Is Australia a racist country?

Is Australia a racist country? 

The question is reverberating around Australia because of the comments of a senior member of the Australian Broadcasting Commission and ABC Board member, Laura Tingle. She said, at a writer’s conference in Melbourne, that “Australia is a racist country; it’s sad but true”. And went on to make pretty nasty remarks about Australia’s Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton. 

Thing is: one could say this in private or as an average member of the public. But she’s with Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC, the Charter of which says: ABC staff must be scrupulously impartial. Saying that “Australia is a racist country” in a semi-public forum, as a Board member of the ABC, is not impartial, no matter what you think of the truth or otherwise of the statement. 

Anyway, is Australia racist? 

The answer to this must be: Compared to when? And compared to who? [or is it “whom”??]

A. Compared to the past:  Australia has come a long way since the White Australia Policy. So, we’re not as racist as the past. Most countries, at least most developed countries, have similar experience. At levels of law and of culture and of practice, most countries are less racist than they used to be. 

B. Compared to other countries: In various polls of countries around the world, I’ve found that Australia tends to come out fairly high in the list of countries least to most racist. That’s not to say that there’s no racism in Australia. Every country in the world has racism. But we’re amongst the least. Not the least. But amongst the better ones in the world. 

If you look up “Racism by country” in Wikipedia, you see that each has an extensive list of how and when it’s been racist. Racism is not an Australia-alone thing and it’s nowhere near an “Australia is worst” thing. 

Looking around for the polls of racism, I came across the following [my emphases]: 

Nandita Chakraborty says she has experienced many issues because of her Indian sounding surname.

The challenges are real and can be so disheartening. I have found that if I take the time to get to know people so they can develop an understanding of who I am and what I bring to the table, I am morelikely to be successful in being given opportunities. If I don't do this and make the extra effort, and I am considered on name alone, then I know that I miss out on opportunities.” [HRD magazine]

Now, you know what I’d say to Ms Chakraborty? Change your name! I did that when I went to China. I wore Chinese clothes, ate Chinese food, spoke Chinese and took a Chinese name. I would have done that even if they hadn’t asked. Even if there’d been western food. Because I’m in a different country with a different culture. And I thought it right to respect that by trying to fit in. 

I’m not suggesting anything Ms Chakraborty that I wouldn’t do, or haven’t done, myself. It just makes sense. Look at all those “challenges” that she says are “disheartening” just because people are put off by her name! All she has to do is get herself in front of an interviewer and she’s off. Do that by changing your name! Then more interviews and more chances for the employer to “develop an understanding” of who she is. That’s right -- because no “racism”, no “prejudice”  lasts more than a few minutes of talking to someone. 

I’ll bet Chakraborty hasn’t changed her name because either she or her friends have said that she must “preserve her culture”, be “proud of your name” and “don’t succumb to the colonialism of taking on an English sounding name”, or some such. It’s all nonsense. It’s all fantasy racism. 

Change your name and change your life Nina! “Nina Chaser”. Your new name. FOC. 

I’ll add: in China from 1976 to today, I’ve had comments and treatment from Chinese to me of the type that I know many non-Anglo Australian immigrants would consider racist. I consider them so myself. But what do I do about it? Nothing. I forget it. I ignore it. It’s not me that’s at fault it’s them. Let it go.

ADDED: I recall now that I also had racist jibes when I arrived in Australia as a 9 year old, from Italy. I couldn’t speak English and they called my a “wog” and a “wop”. I didn’t know what they meant, but they didn’t sound nice. What did I do with that? I just got on with learning English. 

My overall lesson in all this is: just try to fit in to the country you’ve gone to. Problem with that is: in today’s climate that’s seen as not being “true to one’s self”, or having your “culture appropriated” or some such woke nonsense. It’s a pity. 

E Pluribus Unum is a very good motto. From the Many, One.

"Hong Kong 47: city condemns Western nations for ‘malicious smears’ over guilty verdict in subversion case" | Kahon Chan

First comments at the site

I never did understand the whole issue of the thing they called a "primary" being so sensitive.

“Malicious smears”: commie-speak. When they say “authorities condemn”, what they mean is government officials condemn. 

"Hong Kong 47: city condemns Western nations for ‘malicious smears’ over guilty verdict in subversion case"

History: Trump guilty in all counts

Alan Dershowitz lifetime Democrat, Biden voter, 60 years as Law professor at Harvard: has not seen as weak a case as this in 60 years of law; it was a fully political trial; unprecedented to try such a weak case, especially on a former president; it’s a worse outcome for America than for Trump. Because of the damage to the judicial system. To its integrity. To people’s trust in it. 

He notes that the prosecutor, Alvin Bragg ran on the platform of I will “Get Trump”. The legal system is supposed to prosecute a crime. It is not supposed to choose a person and then find a crime to fit him with. 

Some of the Majors at New York University

Click above for the video

I don’t need to mock these studies. They do that all by themselves. 

I simply ask: do they really think they can find a job with these degrees? 

And...

Why should the taxpayers forgive the debts that they’ve willingly undertaken, to cover the costs of these obscure degrees? Costing them often $150,000.

And if so: why does the government not then pay off the debt of the plumber who takes finance to buy his business van?

Hmmm...

A “prediction of what will happen in this Trump trial…”(And after) | Liz Wheeler

	Liz Wheeler ⁦‪@Liz_Wheeler‬⁩ I generally avoid predictions… But here's my prediction of what will happen in this Trump trial… Trump will be convicted. This is due to a biased jury & radical leftist judge. In reality he's innocent, which is obvious from the facts of the case. But… nonetheless, he'll be…   30/5/2024, 6:51 AM

I don't know Liz Wheeler, save that she has nearly 1 million followers, has her own show, and is clearly a conservative. 

I hope she's wrong in these predictions, but I fear somehow not, be the Left really do believe "anything is justified, in order to stop Trump". Anything. So, dirty tricks galore, making the Lawfare to date a mere amuse bouche.

Wheeler’s full post below the fold:

“Who’s behind the campus protests?” | Dr Phil

Click above for the video 

The chart they put up in the video above is not breaking news, but is known from other sources. IOW, Dr Phil and his guest are doing the good job of summarising what we know about the sources of finance for the protests. They were ready. On October 8th, one day after the massacre, with bodies still warm on the ground in Israel, they were ready with placards, with chants, with protest organisers, with tents and encampment strategies. 

It’s a gaggle of left-wing money, Islamic money and Chinese money. If you mock that for just being “the usual suspects”, well, yes it is, but it’s also true. The bigger picture is not the liquidation of Israel, wiping out the “Lesser Satan”. Also: “Death to America”, the Great Satan. 

Elon Musk has highest favourable rating in new Harvard-Harris poll

Lots of interesting charts at this poll. 

“Net Favourability” is the “Gap” in far right column. 

I’m surprised to see Elon Musk that high, at the top of the list. He has committed the cardinal sin of not agreeing with everything the Left told him he should believe in. And of buying Twitter so that he could convert it into the free speech platform. Which even Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, now acknowledges is, as revamped X, “freedom technology”. But the Left sooo hate it. “Free speech absolutisms”. aka: Free. Speech. Bad.

Nuclear for Australia supported by Dick Smith

Click above for the video

Dick Smith is a bit of a legend in Australia. Successful entrepreneur and businessman, environmentalist, Australian of the Year. He’s now retired, I believe, and supporting Nuclear, as a Patron on “Nuclear for Australia”, because of its obvious benefits for Australia. 

ADDED: he’s also a speed hot-air balloonist and twice flew a helicopter solo around the world, in all five flights around the world in single engined aircraft. So, and adventurer as well.  Here. 

He’s being interviewed by the equally remarkable William Shackel, who at just 17 has already appeared several times on Australia ABC’s Q&A, awa in numerous publications.  AND set up the “Nuclear for Australia” site and petition. 

A majority of young Australians, the Zoomers, from both parties, support nuclear for Australia. It seems that those against Nuclear  are mostly old Boomers -- just not me, as I’m violently in support of Nuclear for Australia. The older Boomers who are worried about Nuclear are worried about the issues that they saw when they were young: proliferation of bombs, nuclear testing int he Pacific, danger of meltdown. All these are not an issue now, but Boomers have not caught up. 

I encourage any Occasional Readers here to sign the Nuclear for Australia petition so as well.  

Explaining the “Dead Babies” strategy of Hamas’ asymmetric warfare |Thomas Schiefer

	Thomas Schiefer ⁦‪@SchieferTomTom‬⁩ 📢 Hamas' SINISTER and MALICIOUS STRATEGY behind its extreme unconventional warfare in Gaza explained by an military expert!!! The crucial point is - they need as much as of their own civilian casualties to succeed!!! 👇 pic.twitter.com/We7TSeeUgG   23/4/2024, 3:27 PM

This is also known as the "Dead Baby Strategy”.  A version of asymmetric warfare, as practiced by Hamas. 

Which is to have as many dead civilians as possible, paraded in front of the media, which is picked up by western media and then western elites turn against the war.

In other words, there's no argument that this is the strategy of Hamas. They brag about it themselves. What the video above does is to explain it clearly. 

And how successful it's been. It's worked a treat. 

The downside for us on the other side it this: that with the success of this version of asymmetric warfare, the “Dead Babies” strategy, it becomes a favoured method of terrorism. Make sure you hide behind civilians, make sure you have as many babies in the firing line; make sure you have as many non-combatants killed as possible; then make sure you show it all to the media in detail. They will lap it up. And be blowed to any worries about being charged by the International Criminal Court for a “war crime”. Hah! Because (a) they won’t and (b) even if they did you don’t care. 

Zionists on X. Or: Writing While Jewish. "A Chill Has Fallen Over Jews in Publishing” | James Kirchick

Isn’t it true that in the 1930s Germany, Jews were boycotted then banned from their workplaces? I don’t recall who was first, perhaps authors, but we do know -- it’s history -- that it spread to professionals, to the doctors and lawyers, then to the university professors and teachers, then to the shopkeepers, systematically denied work then forcibly removed from society. For the sin of being Jewish. 

And now, in America, we have the sin of “Writing While Jewish”. Oh, they may say, these neo-illiberals, these neo-repressers, it’s because they’re “Zionists” and they’re committing “genocide” in Gaza! Which is either ignorance or duplicity. Now, I’m not a Jew, but I’m a Zionist. It’s the right of people to have a state. Which should extend to all people. 

James Kirchick deals with the “Zionism” word and the “Genocide” word in his excellent article. 

Sam Harris also tackled it in “The Myth of Genocide”. 

At the beginning of Kirkcick's article there’s a link to the “Black List” of Zionist authors. That we are supposed to Boycott, Divest and Sanction -- taking the cue from the movement over the last few decades to do exactly that to Israel, a policy clearly anti-semitic, because not another single state, other than Israel, is held to the same standard to require BDS. And now BDS infects the writers’ world.

Of course, we could always read this horrid “Black List” in the the opposite way of what the collator of the spreadsheet intends, and support all those Zionist authors....

Worth noting, by the way, that only around 13% of writers  on the list are classified as “Zionist”, or pro-Israel. Thus, the big majority of writers, from this sample of 200, who also post on X, are pro-Hamas. But I’m pretty sure the majority of Americans are still pro Israel: I believe around 70%, a bi-partisan view. Just that on X it’s the “influencers”, and they’re the ones banging on about Israel being a “colonialist” state, horrid “Zionists” and committing “genocide”. 

Snips from "A Chill Has Fallen Over Jews in Publishing” by James Kirchick

This month, an account on X with the handle @moyurireads and 360 followers published a link to a color-coded spreadsheetclassifying nearly 200 writers according to their views on the “genocide” in Gaza. Titled “Is Your Fav Author a Zionist?,” it reads like a cross between Tiger Beat and “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”...

The spreadsheet is but the crudest example of the virulently anti-Israel — and increasingly antisemitic — sentiment that has been coursing through the literary world since the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7. Much of it revolves around the charge of genocide and seeks to punish Zionists and anyone else who refuses to explicitly denounce the Jewish state for allegedly committing said crime. Since a large majority of American Jews (80 percent of whom, according to a 2020 poll, said that caring about Israel is an important or essential part of their Judaism) are Zionists, to accuse all Zionists of complicity in genocide is to anathematize a core component of Jewish identity....

Again with the “Genocide” myth: Kirchick calls it a “mass delusion” 

One of the greatest mass delusions of the 21st century is the belief that Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians. This grotesque moral inversion — in which a genocidal terrorist organization that instigated a war with Israel by committing the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust is absolved of responsibility while the victim of Hamas’s attack is charged with perpetrating the worst crime known to man — began taking shapebefore Israel even launched its ground invasion of Gaza....

A charitable description of those imputing genocidal motivations to Israel is that they are ignorant, essentially believing the word to mean “large numbers of civilian casualties.” (Here it’s worth noting that the United Nations, to little notice, has significantly lowered its estimate of the number of women and children killed in Gaza.) For others, accusing Israel of genocide is an emotional outlet for expressing outrage at such a horrific loss of life. A third, more pessimistic, characterization of the ubiquitous genocide canard is that it is only the latest iteration of the ancient antisemitic blood libel, which held that Jews murdered gentile children in order to use their blood for religious rituals....

The corruption of the words “genocide” and “Zionist” lies at the root of the controversy threatening to unravel PEN America, the storied writers’ organization...

PEN’s detractors aren’t helping the Palestinian people with their whitewashing of Hamas. They’re engaged in a hostile takeover of a noble organization committed to the defense of free expression in order to advance a sectarian and bigoted political agenda....

For a growing set of writers, declaring one’s belief that the world’s only Jewish state is a genocidal entity whose dismantlement is necessary for the advancement of humankind is a political fashion statement, a bauble one parades around in order to signify being on the right team. As was Stalinism for an earlier generation of left-wing literary intellectuals, so is antisemitism becoming the avant-garde.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/27/opinion/publishing-literary-antisemitism.html

Hannah and our Byron. Siena Park. Discovery Bay. Hong Kong

ICC, ICJ and Left wing politics in Israel: for Israel-Gaza Nerds

Click above for the video 

Caroline Glick I’ve known for decades. She’s a respected commenter on Israel affairs.Yes, she’s on the conservative side. If you want the view from the Left there’s plenty: BBC, ABC, CNN…

Interesting on the issue of tussles over the Israeli Supreme Court which was the big thing before October 7th. 

And in the “insurrectionists” who were refusing to be IDF Reserves. 95% of Right wing Israelis believed the insurrections, the refusals to serve in the armed forces, led to October 7th. 70% of centrists believe the same. Even 51% of the Israeli Left believe the same. In sum 70% of the whole of Israeli society believe the same. 

That is, an important enabling reason for October 7th was all the anti-government anti-serving action through 2023. 

And yet, for all the hate on Netanyahu 80% of the country remains behind the actions to extirpate Hamas. With Bibi being the only guy that can get it done. Not the only guy that could stop the war.  Doing that need only to declare a “permanent ceasefire: aka surrender. You can always stop a war if you surrender. 

Now, it may well be that Hamas attacked to try to stop the rapprochement of Israel with Saudi Arabia. That was (or is plausibly) the strategic reason for October 7. But the immediate reason, the tactical reason, the specific reason why October 7th, may well have been precipitated by the extraordinary refusal of many Israelis, including ex Generals and ex intelligence officers to serve to protect the country. The Brothers in Arms they’re called. 

I remember being puzzled a while back when an ex head of the famous Mossad came out against continuing the war, effectively surrendering. Glick says it’s to align with the Biden administration’s line. To toe Joe’s line. I don’t know about that, but if not I’ve seen no other reason. 

Which is all part of the “be-nice-to-them-(yet again)-and-maybe-this-time-they’ll-be-nice-to-us” strategy. Who cares if we’ve offered a Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state for 80 years and been rebuffed at every turn. Let’s give it a whirl for another 80 years, why not? 

I’ve labelled this post Nerds” because Caroline’s talk is a bit detailed and repays careful attention. 

“Growing pro-Gaza movement is exposing the hypocrisy of US leadership” | Peter T. C. Chang, SCMP

Reply to a commenter at “Growing pro-Gaza movement exposes US hypocrisy”, who quotes the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (whose exhibition we saw in Paris around 2016).

“G6二”: 

Hear what Ai Weiwei had to sayafter he was "cancelled" for what he said on this platform X....👇 

Ai Weiwei interview 

Me: 

Ai Weiwei has swallowed the narrative that the establishment of Israel is just "White European Guilt over Holocaust" at the expense of the (poor, victimised) Arabs. No. Theodore Herzl began the Zionist movement in the 19th century, to REestablish the ancestral Jewish homeland in Palestine (which was the name of the home of the Jews until taken over by Yasser Arafat in 1964). 

Ai Weiwei has also regurgitated the rest of the anti-Semitic litany: Jews running the world, etc. Not to say his show should have been cancelled. But if you're quoting him, G6二, you're also buying into all that nonsense.

Next you'll be quoting The Protocols of the Elders of Zion!

Another thing: this "growing pro-Gaza movement" is on the streets and campuses around the west. Virtually none of the students know what they're protesting about. We've known this since early on. And it hasn't got any better. A young comedian, Zachary Sage offered $100 to any student who could answer five simple questions. 

1. What does "From the River to the Sea" mean?

2. What does "Intifada" mean?

3. What does "Zionism" mean?

4. How long has Israel occupied Gaza?

5. How many Palestinian refugees have Arab neighbours taken in.

Not a single student could answer all five questions and most couldn't answer even ONE correctly. 

These are pretty simple questions. Foundational to the war. Which if they're protesting, you'd think they'd at least find out. When we were doing anti Vietnam war demos, we did know who the Viet-Cong were, who the North Vietnamese were, who Ho Chi-Minh was. We even had debates about it, at high school. But these precious young things, at prestige universities  couldn’t be bothered to talk to Mr Google for five minutes?

And this student ignorance is supposed to "expose the hypocrisy of US leadership", according to resident Post spokes-genius Peter T. C. Chang? 

Not that there's no hypocrisy in the U.S. treatment of Israel and Gaza. But dopey students at elite universities isn't it. 

What is hypocrisy is Biden saying that he's "got Israel's back" only to turn around and tell Israel to stop chasing its enemy. He's got Israel's back only to paint a target in it.

World To Israel: Please don’t try to defend yourself

Remember the trope: “Driving while Black”? Where Black folks say that they get stopped by the police more often, just because they’re Black. More recently we’ve had in London “Walking while being Jewish”. A Jewish guy, wearing a kippah, was walking near a pro-Hamas crowd and was detained by the police because he was walking “while looking Jewish”. 

And now the latest, the International Court of Justice telling Israel that it must stop with its counter attacks on Hamas in Gaza. Basically that it must stop defending itself. 

Former Israeli PM, Naftali Bennet said that there were only three choices in Israel countering the brutal attack on October 7th. The first was to go for all out war, destroy all of Gaza, to wipe out Hamas, with no regard to civilian casualties. That would have taken the IDF two days, would have succeeded; but would have meant far too many civilian casualties. So Israel did no do this. Second, to try to kill Hamas terrorists, while caring for the civilians of Gaza. This is what Israel has been trying to do since the counter attack. This also involves the death of Gazan civilians, but far fewer than option one. Third, to do nothing and to await the next attack by Hamas. This third option is the one that the ICJ is effectively telling Israel that it must do. 

The incentives are for terrorsts everywhere to copy Hamas. To murder and maim, to the hostages, to hide behind civilians, then to call for “Ceasefire” as soon as the other party counter attacks in self-defence. This is warped and wrong and dangerous. But it’s what’s being urged on Israel by allegedly the top international body on “justice”. 

All that from the ICJ comes hot on the heels of the warrant by the International Criminal Court out for the arrest of Israeli PM Netanyahu and its Defence Minister, for alleged “war crimes”. The also named three Hamas leaders in the indictment. 

The west has cried foul: there is no moral equivalence between terrorsits and the Israeli state.

A stronger argument would be -- and I’ve yet to see it made -- is that the ICC has no jurisdiction. over Israel. 

According the the Rome Statute, which formed the ICC in 1998, 

Under the Rome Statute, the ICC can only investigate and prosecute the four core international crimes in situations where states are "unable" or "unwilling" to do so themselves.[10] The jurisdiction of the court is complementary to jurisdictions of domestic courts. [Ref] (My emphasis).

Israel has investigated and prosecuted at least four of its Prime Ministers and jailed one. It promptly investigated and prosecuted those responsible for the killing of five food aid staff in a convoy. So, clearly they are both “willing” and “able” to do so. The ICC has no place here; it has no dog in this fight. Now, if we were talking about Assad and the brutal civil war in Syria, then, sure, the ICC has jurisdiction. But has it happed? Laugh on.... Oh, the hypocrisy!

It’s just more of The World Against Israel. aka, The World Against the Jews. 

“A prelude to war” | Alexander Downer and John Anderson

Above, a talk between two Aussie ex senior Ministers in the Liberal Government, the host John Anderson and Alexander Downer. 

Alexander is Australia’s longest-serving Foreign Minister. For a while he was Leader of the Opposition. John Anderson was our Deputy Prime Minister for a time. In my time as a senior Trade Envoy, I knew both these guys. Alexander rather more than John. 

I know Alexander from my Foreign Affairs days. We joined as Diplomatic Trainees together in 1976, and did our 6-weeks of induction training together in Canberra, in mid 1976. I was then posted to China, to learn Chinese and serve in the Embassy in Beijing. Alexander went off to a posting somewhere I can’t recall, but then soon left to join the Australian Liberal Party (our conservative party). And then the rest. 

In this talk, I find I agree with his views on pretty much 100% of them. We are in violent agreement. I align totally with his views on Iran. And ditto on Israel. 

When I posted my comments on the two-state solution and Hamas, and so on, I had not yet watched the above video. I say that because I find what I said is reflected in what Alexander says. 

Here’s the time stamps of the video above:

00:00 Intro 01:37 Dangerous Times 14:23 Trust Between Government and Public 36:00 We Need Better Leadership 40:35 Nationalism, Patriotism and Immigration 48:52 Israel and Antisemitism 01:05:52 Dictatorships Within the West

There’s Israel at 48:52

“Commanding the room with a proper introduction is key” | King Randall

	King Randall, I. ⁦‪@NewEmergingKing‬⁩ Commanding the room with a proper introduction is key. Our boys aren't even being taught to say their name properly and we aim to fix that. I have them greet me every single time they see me. Building habits. pic.twitter.com/qJcx47XrDM   26/5/2024, 8:27 PM

It's a culture thing and more like this would be good for the communities of colour. There's blowback from the Left to this, like "it's acting white". A good reframe could be "it's acting successful". Or "it's acting proud". 

President Obama did a lot of this in his first term. Telling Blacks they should not be ashamed to be successful, to be on time. To dress well, to have a job and keep it. Sadly in his second term he leaned more to the race griftery side.

I loved the video above. Good on the teacher and good for the kids. 

"Who Gave Hamas the Cement for Tunnels?” | Rafael Medoff

I read that Hamas had built 500 km of tunnels under Gaza. That’s a blast. It’s more tunnels than the London Tube.

So I wondered: where on earth did Hamas get all the cement? All the building materials? After all, they were blocked from getting it from Israel. And the southern border with Egypt was closed (supposedly). 

I found that some of it was down to that old old old thing: good intentions. Gone wrong. The Road To Hell once again being paved with Good Intentions. 

Here’s one of the guys involved, Dennis Ross U.S. Mideast Envoy:

“At times,” he wrote in the Post, “I argued with Israeli leaders and security officials, telling them they needed to allow more construction materials, including cement, into Gaza so that housing, schools and basic infrastructure could be built. They countered that Hamas would misuse it, and they were right.”

And that’s just fine with some of these people. Just another civil servant cocking things up. Totally screw things up, then say, Oh, well, too bad. Shucks.  Happened with Covid. Oh well, we got it wrong; let’s just look forward and move on. And with Hamas: we thought they’d be nice guys; the Israelis told us they’d steal the cement. Turns out they were right. Oh well. Move on....

Now we’ve learned that there are huge tonnels under the southern border of Gaza with Egypt. Big enough to drive trucks through, they say. Tell me they don’t drive trucks through with cement to build even more tunnels, tell me they don’t use those tunnels to bring more munitions into Gaza; tell me all that, and I’ll sell you that infamous Brooklyn Bridge.

"Who Gave Hamas the Cement for Tunnels?”

Looking up this cement issue, for some weird reason, the algorithm led me to the article below. Once again, Palestinians saying: WE DO NOT WANT a two-state solution. As I pointed out recently. 

What they want is a ONE STATE solution, the destruction of Israel. A United Nations-created country. And yet, all the pressure is on Israel. 

"The Two-State Solution Is an Unjust, Impossible Fantasy” Tareq Baconi New York Times Guest Essay, 1 April 2024.

Even CNN and MSNBC are stunned at the turnout and diversity of the Trump Bronx rally

Barry Cunningham

A couple of vids from Conservative Black YouTubers, noting what a blast the Trump Bronx Rally was, in Super-Blue (ie, Super Democrat).

Greg Foreman

I don’t have time to comment now, save to say that the Rally seemed to be very good-natured, very upbeat. It caused hurt on some Dems. The couldn’t believe the Orange Man Bad would actually come into the belly of the beast, into the most Blue of Blue counties, the central borough of New York City. 

And here’s a person at the Trump Bronx Rally, who is probably like many Democrats: I don’t like Trump, but I like Biden even less. I don’t like Trump and I hate a lot of stuff that he says, but things were better when he was president. Starts here.  And then a random guy at the Rally, Lou Valentino, speaks so well, here. 

ALSO THIS: Biden and the the Dems demonise the people on the other side. They call Republicans “semi-Nazis” (Biden), or “Clowns” (Cathy Hochul) or “White Supremacists who love Guns and God” (Nancy Pelosi at Oxford”. 

Trump criticises Biden and the policies. At the rally he said “I don’t care if you’re Black, Brown or whatever the damn colour you are, we’re all Americans and we’re all going to fix things”. Rather more unifying message. And only understood if you actually listen to what he says, and not just take in what MSNBC and CNN say he says.

Get it? People vs Policies. Biden criticise PEOPLE; Trump criticises POLICIES. Which is better? 

What did the Jews ever do for us? (scientifically) | Dr Peter Ridd

Click above for the video

“What a great mistake the Arab countries made in expelling all their Jews [in the wake of 1948 establishment of Israel]. Because they expelled some of the most scientifically accomplished people in the world and in history. But that’s what HATE does to you.”

-- Dr Peter Ridd

I’d never heard of Dr Peter Ridd before. I find on Wikipedia that he was at James Cook University (JCU) in Australia, where he "was the head of the Physics department from 2009 to 2016, and head of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at that institution for 15 years.” 

So, pretty senior, then. 

He was fired in 2016 after disputes over the extent of the threat to the Great Barrier Reef. 

Reading between the lines, I guess he had views that did not accord with the accepted narrative at the time -- which would have been something like panic and alarm over the coral bleaching events. Instead of viewing this as a good old academic stoush -- as we would have not so long ago -- the university took this as an affront, unacceptable “climate denialism”, or some such and fired him. 

Dr Ridd took the case to court and won, then lost, then won again. It’s complicated. In the process, the High Court noted that the JCU had “not understood the whole concept of intellectual freedom”. Hah!

Thus we have an early case of Cancel Culture. I don’t like what you say, I can’t be bothered to argue with you, so I fire you. 

ADDED: I don’t know what Dr Ridd’s position was on The Great Barrier Reef, but given that he was fired over it, I assume that he must have been arguing something along the lines that it’s not as bad as they say. If so, he’s been the one vindicated. 

In 2022, the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) reported the highest levels of coral cover across two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in over 36 years. After recent massive bleaching events impacted nearly 90% of Australia’s corals, it seems that anyone could see this news as a victory....

“There’s no question this is positive news—these data show reefs can recover rapidly from damage,” says WHOI’s Konrad Hughen, a principal investigator on the institution’s Reef Solutions Initiatiive. 

--- Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Insitute.  

ADDED (ii): Here’s another vid on the Great Barrier Reef. There’s a record amount of coral. So, it turns out my guess was correct. Dr Ridd was saying that it’s not as bad as it’s made out. And it seems he’s been vindicated. 

In the meantime, he’s been fired. He was not allowed to have a robust debate. Oh, no. Just fired. That’s too bad, and too shocking and too wrong. We have to get rid of the Cancel Culture and to fight back against those who claim that “there is no such thing as Cancel Culture”. Cancel Them!

"Islamism & the 'Far Right’: a False Equivalence” | Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the brave woman who jointly produced the film “Submission" with Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gough. The film was all about women and Islam. This is something Hirsi Ali knew all about, being born Muslim in Somalia, having had FGM -- “female genital mutilation” -- done on her at a young age, being married off to a much older man on the orders of her father, but managing to escape her father and husband, to make her way to Holland. 

But she didn’t quite escape. Her film partner Theo Van Gough was murdered by an Islamist fanatic, upset that the film told the truth. He stabbed a knife into Theo’s heart, appending a note to the knife: “Ayaan, you are next”. 

The Dutch authorities refused to protect her, so she fled to the United Kingdom, where she met her now husband, the famous historian Niall Ferguson. 

In the end she felt vulnerable in the England as well so she and Niall moved to the U.S., where the Islamist problem, is, for the moment, a little less severe than in Europe and the U.K.:

Sometimes when I get tired of the terrible news from the United States I like to take a look across the Atlantic. Sometimes it’s better! Sometimes it makes me grateful to be in America.

Because:

Every year the nation [U.K.] gets more Muslim, and every year the nation gets more terrified of talking about Islam...

And instead of talking about Islam, people bang on about “the Far Right”:

Instead of pledging to fight back against Islamist intimidation of MPs or talking about how Galloway’s Gaza-centric campaign reflected the balkanization wrought by excessive immigration, Sunak instead feebly triangulated between Islamism on the one hand and the supposed rise of the Far Right ...

I know that many (perhaps most) of my old mates, and even my Occasional Readers may say that wanting to talking about Islam and Islamism is alarmist, that it’s Islamophobic, or xenophobic, or Muslim-baiting, or bigoted. 

What can I say to that, other than “no, it’s not”. 

I’ve seen the U.K. with my own eyes. Lived in London in the 1970s; our son was five years at school in Kent in the 90s; I’ve visited many times since. I’ve driven it Land’s End to John o’Groats many times. 

There are vast swathes of major cities that are unrecognisable. 

And not for the better. 

Unless you think that having all the pubs in an area closed down is for the better. Or all the front lawns turned over to concrete is for the better. Or five times a day calls to prayer on the loudspeakers is for the better. Or having to walk around men (it’s always men) kowtowing down right on the street to pray, is for the better. Or women not being able to walk in these areas without a man, or without hijab is for the better. 

Or having only one type of food is for the better: Kebabs and Curries. I mean, yum and yummy, but that’s all?

I mean, after all, I thought one of the big benefits of multiculturalism was supposed to be a widening of food choices, not a narrowing! And no bacon. And no sangers! No pork scratchings! Not to mention no beer! And no wine. And Sharia patrols to make sure women are covered. And women being forced into FGM, which is what Ayaan fled from. 

We’re not talking Chinatown-type things here. We’re talking wholesale takeover of some cities in the U.K., by  linguistically, culturally, clothedly and religiously very different people with no intention of trying to fit in with the host country, but bent on changing it to its own ways. (For example, forcing workmates to follow their Ramadan fasting period). 

If you think all that is better, adding to the rich mosaic of life, then you’ve lost me. I most assuredly do not think these are an improvement on the traditional life of the U.K.  And most of my mates and O.R.s wouldn’t  either if they actually went there, and saw for themselves and were honest. I liked Islamabad and Kabul and Istanbul. But in their place. They don’t have to be in Birmingham or Rotherham, or Tower Hamlets. 

For me, for many folks who are leaving the U.K. because of it, it’s a crying shame. And it was brought on England by itself. It was brought on by policy (the Blair government). 

This did not need to happen. Or it might have happened at a rate where there could have been more integration. But no, our betters knew better. And it’s not better, it’s worse. 

"Islamism & the 'Far Right’: a False Equivalence” | Ayaan Hirsi Ali

=================

Note: I am absolutely NOT saying Britain should try to get back to being a White Britain. No, no, no. Not at all. I’ve spent most of my life here in Asia, after all, where we whities are very much a minority. And I’d have no issue if the migration was East Asian, India Hindus, Nigerian Christian. The issue is with the ideology of Islam which is supremacist, misogynistic, homophobic, and aggressively against adopting the values of the host country. Rather to make the host country Islamic. That’s not me saying that, but Islamic leaders and influencers who say it in stop. That’s what we’re concerned about. 

(A). Don’t keep bowing down to Muslim practices. Cambridge University held an ancient annual knees-up this year, happened to done during Ramadan, so they decided to do it “in respect to Ramadan” and go alcohol-free. Imagine the normal boozy fun fest, this time according to participants very subdued. No. Don’t do it. Gains no respect and only makes the studes feel they really, really need a drink.

In some workplaces non-Muslims are being pressured to fast during Ramadan because their Muslim colleagues are. Again, hard no. Push back. You do yours, we do ours.

(B). Push back against disrespectful Muslim practices. Like public praying in front of cathedrals. Imagine the shoe in the other foot, Christians singing carols in front of a. Osque. Disrespectful? Of course. So the other way around is too. Move them on, when the gather for their heads down bums up. 

(C). Deport any Muslims non-citizens who preach aggressive Islam, Jihad, killing of we infidels. Or criminals. Like in the many Muslim gangs.

(D). Don’t put up with enforced “blasphemy”. When a teacher shows his class pictures of Muhammad, and is forced into hiding by angry Muslims, say no. Instead, like the desegregation battles of the sixties in an America, have law enforcement accompany the teacher to school. You do not get to institute blasphemy laws on our country. 

(E). Shut down the Sharia courts. There should be one law for all. Will Muslims be angry? Of course. But why should they be permitted a whole parallel legal system? Where’s the logic for that, other than a wish to be “tolerant” decades ago when people were under the delusion that being nice to Muslims would get them being nice back. No… there is no golden rule in Islam. 

Biden’s Demoralizing Speech to Morehouse Grads | Jason Riley

President Obama's commencement address at Morehouse College in 2013 couldn't have been more different from the one President Biden gave on Sunday. Not just in terms of style or delivery—no one expects Mr. Biden to match Mr. Obama's oratory skills—but, more important, in its tone and emphasis....

When Mr. Biden took the stage on Sunday, he didn't see an audience of black men with limitless opportunities awaiting them. Instead, he saw an audience of black victims who should question their prospects. "You started college just as George Floyd was murdered and there was a reckoning on race," Mr. Biden said. "It's natural to wonder if democracy you hear about actually works for you. What is democracy if black men are being killed in the street?"

Biden's Demoralizing Speech to Morehouse Grads

My comment: Joe Biden sent me a clip on X of the speech with the bit about Black men being killed randomly by cops (it's not true) and the country not loving them (! Remarkable, that he said this, but also not true). I was startled at what a downer the speech was. Went back to it, and he's deleted it! So even he — i.e. his staff — realised it was a bummer. 

Jason Riley is himself a Black man and Morehouse grad. Author of "Liberals: please stop helping us" a critique of (presumably) well-meant civil rights policies of the sixties under LBJ. Policies that have had the (presumably) unintended consequences of surging single-motherhood, absent fathers, breakdown of the Black family and all the associated crime. 

“Revenge of the Normies” | Martin Gurri

Click above for the video

I’d come across the article by Martin Gurri a week ago, as Scenes From a Global Struggle, in Discourse magazine. It was then picked up by The Free Press as The Revenge of the Normies, and then on Sky New Oz, with James Morrow above. 

I’m a part of the elite. I can’t help it. It’s just where I’d be placed by a pollster asked me any background. But I’m a traitor to my class. I stand more for the working class, all the way from before Covid, but especially then, when I saw how the “laptop class” ruled and the poor business owners and wage slaves suffered. I’ve written a lot about that on this blog. 

It’s not me that’s changed, though. It’s the rest of the Left. That has abandoned the working class and now mocks it. A recent Oxford Union Debate with Nancy Pelosi shows just how much the elite, of which she’s a normative part, still think of them all as “Deplorables”. 

This guy, Martin Gurri, an ex CIA analyst, I’ve never heard of before, makes good points in his essay and in the talk with James Morrow. The “Normies”, that’s us Deplorables. 

They, the elite, believe they must always be in power. It’s “our democracy”. Biden reminds him of Jimmy Carter (who, btw, also said the 2016 election was “Illegitimate”).

This article also ties in with the one I’m posting tomorrow by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. [This one]

Shanghai: view of Pudong, 12 October 2013

Looking towards Pudong, East Shanghai 

I took this photo from the eighth floor of the Peace hotel in Shanghai when I was there with old classmate, Padge for the Shanghai Masters tennis tournament. We sat court side for a Federer match. It was a rare crystal clear day in Shanghai.

The eight floor of the Peace hotel is down by the Bund. It’s a beautiful Art Deco hotel restored to its original glory. And the restaurant on the 8th is a very good Chinese restaurant. One of the best I’ve been to in China. And I lived in China for years, lived in Shanghai 1989 to 1990. Had a Golden Year of my life there. 

When I was in Shanghai in 1989, Pudong, above, did not exist. It was bare fields. The mayor, Zhu Rongji told us “we’re going to build a modern financial centre over there” and we’re, like, “sure”. I learned yet again, when the Chinese say they’re going to do something, it’s usually best to believe them. That’s the way to make money. I’d had the same experience back in 1976, when they said they were going to turn the paddy fields into a major city. Today it’s the city of Shenzhen with 13 million people, twice the size of Hong Kong. 

The proper way to mark death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi

Ebrahim Raisi at the United Nations, 20 September 2023
Click above for the full video (36’)

I’ve been catching up on the UN speech of the recently deceased Iranian PM, Ebrahim Raisi. Him who died in that helicopter crash in northwestern Iran. 

At the beginning he talks of family and I rather liked that bit. The importance of family, of mother and father, how we must promote it. Horrah, say I. 

And a lot of the rest of his speech certainly sounds peaceful and peaceable. Iran as the great peacemaker in the region. “Neighbourliness and Integration”. 

Everyone else is responsible for terrorism, just not Iran. Which only wants peace, we must remember. Peace in the region of Iran and West Asia. 

At the end there are the obligatory backhanders to the US, which of course is the Great Satan, responsible for all the harm in the world. There is no terrorism in the region save for the US. No mention of the half million killed in the Syria war. Or of the war in Yemen, with the Houthis that Iran funds. 

And also note this: that it was less than three weeks later that Hamas -- accompanied by local Gazan citizens -- invaded Israel, killed over 1,200 Israelis, raped numerous women and stole 240 hostages, in the bloodiest act agains the Jews since the Holocaust. This was all done under the watchful eye of President Mr Nice Guy, Raisi. He was the one who coordinated all the various terror troups in the region, Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi, who get their money and their marching orders from Iran, which is to say from Ebrahim Raisi. So all that warm and wonderful talk, as if we needed reminder, was just so much duplicity and deception. 

Then at the end, the real kicker: “You are the past and we are the future”. “I repeat once again, they [ie, US and Europe] represent the past and we represent the future”. 

That kind of reminded me of the time Nikita Khrushchev took off his shoe at the United Nations, banged it on the table and said “We will bury you”, meaning the capitalist west. Let’s hope, or at least I hope, that Raisi is as wrong about the future as was Khrushchev because a future under a world of Islamic Theocracy will hardly be worth living, unless as a member of the priesthood, as a sheikh and that’s only available to men. No wonder the women of Iran were especially thrilled at his death  the other day. 

Which brings me to the reactions of the western governments. Which have been uniformly pretty horrid. We had he United Nations Security Council standing for a minute of silence. The US Senate did the same, which I find totally inexplicable. The EU was its usual cowardly self, sending a maudlin message of condolences to the families of the dead, and what about to the Iranian people, I’m thinking.

Well, one old turtle got it right:

Ex Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell:

I too would like to extend my condolences to the people of Iran for their long suffering under the brutal, theocratic rule of the Islamic Republic,” he said. “I suspect agreat many Iranians would rather Western admirers stop lionizing a man known as the ‘Butcher of Tehran’ for executing political prisoners. They might prefer that foreign leaders not further legitimize the regime that actively represses all of them.”

And we used not to be so fawning at the deaths of murderous tyrants:

President Bill Clinton on the death of Pol Pot:

April 16, 1998

The death of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot has again brought to international attention one of the most tragic chapters of inhumanity in the twentieth century. Between 1975 and 1979, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge followers transformed Cambodia into the killing fields, causing the death of an estimated 2 million of their countrymen in a brutal attempt to transform Cambodian society. More...

Could we not have a bit more of that reality and dignity? Instead of saccharine statements about a dictator who spent his life murdering idealistic Iranian youth, trying to bring down the “Great Satan” and to take over the west?