Pilgrim Nick Cater versus the Progressives ...

(Above: don't blame the pond. The ancestors were sending up the ancestors long before Nick Cater began to blather about anything. Here for more, but caution, Greg Hunt, it's a wiki).


The pond notes that the fuck-witted Nick Cater is at it again, in Progressives journey back through the ages to find offence (inside the paywall because Rupert thinks there are people dumb enough to pay to read Cater).

Oh dear, the pond can hear it already, the cluck-clucking and the tut-tutting.

"I say, old Dorothy, old bean, that's a bit strong, isn't it? A bit unseemly, a bit abusive, the sort of thing that would send the Bolter into a fit about the coarsening of the public debate, while hurling jeremiads at his enemies?"

"Fuck-witted? Sweet pea, couldn't you have just said dim-witted?"

Well no, because the pond was attempting a manly, robust discourse, of the kind the Caterists would surely approve.

The very last thing the pond would wish to do is sound like some wimpish member of today's intelligentsia, least we receive a caustic Caterist lashing:

...today's intelligentsia, replete with moral vanity, presumes to impose its values not just on their own generation but on people who lived in different times. 

You see, you see, the pond must call a spade a bloody spade, or when severely provoked, a fucking spade, as they did in Tamworth oh so many years ago.

Like the disturbing decision to remove the phrase "Known unto God" from the Tomb of the Australian Unknown Soldier, thankfully now reversed, the disclaimer reflects the modern habit of casting aspersion on our ancestors. 

You see, you see, how much more fitting to be known unto god, than to be known unto an invisible deity long lost in the mists of time, or perhaps to the FSM.

How appalling and shocking that the cad Paul Keating could dare to decry the Great War, when we all know that it was a jolly good show, a ripper of a killing fest, and let's not cast any aspersions on our ancestors for joining in the most wondrous display of barbarity the world had seen to that point.

That wretched Keating is always dissing the past:

He denied that Australia was ever in need of any ‘‘redemption’’ at Gallipoli, any more than it was in need of one at Kokoda 30 years later. ‘‘There was nothing missing in our young nation or our idea of it that required the martial baptism of a European cataclysm to legitimise us.’’  (Paul Keating decries Great War in Remembrance Day address)

Shocking. Sounds almost pacifist. Certainly sounds commie pinko pervert. Where's the blather about king and country and god ... or even Harry?

He needs to sit in a comfortable armchair like Cater and send some young men off to kill and be killed, because it'll be the making of them, unless they happen to end up dead, and then it'll be the making of a rhapsodic Cater, weeping over their fine corpses.

Now if you want the Keating Remembrance Day eulogy he delivered in 1993, in transcript or as a downloadable Mp3, you can head off to the Australian War Memorial, here, but the pond gives you fair warning it is also outrageously prejudiced against the great war, and instead celebrates the anonymous unknown soldier.

What's even more shocking and outrageous is that the Keating/Watson 1993 rhetoric He is all of them and he is one of us is now chiselled on stone and has been put on actual display at the AWM.

This shockingly politicises a great series of battles which were, it should go without saying, completely apolitical, completely a-imperial, and completely a-colonial, and should now be looked back on as a jolly good romp. A sort of hockeysticks with machine guns, artillery and tanks ...

To do otherwise would be to cast nasturtiums at our ancestors, and where would that lead?

The monotonous narrative of progressivism, framed as a journey of moral improvement from barbarism to civilisation, encourages us to take a dim view of our predecessors. 

Indeed, indeed, because who would want to take a dim view of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, the wretched Chamberlain, or so many others who performed their duties in relation to the second world war, which turned out to be an even more splendid romp than the first one.

As for the Vietnam war, they should be grateful. Never mind all the chatter about the bombings and the chemicals and the killings, look what it did for the Vietnamese tourist industry. It's booming ...

All this cant about Nixon and the preposterous peace-prize winning deviant Kenry Kissinger...

Oh sure, there might have been a little uglification here and there, but under no circumstances would the pond encourage anyone to take a dim view of our ancestors, or of Nixon and Kissinger and their cronies. Where would that leave Ted Cruz?

Well about as far up itself as Cater's logic:

The presumed moral turpitude of former times is seen as evidence of present-day virtue. Future generations may be appalled, however, to learn of the plight of indigenous Australians at the start of the 21st century.

Yes, you see it's okay for future generations to pass judgment on the current plight of indigenous Australians, because "progressive" Australians just love human misery, and future generations will know it's all their fault. Considering the splendid results arising from John Howard's invasion of the NT...

Or some such thing.

Whatever, it ends with Cater doing a classic Kipling, approvingly quoting the 1910 Australian Year Book, and this bit of condescending assessment of indigenous Australians contained therein:

The ordinary blackfellow is as good at figures as his white brother. 
"Some become great in oratory and speak English chastely and beautifully. Some train themselves in music and can play classical choruses and such-like pieces on the organ with great skill and expression. Some show great mechanical ingenuity, and read and understand books on mechanics and physics."

Why, by golly, they're almost white.

You see, it would be mischievous to talk about black culture, and black skills, and the black relationship to the environment, when we can celebrate the wonderful deeds of Bourke and Wills.

Still reading Cater defend the wonderful way blacks were treated way back when - as a class of flora and fauna - wasn't a wasted read, because it reminded the pond of its favourite quote from Samuel Johnson in the matter of women attempting things:

I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. Johnson: "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

Blacks speaking English? How wondrous to discover that some can manage to speak it chastely and beautifully.

Nick Cater's writing? Why it too is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all ...

Why he shows great ingenuity, and seems to understand books, and scribbles with great skill and impression ... for a white fuckwitted git.

Now bring on the third world war, and then let the generation x'ers and y'ers and z'ers dare to criticise the cretinous Caterists who thought the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would produce jolly good results ...

(Below: something for your mantelpiece)