Freedom under fire.

Paratus Ad Vitem Paratus Ad Mortis

2006/5/31

@ 02:18 PM (27 months, 10 days ago)

There is a piece by Andrew Bolt that makes too much sense. Go to Joe Gringo's and have a look.

Comment(s) »

Slightest slip is seen as a diabolical plot
No slight slips on 911 - you don't have to be paranoid to be leary after that.

Comment by Dugg— 2006/05/31 @ 02:25 PM — (Reply)
the story is about the hpocritical nature of the left leaning media in australia.

Comment by Elmers Brother— 2006/05/31 @ 02:36 PM — (Reply)
the story is about the hpocritical nature of the left leaning media in australia.

Hmm... Sounds familiar, huh?

Comment by Brooke— 2006/05/31 @ 02:41 PM — (Reply)
I'm just responding to the excerpt:
It's the ideologues who hate America so much that they'd rather defend a terrorist than back a democracy. It's the people whose paranoia of America is so great that its slightest slip is seen as a diabolical plot.

Comment by Dugg— 2006/05/31 @ 02:51 PM — (Reply)
I know dugg. I wasn't really talking "at" you so much as making a small statement for the benefit of those who may not go and read it.

Comment by Elmers Brother— 2006/05/31 @ 03:01 PM — (Reply)
Andrew Bolt, or "da Bolta" as he is fondly known here, is one of the true voices of sanity,reason and sense in this country. He is forceful, informed, unafraid and a tireless critic of the leftist moonbattery that infects all our nations.
He can be found twice weekly (usually) at The Melbourne Herald (online). I'd recommend him to anyone who values sound journalism and an un-corrected voice. His current book title says it all; "Still not sorry".

It is very apparent that anti-Americanism is the default position of Australia's left. A tenet of hysterical faith, anti-Americanism remains un-examined, existing as a "given", thus freeing it from common-sense, caution or intellectual scrutiny, and is fired by the wildest rumours and innuendo, the wilder and crazier the better, but for the young turks of the left and tree huggers from even further out, it is the only way to guarantee getting laid!

American friends, you have my deepest sympathy during your latest trial, south of the border. I second ammend that!

Comment by Gravelrash— 2006/06/01 @ 03:09 AM — (Reply)
Hey guy,
I am back. I hope you didn't miss me and cry.
I will be rejoining the community as much as I can.
I will also start posting again in the next few days.
My garden is doing great. I will be getting some pictures of my maters posted in the next few weeks....

Comment by FBJones— 2006/06/01 @ 11:47 AM — (Reply)
Diabolical plot..yup paranoia blues is what they permanently have eh..good read EB..thanks for the tip!

Comment by Angel— 2006/06/01 @ 11:48 AM — (Reply)
What Grav said (all of it).

Comment by Felis— 2006/06/01 @ 12:10 PM — (Reply)
grav the bunker is almost built just making room for the plasma tv and the microbrewery

Comment by elmers brother— 2006/06/01 @ 01:32 PM — (Reply)
fb I can hardly wait for my tomatoes

Comment by Elmers Brother— 2006/06/01 @ 04:02 PM — (Reply)
What kind of brew will you have in your micro-brewery....hopefully no Pilsner.

Comment by FlorianGuerrero— 2006/06/01 @ 03:41 PM — (Reply)
I like a good honey wheat but after the bunker is built we might have to settle for making tequila, there's a lot of cactii out here

Comment by elmers brother— 2006/06/01 @ 03:44 PM — (Reply)
I'll bring the nachos and hot salsa!

Comment by Brooke— 2006/06/01 @ 03:57 PM — (Reply)
I heard the cactii can survive a nuclear winter

Comment by Elmers Brother— 2006/06/01 @ 04:01 PM — (Reply)
.... the cactii can survive a nuclear winter

Good.
We like our brew with some exotic flavor.

Comment by MissingLink— 2006/06/01 @ 04:05 PM — (Reply)
oh ML...ask Joe Gringo he would know...he's a tequila aficionado

Comment by Elmers Brother— 2006/06/01 @ 04:07 PM — (Reply)
hey Dugg....I saw a film right up your alley..."Missing Change".

Comment by A Conservative Realist— 2006/06/01 @ 04:19 PM — (Reply)
You cannot go wrong with Chinaco Reposado, it is excellent!

A snack to go along with your Chinaco Reposado? How about a piece of the cooked blue agave plant, it is delicous, it is sweet and very tasty, sort of like candy, but not too much, problem is, the only place you can get is in Tequila, Jal, México.

Comment by Joe Gringo— 2006/06/02 @ 04:36 AM — (Reply)
I have a feeling this will please many here! The latest Bolta. Talk about timely. Good Lord, there might be a groundswell return to sanity in Australia yet!

Yanks hit homer
Andrew Bolt
02jun06

IT sounded like a $50 million present for our universities. In fact, it's the start of a war on the anti-American group-think of our academics.
You can't yet hear the screaming, but you will by the time this is read.
First, the prize: last month Prime Minister John Howard announced he'd give $25 million for a new United States Studies Centre at some lucky university to deepen the appreciation and understanding of our powerful ally.

Even better, the American Australian Association, whose patrons include my boss, Rupert Murdoch, will get companies to double that with a rattle of its golden tin.

Note well: it likewise wants to "deepen the appreciation and understanding" of the US, as well as to "strengthen the relationship between both countries".

Second, the problem: as Dr David Martin Jones, a Queensland University senior lecturer in political science, told me: "How can there possibly be a US Centre in an Australian university given the knee-jerk anti-Americanism, which is the norm there?
"In fact, there is no Australian university that could legitimately house it in good conscience because all universities teaching media, politics, English or sociology adopt as a matter of course an anti-Western and, by extension, an anti-American perspective on the world."
Hmmm. An excellent point, David, even if I know of brave academics who stand against that trend.

But let me move on to item three: the catch. And here is where the fun starts.

The catch is that it is the AAA, and not the Government, which will decide which university gets all this cash -- not just the AAA's but the Government's.

Howard has not just said the AAA must put up its own money before he hands over his, but that his Government will work with the AAA to decide who gets it. That means, in fact, the final say lies with the AAA.

And as former Liberal Senator Michael Baume, an AAA patron and member of the committee it's forming to pick the winning university, explains: "You are talking here about a group of people who are so worried by the anti-Americanism of so many Australian academics."

In fact, they will fight rather than let their centre be taken over by academics who shout out the worst in America, but are deaf to the best. Says Baume: "We are not opposed to academic freedom, but we are not prepared to have it hijacked. 'Independent' is not code for anti-American." Other senior AAA officials say the same.

Officials in Howard's office also want to avoid funding more anti-American propaganda. Even the Bracks Government, about to offer big dollars to lure the centre to Melbourne University, thinks the centre must be "balanced" and "not biased" if it's going to survive.

The reason is simple. Big business -- especially American business -- is not going to stump up cash to pay yet more lecturers to say how gruesome is American society, business, politics, race relations or imperialism.

More than that, many key figures pushing this centre do so because they are alarmed by the hatred and fear of America now being peddled here so successfully.

How successfully? Last year the Lowy Institute ran a poll that found only 59 per cent of Australians had positive feelings towards America. Many even thought US foreign policy was a threat.

SAID the institute's Peter Edwards, there was a "visceral anti-American sentiment that is currently restricted to a small section of Australian public opinion, but which has the potential to spread if the political environment should prove favorable".

But it's not just the anti-Americanism that is a worry. So is the fact that no Australian university puts serious effort into teaching about a country that is in fact the strongest and richest on Earth, as well as our biggest trading partner, our closest ally and the source of so much of our technology and popular culture.

Not one Victorian university has a school of American studies, for instance. Yet Latrobe alone lists an Institute of Latin American Studies, a Philippines Australia Study Centre and an African Research Institute.

Sydney University did at least open a Centre for American Studies in 1993, but closed it just a few years later. No interest, no cash.

And while Queensland University teaches an American Studies course, most subjects are taught by a lecturer now writing a history of Greenpeace.

"The current state of US studies in this country is a disgrace," admits Brian Costar, politics professor at Swinburne University of Technology, who blames not anti-Americanism but years of decline of the liberal arts.

I think he's too kind. So will the AAA when it checks the universities now bidding for its cash.

Take Sydney University, which says it should have the centre because it boasts the most historians of the US in the country.

But see what preoccupies them. Their specialities include "gender relations", the "history of sexuality" and "race, class and class struggles". They write books with titles such as The Sounds of Slavery and Sexual Violence and Legal Culture in New York City. Four now work on a history of black Harlem.

So, Melbourne University may well get the big prize. But scan its own courses in American studies.

Let's see: you can be taught about "McCarthyism . . . and the silencing of 'dissenting' voices", "slavery and freedom", "the impact of the US sense of its imperial role in Central and South America", and "US scandals from Watergate", such as "the peddling of influence and sexual harassment".

Interesting, and often valid. But doesn't the US also have its good points?

Think of its fierce commitment to democracy. Think of its freedoms, wealth, inventions, innovations, writers and great presidents. Think how it has defied tyrannies, exported democracy, embraced so many immigrants and learned how to correct its sometimes terrible mistakes. Don't these qualities also demand study?

The Bracks Government is trying to dodge this problem by saying it wants the new centre -- if Melbourne gets it -- to concentrate on teaching finance, government, business and trade. Anything not part of the culture wars.

But see how even free trade deals and defence alliances can be poisoned by anti-Americanism.

You can't run from this war. So how will the AAA ensure its centre studies both the bad and good of the US, and does indeed deepen our "appreciation and understanding" and "strengthen our relationship"?

Here's how. It will refuse to hand over all its money at once and will watch carefully how what it gives is spent. It threatens to switch the funding to some other university if the first one lets it down.

The universities, of course, will demand they get this money with no strings attached. Academic freedom and all that. And what right do businessmen have to decide which university gets government money?

BUT Baume says the AAA is determined. It does not want a cheer-America propaganda outfit that bans criticism, but it does want to put its money into a centre that teaches students to understand the US, not just hate it.

Conflict, says, Baume, is inevitable. Glad to hear it, although I've met precious few businessmen with the guts or brains to fight this kind of culture war.

I hope they surprise me, because this is not just a fight that will be worth seeing. It's also one that is very much worth winning.

Honey wheat sounds damn fine Elmer. I'll bring

Comment by Gravelrash— 2006/06/02 @ 12:49 PM — (Reply)

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