Speaking of getting out a couple of old cricket pads so that the dogs could have at them in a frenzy, the pond would love to do it, if only it had some slight connection to cricket or dogs ...
Instead the pond has to rely on the Ruperters to tear into the Oz day debate for its fun, and must leave the carping to others ...
You see, whenever it's Donners day, the pond hangs out the bunting, and orders up a brass band, though some might prefer it to spring for a pipe band ... ah, the pipes, the pipes are calling ...
Now forget that little header down on the far right, that's just Sinclair Davidson, senior fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs, doing what an IPA chappie must do ... you probably weren't aware that tobacco is perfectly safe and much maligned, you precious snowflakes ...
No, the cry goes out, where's Donners and his lesson in history ...
Virtue signalling!
You see, how could you doubt, and once again the pond is reminded that virtue-signalling should either be the word or the phrase of the year ... 'political correctness' having already passed into the hall of fame, where it might be retrieved at any time by mindless automatons wanting to chant it in unison, in a robotic voice designed to recall Robby and the joys of being lost in space with Kev ...
Why is it that the pond, whenever it dips into our Kev, is reminded of mindless automatons, robotic squawking parrots, and the slightly thick?
Well, well, the pond could immediately sense Kev's hackles rising, the spleen engorged, the eyes turned a maddened red, and a country shackled and torn down by an unseemly dose of Catholic guilt, the Catholic church having devised the very best way to use guilt to keep their victims close (an E-meter? Not in the race) ...
Indeed, indeed, let the controversy thrive, so that the dogs might munch on those old cricket pads.
The pond knows for a certainty that the pesky, difficult blacks were extremely lucky, and lived and thrived and flourished in abundance, so much so that they became like a flock of 'roos in plague proportions in a drought, and so had to be culled in the most humane way possible ...
Dammit, the pesky, difficult blacks brought it all on themselves, and bugger it, it's kill or be killed, and who are we to judge a little harmless slaughtering here and there ...
By golly, the pond is grateful for that picture, which is a tremendously good substitute for having the first fucking clue about what happened in the early days of Australian history.
Speaking of which, can the dashing Donners please update the pond on that Myall Creek affair ...
Actually there was a time in Australia when white folk were embarrassed to reveal that they had a convict in the past, until they realised how fucked the British justice system was at the time, but the pond is pleased that dashing Donners raised the matter of Myall Creek, because it's a classic example of the myopia with which the past is viewed.
It was Bill Bryson, scribbling a travel book, who took a look through the other end of the binoculars ... and put that blather about Europeans being hanged in to the proper perspective.
He headed up Bingara way and dropped in for a chat with Paulette Smith of the Bingara Advocate, and the talk turned to the massacre, and the town never talking about it, and the Myall Creek station not being keen on trespassers.
'So there's never been any kind of archaeological dig or anything? You don't get academics poking around?'
Now read on ...
The pond warmed to Paulette Smith ...
Myall Creek's not famous for what happened to the blacks here, but for what happened to the whites ...
And now back to a final gobbet from dashing Donners ...
Is there something rich about a Catholic talking of a guilt industry?
Is there something wondrous about the celebration of Wagga Wagga? What happened to the Aborigines of the area, apart from having their words for "the place of many crows" appropriated?
Here the pond should note that the family once owned property in Wagga Wagga. But at least we had the first clue who was there first ...
Now the pond appreciates that dashing Donners is too modest to make the visual comparison, but how kind of the Terror to offer those two photos ...
And now as a bonus for hard core Australia Day controversialists, the pond is pleased to return to the cricket pads for another outing ...
You see, the pond has already reprimanded the onion muncher and instructed him to lift his game in the matter of maintaining the rage, with crusading Cory having taken the lead in the race ... with this offering from the onion muncher simply not up to scratch ...
The pond will concede that the onion muncher managed to attract the usual suspects with a fine flurry of google links ...
But the pond is forensic, and when the pond consulted the reptiles of Oz, it became obvious it was a feeble thrust, barely worth the attention it had scored ...
Indeed, indeed, and the onion muncher shows the joys of making enemies on your own side, as he rails from the sidelines on 2GB, and it's undoubtedly true that we have enough public holidays, though what shifting a public holiday from one day to another has to do with this must remain a mystery ... because here's the rub.
After that little outburst about loving the Poms passing by until the day he dies, the onion muncher ran out of steam, and the reptiles had to move on to other controversies to pad it out and achieve a respectable length ...
Come on down Comrade Bill ...
Anyone scouring that for a contribution from the onion muncher would have come up short. It turns out that the onion muncher was just a stage prop, a necessary prologue ... we've all seen that sort of prop in one form or another ...
On and on the reptiles went, trying to whip up some kind of foamy controversy ... but it was just more Malware v. Comrade Bill ... with a few others dragged in for some minor fisticuffs ...
Indeed, indeed, and as for those pesky, difficult blacks, they can just like it or lump it. They've had to lump it for a couple of centuries, so why not a couple more, Dr Freelander said ... while the onion muncher was nowhere to be found ...
And there you have it, the onion muncher marked down, and with a final warning from the pond, and even the humble dashing Donners showing the onion muncher how it should be done ...
The onion muncher could have written a piece, instead of talking on the wireless, and the lizards of Oz would gladly have run a piece reminding the world how great Australia was in the 1950s ... and all would be well as the cricket pads got a decent chewing over ...
The base would have celebrated and remembered the glorious days of knighthoods and rushed to and fro, talking of political correctness and virtue signalling, virtue being a filthy vile thing, the sort of ruse designed so that Catholic guilt might take hold, with the last thing anyone needs being virtue, with "virtuous" about as base an insult as anyone could muster...
Take it directly from the horse's mouth ... dashing Donners is the last person who would want to claim virtue, and he thrives on being anything but virtuous ... it's the Catholic way.
Virtue? I spit on thee ...go, act like a slut or a brigand, and truly you can be righteous ...
And now to a most problematic Pope, who has entirely ignored the cricket pads and the reptiles and hared off into the bush.
Sometimes a love of the Pope can be extremely testing, but for those who want to chew on something other than reptiles and dashing Donners and onions and Oz day, there's more Pope here ...
"a 21st century Morality". Of course 19th century Morality was so much better. Treatment of orphans in 19th century was described by Dickens in 'Oliver Twist':
ReplyDelete"The members of this board were very sage, deep, philosophical men; and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse, they found out at once, what ordinary folks would never have discovered - the poor people liked it. It was a regular place of public entertainment for the poorer classes - a tavern where there was nothing to pay - a public breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper all the year round - a brick and mortar elysium, where it was all play and no work."
I would suspect that some of Donners' acquaintances would agree with the members of the Board.
The Donners needs a history lesson himself. He conveniently omits any reference to Tasmania when deflecting charges of slaughter and genocide of indigenous populations.
ReplyDeleteOne officially documented historical fact is that in 1828, Lieutenant Governor Arthur, for whom notorious Port Arthur is named, declared martial law (ie "war") on the aborigines of Van Diemen’s Land. The recalcitrant natives were often referred to as “orangutans” unwilling to obey white laws and boundaries - and therefore deserving of eradication. It is estimated that about sixty percent of the indigenous inhabitants were wiped out during the three years following this declaration. If that is not genocide then genocide does not exist in my book.
The “white blindfold” interpreters of Australian history exalt our current lifestyle and dismiss any suggestion that the “you beaut country” might have a negative past. Anyone who dares to question the received history is immediately shouted down by the likes of Donnelly and Abbott who "can't handle the truth".
Yair, well no matter how 'respectful' Arthur Phillip had been ordered to be, or even how friendly he may have wanted to be, he was here to claim this 'terra nullius' on behalf of the British Crown and to begin filling it with British misfits, criminals and political prisoners.
DeleteMaybe Donners could be introduced to The Prattling one who could give Donners all the history lessons he could ever need.
One of which would be that the actual first landing took place in Botany Bay from 18th to 20th Jan, 1788. Yes, after a few days they journeyed on to Port Jackson for the better land values, but that was the actual first landing: Botany Bay, 18th January. So why isn't that 'Australia Day' ? Or what about 29th April = the date in 1770 (yes, 8 years earlier) when James Cook "took posession of the east coast in the name of King George III". Cook flew the same Union Flag of Great Britain as Arthur Phillip did 8 years later.
Whatever else our early "settlers" were doing, in their double-mindedness they were all carriers of what Jack Forbes the author of the book titled Columbus and Other Cannibals called the Wetiko Disease.
ReplyDeleteThat disease has now, and for a very long time, infected the entire planet, and the leading vector of that disease is the USA Infant in Chief.
The German settlers in South West Africa got on quite peaceably with the natives for the first 10 years or so, until Samuel Witbooi got jack of them simply stealing land and cattle from the Khoi and Herrero locals. That all ended well, just don't mention the G-word.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure Donners and the muncher are big fans of Angus McMillan, whose entirely peaceful "exploration" of Gippsland brought British liberties and freedoms to the Kurnai people, or at least the ones whose skulls didn't finish up in McMillans trophy bag...great chap, got a statue to prove it, and an electorate named after him.