Publisher’s note: Andrew Bolt is a News Corporation commentator, who lost a significant Court Case in 2011.  He was found guilty of contravening racial discrimination laws with his “offensive conduct reinforcing, encouraging or emboldening racial prejudice”.

Andrew Bolt – just like us?

Inflammatory……selective misrepresentation
Disrespectful, cynical, …….Intimidation.

Not acting in objective good-faith…..derisive
Dishonest factual errors, misleading….divisive,

Distorting truth, … lacking due care
Being gratuitous, … not being fair*.

*words taken from Judgement in Eatock v Bolt 2011 case.
Read more here, here, and a whole list here.
This Global Mail article is particularly insightful.
As is the picture below

Publishers note: Today’s piece builds on yesterday’s “It’s Julia Season.  It takes a look at discrimination in the sixties and seventies and the gratuity, banality and disrespect of discourse now.  The language is of the nineteen-sixties.

Spastic Boots

He had calipers on both legs, kind of made him walk funny.  Don’t even know if he had a real name.  To us he was just ‘Spastic Boots’.

Occasionally the ‘Special Bus’ would drive by.  We’d take it in turns to stand by the waist high pipe and mesh fence and do spastic impersonations, the ‘spazzo walk’, and do a fairly convincing impersonation, arms splayed, faces contorted, shuffling steps, ‘spastic- like’.  There were a couple of kids with ‘spazzo’ siblings, (I felt sincerely sorry for them) they lived a childhood of excruciating embarrassment.  We realised though that “Spastic Boots” wasn’t ‘spazzo’ enough to be “on the bus”, he just had calipers.

‘Could’ve been polio or something’ my mate Neil Coleman told me.  Polio was a ‘disease’ you could get, we read about it in Alan Marshall’s “I can jump puddles”.

‘On the bus’ was part of our code vocabulary to designate the afflicted.  To walk funny was referred to as ‘the Spazzo Walk’.  To get angry and lose control of oneself was referred to variously as “Having a Spaz’ or a ‘Spaz Attack’.  To be in the process of ‘Going Spaz’, and to lose oneself completely was referred to as ‘Chucking a Spaz’.  (After ‘enlightenment” this became ‘chucking a wobbly’.)

One day dad invited some colleagues over with a severely disabled child, he had massive glasses, communicated in an improvised language of sub-sentences and grunts, and had difficulty walking.  We pretended as our parents hoped we would to be friendly and civil, but the unwritten rule ensured that we regarded him as sub-human.  It confirmed our belief that the ‘Spazzos’ belonged together, invariably in a place designated with apt aboriginal names;  ‘Monkami’ and ‘Yooralla’.

By the early 70’s the local greengrocers, the Italians ( who lived two doors up the road), had prospered.  I remember Dad saying, “I am going up the street to introduce myself to them and congratulate them on their success”.  We thought this was curious.  The old man inadvertently doing the “Migrant hostess”, the Barry Humphries number set in Moonee Ponds.  I can imagine the awkwardness of the encounter, the local GP, (there was a class system of sorts) sanctifying the newcomers.  No one bothered when they were newly arrived un-proven fruiterers.  Now they’d earned some respect.

He returned half an hour later, chastened by language difficulties, and the impression that his acknowledgement had been politely accepted as some sort of condescending insult.  I suppose he tried, but he hadn’t thought it through.  You see, like ‘Spastic Boots’, these people were regarded as “hidden” , peripheral to the mainstream.

Nationally, we indulge in some puerile debate about gay marriage.  And there’s an unresolved debate on sexism.  Australians still have a big problem with “difference”.  I think it runs at the core of being “suburban”.  Though the culture debate may have matured it remains unresolved as a struggle for meaningful identity.  And the culture itself? Homogenised by soulless shopping malls, an indulged materialism and insecurity.

What’s the big ideology debate at the core of this election?  Think shopping mall and ‘Spastic Boots’.  No-one dares to be different.

Poor Julia.

(Thank you to those who have lead the Integration push, have initiated the recently legislated and universally supported National Disability Insurance Scheme.  For background and a great read we commend Rhonda Galbally’s “Just Passions” Pluto Press, 2004, 2012)

Oh, a week where we asked our various contributors to shed light on the Monarchy.
But first a word from Errol: “I hate the legend of myself as phallic representation, yet I work at it to keep it alive.” From My Wicked Wicked Ways, by Errol Flynn 1959.

Tarquin O’Flaherty and Laura Norda were somewhat critical of the Monarchical role, bookending the week with their pieces,  whilst Terrence Nullius lauded our majesty.  Mine Tinkit added to the discussion.
Of course Sir Bertram Postule had his two bob’s worth, suggesting there may be a new monarchy just round the corner.  See it at the bottom of Laura Norda’s piece.

Our Musical Dispatch this week is current and looks at the failure of Government to deliver on the repeated promises it makes to Indigenous Australia on our behalf.  With abject Passive Complicity we allow this to continue.

We finish the week as usual with Poetry Sunday, our day of high culture. Here is Quentin Cockburn’s ode to royalty in “Oh Noble Queen”

Cheers
Cecil Poole (and Quentin)

It’s “Julia Season”.

On every corner and upon every wall,
the people are summoned to the clarion call
Its Julia Season!, play the man not the ball

It’s Julia Season! It’s Julia Season!
Anger fuelled-flames blind to justice or reason
‘It’s Julia Season! It’s Julia Season!
‘She’s a woman, a witch, and a goddam heathen’

‘It’s Julia Season! It’s Julia Season!
‘She’s childless, accursed, not to hate her is treason,
We’ve been hunting so long and we didn’t know
It’s officially begun, still a long way to go’

You don’t need a license for Julia hunting
so join in now, the knives wont be blunting
She’s down on the ropes, the polls are all screaming
Re-elect Gillard? You’ve got to be dreaming!

Kids chucking sandwiches home-made by ma
Shock jocks and pollies to take it too far
She must be lezzo ranga, her partners a queer
Is Julia Season longer this year?

The pressure’s a building and set to blow,
this forsaken sheila has just got to go

The sheilas we get in the north and the west
Are those that behave, well mannered, well dressed
But this one wont go when we’ve all had enough
Answers back, stands proud, damn, she talks tough.

The press are all screaming, and Rupert wants blood
This woman is worn out, and Kev says ‘She’s Dud’
If I were her, I would’ve lain down an died
She suffers a condition called ‘feminine pride’

Gina, Twiggy and Clive have no time for her now
Archbishop Pell says ‘No Sheilas allowed’!!
It’s a ‘Ranga-Free Zone’ for the next several years
And that goes for “abos, and lezzos and queers”

They’ve all had their fun, but our patience is out
That’s just what Mal Brough and Bob Katter will shout
This sorry affliction the girl’s got bad habits’
Balance restored with the Pells and the Abbott’s

She’s hopeless, she can’t even get a real fella
She’s not a performer like Sophie Mirabella.
The die is all cast now , no time for a switch
‘Ju-liar, Ju-liar’ . ‘Which Witch?, FUCKEN BITCH!

PASSIVE COMPLICITY – EVEN THE IRISH PRESS COMMENT ON SEXISM IN AUSTRALIA  – AS DOES THE ODD AUSTRALIAN COMMENTATOR, THANKS ANNABEL CRABB–

Oh Noble Queen

Though her royal diadem is dimmed with age, and letters fade on history’s page
Pretenders creep and gain by stealth, the bestowed gifts of Commonwealth
Though cricket’s played and held by ‘Grace’, has left us all for another place
There’s no reason left to reason why, a call centre voice that speaks, “Mumbai”

Misty eyed, last furtive look, the catches worn upon empires book
And leafing through these regal pages if I could just once catch those ages
And walk on high as a pompous viceroy, to clap and to summon the native boy
And with gentle gaze almost paternal, commit him to the realm eternal

And remind his spirit not to mourn the loss, as empire won at personal cost
And such sacrifice should not aver, an accusatory inference, “ I also serve”

Quentin Cockburn June 2013

As I suspected Laura Norda has demanded a right of reply to this Terrence Nullius’ piece. Here it is. (Followed by an illustration of “The New Monarchy”)

A review of our Heads of State, and their nepotistic offspring. By Laura Norda

After rabid following of football code teams, zealous adherence to organised religion, one of the most idiotic contemporary Australian pursuits is the adoration of the Monarchy.

After all, we are not too proud of the way the British Crown abused and decimated the original inhabitants of our land.  They simply claimed they did not exist and declared “Terra Nullius”.  The country was empty!

The mistreatment of the original inhabitants was almost equalled by the torture, dispossession, dislocation and infliction of outrageous, cruel punishments upon so called “convicts”.  The unfortunate souls were victims of extreme superiority and inhumanity of those close to the British Crown and their legal “justice” system

These early indignities were almost surpassed by the “con” inflicted on the cream of the country’s youth, who manfully volunteered to fight another people’s war ten thousand miles away.  They blindly submitted to orders of more English Upper Class military leaders and politicians who used them as pawns and expendable cannon folder or rifle targets, in Gallipoli and on the Western Front.

The first Australian Prime Minister to see through the perfidious pommy opportunists – from Kitchener to Churchill and “Bomber” Harris was John Curtain.  He fought against the crown and its parliamentary representatives to have Australian troops return from the Middle East in 1942.

As in the first war, when– Australia’s conservative populace totally supported our “volunteers” and decried conscription as “unmanly” and disrespectful to the Monarchy.  It was simply not “right” for our hapless victims to be sent to be slaughtered or imprisoned, had they not volunteered instead of being dragooned into service by being conscripted.

Equally the myopic Royalists in Australia despised the left leaning Labor leader Curtain as “anti British” and against the whims of the monarchy.

Australians would be singing anthems to a different Emperor had we as a nation not “cocked a snoop” at the ‘all knowing’ British military establishment.  The defence and fall of Singapore says so much about their practicality and foresight.

So, today almost one hundred years since the start of the Great War – the War to end All Wars, what is the demographic of our population?

We have welcomed Italians, Greeks, Romanians, Turks, from Middle Europe and the near east, plus Lebanese, Israelis and Egyptians. Today there are central West Africans, New Zealanders and Malaysian people.

How many of these people owe allegiance to Elizabeth I (of Australia?) and Philip (of Greece)?  Much less than these are the supporters of Charles and his consort Camilla.

As a cicada sloughs off its redundant, decayed and wizened shell to reveal a fresh green persona, so should Australia’s population shed the decayed and dried up nonagenarians who rule,  and their waiting offspring.  How much qualification for a position of some significance, today is birthright?  In a well run corporation, the Human Resources Management team would totally disregard nepotism.  Shouldn’t we?

Tarquin O’Flsherty had strong opinions on the Monarchy (see Monday Blog here), as does Terrence Nullius, whose views appear below.  (I fear he will have more to say on the subject and am convinced Laura Norda will seek a right of reply.  See, I’ve lost control of this blog again!)

Our Beloved Monarchy, by Terence Nullius

I love the Queen.
God Bless Her!
I have a copy of Queen beside me as I write…And who wouldn’t?

I love the royal family, and though through misty eyes I contemplate the end of her reign I know that Charles will be the next monarch and it fills me with an ineffable joy.

Other royals have fallen by the wayside, footnotes on history’s page, others, mired in scandal, enfeebled by their rank, the weight of their pedigree, yet the house of Windsor, noble born, annointed by Victoria, the mightiest Empress of the Greatest Empire, stands noble and inviolate.  Regularly and frequently I gather my children, Terrence Jnr, Laura, and my wife Persephone and take them in homage to the statue of Victoria in the Alexandria Garden.

There she stands, impregnable, orb in one hand, sceptre in the other, more timeless than the sphinx, and through learned noble brows, stares back at her handiwork, the City of Melbourne.  Melbourne true capital of her province Victoria, and Australia.

And looking upwards brows creased in satin folds of purest white marble her noble gaze directs us to the tendrils of commerce.  Economic vitality as cornerstone of empire connects us via the crimson thread of kinship, to the pillars of governance, the rule of law, and the light of protestant enlightenment.  The white colonies, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa stand four square, as Imperial cubs adoring and enthralled to her voice, queenly and eternal.  She speaks with Queenly restraint “now listen cubs, one day you shall grow, and take the baton of my spiritual presence with you’.  And in this she meant directly, the governance of the coloured colonies, who, under the protection of Victoria, prospered and grew to immeasurable wealth.  India, the jewel in the crown, Malaya, mysterious and exotic, Singapore, trade centre of the far east, Hong Kong, rescued from the celestials, and the roseate pink that filled the wastes and superstitious tribes of Africa, colonies too numerous to mention.  The Falklands, small islands off Terra del Fuego, and the Pacific possessions, amongst them New Guinea, (wrested from the Germans) and myriad islands occupied by primitive savages.  And finally epithetic and all alone, the island of St Helena, final depository for a used pretender.

And for each country, a noble entabulature stands that each jewel in the diadem was won for empire by a man of empire.  We need great men like this, and to my thinking, Clive Palmer is the carrier of the eternal flame.  Who can ever forget Raffles, who with fiendish pluck converted the fetid swamps on the tip of the Malay Peninsula into a thriving Metropolis.  The list is long, the annals proud, Raleigh, Cook, Woolfe, Clive, Gordon, Kitchener, Nelson, Wellington, Palmerston, Disraeli, Wolseley, Kitchener, and though they carved outpost after outpost for empire, they never once fawned and scraped to tin-pot potentates, sultans and princelings for their only duty was to serve their Monarch and ensure the dignity of empire.  To the apologists I have this to say, What they took was best taken, what they made from native soil, reward for the enduring toil, a white mans burden. Let’s not sneer at these men, for they had courage and foresight.  We derive our wealth and our standard of living, and our incomparable culture from their loyalty and unflagging commitment to see justice prevail.

How I pity the Americans,… They envy us, they envy the Commonwealth, and they inwardly rue the mistake they made in 1776…. But the ribbon was cut, and Britannia doesn’t like petulance amongst her brood, adrift and isolated the U.S is a study in adolescent petulance and childish outbursts.

The royalists amongst us, David Flint, Sophie Mirabella, and Gina Rinehart know what governance brings, the rule of law, and the correct distribution of wealth.  There is nothing nepotistic in this, it is simply true that there are some of us who are noble born, and the rest, like the popinjay Corsican, mere pretenders.  We need to be reminded of this, as it adds weight to the affairs of state, and renders the absolute authority of the sceptre and diadem beyond reproach.  And this is the first and enduring principle of governance, the overarching authority of a head of state beyond corruption and beyond reproach.  Find me a republic not riddled with self interested opportunists.  Give me, every time, a constitutional monarchy, noble and altruistic, to serve the common person in the street.  God save our Gracious Queen!

Cults, the dread of every parent, every brother, every sister.  Here at Passive Complicity over the past week we have tried to bring you the idiots guide, the better to protect your family, your friends.   Our staff writers have let you down.  I apologize, but rest assured it is their fault.  They did not read the instructions with due diligence.  Beside a couple of wonderful pieces on Cults I have also had works on Celts (1) and Colts (3).  Fortunately I have had nothing on Clits or Kilts, however that could change.
Now lets first have a word of sense from Errol
“In me, contradiction itself, as a principle, finds its own raison d’etre. I am convinced of the validity of contradiction.  There are many worlds.  Each is true, at its time, in its own fashion.” From My Wicked Wicked Ways, by Errol Flynn 1959.

We started the week with “Pig skin and Purple Cool Aid”, a cautionary tale from our newest contributor Cantina Baulk.  Her fearful and sad story of a family falling for an insidious cults should be warning to us all.  Read it here

Then the mysterious Phaudrig Macguire, (reader Celtic Mythology, Universality College Dublin) presented an obscure tome on Celts, which I found obscure – here

The joint proprietor Quentin Cockburn then decided I had asked for something on colts and he proceeded to revisit Australia political past by talking of a former politician popularly know as “The Colt from Kooyong”.  He depressed us further by referring to a certain first Lady’s appearance at the White house in the time of Nixon.  Read here.

Tarquin O’Flaherty, (bless his soul) finally righted the ship with an erudite and challenging piece tracing the changing meaning of the word “Cult”.  It is easy for the powerful to demonise the other – here
Then we ‘went to hell in  hand basket’ as Quentin again took the floor with a piece on guns.  what this has to do with Cults is anyone’s guess.  If this was a radio program I would have played soothing elevator music.  Read about guns and film here.  (actually this piece is really interesting – just do not tell Quentin)

Our Musical Dispatch took a quick look at Cargo Cults, at least this was on topic. – Here

And Poetry Sunday completed a week of crock!

at least we had great fun bringing it to you
Cheers
Cecil Poole (and Quentin)

Publisher’s note: Again I called for copy on Cults.  This time by our motoring correspondent Quantum Dumpster.  Again I am foiled.  Or perhaps not, just maybe the Mitsubishi Colt did have a Cult following?

The first Mitsubishi Colt to grace our shores was a wee three door fastback in about 1966.  Its claim to fame was its acceptance by those idiot car wreckers who call themselves “Car Rally” drivers, but who are simply torturers of finely honed automotive excellence.

However, they exceed any rational vehicle adherent’s sense of decency, by over driving, over revving and over rating their own skills – the likes of which verge on Kamakazi stupidity.  The Colt’s attributes were its extraordinary lightness, its robust body and its free revving engine.  It could “Hang its tail out” with the best of them because of the lack of mass in its rear end.

For the public, who really weren’t thrilled to own a two passenger door car (albeit with a third, the “Hatchback”), were the rear seats’ side windows which pivoted from the top – a feature for Asian countries, ravaged by Monsoon rains.  Less necessary in temperate Australia.

Colts went to front wheel drive in the mid seventies, but ceased to be imported into Australia. (Word got out that the Brand was ‘Too Primitive’).  Ford/Mazda’s Laser/323 combo were simply too dominating, and had succeeded the Holden Gemini as the “Cult” car of the young and the restless and the prim housewife’s shopping trolleys.  The Gemini was a tough little critter too, but never attracted attention of the Rallying set.  It had the backing of this top selling brand’s dealer network for support and at last had given Holden a viable small car.  In addition, it was made in Australia at Acacia Ridge in Queensland.  Such Street Cred!

Then news filtered across the Tasman that there was a new generation “Mirage” there that would be sold as a Colt in Oz.  Why should that puny population of NZ have something we didn’t?  However Chrysler / Mitsubishi’s marketing was a little overwhelmed at the multiplicity of models they could offer.  There were Hillman Hunters and Arrows and Valiants.  Chrysler US had bought the Rootes Group in UK ( and Simca in France) and there appeared to be wealth of opportunity about!  Only the 1968 win of a Hillman Hunter in the hands of Andrew Cowan in the London to Sydney Rally actually lifted sales of the Hunters.  From Simca came the “180” which was large but underdone in the engine bay.  This became the Chrysler Centura.  Unfortunately this was merely a slightly preshrunk Valiant behemoth.  Its underpowered engine matched its weak sales.

When Holden (per inspiration of John “Bags” Bagshaw) dropped a Holden six into the Torana, Australians were gobsmacked.  So Ford and Chrysler did the same to Cortina and Centura.  Sadly their sixes were too heavy for these essentially light cars, and understeered dangerously, whilst having too much power and torque.

All of the above distracted the marketing department of C A L / M M A – Chrysler Australia and Mitsubishi Motors Australia – to the extent that the poor little Colts were seriously neglected.

The Colt was well presented, well finished and well equipped but sadly Australian motorists who had been spoilt by too many Automatic automobiles did not see the advantages of the “Twin Stick” gear shifting mechanisms, which was an unwanted and strange novelty.  Actually, the twin stick shift was an unnecessary complication for buyers and few could see the slightest benefit.  A simpler 5 speed ‘box was less of a challenge!

So the Colt has been consigned to the dustbin of history.

Fortunately for MMA their Japanese masters had created the newly designed “Sigma”, which did capture heaps of buyers and made 4 cylinder motoring viable as well as lining MMA coffers.