Good or Bad for the Jews

"Good or Bad for the Jews"

Many years ago, and for many years, I would travel to Morocco to visit uncles, cousins, and my paternal grandmother. Some lived in Tangiers;...

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Hope from the Land of Tomorrow: Aussies Bring Back the Real Liberals

Growing up in Hawaii and California, I was vaguely tormented by the fact that it was almost always tomorrow in Australia. I sort of resented that the Aussies got to see the future before I did, and that by the time it became tomorrow where I lived, they already had used it up and were moving on to another tomorrow. I would lie in bed either listening on my transistor to Rolf Harris singing about his unfettered kangaroo, or watching on my tiny TV as Tasmanian Errol Flynn performed feats of derring-do--and, of course, Warner Brother cartoons had warned us about what comes from Tasmania! The Aussie threat to American culture was a very clear and present one! Needless to say, this type of awareness of the threat posed by foreign nations got me to go into the Foreign Service. Once in, to my horror, I discovered that the Aussies are pretty neat folks. I worked very closely with them in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, and found that they have superb military and diplomatic services. It was a joy to work with them. I forgave them for passing on tomorrow to us a bit used. I even got into blogging thanks to Aussie Blogger Extraordinaire Tim Blair, whose erudition, wit, and biting sarcasm let me know that there was a new digital way to fight the leftist insanity.

A big John Howard fan, I admired his blunt speaking, profound patriotism, and willingness to continue the long Aussie tradition of stepping up to defend the West. His rise to power gave me hope that we could avoid four years of Al Gore after eight years of Clinton. Australia, again, proved the land of tomorrow, and we got George W. Bush. I was appalled when Howard's long run as PM ended and we saw Labor's Kevin Rudd incumber the office of PM. I saw Rudd more as a European phony than as one of the down-to-earth and very clear-eyed Australians with whom I worked. His kow-towing to the warmist crowd by signing Kyoto, and his "apology" for Australia being a great country turned me off completely. I hoped and prayed that Rudd, and his even more bizarre intra-Labor rival, weird Welshwoman Julia Gillard, would not prove a glimpse of what was in store for the USA. This time, Alas! Australia, again, predicted what was to come. We got an inept anti-American Chicago mountebank by the name of Barrack Hussein Obama, who made the shambolic (Note: A great British word!) Rudd-Gilliard-Rudd administration seem like a Swiss railroad in comparison.

Well, let's hope and pray mightily that newly elected PM Tony Abbott is as tough and conservative as he appears. I am delighted that, unlike in the USA, conservatives in Australia have preserved the word "Liberal" for themselves and not allowed it to be stolen and warped by the left. I also love the typical lefty assessment of him run by CNN. Read it and take in the fair and objective evaluation given Abbott by CNN in its opening paragraphs,
He may have run a gaffe-prone campaign against the bookish Kevin Rudd, the incumbent Labor prime minister, but his knockabout style, which harkens back to older, safer times, proved popular with an electorate exhausted by years of Labor infighting. 
Having successfully deflected accusations of sexism -- dismissing a campaign gaffe in which he lauded a Liberal female candidate for her "sex appeal" as a "dad moment" -- Abbott has presented himself as an unreconstructed male who loves his sport and beer. 
In Australia's current social climate, which some have attacked for being increasingly insular, self-absorbed and xenophobic, Abbott's bruising confrontational style has hit a rich seam.
Ah, the lefties! In just a few short sentences we "find out" that: the new PM is "gaffe-prone," while Rudd was "bookish"; he is a throwback to older days; he had accusations of sexism thrown at him (by whom, we wonder?); and he has capitalized on "Australia's current social climate, which some (again we wonder, who?) have attacked for being increasingly insular, self-absorbed and xenophobic." Most of the CNN piece, it turns out, while ostensibly about the new PM, is not even about Abbott but about vulgar incidents in Aussie politics. Nice pairing up; I am sure it's just coincidence.

As CNN, and others go on about the new PM, we find that Abbott is a neanderthal who doubts the global warming nonsense, likes women, sports, beer, and wants lower taxes, and to defend Australia's culture against the massive influx of "asylum seekers." He must be a very, very bad man.

As I hinted above, let's hope he's as bad as advertised. Let's also hope that Australia will, again, prove the political Land of Tomorrow. I live with that hope for change.

WLA

46 comments:

  1. Would that we could find such a person for the United States.

    It IS nice to see the MSM squirm...

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  2. Yes, "gaffe-prone"...

    Amazing that our MSM called Mitt Romney gaffe-prone, when Barack Obama's own reference to 57 (islamic?) states should have disqualified him from any serious consideration to be president.

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    1. I believe that BHO, in his 57 states comment, was letting slip a plan to attack Canada and Mexico to annex British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Sonora, Chihuahua, and Baja California. After all, Canada and Mexico have been at peace with us for so long...

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  3. 'As CNN, and others go on about the new PM, we find that:

    "Abbott is a neanderthal who doubts the global warming nonsense, likes women, sports, beer, and wants lower taxes, and to defend Australia's culture against the massive influx of "asylum seekers." He must be a very, very bad man."

    Ah such sweet music to my ears, Dip.

    Too bad CNN is so full of itself, with its heavy use of such erudite heavily college educated words lacking substance, but so rich in current PC leftist style, of the collegiate lexicon. You know the type, the “All hat, no cattle” type of lexicon-stuffed “college cowboys” of the current genre. The new perfect personas of the famous term "effete snobs" from the days of the Spiro T. Agnew, that are supposed to carry such impressive authority, kinda’ like the position POTUS was "supposed" to carry, respect and dare I remind, “statesman like” authority, except when a foreign imposter is potus, the product of a mean joke, perpetrated by those same erudite heavily educated highly impressive and oh so intelligent CNN and MSM dipstick fools of educated flunkies, the kind with low IQs and EQs, otherwise known as, “low information types”.

    Just my opinion, though, what do I know after 7 decades, though, compared to a foreigner who lies, that no one trusts anymore?
    Jack

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  4. Speaking of gaffe-prone, don’t' we have a real gigantically gaffe-prone one, who is working under cover of a "peace" prize to become a real live "corpse man", as many as he can produce, way beyond Benghazi? Seems he can be so nick named, as Mr. "corpse man", never though, to be a member of the actual corps, the Marine Corps!Jack

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    1. That's a widely promulgated mistake. President Obama was not given the "Nobel Peace Prize".

      Rather, he was given the "Novel Peas Prize" for his contribution to finding unique ways to get his daughters to eat their peas.

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    2. Yes, nothing is too good for a man who finds new ways of supporting whirled peas.

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    3. A "Corpsman" is not a Marine, even though Marines are members of a Corps.

      A Corpsman is "Doc;" in the days of my Father's service, a Hospitalman or Pharmacist's Mate. And Navy Blue to the core.

      And receive, per capita, as many MOH and Navy Crosses as the Marines they serve with,

      Delete
  5. The good news about this "news" broadcast you quote is that it was on CNN. So who saw it besides you? Some travellers stuck in an airport terminal somewhere.

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  6. I second Dip's position on the Australians. Most of the ones I've met, whether descended from convicts, "squatters", or "new Australians" seem to be good, decent, down-to-earth, humorous people. In Bangkok, I knew World Vision's rep (an "Ozzie"), with whom I developed a friendship; as well as one of their diplomats who was also involved in refugee resettlement. With the first guy, we often humorously ribbed each other about our respective "'Murkin" and "Strine" accents.

    The Uncle for whom I was named came out of World War II with a very jaundiced view of almost all foreigners (Canadians and Norwegians didn't count: he was too familiar with the former from growing up in North Dakota, and spoke the language of the latter)--except the Australians, who were the first Allied troops he ran into after fighting across North Africa (the French didn't count: Vichy forces were among the first enemy troops to shoot at him in Morocco).

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  7. I had the opportunity to speak with several Aussies this summer while traveling across the country (and back) on Amtrak.

    My small sample (8?) was uniformly discontent with Julia and intended to vote for a more conservative regime at first opportunity.

    Glad to see they got what they wanted.

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  8. Abott's achievements (Rhodes Scholar, boxer, seminarian) never seem to get much play in the media. A world leader with achievements outside politics is rather novel nowadays.

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    Replies
    1. He's also a volunteer firefighter and surf lifesaver

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  9. I just read that CNN article, and I am still wondering what Australia they are talking about, 'cause it sure isn't mine. I guess obtaining most of your calories from LSD, crystal meth and crack has an effect! Either that or CNN trawls insane asylums for staff - I guess you'd get 'em cheap that way.

    And quoting David Freaking Marr? You must be joking. He is, by his own admission, a narcotics-using far left wing 'journalist' who has spent years writing polemics against Abbott and Howard before him. Coincidentally he's also a homosexual, which matters nought until one realises that he seems to have an apparent case of the screaming hots for Tony Abbott, yet also hates him with that special ideological hatred only the left can muster. No wonder he's.... erratic.

    Hmm. Wonder why the Communist News network quoted Marr? Fellow travellers, methinks.

    In any case, we have now disposed of the worst government in our history, a worthless and squalid pack of incompetent thieving squandermonkeys with the intellectual heft of a scree talus. Now that these risible children have wrecked the joint and run up more debt than we ended the 1914-18 war with, the adults have the job of cleaning up the mess.

    Again.

    Because this same political aprty did exactly the same thing in the 1990s.

    Mk50 of Brisbane

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    1. The hang of the thing, when cleaning up the mess, is the public will scream bloody murder when the government narcotic is withdrawn from the system. Mr Abbott sounds like the right lawman for the times.....a sheriff Longmire at long last.

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    2. Hey hey Mk50, you're here too? Great site isn't it?

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    3. Yup. Been a fan of the Diplomad for years. And he and I may even have met fleetingly in Sumatra....

      Mk50 of Brisbane

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  10. Rolf Harris's trial is coming up here in the UK soon. All those songs about his "unfettered kangaroo," may yet turn up again, as part of the prosecution's case.

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    Replies
    1. I was sorry to learn that the kangaroo that needed tying down was a euphemism for something else . . .

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    2. I'd suggest you peruse

      http://www.annaraccoon.com/

      for a better understanding of the whole sordid witch-hunt that so many like Mr Harris have been caught up in.

      To precis, summarise and give the gist of - forty years ago a bunch of celebrities 'may' have accidentally/deliberately patted a 17-20 year old fan on the knee, given them a peck on the cheek or 'looked at them funny'. Forty years later those same 'fans', who never mentioned these 'horrific acts' to anyone, suddenly remembered the trauma (when prompted by journalists seeking stories) - 'possibly' caused by the chance of suing somebody who will be seen as guilty automatically as the press have already convicted them, accusers are always to be believed, and the accused can't defend themselves because 'can you remember what you did in a window six months, forty years ago?'

      Just as Mr Saville is guilty, because he's dead and can't defend himself - even though others have shown the blatant lies the accusers are.

      Just saying

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    3. I hope you're right. I always wonder about these cases that come to light years and years later.

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    4. No DiploMad it isn't a euphemism at all, it is just a novelty song about the Outback and the wildlife in it, such as:
      Tie me kangaroo down, sport (friend)
      Take me Koala back,Jack
      Watch me Wallabies feed, mate
      Keep me Cockatoo cool
      and so on.

      Delete
    5. Tan me 'ide when I'm dead, Fred,
      Tan me 'ide when I'm dead.
      So he tanned 'is 'ide when 'e died, Clyde,
      That's it, hanging on the shed.

      Delete
  11. Re Tomorrow I thought you might like this version of "There's a land of begin again"

    Jamie-Cullum-Land-Of-Begin-Again-Festival-of-Remembrance-7th-Nov-09[www.savevid.com].3gp

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  12. My Arkie friend has passed on your site to me (I'm an Aussie sheila) and I can say that I'm happy to have Abbott as PM. KRudd and Mz. Gillard were simply Left-wing dreamers who had never done a day's work between 'em.
    Abbott's got his work cut out for him but he simply cannot be worse than the last lot.
    Good riddance and close the door on your way way. I wish they didn't have to collect their $ 200. (and the rest) but that's life. They have already squandered so many billions another couple won't matter. Australians will claw our way back into the black again.
    Good post and I'll read some more.

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  13. Aussies are great! Very loyal allies, and just all around nice, normal people. Now that I have retired, and am looking for a place to settle overseas, (I have seriously considered immigrating to Australia(I won't stay in the US under this administration), I have seriously considered immigrating to Australia. Thank God one country came to its senses after a left-wing nightmare. Diplomad, let's hope your theory that Australia is a predictor for the US.
    Delilah

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    1. Come on down Delilah! Plenty of room here for everyone, provided you don't try to sneak in the back door in a crappy Indonesian fishing boat. We've had 50,000 of them thanks to the deadbeat Labor Party (not a typo, they actually spell it that way, the dumb lefties). Anyway, you'll fit right in.

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    2. Um, Delilah and most people on this site are obviously American and Americans spell it “labor”. So there is no point telling them the Labor Party are so stupid they spelled it wrong. They won’t get what you’re talking about.

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  14. Funny how wrong most of the overseas coverage of Abbott is, even from sources which one would expect to be sympathetic. They obviously just dug into the file on 'Blokes, Australian - cliches'. Abbott "loves his sport and his beer"? Abbott is a fanatically fit athlete who has only ever been seen to drink a beer when touring a brewery, just as Rudd and Gillard were on similar occasions. The last Australian PM who was known as a drinker was Bob Hawke, and no-one thought any the less of him for it. And even he went on the wagon for the duration of his government.

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  15. Fulsome praise indeed, thank you friend. Yes Tony Abbott is all that and more; Volunteer rural firefighter, Volunteer Surf Lifesaver(Lifeguard in the USA),Volunteer Remote Aboriginal educator, family man and true patriot, Rhodes Scholar. He speaks his mind and stands up for what he believes in, which is our great Commonwealth of Australia. The view amongst many is that he will be in office for quite some time, just like his mentor John Winston Howard. Do you hear those popping sounds? They are leftist heads exploding, paradigm shifting without a clutch. If you don't already know about it, check out the Catallaxy Files, a centre-right/libertarian website. All points of view are presented, the language can get a bit fruity sometimes but for a clear snapshot of Australian political thought and attitude, indispensable. Hopefully America will get somebody really sensible to steer the Ship Of State when next you get the chance.

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  16. Abbott is unavailable today because he is off fighting a bushfire- he is a volunteer firie, as well as a surf lifesaver.

    His previous achievements include saving a woman and children from a burning house.

    To suggest he is anything other than a real life superhero, especially when compared to compulsive liar gillard and narcissistic failure krudd, is ludicrous. And typical of socialists everywhere.

    Our nightmare is over. But we must be eternally vigilant.

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    Replies
    1. Tony Abbott also once saved a boy from drowning, adding to his impressive life experiences and service.

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  17. Kerry obviously did not have his "lucky hat" with him that was given to him by "a CIA guy" on a "secret mission to Cambodia" during his grueling 3 mos on a boat in Vietnam for which he received three purple hearts - one for each month. The only one he deserved was the one that came as a result of shooting himself in the ass.

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  18. All kinds of people keep coming forward with stories about how Abbott helped them personally in times of distress and danger. He's like Mitt Romney in that respect. One account recently emerged about how he saved a boy from drowning at a beach - then gave the parent a curt lecture for not keeping a closer eye on their kid. Funny how you never hear any stories like that about Kevin Rudd or Barack Obama.

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  19. Absolutely love this blog. Am thrilled to have been directed here. Will be coming back here often. I'm Australian, and I can't tell you how thrilled I am at our election result. Six years of deceit and incompetence from the Labor Party, and all we have to show for it is a massive debt. We actually went into the GFC with a surplus, with a strong economy. Labor have left us with a massive debt to repay. Absolutely morons, the lot of them. They earned and deserved the shellacking they got.

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  20. Tony Abbott is a few other things. Firstly, he is a committed Catholic. He has to hide his faith as being purely a personal matter. The media and left in Australia just cannot handle the idea of a true committed Catholic being PM. They were more than happy to photograph Kevin Rudd outside his Anglican Church every Sunday - but oh be scared of that raving Catholic Abbott.

    The guy has a beautiful family, three adorable intelligent daughters and an equally loving and intelligent wife. Notice for years they would not get involved in Tony Abbott's political life.

    Then that old feminist warrior Julia Gillard (who had previously said that marriage was a form of formalised prostitution) and had a penchant for affairs with married men with children (Bruce Wilson and Craig Emerson) - was somehow a suitable authority to describe the family man Tony Abbott as a Misogynist (read man who hates all women).

    The media loved it. The left loved it. The YouTube clip went 'viral' - all for what? So a desperate lightweight PM could have five minutes in the spotlight by smearing her opponent.

    Well the reaction from Tony Abbotts family was as immediate as it was stark. Every day since then he has had at least one of his Daughters and Margie Abbott on the campaign with him. So they should. The loved their Dad and Husband and were not going to sit idly by while the EMILYs lister went Abbotts character and standing. They had had enough.

    Finally – on climate change, unlike other paragons of wisdom and virtue around the world, Abbott knows the whole thing is an absolute green racket of enormous proportions. He will scrap the crap the Labor party created (Carbon Tax @ AUD$24.15 per tonne anyone??) and then his ‘alternate’ direct action policy won't get through the parliament anyway.

    It’s a sad state of affairs that he has to propose to spend AUD$3.2B over four years to pander to the climate change gods that exist in our society (read green groups, renewable energy leeches and the whole Climate Change bureaucracy – over 2700 public servants in Canberra).

    The other thing he won't support is Gay Marriage, called Marriage Equality in Australia. Another sacred cow leftist media orthodoxy he does not subscribe to.

    Australia the people decided for a family man with values whom does not bow to the sacred issues of the left – those hot button things like being a strong Christian Catholic, not being a Climate Change warrior or a Pink Mafia member.

    God has blessed Australia with Tony Abbott. That is why the left and media are so incensed.

    Amen

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  21. Another bonus we (I am Australian) are getting from Abbott is that he is not pandering to the media and trying to slow the 24 hour news cycle of meaningless sound bites and 30 second blips of vision.

    "Calm, peaceful, steady and purposeful" are being suggested as his new code works.

    If he can achieve this then the media will have time to investigate and objectively report the news, instead of peddling the conventional wisdom pushed by un-elected and noisey left wing groups.

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  22. Tony Abbott is a normal Aussie male. Active and involved in his community and country. He's educated and down to earth.

    Kevin Rudd, well it's said KRudd suffers from a condition called "Grandiose narcissism."

    Anyway we like to call him "Kevin Kardashian" due to his public persona.

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    Replies
    1. Love that Kevin Kardashian. I am going to steal that.

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  23. Thanks to all the readers from Australia. One of my greatest frustrations in my FS career was never getting assigned to that great country. I tried and tried, but there was always somebody better connected who pushed me aside. The closest I got was Indonesia and Sri Lanka, where, however, I got to work daily with some truly outstanding Aussie diplomats and soldiers. I genuinely hope that the Spirit of Abbott will not confine itself to Australia but spread across the oceans to our shores. Men and women such as Abbott form the last hope for the West to recover from its current bout of the leftist virus. I just hope it's not too late.

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  24. You wrote "Rudd, and his even more bizarre intra-Labor rival, weird Welshwoman Julia Gillard,"
    Not a chance, mate. Ju-liar as she was known by millions down here was a disaster as PM (IMO she just wasn't up to the job). But in the Bizarro Sweepstakes, krudd won by a bloody mile. If they get up a Nobel Prize for Bizarre, kev will win it in perpetuity.

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  25. Update on Oz politics:

    Given the vitriolic nature of the anti-Catholic bile directed at Prime Minister-elect Abbott by the Left in this country, it is interesting to note that the two Labor politicians vying for ALP leadership are both Catholics themselves. The leftist hypocrisy is deafening in its' silence, but that is normal.

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  26. I am a little late to the conversation but I had to respond to Diplomad's comment about Australian's seeing the future before he did. An Australian friend has the following statement after the signature block on his e-mails:

    "Don't worry about the world ending today, its already tomorrow in
    Australia"

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