In which Giles returns to the Speccie mob ...

The pond did a little jig of joy … Giles was back, and with him came all the pond's favourites, not least dashing Donners, the onion muncher and the parrot …

At last a chance to put the lizard Oz's monomaniacal crusading obsessions away for a moment …

When I was a child, I spake as a reptile child, I understood as a child of the reptiles, I thought as a lizard child, but when I became gender neutral, I put away childish reptile things. For now we see through a reptile glass, darkly, but then face to face with Giles, will we see clearly now?

Or some such thing … the pond was always suss on bible studies …come on down Giles, preach to the pond, redeem the pond, cleanse the pond of impure thoughts ...

At last, a return to the 1950s, and the cold war … though the pond was a little worried by the use of the word "Brutopian", which the pond last recalled had been used by former Chairman Rudd in an entirely different context in The Monthly here …with idle talk of Howard's brutopia …

Contemporary British conservatives such as Michael Oakeshott have starkly warned against a "brutopia" of unchecked market forces. Equally, American conservatives such as the columnist George F Will have cautioned that capitalism unrestrained is a "solvent" that can dissolve the social fabric.

And now the dreadful Will has urged a vote against the GOP in November!!

The pond decided it had to put its trust in the Brutopian insights of Giles. All it had to do was kick back its heels, bring in a few cartoons celebrating the joys of Western Civilisation, US style, and have a jolly good time …

But then the pond began to grow a little bit nervous.

The reptile crusade about the Crisis in Western Civilisation wouldn't have been transmitted virally to good old Giles, with dashing Donners a notorious carrier of the disease, would it?

Okay, the Crisis in Western Civilisation made its way into Giles' rant, but it was such a splendid rant that the pond was put in a forgiving mood, so awestruck was it by the metaphor of termites brainwashing the woodwork.

And how pleasing to be reminded that children belong to their parents. Why every parent should have this sort of possession. Please don't stop with a handbag, consider having a child as an accessory …though as they grow up you might have trouble making them dress in the same style as you, resulting in discordant colours and most unhappy stylings.

And you, of tender years, 
Can't know the fears that your elders grew by, 
And so please help them with your youth, 
They seek the truth before they can die.

What a blast from the time when those bloody termite hippies were ruining Western Civilisation, in its finest hour in Vietnam no less, but the pond feels the need for another sustaining cartoon celebrating all that's good about Western Civilisation …

What a relief to know that Western Civilisation is in good, Speccie-approved hands, and so to another gobbet of Giles ...

Now here the pond must intrude and gently chide Giles, because surely he's missing a vital point …in essence, it was summed up this way for Mandrake (continuity script here):

Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face? ...do you realize that in addition to fluoridated water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk, ice cream? Ice cream, Mandrake! Children's ice cream? You know when fluoridation first began? Nineteen hundred and forty six. Nineteen fortysix, Mandrake! 

How does that coincide with your postwar commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard core commie works.

I first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love... a profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I was able to interpret these feelings correctly: loss of essence. I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women... women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake, but I do deny them my essence.

Phew, thanks for that important reminder General Ripper, and the pond feels another cartoon coming on, celebrating Western Civilisation at its best …

But all good things must come to an end, and so must Giles ...

Indeed, indeed, who tells the young about what happened in Cambodia?

Well that's the official version.

Put it another way …

Ah yes, young 'uns, that's what happened to Cambodia. The dominoes spoke to genocidal Henry and in the manner of the best of Western Civilisation, he bombed the country back to the stone age, and got the result Giles now purports to deplore ...

More at Salon here …

How quickly they forget, the hysterics and the chicken hawks, and the damage done …

I've seen the bombing

And the damage done

A little part of it in everyone

But every attempt to bomb the world to western civilisation

Is like a settin' sun ...

And so to a few more cartoons celebrating the best in current Western Civilisation, Speccie mob approved …