The MDFI Unveiled. Fascism is fashionable again.

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Unveiling the MDFI. P.M, presents new era school crossing and childcare worker uniforms.

Congratulations must be given to the Turnbull Government. Faced with the compelling problem of trying to get Peter Dutton a better paid job and thus ensuring the safety of his tenuous hold on power, the PM has announced plans for a new Super Ministry. The Ministry of Deep Fear and Insecurity. (MDFI). Modelled on the Home Office, the Ministry will have far reaching powers. “It’s reach limitless”, and as described by Dutton: “will make the Gestapo, the Stasi, the CIA and KGB look like rank amateurs’.

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P.M indicates new high velocity laser guided particle gun to be used against jay walkers and fare evaders.

’This goes to the heart of contemporary Australia. To militiarise all branches of the public service, and ensure that Lord Murdoch has limitless control. Even, (with emphasis) on those people who don’t watch television. To ensure, in the log run, that FEAR is the one true value that all Australians enshrine as a national psychology’.

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MDFI Ministers’ new Uniform. “very nice”.

On hand to congratulate the PM was the head of the Stronger Futures task-force, Mr Mal Brough, who assisted by the ABC’s Tony Jones proclaimed the inauguration of the DFI as a ‘red letter day’ for all Australians. ‘This is a blue skies moment in the reconfiguration of the body politic. No more vision, no more optimism, just the purest essence of pure fear.
After the intervention, all the indices are up, we’ve got booming incarceration, booming income dependence, and booming fear. Got to the stage ‘they’re’ not game to step outside, lest the long arm of PROTECTION (for their own safety) hauls em in. It’s great for security and great for shareholders. Incidentally, (Holding up the new Ministry of Fear super-portfolio uniforms), just look at these little beauties, they’re cool eh’?

Indeed we at pcbycp could only agree. The uniforms are very stylish indeed. Made from finest Australian Merino, the badges, are actually made here in Australia. But for efficiencies, the rest of the gear, helmets, boots, sub machine guns, flak jackets, tasers, handcuffs, personal immobilising gear and night vision goggles are made in Bangladesh and China. Proving the greater efficiencies inherent in the free trade deal, (effusive nod to a beaming Andrew Robb). And it’s good news for Australians, and great news for business.

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MDFI Advert in foreign language newspaper. Urging people with ‘foreign sounding names’ to join the MDFI and be more Australian.

Not to be outdone, Christopher Pyne was there to proclaim this super Ministry the best thing ever for the unemployed, the disenfranchised, and the drug addled. ‘There’ll be careers in the new super Ministry. As camp commandants, perimeter electric fence maintenance technicians, and logistics experts. Because to make this successful, we’ll need efficiencies. Efficiencies of transport, infrastructure and communication to ensure that wherever they be, they’ll be tracked down and interred, processed and liquidated.

And only then can we proclaim Australia free from the taint of terrorism and ‘un-Australianism’. And like our poor wretched benighted, doomed first Australians, this process of identification and fear is unending. It’s a new ‘white mans burden’, and some of the recently arrived will be proud to wear our uniform and be like us. Rest assured, the on-going process of diminishing, reducing and deleting the soul of an Australian people is a burden we must all carry.

It’s a vision. A long term vision and an enshrining principle. As proclaimed in the book of Murdoch, To render fear unto all, and thus cowered, to do thy bidding’.

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MDFI Autobots. So real you can’t tell em from real humans.

Amen. (a chaplain was on hand to bless the new super-ministry. )

Poetry Sunday 16 July 2017

Tarantella – Poem by Hilaire Belloc,

with comments by Ira Maine, Esq

Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?
And the tedding and the spreading
Of the straw for a bedding,
And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,
And the wine that tasted of tar?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
(Under the vine of the dark veranda)?
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda,
Do you remember an Inn?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
Who hadn’t got a penny,
And who weren’t paying any,
And the hammer at the doors and the din?
And the hip! hop! hap!
Of the clap
Of the hands to the swirl and the twirl
Of the girl gone chancing,
Glancing,
Dancing,
Backing and advancing,
Snapping of the clapper to the spin
Out and in–
And the ting, tong, tang of the guitar!
Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?

Never more;
Miranda,
Never more.
Only the high peaks hoar;
And Aragon a torrent at the door.
No sound
In the walls of the halls where falls
The tread
Of the feet of the dead to the ground,
No sound:
But the boom
Of the far waterfall like doom.

Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953)

Hilaire Belloc was born just outside Paris to an English mother and a French father. Belloc’s father died early and the young boy was brought back to and educated in England. As a teenager in England, yet still a French citizen, Belloc was required to do military service in the French army. Having completed this he returned to England and was accepted as a student at Oxford from whence he graduated with distinction.

He was a lifelong friend of both GK Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw and was constantly at odds, in a literary criticism sense, with HG Wells, with whom he profoundly disagreed. Belloc was a convinced and committed Roman Catholic and almost everything he has ever written tends to be coloured by his religious beliefs. He was hugely prolific, wrote children’s’ books, histories, essays and poetry and contributed an enormous amount to the literary an intellectual life of the early twentieth century.
‘Tarantella ‘ is a mysterious poem which, on the surface seems to be simply the author reminiscing about a romantic time spent with a romantic partner in the ‘High Pyrenees’, perhaps a long time ago. The stamp of the dancer’s staccato feet, the precise turning, the swirling, the hand clapping, insistent, rackety-clack, still bright and fresh in the author”s eye, as if it had just happened.
‘Remember, Miranda?’
And then that return to ice-cold reality. The man’s mind has created this warm, flamenco laced memory, with its heat, its wine, its drunken muleteers. It is a flash, a split second of the mind mysteriously chock full of of hours, of times past precisely rendered, but lost now, like the snow that fell yesterday.
The woman has gone, the time is fled, and age creeps implacably on. A bleak enough future, do you think, to justify that last verse?.I wonder…There are indeed mysteries here…
Why are the muleteers not paying? Why the crashing on the door? Why (apparently) has the Inn itself ceased to exist?
Mules pull guns in the high Pyrenees.Guns are for killing people. Soldiers were also muleteers and when the day was over, in a conquered town, they looted. Doors crashed open, houses were robbed and women raped..They paid for nothing and if the locals did not do their bidding, they were shot. So the ladies danced and stamped their feet because they had no choice in the matter. And when the soldiery finally left they burnt the place to the ground lest it prove an advantage to the enemy.
Perhaps this is a bleak place now and abandoned because for the locals, the grief was simply too much to bear.What do you think?

MDFF 15 July 2017

Halo all,

Is it plagiarism if you quote yourself?

Nine months ago (as long as it takes for a human embryo to gestate) I wrote:

In Kieran Finnane’s book, ‘Trouble (On Trial in Central Australia)’ In the Introduction she describes the Alice Springs Courthouse. This from page 2:

“…Lately graffiti has appeared on the footpath in front of the entrance stairs, small letters stencilled in black: ‘This is the front line.’ It says. It’s discreet enough for nobody to bother scrubbing it out. I’d like to know who did it, and what kind of battle they think is going on inside…”

A Dispatchee responded with:

“There is another graffiti that much interests me around Alice.  It says REBUKE – it is written vertically in shaky black capital letters on small spaces e.g. metal pole near Bradshaw School and there’s one on the western side of the railway line too.  There are several of them around town and have been in place for a few years now”.

I’m back at the Front Line, only to find that the backlog of administrative matters has grown significantly.

I’d love to find the time to write something interesting and amusing (if only to myself). Instead I’ll send you the speech I gave at RMIT on 29th June. It was gratifying to see quite a few of my friends having bothered to turn up.

There is a bit of the Ancient Mariner in me:

He holds him with his glittering eye
The Wedding guest stood still….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptla1xYd2cc

Those who know me are aware that I’m forever, as they say in Dutch ‘van de hak op de tak springen’– digressing until the wedding guest’s eyes glaze over and he starts looking at his watch, or these days at his mobile phone.

This is why I’m taking refuge in reading from my notes.

When Jakamarra first asked me to come along to this event, I declined. I have no intention of being yet one more opinionated white fellow pontificating about what Aborigines should or shouldn’t do, I said to Harry. No, he said, you have to come, you’re my cultural advisor!

The delicious irony of this, is not lost on either of us, but if you think about it, that this is ironic illustrates the power imbalance that exists.

Aboriginal Australia is severely hampered in its efforts to withstand the ethnocentric assimilationist interventionist assault which started in 1788.

The vast resources, cultural advisors, legal, sociological, education and fiscal experts and a well oiled propaganda machine and a not so well oiled bureaucracy which are available to the authorities are denied Aboriginal Australia, except to Intervention fellow travellers and quislings.

When you search the internet, that adage ‘A lie told often enough becomes the truth’ is attributed to both Vladimir Lenin and to Joseph Goebbels. No need to go back as far in history on the other side of the world, to see this in action. The Intervention and its euphemistically named sequel Stronger Futures are based on oft repeated lies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n03a7cLf0M

Bruce Pascoe, in his brilliant book ‘Dark Emu’ wrote “then all of us must be alert to that greatest of all limitations to wisdom: The Assumption…”

That is what drives the assimilationist imperative- lies and assumptions.

I’d now like to read out a quote from a speech Patrick Dodson made at University of New South Wales:
“The strategy for assimilation of our peoples is not a mistake made by low-level bureaucrats on behalf of successive governments who didn’t know better. It was and continues tobe a deliberate act orchestrated at the highest levels in our society, and no amount of moral posturing can hide that reality. This Assimilation I talk of has not been evidenced by equality, but by further control, incarceration and subjugation to norms and values without our consent.”

The longer I live at the present day front-line of the assimilationist assault the more convinced I’ve become that Patrick Dodson has hit the nail squarely on the head. It very neatly dovetails with what Mahatma Ghandi said when talking about the British Raj in India:

“ …a subtle but effective system of terrorism, together with an organized display of force on the one hand, and the deprivation of all powers of retaliation or self-defence on the other, has emasculated the people…”

I’d now like to speak about what my wife calls the ‘Massacre Mentality’.

One or a few people commit a crime and a large number are indiscriminately punished. History is full of examples of this.

In 1928 a mere 50 Km from Yuendumu at Yurrkuru, Fred Brookes took liberties with Bullfrog’s wife. Bullfrog with some help killed Fred Brookes. The murder triggered a series of punitive raids led by Gallipoli veteran Constable Murray. The raids became known as the Coniston Massacre in which around one hundred or so men women and children were killed. The exact number of people killed is unknown, nor are the victims dignified by having their names recorded in history.

Constable Murray was subsequently exonerated in an enquiry which found that the “killing of blacks” had been justified. Bullfrog lived to a ripe old age and died in Yuendumu.

In 2007 the ‘Little Children are Sacred’ report included allegations of sexual abuse of children. This was then seized on to justify punishment of all residents of Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory by the imposition of the Intervention. And make no mistake a punishment it is. As Pat Dodson said no amount of moral posturing can hide that reality.

The Massacre Mentality in action.

Alexis Wright in an essay published in Meanjin mentioned that the Northern Territory has three times the ratio of police to population than the rest of Australia. The largest single amount ever spent on Yuendumu was the $7.6Million spent on building a police complex. Three days a month, court is held in Yuendumu. Over fifty cases are heard. With rare exceptions, the defendants are Aboriginal. This, in a town with an Aboriginal population of less than one thousand. Aboriginal legal aid provides two overworked lawyers. Most accused plead guilty just to get matters over and done with. Kindergartens and primary schools manage to operate around a timetable. No such consideration appears to be given to alleged offenders in Yuendumu. The accused with their families and supporters, sit outside the court all day lest they get charged with “failure to appear”. All organisations that rely on local workers are short staffed on those days and not properly functioning, whether it be garbage collection or the education of the children.

When the Northern Territory Government imposed the “4-hours English only” policy some years ago, at Yuendumu School there were some white teachers who had been happily working within and were part of the school’s bi-lingual programme who suddenly thought they had the right to act as the “language police”. Insist no one should speak Warlpiri, sing Warlpiri songs or read Warlpiri books during the first four hours of the school day. Such is the power of government sanction.

NT police have the power to enter a home without a warrant. I’ve had such raids that took place in Yuendumu described- Heavily armed police dressed as black clad Ninjas surround and charge into people’s homes in the middle of the night. The residents are made to stand in line against the wall whilst the police search the house for a person whohas an outstanding arrest warrant or drugs or alcohol or unregistered rifles or whatever. All of this in front of terrified children. In one case I’ve been told about, a mother was forbidden to pick up her crying baby on the other side of the room. I suppose one can say the situation has improved since 1928- no one has been shot – so far.

A couple of weeks ago an Aboriginal man slapped his 9 year old daughter in front of Yuendumu Clinic. A non-Aboriginal clinic staff member saw it as their duty to report this incident to the police- which strictly speaking is their legal duty under the NT’s mandatory reporting legislation. Subsequently two Alice Springs police accompanied by a lady from child protection went to Yuendumu school and removed the child from grade 4 for questioning. The father is now required to show up in court. The mother at no point was advised or consulted. This is far from being an isolated case. It is indeed as Ghandi said “a subtle but effective system of terrorism…”

The Intervention was touted and indeed continues to be defended because it was supposed to protect women and children.

Instead it has seriously damaged and continues to damage the social fabric of communities. It has been and continues to be an attack on free people’s most precious possession. Their Identity.

Nothing short of an admission that the intervention was wrong and unjust , and a repeal of its laws can even begin to repair the damage and give hope of a Bran Nue Day.
Untitled 61https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiShXMojKfY

The next Dispatch is gestating….

Cheers,

Frank

The truth is out. Renewables kill

kelly 1

Craig Kelly. God’s Truth, Working for Saint Tone of Santamaria and the COAL Lobby to keep us UN-DEAD!

At last some REAL FACTS in the energy debate, The COAG Heads of Government Meeting will be left in no doubt. Renewable energy KILLS!

For years now “we’ at pcbycp have been hard at it trying to get to the bottom of the energy conundrum. We know that empirical scientific evidence is bunk and there has to be a real reason for escalating energy price rises. We also know it has nothing to do with playing at economic lasseiz faire polices and handing over all responsibility of energy policy to private enterprise. We also know that the energy crisis has nothing to do with the ideological war on renewables waged by Tony Abbott, and the ultra right loonies from the back bench. I simple terms the truth has come out. Renewables kill!

And the truth comes via Craig Kelly, he’s no scientist, but what does with figures is nothing short of astounding.

Craig Kelly says people will not use heating in winter because of price of power
He’s blamed rising power costs on renewable energy target. Craig should know cos he’s chairman of the Coalition’s backbench Energy and Environment Committee.
Thats it folks he’s Chairman.

kelly 2

Looking after Mates

In Craig’s own words:(from the ABC’s Fake News)

“We’ve seen reports only recently that one-in-four Australian households this winter will be frightened to turn the heater on because of the price of electricity.
“We also know that the World Health Organisation has made it very clear that you increase winter mortality, that is you have more people dying in winter, if they cannot afford to heat their home.”
Mr Kelly is blaming rising power prices on the Government’s renewable energy target.
“There are $3 billion this year being paid in subsidies for renewable energy, that pushes up the price of electricity to the consumer,”

Ad he’s dead right. We are seriously worried about the direction this government is going. If they give into the Finkels’ of this world there is nothing that lobbyists can do The truth is incontrovertible. Renewables pay nothing to backbenchers.

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Lobbyists take notice. For the best in Coal Futures look no further. Competitive rates for overseas investors. Free taxpayer funding packages. Hurry!

And Craig has got a point. WE as taxpayers don’t mind giving huge subsidies to the coal lobby. We’ll even offer to lend a bloke from overseas, who doesn’t pay tax here a one billion dollar loan to build a train track, cos he’s a really nice bloke, and his holiday house is fan bloody-tastic.

But, as Craig said the other day; ‘No renewable has ever given us tickets to the grand final, hotels paid for, and big kickbacks on favourable planning decisions. The coal lobby and in saying this I’m talking about my friends in the Minerals and Energy Council look after blokes like us. Anything from the Greenies, the renewables, the pinko, lefty wankers? Not a zac.

You think politics are not listening to the people?

You think we’re out of touch?

Well think again?

We don’t get paid enough as politicians to look after the interests of the general public. And Why?. Cos we’ve gone Soft- cock on renewables. And, that’s selling our mates Short. That’s why. 
 And as me mate Matt said, “forget about saving the planet, just give a few mates some jobs”,

And he’s dead right.

Oxymorons; The Liberal Right versus the Liberal Left

corey 1

A bitter way. Saint Corey.

There’s been a lot of talk about conservative values and the soul of the Liberal Party lately. It seems the conversation is divided into two camps, the moderates led, (at the moment) by Malcolm Turnbull. And the hardline Conservatives led by Saint Tone of the Santamaria, Eric of the Unelectable and Saint Kevin of the KKK. Not to be outdone, a former Liberal, Saint Corey of the Confabulated has set up his own party. In order to identify it as even more right wing he’s called it the ‘Australian Conservatives’.

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Ming’s investiture of the order of the Cinq Ports. Tolleys. Mildara, Seppelts, McWhilliams and Angoves.

Saint Corey reckons that if Ming the Merciless was still around he’d give his core of right wing fundamentalist christian looneys, (we don’t like to indulge in simple caricaturisation here) a big tick. Corey reckons that Ming would’ve been into stoning adulterers, execution of non believers, and castration of poofters and lezzos’, (can you castrate a lezzo?) as demanded by the Bible in 100 AD. Corey would blanche at the erudite, sophisticated rhetoric of Ming, as imponderable. Corey would suggest against the blight of Labor’s attempt the nationalise the banks, Ming stood firm as another steadfast christian soldier. Rather than just a canny pollie sensing the post-war winds of change. Corey, like his republican, tea- party mates in the U.S is very good at cherrypicking history to establish his incontrovertible “facts”

You see Corey is the bastard child of the DLP split. Once orphaned he’s found a home. They had to do a fundraiser to find Ming a home. These days, they just call Lord Rupert. He’s gotta spot for good-ol fire and brimstone Catholics in the Liberal party.

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Bill O’Reilly. Sending another down.

We’re confused, cos In the olden days when Ming held the roost, a Catholic in the Liberal party was about as rare as the proverbial pork chop in the synagogue. Ming grew up in Jeparit, went to Melbourne, became the state Attorney General before moving into the big league. In his day Catholics were about as welcome as Bill O’Reilly in the test team. Tolerated if they were good with the bat or ball, but always knew their place. On the outer, like the Collingwood cheer squad.

Saint Tone of the Santamaria is convinced that if Ming came back he’d be a Catholic too. Though Malcolm is a recent convert he’s just not Catholic enough. He’s a bad Catholic. Malcolm is not consumed enough by HATE, GUILT and LOATHING. Malcolm’s soft-cock Catholicism stops him from being really really fucking angry about everything, and blaming it all on the aforementioned, pooftas, lezzo’s, intellectuals and the ABC.

All of em, (Tone, Eric, Corey, and Kevin) are working with Lord Rupert to close the aforementioned down.

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Ming and Liz worked as a TEAM! And kept the Micks at Bay.

In hindsight Ming was a bit of a leftie. He believed in big government, and spoke of the ‘forgotten people’. In his day they were anyone other than the DLP.

Still it’s good to see that these old school conservatives are determined to get their message across to the Australian people. But we’re deeply confused.

Just the other day they invited Margaret Court to a fundraiser. She reckons homosexuals encapsulate an “ungodly lust for the flesh”. We thought she was talking about Catholic Priests. And then she reckons the ABC is like Joe Stalin and Adolf for “getting into the minds of the children”. Then, Craig Laundy has invited Corey to address a North Sydney Liberal fundraiser. Corey’s not in the party, but all and sundry agree that climate change is a hoax, and the only true religion other than keeping down wages and punishing the poor is Real Estate. A fundamental core Liberal principle.

Ming would’ve liked that, but one part would have irked him. The forgotten people were meant to be the silent majority who worked for a living. Corey and his mates do nothing else but talk so loud it’s positively deafening. And none of em do REAL WORK! They’re at pains to prove, that the tide of history is with them to close the Liberal party down.

And on that count they’re absolutely RIGHT

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Liberal Party Cosplay fundraiser, (all costumes provided generously by the Rt Hon Christopher Pyne M.P) proving that Global Climate Change sea level rise is just WRONG!

.

G 19. The aftermath. Enter the G1.

There’s order restored. A newer new world order has arrived.g20 1

The United States of America has handed the baton of global leadership formally to China and Russia. Going it alone the U.S has orchestrated its own new global era, by setting up the G1. The G1 promises to be much better than the G20.

For a start it’s controlled by just one corporation. You can forget about trade deals, accords and treaties, this corporation knows power. And the power of the deal. If you’re not in on the deal you don’t exist. Welcome to the Corporation.

The Trump Dynasty is on call to answer the worlds problems. And departing from protocol, the entire Trump family occupy all the key positions in this global think tank. It’s called “Free Market 1#”. The internal appointments of the “Free Market 1#’ think tank are very nice also. There’s cool drinking water, gold plated taps and plenty of Dom Perignon 53. And there’s no shortage of high-level literature, with a book of mormon and the readers digest in every room. We’ve been told that you can get anything you want by just dialling RU 451, a direct line to Lord Murdoch or his offsider Vladimir or Xi Ping. It proves the first principle of the corporation; ‘winners are grinners”.g20 5

It’s good news for Lord Rupert. And good news for the prosaically termed, “rest of the English Speaking world”.

Though Germany and France pretend otherwise, this heralds a new golden age.

A golden age led by Czar Vladimir of the mighty Russian Motherland.

Kleptocrats the world-over rejoice.

The bounty of neoliberalism is upon us. Those on top know their place is secure. Security is good for the economy. Investment in renewables is dangerous. It creates insecurity. It upsets the status quo. The reins of power have never been so firmly held, and tightly. From Rupert to Vladimir, from Vladimir to Xi Ping, the lingua franca of the modern age is ‘cha- ching’. And into the coffers the profits go. A new era of prosperity for the annointed 1 percent. And their minions, those putative Melania Trumps know where the future lies. In ideas? In vision? In hope? NO! It’s in ostentatious consumption, expensive jewellery and looking absolutely perfect. No blemishes in the new age. The designer age, of label-led certainty. Hooray the oil barons, the Saudii princelings and any other tin-pot dictator, your time has come. And there’ll be scraps for Saint Tone of the Santamaria, a posting in London?. A job at Fox?. The Braver Brave New World beckons.g20 2

And the mantra for the new age: “What can’t be bought, DOES NOT EXIST”!

No more the moralising sermonising United Nations. They were fake organisations. Britain, so long the pretender to righteousness has closed up shop. To the people of Hong Kong the message is clear; “We don’t care”. From Australia, to Washington, and back again to London the message from the bankers is unanimous and unequivocal. WE work for Lord Rupert and we don’t care!”. And besides, what’s in it for us? Ol Europe just don’t understand, and they never will.g20 4

The G19 was almost derailed. The festivities were almost stilled. By protesters!
We saw on our own televisions with our own eyes the riotous anger of the angry mob,

Protesters! How dare they!

Wage earners, the new model army of internees, they just don’t get the benefits of the trickle down effect. The overall message of G19?

To resist is useless.g20 3

To protest is futile.

Acquiescent for all these years, You thoroughly deserve it.

Ira’s reply. Hot on the heels of G19

trump 1

‘amongst the most disturbed on the planet’.

Dear reader, now the G19 is over, and we’ve all had a good taste of Donald and ugly protesters, it’s time for a considered piece from our sage of the near north east Ira.  He’s sent this reply to Sir Atney of Emo. We’ve taken the liberty of editing it a little. However, the juices remain as flavoursome as ever. Please read on.

trump 2

‘Their emotional wiring is so warped, that they cannot now deal with warmth and closeness and trust’

We fostered kids for about fifteen years. Some of these foster kids were (and are) amongst the most disturbed on the planet. This condition is brought about in a very simple way. Parents, distracted by either indifference, or the more common cocktail of violence, drugs, or sexual deviance, neglect their children, both physically and emotionally. Kids, if they are to grow up in any normal way, desperately need love, warmth and security, most importantly in the first six or seven years of their lives. In the absence of these essentials the child cannot learn to function successfully in our society. All modern research indicates that these neglected or abused children, to a greater or lesser degree, are permanently emotionally crippled. Even with new, warm and supportive foster parents, the damage cannot be undone. The neglected child, the emotionally traumatised child grows up completely unable to relate to society’s norms, the essential glue that holds our society together. Society only works if we all contribute to this ‘glue’. Sadly these kids, through no fault of their own, are made incapable of contributing because they simply do not, or cannot make sense of a system which seems to them, entirely alien. Their emotional wiring is so warped, that they cannot now deal with warmth and closeness and trust.They believe these traits to be, if anything, an exploitable weakness and believe neglect, violence and indifference to be how society works. Many of them become petty criminals simply because they see nothing wrong with stealing whereas to our society the act  is an erosion of the glue that holds the edifice together. Sexually abused women commonly become prostitutes because being used for sex as kids at least got them cuddles and attention and warmth.

trump 3

‘They therefore set about ways of nullifying it’.

trump 7

Hamburg. Zombies? Just consumers

Post the Hitler war we grew up in a society that we believed, catered royally for us. We had the NHS, the pension, the dole  and a governmental determination never to allow the horrors of the great Depression to occur again. Governments, for one brief shining moment, really believed that their primary duty was to protect their citizenry. As a consequence the immediate post war years were quickly rattled out of their leftover Victorian values and replaced with the celebratory excesses of the next twenty five years.
Then slowly, insidiously, along came neo-liberalism which began quietly replacing the idealism of the post war years with a much harsher, uncaring, every-man -for-himself attitude.

trump 6

Hamburg

People of my mature years remember the excitement of the ’50s and ’60s and remember, despite the Bomb, MAD and the Nuclear Winter, there was an almost explosive feeling of optimism and hope in the air. I believe certain elements of rightwing government saw this hedonistic optimism as not just a threat to ‘stable’ government, but  a potential source of perhaps even armed revolution itself. They therefore set about ways of nullifying it.
Quadrupling the price of oil in the early seventies created a recession which put thousands out of work and which effectively replaced ‘peace and love’ and ‘changing the world’ with the much more mundane business of paying the rent. This strategy worked so effectively and created such a slump that it also created the ideal proving ground for lunatic ‘economists’ to step in to ‘revitalise’ the economy. The result of these ‘economic’ measures, in the early 21st. century, was to bankrupt the West.

So, to return to my damaged children…

trump 5

Not if you’re the 1%

Anybody born in the last forty years has known nothing but ‘economic rationalism’. This system, in the end, has betrayed its supporters by consigning western economies to the industrial junk heap. Successive governments have, in turn, betrayed their own citizenry, time and time again by not only failing to control, but actively encouraging these ‘economic’ charlatans. The citizenry, I believe, like the foster kids, need someone to trust. They need to believe that governments, like their own parents, have their interests at heart. They need someone to look up to, someone to care about them, someone to trust. A citizenry is like a family and the responsibility for that family lies with the government. When this fails, when the people have been betrayed time and time again through the indifference of governments, why are these same governments surprised when, with no one left to trust, the people, their people, make brainlessly irrational decisions to elect people like Trump and Farage, or indeed Teresa to office?

Undoubtedly,these are the decisions of a people made mad by betrayal and neglect. These conditions are much more susceptible to the mayhem of revolution than those of the 60s and 70s. They also echo the endlessly irrational behaviour of some of the worst of our foster kids.

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Might is Right.

Forgive me, but I see an obvious parallel here between family and country, which I feel goes some way towards explaining the how and why a traumatised American people brought about Trump’s triumphal ascension to the White House and the Presidency. I could say the same for the British Prime Minister, but thankfully things already seem to be swinging in Corbyn’s favour.

 

Poetry Sunday 9 July 2017

It is now ten years since our army invaded Northern Territory First Nation settlements at the forefront of the Howard/Brough ‘Intervention’.  That this ‘Intervention’ is ongoing is testament to the inherent racism of our country.  Lionel Fogarty’s extraordinary poem “Philosophies Exterminated”, examines the Intervention with clarity and passion.  Put these words in your head then go for a walk, take a nap, anything to let them settle into a picture of your unconscious making.  This picture is Lionel’s gift.

Philosophies Exterminated

As laws contemplate isolation, seasons cries
Has contained company flames personality.
We connection general disinterest within<
The intellectual process.
Squeal; labelled manipulated judgements
Are made by boulders by lawyers.
The destroyer now galloped empowered<
Ongoing developments.
Northern Territory seems not the dreaming potential,
As the current over used neglected are outdated trickle inescapable.
Elemental suffering are not limitative.
Perpetually was perfect for the governmental,
Orienting condition.
Lifelong innocents are balance to vote for attachments.
Unconditionally appear if friends are adversary interaction.
As laws wall entire existence, we find tolerance policy lacking.
Betrayal interpret was the surged stunned silent when laws looks,
To touch the community of the Territory.
Imitation repeated intrusion by takes a life for exasperation laws.
In contemplate bloody recalling the stories did not work.
Punishment composited arose matter of facts,
The transgression veins were perversely evil symbols,
When literally the Blackfellas intactness because township.
Valid crowns of sovietisation gave more association for us to
Resistance, even to rewrite.
Place near campsite were deliberately moved and caused
indifference.
Devastate habitats made barrier over encroaches so outbreaks can
escalate.
Expensive plots was now the forces,
Reducing load of crop diseases went on to share remotes.
The moral eye was to negotiate,
The prominent was to hear memorable
Yet simplistic approaches caused monstrous crimes of slaughter.
Importance subject from dimension came to confront predators,
To written laws over laws.
Arguably financial languish on Aborigines negates for the
Whole world endangered to greed.
Extreme candidates were expert on how native Australians are to
parent,
An investigation of what viruses the virus hazards.
As laws made by natives no; but play it out?
Has the write it down no; but play it out?
To philosophies our own exterminating.

Lionel George Fogarty, published in “The Intervention”, edited by Rosie Scott and Anita Heiss,  Newsouth Press, Sydney 2016.

MDFF 8 July 2017

Today’s dispatch is  ‘Sliver Lining’.  Originally dispatched on 7 October  2016

Bonjour mes amies,

Back in 1971 (bloody hell, that’s nearly half a Century ago!) on our way back to Australia we had a most enjoyable week in Montreal. One afternoon we spent with trilingual Monique (French, Quebecois and English) and her copin , monolingual Raymond (Quebecois seulment) sitting on the lawn in Mt. Royal Park. There we witnessed something I was told was called ‘La Promenade’. Untitled 54Around dusk, small family groups were strolling around Beaver Lake, some clockwise and some anti-clockwise. When they chanced upon some friends or acquaintances they would stop and chat for a while before proceeding with their walk.

Later on our trip we spent a week in Salamanca (Mexico) on the Pan-American Highway. Our stay coincided with what I remember as being their Saint’s day. A weeklong celebration which included copious homemade fireworks; on one occasion a burning ‘wheel’ showered our vehicle with multi coloured sparks. Mercifully our ’bread van’ was rescued by a group of bystanders who lifted it out of harm’s way. On the rotunda in the central square a band played which I’m now convinced was Carlos Santana y su conjunto.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACdwCIld3kE  (Santana-Samba Pa Ti- Live in Mexico) 

Less ‘formal’ than Montreal’s La Promenade but none the less around dusk a gathering with lively conversations between small groups of friends and acquaintances took place.

Not all that long ago in Yuendumu at dusk, small groups of friends and acquaintances (and in the case of Warlpiri people, family) would stroll past the (then modest) police station to Big Dam and back.

Digressing- one of the most memorable science fiction books I’ve read was Fred Hoyle’s ‘Black Cloud’.

From my dad’s anecdotes:

SEP.’07- Not all that long ago dad was having one of his sessions and kept coming up with his now habitual rather negative opinions. This caused his daughter in law (of whom he is rather fond) to remark that: “Well, you know Mark: every silver lining has its dark cloud”. Touché!

Keep The Home Fires Burning Sung By John McCormack….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvuCaLRcgh4

…There’s a silver lining, through the dark cloud shining. Turn the dark cloud inside out, till the boys come home…

Recently a visitor who returned after a long absence remarked that there seemed to be far fewer people walking in the streets of Yuendumu. No more mass strolling to Big Dam.

These days some of the largest gatherings which happen in Yuendumu are the two day monthly court sessions, on the way to Big Dam, at the relatively new $7.6M police complex (the prior modest police station having been demolished). Every month fifty or so cases are heard at which kardiya (white-fellow) ‘justice’ is dispensed in large overdoses.

Dark clouds descend on Yuendumu on a regular basis. Yet every cloud has a silver lining.

Last week, our visitor from a few weeks ago, would have noticed even more the dearth of people casually walking in the streets. Yuendumu was a virtual ghost town.

An unprompted spontaneous mass exodus took place. PAW was filming part of what are known in English as ‘Songlines’. Everyone who could, set off and joined in, living, singing and dancing and teaching the young all the way from Wirnparrku (where Yarripirri came out of the ground) on to Yimpalu, Napanangkajarra,  Wayililinpa, Ngama, Mijinpanta and Katurnu.

A distance of almost 200 Km from west of Haasts Bluff (Ikunji) to near Yuendumu. Many people from other communities, some from as far as Ali Curung, joined in.

The enthusiasm and joy of the returning crowds was palpable.

Bonnie Raitt- Silver Lining:

Take this silver lining
Keep it in your own sweet head
Shine it when the night is burning red
Shine it in the twilight
Shine it on the cold cold ground
Shine it till these walls come
Tumbling down

We were born with our eyes wide open
So alive with wild hope
Now can you tell me why
Time after time
They drag you down
Down in the darkness deep
Fools in their madness all around

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcDaAr3EPqI    

Au Revoir,

François

PS- PAW= Pintubi/Anmatjere/Warlpiri Media (formerly Warlpiri Media) http://www.pawmedia.com.au/

PAW Production expect the film to be shown on NITV next year. It is part of the second “Songlines on Screen” series. Previous Songlines production can be seen on SBS on Demand. It is an initiative developed by Screen Australia to document ‘songlines’ around the country.

“Yarripirri’s Journey” is the tentative title of the film.

 

Gee! 20 Tin Pot leaders unite in Hamburg.

Dear reader, at last an epic piece fron our esteemed colleague to the north, Sir Atney of Emo. He puts the proverbial into Donald and the fracas over Flynn. WE love Errol, read on, (IF YOU DARE)

pres

Pres operates vice pres hand signal. A triumph of modern robotics.

We have the tin-pot leader whose vanity knows no bounds. We have the rapacious family feathering their nests without regard for the law or common decency. We have utter disregard for values at home and abroad, the disdain for democracy, the hunger for constraining a free press, the admiration for thugs and strongmen worldwide.

We have all the makings of a banana republic. But worse, we are showing the telltale signs of a failing state. Our government has ceased to function. Party politics and gross self-interest has rendered the majority party oblivious to its responsibilities to its constituents and the Constitution of the United States. On a daily basis, Republicans watch their leader violate not only the traditions and standards of the high office he occupies, but through inaction they enable him to personally profit from the presidency, promote policies that benefit his cronies and his class to the detriment of the majority of the American people, and serially attack the principles on which the country was founded — from freedom of religion to the separation of powers.

Recent events have taken this grim situation and turned it dire. We now know that Donald Trump chose a man as his top national security advisor whom the prior president had both fired and warned him against hiring. We know that Trump’s White House failed to vet this man who would be entrusted with some of America’s most sensitive secrets and decisions. We know they did not get him the security clearance his position required, yet allowed him to operate freely in that position. We know that this man, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, took significant cash payments from an enemy, Russia, and from a nominal ally with which we have precarious relations, Turkey. We know Flynn failed to disclose those payments in violation of the law.

don 3

Right thinking people tend to flock together. In Righteousness.

Indeed, we know that the only thing likely to keep Flynn from serving time for felonies is if he strikes a bargain with the prosecutors who are now investigating his behavior. As a consequence of revelations associated with those investigations, we know that Flynn, had ongoing contact with Russians officials during the campaign and, after he was named national security advisor, had conversations with the Russian ambassador about which he lied to the American people and, ostensibly, to the vice president of the United States. We know these conversations were likely illegal as well.

don 6

The REAL FLYNN.

We do not know when the president became aware of Flynn’s Russia ties or whether he approved or disapproved of them. We do know that other members of his campaign team — including his campaign chairman and a named foreign-policy advisor — also had ties to Moscow that were close enough that they were compelled to resign during the campaign. We also believe they may be at the center of a federal investigation that began during last year’s campaign into the nature of the relationships between the Trump campaign and a Russian government that was actively trying to undermine U.S. democracy. We also know that another Trump campaign advisor, Roger Stone, admitted to contact with known Russian agents including contact that might be seen to suggest collusion regarding the timing of releases of hacked documents damaging to the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Trump has been aware of the controversy surrounding these ties even before the GOP convention last year. He has obviously been aware of the investigations into these ties since his victory. Not only has this apparently not colored his public actions, but, on the contrary, he has repeatedly expressed admiration for Vladimir Putin, support for Moscow’s attack on U.S. democracy, support for policies that would benefit the Russians, and as recently as the past week has espoused a view that the Russians were not behind these attacks — despite the unanimous view of the entire U.S. intelligence community.

don 5

The REAL FLYNN ponders foreign policy for Cuba

When on Jan. 24, Trump was told by the acting attorney general of the United States, Sally Yates, that there was compelling evidence that Flynn had lied and that he might be compromised by the Russians, Trump did nothing. For three weeks, Flynn continued to serve as national security advisor, take classified briefings, sit in on sensitive calls, appoint personnel, and oversee the national security activities of the Trump administration. It was not until a newspaper report revealed the investigation into Flynn that Trump was forced to reluctantly let him go. Before that, ostensibly for other reasons but that also showed his contempt for the independent operations of the Justice Department, Trump fired the woman who had brought him the news about Flynn.

Now, days after that woman’s testimony before Congress and prior testimony by the director of the FBI made it clear that there was an ongoing, serious investigation of the Trump team’s ties to Russia, the president has chosen to fire the head of the FBI. In the middle of an investigation into the possibility that some of his closest advisors committed extraordinarily serious crimes — and before anyone could know what Trump’s role in or knowledge of those crimes might have been — Trump has fired the man heading the investigation into his team. When one includes the dismissal of former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, this makes the third high-profile firing of someone playing a pivotal role into the investigation of the Trump administration in the brief time since the president took office.

don 8

The Angriest man in Christendom

We don’t know what crimes may or may not have been committed — but we do see several patterns of behavior. All are deeply worrisome. Trump has repeatedly shown a reckless disregard for U.S. national security and national interests. He has shown a contempt for the law and for the American legal system. And when challenges to the legality of the behavior of his associates have arisen, Trump has repeatedly acted in ways that appear intended to prevent or impede the ability of those who would seek the truth. (Perhaps worse, he regularly takes to Twitter and other media to do to them what he never does to the Russians who attacked our democracy: denigrate and discredit those individuals for doing their jobs and upholding their sworn duties.)

This deeply disturbing behavior is only made more worrisome by the fact that in other circumstances, as when the legality of immigration policies were repeatedly struck down by the courts, he has attacked judges and shown no appreciation for their independent and equivalent status to the executive branch in our system of government. In other words, he has repeatedly shown a desire to attack the system, laws, and Constitution he swore an oath to uphold. He has done so using all the tools of a demagogue and some of those more commonly associated with authoritarian regimes.

don 4

The FAKE FLYNN, chats with Kelly and Jarrod.

We have reached a moment of crisis in the history of American democracy.One has to go back to Richard Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre to find an effort equivalent to the Slow-Motion Massacre of Yates, Bharara, and Comey as they carried forward their investigative responsibilities. But the pressure on others in government will grow. CNN has reported that grand jury subpoenas have been issued for Flynn associates with regard to the Russia matter. They have also reported that the Senate Finance Committee is seeking financial records of the Trump team (which must necessarily include Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, given the history of their business dealings with Russians) as part of their investigation.

But while this investigation is gaining momentum, Trump is acting more brazenly and desperately (as illustrated not just by the Comey action or his tweets seeking to intimidate Sally Yates prior to her testimony, but also by his bizarre behavior including, for example, the weird, distorted, and misleading interpretation of the testimony of former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper). Trump’s dismissal letter of Comey also strangely referenced “three separate occasions” on which the FBI director informed the president that he was not “under investigation” before going on to say, that he “nevertheless” agreed with the Department of Justice that Comey should be fired.

don 9

When not in the U.K and Australia, this man (Lord Murdoch) runs the head office in the U.S. Which he also runs.

What does that “nevertheless” mean? It seems to suggest that had Comey not allegedly said Trump wasn’t under investigation, he would have had grounds to dismiss him.
Trump is acting like a desperate man, not to mention a guilty one. That his team, in particular Kellyanne Conway, has gone on television to argue that somehow the Comey firing was okay because Trump is not personally under investigation is the defense of a narcissist who does not understand the responsibilities he has as president. It is lie after lie after deception after misstatement to protect their man. With every syllable they utter, they make him look more guilty.

This activity is not lost on the rest of the world. They see an America unlike any they can recall and a leader who is clearly not fit for office. Said one diplomat from a close ally in this hemisphere, “We often have discussions at home as to whether Trump is crazy. We think he is. We have had experience with leaders like this in South America. But I never expected to see it in Washington.” It is a sentiment I have heard in one form or another often in the past few weeks.

don 7

Could Trump be funnier then Kin Jong Un? ( send you entries into pcbycp and get a Prize)

America looks like a country it has never been. Trump is a laughingstock in the best of circumstances, a disgrace based on his known behaviour to date, and a threat to global order and security with each action he takes.
He discredits the office he holds and the government he leads.
But for every depredation or attack on our system by Trump and his team, for every act of complicity by the invertebrates who lead the GOP on Capitol Hill, there has been some portion of the U.S. government and system to counterbalance it. Judges have stayed bad executive orders. The FBI has investigated — personal career consequences for the investigators be damned.

The brazen firing of Comey is an escalation. If Trump is allowed to get away with this and appoint a lackey as chief investigator into his team’s alleged wrongdoing, the world will see the United States as a failing state, one that is turning its back on the core ideas on which it was founded — that no individual is above the law and that those in the government, at every level including the president, work for the people. Only if an independent prosecutor is appointed will America be seen as being the nation of laws it has long represented itself to be. Only if a thorough investigation takes place that includes an examination of Trump family ties in Russia (and elsewhere) and how these may have compromised the United States will the message be sent that America is the nation that has for so long been seen as an example to the world.

It will require a bipartisan commitment to truth and justice. Ultimately, and the sooner the better, it will require our system and people to reject Trump and those surrounding him — who have already done so much to disgrace the offices they hold and undermine America’s standing in the world.