Australians at the beach. Where else?

At the pub, of course!

Friends, the intent of this post is to try to establish whether we Aussies differ a little or a lot from our U.S. counterparts. Food for thought, eh?

To give you an idea of what a Prominent American, Robert Higgs, Phd, thinks about his countrymen I include an excerpt from an article he wrote in Sept. 14, 2003. It was called: How Does the War Party Get Away with It?

“Presidents decide to go to war in the context of a favorably disposed mass culture. Painful as it is for members of the Peace Party to admit, many Americans take pleasure in “kicking ass,” and they do not much care whose ass is being kicked or why. So long as Americans are dishing out death and destruction to a plausible foreign enemy, the red-white-and-blue jingos are happy.

An eagerness to spill blood and guts extends, however, well beyond the rednecks. Highly literate, albeit sophistic, expressions of this proclivity appear nearly every day on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, a Likud Party megaphone whose motto might well be “all wars all the time.” Establishment think tanks, most notably the American Enterprise Institute, trot out well-spoken intellectuals in squads to trumpet the necessity of wreaking global death and destruction.

No one should be surprised by the cultural proclivity for violence, of course, because Americans have always been a violent people in a violent land. Once the Europeans had committed themselves to reside on this continent, they undertook to slaughter the Indians and steal their land, and to bullwhip African slaves into submission and live off their labor—endeavors they pursued with considerable success over the next two and a half centuries. Absent other convenient victims, they have battered and killed one another on the slightest pretext, or for the simple pleasure of doing so, with guns, knives, and bare hands. If you take them to be a “peace-loving people,” you haven’t been paying attention. Such violent people are easily led to war.

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This image is symbolic of Australia: young, immature, visionless and with little backbone or independence.

Friends, it seems that Rudd, our Foreign Minister, has joined the conga line of suckholes who are applying oil and other sanctions to Iran.

Now, you may well ask why is Australia applying sanctions to a small Muslim nation on the other side of the world? The answer is simple. It’s because NATO-U.S. said so. And when NATO-U.S. say jump, we, or at least our politicians, ask: ‘How High, oh Great Ones?’

It seems that we don’t take much in the way of trade with Iran but Iran has stopped trading with us which has had a measurable effect on our exports. Wise move, eh? Smart, eh?

And why are we joining in the sanctions? To show our support for Israel, a brutal, rogue nation which our incompetent Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, thinks is wonderful and to show our unquestioning approval for NATO-U.S., a conglomeration of the world’s principal warmongers and plunderers.

Yes, we have joined the ranks of the Forty Thieves who are trying to manipulate the world so it better fits the demands of corporations, right-wing politicians, oligarchs, religious fanatics, the wealthy elite, etc.

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Friends, the stupidity of our world leaders has taken another gigantic leap forward.

Yes, according to what I read this morning on Reuters, nuclear-armed British and French warships are heading towards the region surrounding Iran to join the huge American flotillas.

This is in case Iran attempts to block the Strait of Homuz though which much of the world’s oil passes. So not only have European Nations agreed with the U.S. request not to buy Iran’s oil and other sanctions directed at Iran’s financial system but they are contributing to a provocative armed presence.

Now we come to the stupid part. The West, including America, is struggling with a debt crisis. The very last thing that is required at this time is a real hike in oil prices. Stopping Iran’s oil will lead to a shortage of oil which, yes you guessed it, will make things more expensive and put extra difficulties on the already dire financial situation. It’s like cutting off your nose to spite your face!

But that is not all. Putting the squeeze on Iran, a squeeze that is going to punish civilians, is inevitably going to result in some form of retaliation. It’s the human way. The potential for Iran, quite a military power itself, to retaliate against its rich tormentors increases by the hour. The World is on a hair-trigger.

But now we come to the really stupid part, perhaps the beginning of the Age Of Profoundly Stupid! What is all this fuss about? It’s to stop Iran acquiring nukes which Israel has in abundance.

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Did the Government put on this fireworks for me. No, they didn’t! They don’t like me much! Few Governments do!

Folks, I just noticed that I have written exactly 1,000 articles (posts) since D.C. began in what seems a hundred years ago. I thought it was worth mentioning to the longer-term members of this forum and may even be of interest to the newer ones.

The time has gone so quickly and my blood pressure has gone up and down a million times as I dealt with some of the prickly issues confronting our world and some of the prickly people who have visited during that time.

Has it aged me? Yes it has but it has given me a sense of purpose and kept my brain active. Have I achieved much? Probably not but then I can never really know.

Will I write another 1,000 articles? Perhaps. Probably. Who knows. It’s in the hands of Mossad or Obama’s assassination squads!   

Is this how people will look (because of radiation and genetic abnormalities) in the Age of the Damned? 

On ICH this morning, there was an article entitled THE AGE OF STUPID. It was a video and I only watched a few minutes of it because my mind, always on the boil, was eager to explore that title and some of its meanings.

The Age of Stupid: what a wonderful title, one that describes my thoughts about the world perfectly. There is little happening in our world which is untouched by the word STUPID.

Now Lebby Eyres wrote that Shakespeare would have us believe that the Seven Ages of Man go something like this: infancy (mewling and puking); boyhood (whining and shining); lover (sighing); soldier (jealous, with a beard); justice (fat and wise); pantaloon (spindly spec-wearer); second childishness (oblivious to everything).

Of course the Ages to which I’m referring are more specific to certain time periods in the affairs of humans. We had the Stone Ages, Golden Age of Greece, the Dark Ages, etc, but the Age of Stupid?

Please consider the following. We currently have Global Warming caused by the use of fossil fuels. Do we stop mining such fuel and seriously look for alternatives. Of course not because there’s a buck to made and that’s all this is important in our capitalist-driven world. So exploration and mining continues at a frantic pace.

Then we have imperialism which is related to fossil fuels. Nations like Imperial America and Imperial Britain and Imperial France are doing their best to grab control of the major oil fields in the Middle East so they can have unfettered access to oil and stop China and to a lesser extent, Russia, from sharing in these things which really belong to the people of the world. And how do they gain control? Using war.

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This is the Meathook Galaxy!

This is the Spitzer Galaxy, one of an infinite number!

It’s funny, isn’t it, just how much human conceit distorts the reality of our world and our understanding of the worlds beyond.

Take the U.S. for example. It considers itself to be important. Not only does it consider itself to be important but it thinks it is so important that it should control the affairs of our whole world, that is Earth.

Now, for those who never look skywards, Earth is but one planet in one galaxy, one of infinite numbers of galaxies that extent into infinity. Infinity means, without end! Can you get your minds around that? I can’t!

Now I don’t want to stress this point but the truth is that the U.S., despite its pretensions, is no more significant in the scheme of things than a pimple on the arse of an elephant, a very, very large elephant and a very, very small pimple.

Perhaps I haven’t got it right! Despite the fondness of Americans for seeing themselves as the center of the universe, they are in fact a speck of dust on a small pimple which irritates the skin of a very, very large elephant.

No, in fact this is not correct either. Gee, how shall I put it: the truth is that, in the total scheme of things, the U.S. is a meaningless bit of dead skin caught on a dust particle which rests upon on a small pimple which has erupted on the rear quarters a very, very large elephant.

No, no, sorry! I feel I have not explained the situation properly. Let me try again. Gee, this is difficult, this question of scale and relativity.

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“Here we are in Fallujah, bringing you peace, democracy and human rights!”

“Like the Romans, we are invincible and don’t you forget it!”

“You’ll get over it, kid. You have to be cruel to be kind! God Bless America!”

Friends, the three major negative forces in our world are surely religion, capitalism and nationalism.

Religion divides people, fills their heads with phantasies about the world and some mythical after-world where you spend eternity singing hymns. Capitalism is a cunning scheme devised by the rich to exploit everyone in the world so that they can live in ultra-luxury. And nationalism is a racist, elitist belief that your country and the people in your country are superior to all others and should control the world.

In the U.S., these three negative forces combine and the result is that we have a country that claims to be Christian but kills millions, that claims to offer all its citizens an equal chance of becoming rich, yet only 1% do, and, as it engages in war after war, claims to be an advocate of peace, democracy and human rights. Yeah, right!

Now the question that can be asked: do the people who are running the U.S., the ones that promote religion, capitalism and nationalism, know that religion, capitalism and nationalism are dangerous forces which will bring our world to the brink of extinction or are they so deranged by the many phantasies that clutter their minds that they actually think that what they are doing across the world is exceptional, praiseworthy, noble and will lead to peace?

Sadly, I think the latter is the case.

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Friends, as the war clouds gather over the Middle East and the U.S. pushes on with its insane plan for full global spectrum domination, I get the feeling that I should run, that I should hide somewhere that is safe.

But the truth is that there is nowhere that is safe anymore, not in a world filled with nukes. And not in a world where the clash of civilizations (a dubious description) is reaching boiling point. The U.S., driven by phantasies about its ‘exceptionalism’ and deranged by its ‘born to rule’ mentality, won’t be happy until it attempts to control the world.

It will fail of course despite the existence of ‘Allies’ (who don’t realize that the U.S., once it has achieved its selfish aims, will swallow them too), but it will precipitate a conflict in which there will be no winners and the Earth will be irreparably damaged and largely uninhabitable.

I suppose that Australia is a relatively safe place to be, located as it is in the southern hemisphere. But if the conflict spreads from the Middle East and Russia and China are drawn into it in order to stop the U.S. and its Western Allies crushing them and squeezing them out of world markets, etc, a nuclear war in South Eastern Asia region will put Australia, an immature, unthinking American ally, right in the middle of the firestorms.

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“If I hit this ball, I’ll make another million bucks!”

“IT WAS NOT OUT!”

Friends, have you ever hit a ball over a net in a game called tennis?  I used to play it a lot even though I wasn’t much good. It is a good game with physical contact kept to a minimum (unless your opponent enters your side of the court and dongs you one!)

While I was watching the tournament called The Australian Open which is on at the moment, I happened to note some earning details which almost blew me off my chair.

Did you realize that Federer earned 47 million dollars LAST YEAR from playing in tournaments and exhibition matches and his endorsements of all manner of products and he’s not even No1?

Nadal, last year, earned a measly 31 million dollars for his efforts on and off the court, a sum not to be sniffed at surely.

Djokovic only earned 18 million dollars for the year which puts him well behind the Russian woman Sharapova who earned 25 million for running around the court and looking beautiful and putting her name on certain merchandise.

Friends, these are massive amounts of money to earn for being able to hit a rubber ball over a net, in some cases while shrieking like a banshee each time you hit the ball! You don’t have to be bright! You don’t even have to be well educated.

Why, even our Prime Minister, though she is paltry failure, only earns just under 500,000 dollars per year (although she does get some good perks and has servants, etc).

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Often I wish I was a tree,

In some ways they seem to be so free.

They can’t see the cruelty of the world,

They can’t see each human dream being unfurled,

They can’t hear the cries of the oppressed,

The sounds of those dying or distressed.

They just stand there drinking in sun and rain,

They don’t cry because they feel no pain.

Should I be unfortunate enough to live life over

Let me be a tree standing in a field of clover.

Let me hold tiny birds in my leafy hands.

I’ll let small creatures nestle or even grand.

I won’t complain, not even one bit.

Just don’t let me re-live this human shit.