Thursday, January 28, 2010

Australia - Love It or Fuck Off!

Back in the early seventies, what with the old man being on a military exchange thingy, my family spent a Northern Summer in the USA. This consisted of a trek up the East Coast with us staying in a string of motels and military bases. To be honest my main memory was of heat and glare, ha ha, but I recall us being struck by, and remarking upon, certain things that we, provincial though we were, had never seen anywhere else. As a young kid, I understood these to be American things.


Whilst my parents were amazed that everyone had a new car (all bought with 'credit', an alien concept for Australians then), I was distracted by other more colourful things: the American flags that seemed to fly on so many houses. After a while I'd stop pointing them out because there were just too many. For anyone thinking, 'Yes, but weren't you on army bases? Of course they have flags', remember: We were army people, back home we'd lived on army bases. In Australia, there was no such thing as a house with a flag out the front, army base or no. Or if there had been, whomever it was would have been viewed as eccentric, or odd, or something.
"You know he has a flagpole at his house and he hangs a flag from it?"
"Does he? What kind of flag is it?"
"An Australian one."
"Really? He actually has an Australian flag at his house? Geez, what a dickhead."


Overt patriotism was something Americans did. We were simply Australian and that's all there was to it. No one was confused - we knew who to cheer for at the cricket, and since when did being Australian have anything to do with anything else? Anything beyond that was a piece of wank, a contrivance of some sort. Australia was just a place and we lived there and we liked it. We weren't loudmouths, we weren't braggarts, we didn't thump our chests and behave like arseholes. The low-key punchline to this joke says it all I think -
A Texan is bragging to an Australian about how big his ranch is: "I could get on my horse and ride for two days and still not get to the Western boundary."
"Yeah," said the Australian, "I used to have a horse like that."


And with this lack of a vocabulary for self-congratulation, we used to celebrate our low-key love of Australia with an appropriately low-key national holiday, Australia Day (January 26), during which no one did anything and nothing happened. It was just another day-off, an excuse to go to the beach. But somewhere in the last 10-15 years with that shit Howard leading the way, Australia came adrift. Bamboozled by the media, we forgot who we were and became something else. Now, collectively, we are precisely that variety of jingoistic, chest-thumping arsehole with Australia Day as some kind of Arsehole-Xmas. And just like Christmas, it seems the decorations go up earlier and earlier, and get ever more elaborate. It's been flag week all week - cars, apartments, and human billboards - ever growing numbers of people keen to declare themselves as scoundrels getting in early for their refuge.


Lacking all sense of irony, now that we're unafraid to declare Australia the greatest place in the world and Australians the greatest people (John Howard's precise words in his farewell speech), what could be more correct and proper than gangs of youths who've tattooed themselves with the flag (literally) getting as pissed as newts and screaming abuse at anyone who doesn't reply Oi Oi Oi when they yell Aussie Aussie Aussie at them. Ten short years ago no one had ever heard of Aussie Aussie Aussie - Oi Oi Oi. Now it's a belligerent variety of national motto cum public pop quiz, with a torrent of abuse for whomever fails to answer. Sure enough, Australia Day is down in the police calendar as All Leave Cancelled, as bad as New Year's Eve. On the news round-up of Australia Day, the police will either be 'pleased at the level of violence' or 'appalled at the level of violence'.


No one will say, 'Violence? What?!' Since when did Australia Day involve drunken mob violence? Perhaps it's since crypto-gay, crypto-fascist radio broadcaster Alan Jones encouraged the good people of Cronulla to spend Australia Day beating up Muslims? "Come to Cronulla this weekend to take revenge... get down to North Cronulla to support the Leb and wog bashing day." Lebs? Wogs? Gosh, who can tell the difference? Sure enough, Jones' listeners unable to differentiate just beat up whomever. Jones still rules the airwaves and an endless litany of crimes and misdemeanours seem to have had no effect, certainly not on any of the politicians who have to crawl up his arse if they want to win the demographic. Frankly I have him pegged as a deadset certainty for the satanist/mind-control arm of the death cult. And his very good friend David Flint, head of the Australian Broadcasting Authority. Scumbags.


But fuck the both of them, they're just two old misanthropist fags with a predilection for rugby players. In the glossy cardboard cut-out army leading us to nowhere good they ain't nothing special. The task of this autocue-reading horde is to ensure the absence of the question, "Well, how did we get here?" God forbid. Best we all pat ourselves on the back and say, "This is my beautiful house. This is my large automobile." And gee whiz, don't we as the greatest people in the world deserve every bit of it? Who could possibly speak against it?


What a wanker! That's just how it is. It's the... what do you call it? The Zeitgeist! - the 'spirit of the times'. Yeah? Says I - Fuck the Zeitgeist. It might have meant something once, but no longer. Now the zeitgeist is just another thing the media manufactures. And here we are - a nation full of media-manufactured self-impressed, self-absorbed intolerant arseholes: good to go for war, torture, you name it. And all made to order.

'Australia - Love It or Fuck Off' can fuck off.

21 comments:

su said...

Wow Nobody that was powerful.
A friend of mine just ventured over to your fair land.
I asked for her feedback on her return - a bunch of fucking arrogant arseholes was her reply.
She hated everything about it.
She said New Zealand was different - the people were down to earth and in touch with something.

Those images you posted knotted my stomach into something that is going to take more than yoga to undo.

I was in the States a few years ago and I could not believe the amount of flags around.
I wondered if people got a tax deduction for putting them up - why else would one do that?
Seriously - don't they have any level of embarrassment at patriotism.

The only hope for the planet is when we stop being ameri - cans,
australi-ans, south afri-cans and become humanists.
It would make sport a lot more interesting.

word: ismugly

nobody said...

I could apologise for this going up two days late, or for not having put anything up for, what... three weeks is it now? Or for both, ha ha. Anyway, very poor of me etc etc and I do hope I'll be forgiven.

As for this being not quite on schedule, there's nothing wrong with Christmas cake on Boxing Day regardless of what the Japanese say. Speaking of which, Yoroshiku!

veritas6464 said...

Hey there Nobody,.. right on the money, the 'Stray-yun' Branch of Zio Corp have their own parochial strain of brain-washing bugs. For a couple of years they even managed to turn Anzac Day into a booze-fucked Rock-show; yesterday I stopped at the Pub in the afternoon and many of the regulars were there. These guys range from 50 to 25, most were recovering from 'Stray-ya-day' at a waterside Pub on the other side of town; "Where were ya? "I don't celebrate my Patriotism by getting pissed and vulgar. I am a Patriot everyday and it doesn't involve any stage-managed Media event". Apart from the screwed up noses and scrunched brows, I even got a "Mate I love my country and it's the greatest one in the world mate". "I know I said, I helped to defend it, when I was a Soldier." Deathly silence, I had pooped their party, none of these pot-smoking, speed-dropping dole-bludging cash-in-hand-scam-labouring skate-board riding yobbos had ever done anything remotely patriotic in their lives, except get pissed and vulgar on cue - 26th January. Oh, and what the fuck is with a 40 year old man dressed like a teenager doing on a fucking skateboard with a flag on as a cape in the Main Street - going to the pub!?

I grew up in Australia, at some point in the last 20 years I woke up one morning and it was gone. I miss my country, it was my home and I want to go home!

With golden soil and wealth for toil, my home is girt by sea.
Does anybody know how I get back there? Anybody, nobody?

Cheers,

PG.

james said...

Um . . . . it's your blog, Nobby. I suggest you do what ever you like with it!

As for us freeloading readers, well . . . we can either Love It or Fuck Off . . mate!

To the post then, well worth waiting for; well said, indeed.
I'm wondering how much being pushed to be politically correct has had to do with all this? Seems to me that when we, as a nation, were 'free' to ridicule as we pleased we were far less tolerant towards genuine arsehole behaviour.

Kosta said...

You're absolutely right.

Sad days...

Growing up in Australia, sometimes introduced as "me' wog mate"; it sometimes hurt me a little, but I somehow knew I wasn't hated.
Today I feel fully accepted, and never offended as a "wog" [Greek]..never even hear 'it' any more... but some things have changed, and much for the worst and especially for some 'races/creeds'.

As Paul Keating said of Howard; 'in a nation of immigrants, where 45% are either born over seas or have at least one parent born O.S.; Howard is like poison... A patriot loves his country and it's people, a nationalist thinks only certain types belong'
[paraphrased]
He and the other ass holes you mentioned are Nationalists.

I couldn't believe my ears when I heard "3000 at Cronulla..."
And yet it was true...
And for what?
Because some 'Lebs' beat up what Howard called a couple of "Aussie Icons" [surf life savers]; and not a mention by the MSM of the racial slurs that had preceded.
I wonder how many Australian kids today know that the Ghan Railway, formerly "Afghan Express" was named in recognition of the Afghans that helped build this nation by carrying stuff across our desserts on camel trains.... That icon is no more... 'deleted'.

As we saw at Cronulla; just like the Australian flag, the Eureka Flag has been usurped too; by Nationalists.
Another icon deleted.

Howard et.al don't deserve a "fair suck of the sav"; for what they've done to this country; we could have literally exploited our connections with all countries of the world; but we are heading toward being hated like the Yanks are.

Howard et.al, can go and suck on something other than a sav; but shaped the same. That's the fair old suck they deserve.

Penny said...

hey nobody, better late then not at all :)

mindless isn't it all?
As it is designed to be.
Mindless.
Cheer for being Australian, American, Canadian whatever.

were the best, oh yeah!
In Canada there is even a new book for immigrants to inform them of all that Canada is.
Except for the racist part.
WEll actually some of that is there.
But back to mind numbing brain dead cheering for no apparent reason, other then just to do it.

It is like that other empty slogan, support the troops.
Support them for
what
why
how
when
where
Just support the troops.
While they kill women and children
support the troops, wave your flag, wear red on friday.
all of it just more meaningless jingoism.

'you deserve a break today'
'zoom zoom'
it sticks in your head, but means nothing.

Edo said...

Hey Noby, welcome back!
I live in a very small Welsh coastal village (pop around 300) with one local pub and no shops. Two weeks ago Australian flags and other chinese made crap started flooding the pub, and when I asked "what the fuck is all this i aid of?" - the answer was Fosters promotion, Australia Day... Its so totally over-the-top commercial, but my fellow drinkers seem to think it brightens the place up. Me, I think the world has gone mad.

I'm Dutch by birth, and only have a sense of national pride when Holland play football in the World Cup. I don my orange jersey for each game, then put it away for another 4 years when we lose to Germany. :)

Timster said...

Great post Mate! Sorry to hear your country going down the same shit-hole as ours.

idiot savant said...

Hmm, boxing day, cake and Japanese. And then this Mr. (I presume) Yoroshiku. Or is it a password, him? What?

Carreening waaay off into the mother topic, this one will be quite stoking for ya mate.

http://www.consciousmedianetwork.com/members/nharamein2.htm

Hope you got headphones in ze library and can spare the 30 minutes, will be worth it (isn't it interesting how that reassures one).

Nassim Haramein is the cool dude that puts Newton and Einstein and Planck and a few others, presses a button and the Hawaiian mega punch is listo.

I send part 2 on purpose, more densely packed.

idiot savant

Anonymous said...

I had never heard of Alan Jones prior to reading your post.

I find it absolutely astonishing that this arsehole was not arrested and charged with 'racial vilification' after saying live-on-air: "Come to Cronulla this weekend to take revenge... get down to North Cronulla to support the Leb and wog bashing day". Racial vilification aside, Jones was quite clearly inciting violence. But despite this, he was never arrested and charged with either incitement to violence or 'racial vilification'.

Compare this with what happened to Brendon O'Connell. It seems to me that in Australia, 'racial vilification' is perfectly acceptable so long as it is directed towards Muslims and blacks. But woe betide anyone who should accuse an Australian Jew of being a racist, homicidal maniac. You are then guaranteed to be arrested and put on trial, harrassed and intimidated.

There is a great deal to like about Australia and its people. But there is much to dislike about Australia's 'racial vilification' laws and double-standards wherever Jews are concerned.

Anonymous said...

“Perhaps it's since crypto-gay, crypto-fascist radio broadcaster Alan Jones encouraged the good people of Cronulla to spend Australia Day beating up Muslims? "Come to Cronulla this weekend to take revenge... get down to North Cronulla to support the Leb and wog bashing day."

The fact is Alan Jones is not a "crypto-gay", he was arrested and convicted of an "indecent act" with another man in a London Magistrates court some years ago. My mate has the newspaper cutting of this. Amazingly Jones still went on to become a "sucksessful" radio host here in Australia. That's because he is a "crypto-Jew". I called his show some years ago to remind him of these facts and, of course, was cut off whereupon the entire "topic" thereafter was changed People ought to call him and remind him of his “indiscretions” and demand that he, like the rest who do not love Australia, fuck off too.

Anonymous said...

I know what you mean Nobs.
I happened to be in a taxi in Syd. a week or so before this years AusDay - flags (not Aussie) everywhere – up the light posts – all through towns streets.
Dopey asked the taxi driver (an Indonesian I think) what the??
He said it was that holiday next week you know (hesitate) Australia Day.
Oh!
Then I twigged the cars we’d passed with the flags flying weren't diplomatic cars they were dickheads celebrating AusDay early.
Been away from civilisation too long.
Tony

Franz said...

ALL MY FAULT, nobes.

I take full blame. I wasn't being a loutish patriot tho, I was only tired. Maybe if I confess it all, you can forgive me.

Couldn't make a nickel when that blowhard Reagan was president, so I augmented my night time steel job with a day job for the Ohio Road Department, getting snowplows ready for winter. Mostly. Other days I took them out on the highways to see if anything fell off those old trucks. Lots of stuff did. A bumper here, a gas tank there.

Early one morning a stranger hitchhiking by a cornfield furiously flagged me down. I'd just punched out at the foundry and I was now wringing out a shovel-truck in the middle of July. The stranger was smiling and I told him to get in, figuring he only wanted a lift.

From Perth, he told me (I guessed the accent right away. Tired I was, but I was in the navy and American and Australian sailors have lots of the same complaints.)
And he was just thumbing through America between college and deciding what he wanted to do. At that particular moment he wanted a sign and figured I was aome kind of road authority, being as I was the only dumbass riding in a snowplow on a hot summer day.

He pointed to one of our "beware of deer stampede" signs. It was made up for a local wildlife preserve and LOTS of cars and trucks had been punched into by deer going to and fro. The signs did not help a bit.

The guy from Perth asked, "Where can I get a replica of that sign?" I caught his drift. The sign looked strange enough one county over... but in another hemisphere it might just be a gut buster.

Between sips of coffee from my thermos, I went out and tore one of the signs off a phone pole and told him to keep it, my compliments. He laughed his ass off and I gave him a lift to the county line while I was at it. He was just doing a Jack Kerouac thing. Now that I think about it, the mid-80s might have been the last time that was possible. He said folks had been decent and generous ever since he started in California, but he'd been careful and stuck to the old truck routes. Never the interstate highways. Smart lad.

Yep, it fits your time frame well. All of that bad attitude in the 80s when we still thought the country was ours. Well, we know better NOW. But somewhere in Austraiia is an antedated warning sign from a former nation. Hope it still rates a chuckle, wherever it ended up.

nobody said...

Thanks folks, how kind you all are. That aside, every now and then brilliant things happen here. This usually revolves around me having to leave things out of a piece (on account of space or just not being able to make it work) and then keeping my fingers crossed the folks in comments fill in the gaps. And here we are! All the gaps filled in!

Just briefly - Jones is only 'crypto-gay' insofar as he's refused to acknowledge it. That book Jonestown said so in black and white and I doubt anyone doesn't know. Meanwhile he carries on as if he wasn't gay. Hmm... I'm thinking he's gay like Himmler was gay: perfectly happy to send the gay hoi polloi off to concentration camps as long as he can remain untouched. Honestly, he's that kind of bloke.

As for him getting done in a public lavatory in London, his excuse was that it was very cold and what with having forgotten to wear underpants he was worried that his penis was frostbitten and he was trying to warm it up again by vigorously rubbing it up and down. Seriously. And the judge thought that fair enough and let him go. Seriously. Hmm... perhaps he demonstrated it for the court and used the secret Masonic masturbation grip?

As for racial vilification, there is no such thing as racial vilification of Muslims. Any calumny may be levelled at Muslims and it's all completely kosher.

Otherwise, ANZAC Day... don't get me started. If anything that's even uglier than Australia Day. Perhaps those two days are like chest-thumping bookends, if you can dig it. Perhaps I can do it as a seasonal piece for April...

And Savant - I have a feeling 'Boxing Day' is not a universal concept. For those who don't know, it's the day after Christmas. I've yet to hear a precise reason for how it got it's name. And in Japan, what with them being nutty for cake at Christmas (in Japan any cake eaten at Christmas is Christmas cake: strawberry, chocolate, whatever) they have a saying about that to express a thing being past its use-by date, kind of thing. And yoroshiku means 'best regards' (literally 'please consider me well'). You haven't visited the lexicon I take it? It's good for a giggle. The link's on the front page.

And Timster! What with being new you get the standard lovely to have you pop in etc etc. And I had a quick sticky at your blog and whilst I didn't stop and read, it definitely had its head in the right place. And there was a picture of a Bower Bird! Bower Birds are brilliant aren't they?

nobody said...

Oh, I forgot - Bowerbirds!

Bilejones said...

"Boxing Day'
Got its name because originally Christmas was a religious holiday-hard to believe, I know. The day after was the day that people delivered their boxes of gifts.

kikz said...

add me to the 'ad nauseum' list...

my kids haven't said the 'daily' pledge since they were old enough to be explained to, why they didn't have to.

and..here in texASS they follow that up by the state pledge to the state flag... which completely negates the concept of fealty to the fed... every PTA meeting, every kid function.. they say the pledge... but whatever..

red/white/blue all over the schools, the town paper... 'these colors don't bleed' bumper stickers....on and on and on. we're number 1!
i call it 'football mentality' same goes for politics, us/them. it's like they never left high school..........

i live in a staunchly republican district...where being democrat is akin to being 'a pinko commie'. but being an independent is akin to being satan himself.

these people don't look past the last 'bunko game' or tailgate party... nor wonder why they should. more often than not, they have no idea who their local representatives/senators are.. nor can name the governor... opines on policy? pfffft, if it isn't sports related it doesn't exist.
other than to blame the entirety of the last 8yrs of political/legislative graft, debauchery, and chicanery squarely on obama... even the bailout.. they blame him for that.. he hadn't even physically occupied the office yet.. and 'he'd given it all away'. and of course he's just continuing bush policies...hand puppet...they all are. scrimmage game, diff colored jerseys.

when one mentions that the first bailout happened on boywonder shrubya's watch.. its as if their hard drive stops.... it doesn't compute... the subject is changed... 'how bout them cowboys/rangers/stars?!"

cognitive dissonance at its finest, augmented by Rx depression medication... everybody is on meds.. the only other peeps i know who aren't.. my french friends up the block.... it's sad really...
zombie universe....

i live in a diff universe.. and this confirmed ever fuking time i go out in public.. which is rare...

20$ for 6 designer cupcakes... delivered?
3$ cup of coffee?

indefinite detention w/o charges? extraordinary rendition?
presumed guilty until proven innocent? body cavity/strip searches at airports? at the kids' schools? don't tase me bro?

this isn't the country i grew up in....it's long gone.

nobody said...

You lead on Kikz! We're not far behind you!

kikz said...

don't know if this took..?

boxing day... according to my canuk inlaws, whose ancestry hails frm scot/england.. tradition frm victorian times.. wherein..
the day following xmas, was the day that the monied elite gave gifts to 'the staff' .. i guess that was their day off frm servicing the family during the holiday season...?

slozo said...

Yeah, Boxing Day was about boxed gifts for the staff and a day off for them I think . . . but "Bill's" assertion that Christmas was 'originally' a religious holiday isn't really specific, per se. Originally meaning that it began to be celebrated only about 150 years ago, and only became a national holiday in half that time. I would consider that a "made-up" holiday, historically speaking . . . unless you connect it to the Winter Solstice / pagan ritual, then you have some history there.

Solid post, Nobody . . . and to tell you the truth, Aussiland is simply reflecting what all western countries are going through to a greater/lesser degree. More jingoism, more ignorance, and a huge support network to divide people as much as possible, especially by race.

What a coincidence as we all ramp up to war.

Anonymous said...

OZ land is a land of arrogants and useless...