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.
Public ignorance compounds the inclinations fostered by the mass culture. Study after study and poll after poll have confirmed that most Americans know next to nothing about public affairs. Of course, the intricacies of foreign policy are as alien to them as the dark side of the moon, but their ignorance runs much deeper. They can’t explain the simplest elements of the political system; they don’t know what the Constitution says or means; and they can’t identify their political representatives or what those persons ostensibly stand for. They know scarcely anything about history, and what they think they know is usually incorrect.”
Well, Professor Higgs certainly doesn’t pull any punches, does he? It is a scathing article and I believe it fairly touches upon some of the failings of the U.S. and its people.
My question is: are Australians just as dumb and ignorant as their American counterparts? Are we too just victims of the propaganda that we receive from birth, the pro-American, pro-capitalism, pro-white, pro-greed, pro-war, pro-religion, pro-capitalist, pro-West indoctrination that comes at us from every source?
I tend to think we are because every time I attempt to portray the U.S. as I see it in Australia, immediately I am involved in furious denial from many of my fellow countrymen.
Now I know that humans in the main are like sheep and anyone who questions the status quo is viewed as an enemy. People become comfortable with conventions they’ve grown up with (like the U.S. is a force for good) because to change them requires thinking and it’s easier just to go with the flow and follow the herd.
Anyway, what do you think? Are Australians, in the main, replicas of Americans? And if we are, what are the implications of this?
Over to you.
Australia? How can I ever forget how my family and I were treated by Australia.!!!!!
In 1945 , after the atom bomb at last had brought Japan on its knees, the war was over and we were still alive. My mother , sister and I in Tjideng camp then Batavia , Java and my father in Tjimahi camp : more dead than alife.
We went by hospital ship Oranje to Australia and set foot in Melbourne.
Mother soon met an Australian family who owned a holiday house in the Dandenongs,
and we were offered to live in the house as long as we wanted.
We were not used to shoes any more and so, my sister and I would take off our shoes while walking in the most expensive street in Melbourne( forgot the name)
and n obody asked questions and made us feel awkward.
Long live Australians!!! Maria Kramers (mrs)
Reply
I cannot make a negative remark one way or the other about Americans.
What I know about Americans is : that many young men and women died on the war
front and my family in the Netherlands were freed.
And I am for always grateful to the parents of those young men , who lost their sons /daughters on the war front.Maria Kramers
Reply
Maria, I understand your position. I would make the point however that the Americans of today are not the Americans of 1941.
Cheers!
Reply
Dude G
How could you?
How can you compare the fine people of Australia to such a cesspool of dysfunctional putrefaction? Really. You should have your tongue barbied.
No, seriously… we have the market on despicable, keep your grubby paws off. Or we’ll reap democracy down upon you. Give youz a dose of humanitarian bombing, we will. Besides you don’t have the right attitude, it’s all about attitude you know? And having a lot of bombs.
Reply
People are basically the same everywhere, but cultures are different, laws differ, and government policy differs. The US is probably unique in its cultural glorification of violence and destruction. It’s national anthem is all about bombs and violence. Violent football is the national pasttime. A large percent of jobs in the US are with the Department of Atrocities and Sadism (“Defense”). The “right to bear arms” has been interpreted to mean that each person needs to have an entire arsenal of automatic weapons. Young boys are taught at a young age to enjoy killing for “sport”. So it’s not Americans per se that are exceptionally brutal and sadistic, but rather the cultural norms in the US.
Reply
I am horrified by the articles written about countries like America.
To be able to make a judgement about a certain race of people, one has to first of all delve into history, and become well informed about the history of those people.
For instance, Africa and its black inhabitants in the past , according to professor Han Baudet ( my history teacher at Nederlands lyceum) were seen by the people living in the middle ages as belonging to the devil. So that explains very well why most black citizens of Africa could be sold as slaves or mistreated etc.( of course knowing the historical context does not in any way sanctify it .
I find statements about people or states most often ill construed and lacking of value and true knowledge.
Although it might be a truthful statement about behavior of a certain race: without any background given , it might still be false.
For instance Americans being used to having weapons: that must be seen in the context of their past. That does not mean that one sanctifies that behavior.
I am of the opinion that in our day and age studying anthropology is a must.
Also : in order to judge certain behaviors of a certain race, one has to be able to have knowledge of their past so the study of history is essential. MariaKrmrs
Reply
David; I think the behaviour of a people has nothing to do with race or where they come from but solely with education. Education lacks in many and most countries and has probably gone from bad to worse. Brainwashing people with the glorification of their country, like patriotism, religion stuffed down their throats and the entertainment like cheap, violent movies, glorifying war movies etc. History is not taught accurately etc. If people are well educated, well read, they are not as vulnerable to the lies and deception of politics. Also the perception of riches to be something to admire. People who have made a lot of money, it does not matter how, are admired and worshiped, even when they have a miserably bad character. The glorification of sports heroes, as ridiculous as it is, it is all in the make up to shape people into sheeple.
Reply
it’s been said we in Oz are 20 years behind the septic-tanks (yanks) and in this regard we are indeed mini-americans, just having australia day celebrated reminded me (a 48year old) of how in days gone by we would smirk and laugh at American patriotism and all the parades & chest thumping etc that goes with it, now we seem to be gravitating the same way what with the Oz day riots a few years ago and more overt patriotism being displayed.We are taught from birth that america is the “light on the hill” and what good they have done in the past, but that is not the same america as today, i really wish all aussies would dig beneath the surface of our MSM and see what’s really going on these days, or at least consider other opinions.
Reply
The US is a culture of mutts. A mish-mash of French, British, German, Italian, Dutch, Irish, Mexican, and any other country who inhabitants left their homelands for the opportunity of a better life. The US was formed to counter the exact same thing we are currently facing today; Tyranny! And an excerpt from a book called the “Babylonian Woe” shows us that things are not much different than they were then.
“…The Babylonian Woe, pp. 119-120
The following statements by Benjamin Franklin in reference to the causes of the American Revolution . . . “About this time [the Treaty of Paris, 1763], Benjamin Franklin made a visit to England. While there he was asked how he accounted for the prosperous condition of the colonies. His reply: “Simple. It is called ‘Colonial Scrip’ and we issue it in the proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry.”
[Sen.] Robert L. Owen continues: “It was not very long until this information was brought to the Rothschild’s Bank, and they saw that here was a nation ready to be exploited; here was a nation setting up an example that they could issue their own money instead of the money coming through the banks. The Rothschild’s Bank caused a bill to be introduced in the English Parliament, therefore, which provided that no colony of England could issue its own money. They had to use English money.
“Consequently the colonies were compelled to discard their ‘Scrip’ and mortgage themselves to the Bank of England (who were really the Amsterdam Bullion Brokers!) to get money. For the first time in U.S history, our money began to be based on debt.
“Benjamin Franklin stated that in one year from that date the streets of the colonies were filled with the unemployed . . . their circulating medium [of currency] was reduced 50 percent, and everyone became unemployed, according to Benjamin Franklin’s own statement. [ . . .] He said that this was the cause of the Revolutionary War.”
In many ways, it is not unlike Austrailia whose original inhabitants were killed off at the behest of the ‘white man’.
http://www.australianhistory.org/ancient
While Ausi’s may not be the war-mongers of the world today, we should always remember that the US government does NOT represent it’s people. And anyone watching the popularity of Ron Paul should be able to put 2 and 2 together and see that the US populace is fed up with this lying government. Unfortunately, just as with the US, the Austrailain corporate media is controlled by the same zionist stooges working for Israel and ultimately the Rothschilds. So, we’re not really that different. The same people pull your strings as pull ours.
Reply
And it’s always good to know your friends. In our case (US) they’re enemies, and they’ve taken over the camp. Your camp is being infiltrated as we speak Aus!
http://www.disinfo.com/2012/01/americas-bad-girlfriend-mossad-agents-impersonate-cia-to-foment-trouble-in-iran/
Reply
The Americans have been “Americanized” as well! Culture was very different when I was young. In the 1980′s is when things visually changed when malls for fat people were built. The doors were oversized, everything was oversized, like we were all toddlers by scale. Then these malls would have false facades. The old west town was a popular style. To mimic ghost towns on movie sets. I found it shocking the catering to the “new” American. One who can’t fit through normal doorways, won’t fit in a normal chair, likes entertainment on extra large screens. It’s all the normal now. Generations have grown up in the new USA with it;s electronic culture and war all the time. I would like to go back to small towns and small businesses. That is the only way to retain some normalcy.
If you in Australia still have a small town, be a part of it and order from those stores. Even if you have to wait for your product. Big Box Stores are the end of civilization.
Reply