In which the pond heads off to Dame Slap's school for a history lesson or three ...

The lizards of Oz are the pond's shepherd; it shall not want.

They maketh the pond lie down in the green pastures of bigotry; they leadeth the pond into hysteria and nonsense.

They restoreth the pond's soul to the dark side, and they lead the pond into paths of jumped-up righteousness ...

Each weekend, the pond counts its bounteous blessings, but thought it should lead off with a fine example of western civilisation at work to explain why it selected the best loser* of them all (*post-ironic, post-modernist use of the concept licensed from the lizards of Oz) ...

Oh wait, the pond thought it was a call to arms, a typical war-mongering flourish from the Dame, when these days the pond is quite happy to join Hemingway in saying a farewell to arms ...

It was like saying good-by to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.

Oh wait, that seems to be an entirely wrong way to remember the first world war, far too down and negative an ending ...

The Dame is certain to produce fond memories of both the world wars, the holocaust, and sneaking out on the streets of New York dressed in a MAGA cap to celebrate the arrival of the Donald ...

Who wouldn't want to head off to Dame Slap's class for this sort of rabid nativist history lesson?

Now there will be some that will say that the pond risks being remembered as the generation that wasted a life reading the reptiles rabbiting on about history.

There will be others who will say that the pond might be better off indulging in a rant at the enormous stupidity of having a computer mark essays ... but that's already been done ... and besides, why not have a computer mark that illiterate oaf, Shakespeare, who never could work out how to spell his name ...

No, it must be the Dame. So be it, make it so ...

Wait, before we go any further, are we talking about the IPA?

A shadowy, furtive lobby group that routinely refuses to reveal its sources of funding and is completely lacking in transparency, but has over the years, done diligent work in the service of coffin nails and other killers of people, while remaining fixated on coal and celebrating climate denialism? 

Oh sure, it's Clive here,  but the points remain true ...

The IPA will always have its share of loons of the Bella d'Abrera kind with bees in their bonnet, and it seems it's beyond a MAGA cap wearer sneaking into the New York night to celebrate the arrival of the Donald to write a decent history of all the wretched things that the IPA has done ...including his most recent blather about the culture and history wars in a blindingly obvious nativist way ...

We’ve seen nationalism distorted into nativism – forgotten the dynamism that immigration has always brought to America. We see a fading confidence in the value of free markets and international trade – forgetting that conflict, instability, and poverty follow in the wake of protectionism.

Dear sweet long absent lord, who said that? Was it someone having a bad hair day? Never mind, the pond understands the rich irony of quoting George W., because it seems even war mongers must have their limits ...

As for Dame Slap, has she got anyone other than the contemptible, furtive, secretive IPA lobby group bunging on a nativist do in mind to further the argument?

Niall Ferguson? But he's a loon of the first water who sometimes features on this page ...

Now there have been any number of commentaries on the IPA's nonsense ... as per Sendziuk and Crotty here ...

Besides differences in findings, the IPA assumes that specialised “identity politics” courses that focus on questions of race, gender, class, ethnicity, and sexuality are intrinsically less valuable than the study of the European Renaissance or Medieval periods. In a nation that is currently debating gay marriage, apparently unable to resolve Aboriginal disadvantage or counter the appalling rates of domestic violence against women, and in which nearly half of the population have a parent born overseas, we would suggest that such questions are vital. It is little wonder that our students are interested in exploring these questions in different historical contexts, and that this interest might rival student enthusiasm for studying Renaissance art, the English Civil War or the French Revolution. They know, as we do, that one of the primary purposes of studying history is to inform the present, and to enable us to apply insights gleaned from the past to debates about issues that affect us here and now.

It reminded the pond of the time it studied history, with Australian history becoming the ultimate speciality ...

Apart from a few glancing references the pond learned nothing about important parts of Australian history.

The pond currently has Bill Bryson as toilet reading and was struck by this passage, which came after Bryson speculated on just how the continent's original settlers made it across waters requiring craft, navigation skills and social co-operation ...

"... all that is certain is that Australia's indigenous peoples are there because their distant ancestors crossed at least sixty miles of fairly formidable sea tens of thousands of years before anyone else on earth dreamed of such an endeavour, and did it in sufficient numbers to begin to start the colonization of a continent.
By any measure this is a staggeringly momentous accomplishment. And how much note does it get? Well, ask yourself when was the last time you read anything about it. When was the last time in any context concerning human dispersal and the rise of civilizations that you saw even a passing mention of the role of Aborigines? They are the planet's invisible people."

It's comical of course, coming from the myopia of Americans that sees no Australian soldiers in Vietnam in a documentary series that grandly announces itself with a portentous "The" as "The Vietnam War" ...

But speaking of blind spots, who else has the Dame got to offer?

Actually Burnard delivered a particularly cruel thrust:

History gets funded, along with English and Philosophy, at a lower rate than any other subject as a result of Australia’s peculiar policy of funding subjects at different levels depending on supposed cost of delivery and perceived social benefit. The government and student funding per university history student is $12,165. Funding for a student doing Politics is $16,591 and for Media $18,979 – much higher than for History even though how students are taught is similar. It was the federal government under John Howard that first introduced this funding system, ironically given his supposed enthusiasm for History as a subject. And Simon Birmingham has shown no sign of wanting to rectify what the Howard government did, in order to provide the resources to teach history effectively.

Oh no, not little Johnny ...

And Burnard delivers a particularly fine jab at d'Abrera ...

...distinguishing between “identity politics” and “western civilisation” is a false distinction. The IPA must be aware that even in subjects it praises - such as mine on early modern Britain - gender, class, power, religion and class are fundamental topics of study. Indeed d'Abrera is the author of a fine book in gender history, on Mary I, Tudor Queen of England.

Providing that link to the Amazon listing was a particularly fine touch, as the pitch talks of the need to rebalance the history long done in favour of Cranmer and his ilk. Go poor persecuted female Catholic Queen ...

And then poor Burnard, who has the exceptionally difficult task of interesting students in British history 1603-1815, starting after a lot of interesting bits and ending before Queen Vic and empire really got going, ends his piece this way ...

What are they interested in? Here is a clue. We have a professorial inaugural lecture this week by Mark Edele on The Russian Revolution. It will attract a crowd of 600. Several years back, we had public lectures by our two most distinguished alumna, professors in early modern European history at Cambridge and Oxford. About 50 people went to each lecture. Australians are not as interested in the history of western civilisation as the IPA thinks they are. The practice of history is not, of course, just about giving the public what they want. It is, however, a house of many rooms. The history of western civilisation is just one of those rooms.

Now the pond isn't quite as depressive as Burnard about the usefulness of British history.

It's an ongoing fascination to look at the Poms, deep in their desire to do a Brexit and never mind the Irish dilemma, clutching at the straw that somehow the empire can be revived, and Australia and other empire outposts will start sending the wool back to Britain rather than to China ... presumably so the Poms in the midlands can knit up nice doilies and ship them back to the colonies ...

That level of delusion is deeply touching, and it requires some understanding of the history of the Poms, to understand how they came to be so deluded ...

At the same time, the pond has to confess in a shamefaced way that after a lengthy study of history up to a post-graduate level, the pond knew sweet f all about the history of vast swathes of the planet. Sure, the pond could recite English matters like any child of the empire, but it took an extended tour of China before the pond had the first clue about the history of the country.

This came as some fair shock to the system ... and not just because the tour took in Xi'an's wonders ...

But the pond has almost lost track of Dame Slap completely. Her classes tend to encourage the mind to wander ...

There must be some sort of deeper ironic purpose in this ... the pond just having arrived at the episode of The Vietnam War where draftees are rushing off to Canada or landing in Vietnam to fight in a war no one much believed in, and with very few actually wanting to be in country ...

There's only been one further Australian sighting in the show, and that a mention of Sydney as an R and R destination, but that's the way it goes when in service for the Holy American Empire ...

All that effort by Ming the Merciless to tug the forelock and get in America's good graces, and now he's not even worth a footnote ... let alone the poor mugs that discovered that freedom was just another word for your marble coming up, and you could go to war, go to jail or go underground ...

The triumph of freedom and reason was the Vietnam war?

It's probably time to just get rid of the rest of the Dame in one big ugly gobbet ...

Oh sorry, the pond couldn't help interrupting.

You see, the pond grew up at a time when Australia was one of the most censored countries on the planet. James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, you name them, there was a censor to ban them ...

So much for the liberal project and freedom ...

This wasn't the thinking that saw Enid Blyton's Dame Slap become Dame Snap, this was a country-wind infestation of wowsers and conservatives blathering on about the British empire and western civilisation, the sort of clap-trap nativism and bigotry that Dame Slap is now heir to ...

Don't take the pond's word for it, even the reptiles, cached here, looked at the matter ...

During the 20th century Australia was one of the strictest censors in the western world, often banning imported material that was considered suitable reading in England, Europe and America. The Commonwealth Customs Department, which had the authority to prohibit imports under the Customs Act 1901, would closely inspect overseas publications before they were released to the public. A reference library of banned material from the 1920s to the 1970s kept by the National Archives of Australia has been digitised by Google Arts and Culture as part of their online series 'Banned: The Secret History of Australian Censorship'. This impressive collection of over 15,000 books, magazines and comics reveals fascinating insight into the way social attitudes and morals have changed over time.

How easily we forget our history, though the pond suspects that Dame Slap never actually did much history ...

Okay, this had better be the final gobbet ...

Let's not mince words. This is an infinitely stupid woman who took to the New York streets at night in a MAGA cap to celebrate the arrival of the Donald, and now gets agitated about such people being labelled as Nazis, as if there's any other word for the sort of nativist fascist nonsense that strode the streets of Charlottesville ...

Let's not mince words. Anyone who's stupid enough to think that being female doesn't provide an identity should try changing from female to male, or back again ...

Let's not mince words. The IPA is a baleful, secretive, wantonly destructive lobby group, and the culture and history wars are just a nice distraction from the real business at hand ... in much the same way as the Donald fooled the gullible ...

But there's always a john, there's always a mark, an easy trick ready to fall for a shill, a plant, a stooge ... 

A diligent study of any country's history will reveal them ...Qin Shi Huang was one book banner and burner of note, said to have buried intellectuals alive just to keep the rest in line, or perhaps willing to work for Gina...

The pond had this sudden dream of Dame Slap taking to the streets of Xianyang in the night wearing a cap Make the Three Nations One Great China Again ...

Never mind, thanks to Rowe, we can celebrate the beginning of a new age in New Zealand, with losers grinners and winners and with more Rowe fush and chups here ... good old Barners, what a splendid Kiwi he makes ...