skunked. The average white tail dresses out at about 120 meals and one might think, I can do this again if I have to.
And I’m seven miles out of town, two miles from a major highway.
Google earth Australia.
Oh, yeah. The undergrads’ fave, “ritual sub incision among the Arunta” is sold as a population control measure. Ya think?
Plenty of room for individuality. Hope I’m not just hoping.
@RichardAubrey:
In all my years living there, I don’t think I’ve ever driven more than 400km inland from the East Coast. Gets dry real fast once you get inland from the coastal strip and I’m just not that into sheep in a big way.
Have flown over Central Australia plenty of times on my way from the East Coast to Jakarta, Singapore, Bangkok. Red Emptiness. Never felt much of an urge to see it at ground level. Flying up the East Coast into North-East Asia over the Great Barrier Reef and northern tropics is more pleasant window seat viewing.
I’m certain that the arid nature of most of the land spilled over into social arrangements in the old days when there was more of a rural population. Government strictly controls riparian and artesian irrigation rights, for example. There were never really that many successful small-holdings back in the day except perhaps dairy, pig, and poultry farmers plus market gardeners — Wheat / Cattle / Sheep as function of increasing distance inland from the Eastern Seaboard had to be done at scale.
Anyway, mass immigration from UK + South-Eastern and Southern Europe immediately post WWII and then later from Anywhere-so-long-as-they’re-not-White has changed everything. Very few of these immigrants became sturdy outback farmers. Most ended up in the cities. As of course did everyone made redundant by farm mechanization and by the only partly correlated decline in rural cities and towns — Nothing to stop a farmer driving three or four hundred km to a coastal city instead of 50km to the boring old country town his grandparents went shopping in once a month.
So you’re right. Australian land mass is very large. But rural population does not inhabit an area anywhere near as vast as it does in the US which has much more arable land.
‘You Australians Love Rules!’
I have a hunch she really meant Australian Rules Football—you know, that incredible “sport” where guys in long, stringy locks and short, skimpy “uniforms” (no padding, of course—well except maybe knee and elbow pads) beat the living crap out of one another using the excuse that all they’re really trying to do is get the ball past the goal line or kick it through the goal posts. Gives rugby a run for its money, true; but both make the NFL look like lawn bowling…well, contact lawn bowling.
(Just a hunch, though.)
Richard Aubrey,
Love that stat on an estimated 600K deer hunters in Michigan. I’d say that there are much fewer than 85K farmers or farm operating businesses working those 85K farms in Iowa. A great many plots get rented out to operators.
A friend and I bicycled about 300 miles round trip, across Iowa after high school graduation (the 70’s). We stayed off the main highways, as Iowa has a large number of nice two lane county blacktop roads with very low traffic. We went through dozens of these towns with populations in the range of 30 to 300. Typically, there was a post office, a general store, and a diner; no libraries.
My home town, pop. over 1,000, had a library, which was of most use for the kiddies and internet access in later years; though there were some very nice libraries near by.
_____
I’ve read that New Zealand’s recent gun confiscation/buyback has been moderately successful, but some estimate that as many as half have not complied.
Deer, Michigan.
With multiple seasons, Bow, black powder, regular, etc. it is possible to legally take more than one deer, per hunter, per year. Unless there have been rule changes I’m not aware of.
“Why…?”
Hmmm, let’s try this:
Hyping the latest “variant” and ramping up the hysteria would seem to be an effective strategy to implement the most recent iteration of the “War of Mass COVID Distraction” AKA “The Great COVID Cover-Up”:
https://pjmedia.com/columns/jonathanemord/2021/07/27/the-great-betrayal-2-n1464859
File under: Let a hundred cover-ups bloom….
geoffb. I know about the other seasons. But, until recently, it was only the rifle season which caused the auto plants to close.
Poaching is pretty big stuff. I used to live in a small town near a middle size town and would get my mileage in out in the country. Would find a deer head in the ditches from time to time, or possibly a partial carcass with the good parts missing. Conservation officers have no problem finding guys doing it and I’ve heard that it’s also commercial. Upper Peninsula venison going down to Chicago.
Talked to a young lady at a food pantry. Hubby left, she and her kids were in need. I suggested some more protein. She said her freezer was full of venison. I asked what she used… .308, .303….? Compound bow from a blind in her back yard. If things go sideways, I want her in charge of something.
So if we only count the rifle permits, that’s 600k guys. And if only one tenth of one percent go nuts, that’s 6000 rifle armed maniacs. Not to mention the guys who don’t hunt.
We’ve been through Iowa a number of times–love the Iowa Machine Shed–but mostly on I80. Went NE from Omaha to, iirc, 44. It has dots along it on the atlas. Beautiful. Just enough relief to make the corn factory look better than in, say, Kansas.
Did a bit of research and am not sure, but maybe 12%-15% of men outside the big cities in Iowa are veterans. As a cop said when we had gotten a bad accident straightened up, first responders like to find former military on scene because “they know what to do and don’t choke”. And, if all we had of combat training is Basic, we have small arms familiarization, but in the Army, at least basic Infantry ops. USMC more so.
Trying to get a handle on rural culture and demographics.
Part of it is the American governance where we elect county sheriffs. It gives, at least, a feeling of local influence being effective. Recently, a couple have said their people won’t enforce fed confiscation laws and others have said they’d arrest feds trying it.
Chance met an Aussie couple a couple of years ago and had dinner with them. I mentioned “Waltzing Matilda”. He said that a petty rustler wasn’t Australia’s best look. I didn’t say that wasn’t the point. It’s “you’ll never take me alive, said he” that impresses. Maybe outside the country. But these folks seem impressed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UFmwArST-I
Again, recommend Bryson on Australia. Particularly the mysterious nuclear blast.
There is a very funny book, from 2015 I think, called The Missionaries by Owen Stanley. It deals with NGOs, the UN and other maladies in an island with several indigenous cultures. It is in print, and ebook.
If you’ve ever been brave enough to read the Flashman series by George McDonald Fraser, it has a lot of the same humor. If you haven’t you should read about Flashy. For starters you probably won’t be able to soon, as the writing is so far from politically correct to be in a different universe. For another, they’re damn good stories based on a real person who was a 19th century Zelig: present at the major events of the time. It is so well written and so historically accurate that it was debated for years as to whether or not it was fiction.
Oh, and western Wisconsin/eastern Minnesota: You buy a regular license and they immediately offer you a doe permit, and then you’re likely to be offered at least two more. Damn things are so thick on the ground that bikers have abandoned some scenic rides due to too great a risk of collision.
I know a guy in Barron County, northwestern Wisconsin, that gets permits for six deer every fall, which he fills without even leaving his 15 acre property. And still he’s hit at least 4 deer on the road in ten years. Rural police and sheriffs keep a little list in their pocket. A deer is hit on the road, and the cop calls a number. A family in tight circumstances gets some quality protein.
Gordon Scott.
Was in a bump shop just west of Flint, MI. Some farm land visible, a shopping mall about a mile south, some homes, all in sight. Nine of the ten jobs on his board were car-deer accidents.
I could get a couple without leaving my porch, until they ran out or the survivors figured which way was up.
But I guess I was making the point that the rural population can have, consciously or not, the feeling of independence. Many of those small towns have something like a “health center”. Probably not a hospital but one can be confident that entry into the health care system is available.
Deer might not run out. We’ll be okay.
Since the advent of radio, nobody from Chautaqua or Lyceum has been on stage in the opera house. But it’s still there. A reminder.
99% of the time, the county seat has a war memorial. Our guys….
I live in Grand Haven, MI. Before WW II, a Coast Guard cutter named the Escanaba was home ported here. Went into the Atlantic when called. With some sharp doctors and really brave volunteers, they learned to resuscitate those dead of cold shock when pitched into the North Atlantic. Sank two U boats. Was sunk, two survivors. The town was so shocked that they raised money for another one. Not even a rounding error in the war budget, but it WAS OUR GODDAMMED BOAT!
Again, as I say, trying to get a handle on rural culture.
Keeping your hastas and tulips uneaten is a source of conversation starters.
Got a relation in Texas where the feral hogs are getting worse. The Highway Department authorized 85mph on the interstate which goes through that area. Feral hogs don’t wear reflectors. Unfortunately, there is no generally accepted recipe collection for them.
Richard,
The value of rural culture is so immense and yet so unrecognized.
My brother is a county commissioner in a small population county in New Mexico. He’s trying to get the state, which pisses away tons on diversity and equity consultants, to help pay for a new courthouse/jail. Sure, might be a little less expensive to drive prisoners to another town. But that complex is 33 jobs. It is huge in a little town.
A little town where I guarantee CRT isn’t even on the radar much less on the curricula. Kids can still learn to rodeo because it teaches ranch skills. The sound of a siren is so rare folks turn out to help whoever is in trouble.
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Gordon Scott
I got interested in rural culture decades ago. My wife and I like to travel by car and we leave the interstates when time allows. I live in far suburbia which sort of morphs into rural. Far as I can tell, rural–ism–comes our way.
Then another item came along which caused me to want to dig into it.
Coincidentally, we had the discussion on Australia which sort of related to it.
You need a lot of people to have a culture and a rural culture requires low population density which combination means a LOT of land. And there has to be a reason. That is agriculture. The agriculture characterized by maps with gridded roads due NSEW runs from southern Ohio to western Nebraska, east Texas to the border and, likely, north of Edmonton. You don’t find much of it in the Old South, due to terrain.
And there is much other agriculture in favored areas like western NY state and PA and some areas of MO and AR.
The combination is HUGE.
So I dug into things like land prices, looked at farm houses from google earth, checked out the little towns–what was available and so forth–and found a uniformity. The school. The churches. Which, theology aside, function as social service agencies from which in addition people are recruited for other volunteer work.
There are a lot of comm colleges, university branches, small private schools.
And, in the last few decades, a Superwalmart at which anything is available and which usually include a pharmacy and an optometry shop.
You don’t need the urban thing.
Whatever it is….there’s a hell of a lot of it.
Neo and Cicero: So what is it? Pesticides in the food? Mental overload from social media? Dismissal of everyone from mental hospitals? Replacement of Christian norms with anything goes? Most people are crazy and now they have a global platform? Schools don’t teach anything anymore? Cloward–Piven? Something’s in the water.