Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Political Correctness is a Scourge!

No-one precisely knows who is to be credited with the coining of the term ‘political
correctness’. Several Western historians have safely pinpointed certain eras in history when forms of ‘political correctness’ were detectable. Indeed, recently the renowned, award-winning cartoonist, Bill Leak – proving he is quite an accomplished writer – opined that ‘political correctness’ has been thriving in the Islamic world since the 7 th Century AD.

What does it for me is the famous faux exchange between General Douglas MacArthur and his American President, Harry (“Give ‘Em Hell”) Truman at the end of the War in the Pacific in 1945.
The following verbatim telegram record can be found, apparently, in the Truman Library & Museum in Independence, Missouri, USA:

(1) Tokyo, Japan
0800-September 1, 1945
To: President Harry S Truman
From: General D A MacArthur
“Tomorrow we meet with those yellow bellied bastards and sign the Surrender documents.
Any last minute instructions?”

(2) Washington DC
1300-September 1, 1945
To: D A Macarthur
From: H S Truman
“Congratulations, job well done, but you must tone down your obvious dislike of the
Japanese when discussing the terms of the surrender with the press, because some of your
remarks are fundamentally not politically correct!”

(3) Tokyo, Japan
1630-September 1, 1945
To: H S Truman
From: D A MacArthur and C H Nimitz [i.e. Chester Nimitz]
“Wilco Sir, but both Chester and I are somewhat confused about exactly what does the
term ‘politically correct’ mean?”

(4) Washington DC
2120-September 1, 1945
To: D A MacArthur/C H Nimitz
From: H S Truman
“Political Correctness is a doctrine, recently fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and promoted by a sick mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of shit by its clean end!”...Truman, obviously “told ‘em how it was” there and then!

In many respects, ‘political correctness’ has become rapacious since this episode. American experience though this is, because the English language is so rich in meaning and subtlety, no other language lives, breathes and constantly adapts as does our ‘mother tongue’. If I choose to ‘tell it like it IS’ without deliberately causing offence or mischief then that is my province and prerogative. It is exercising ‘free speech’. But the point where the line had to be drawn in the proverbial sand has arrived – as it inevitably was going to. In a well-meaning video recently presented by former Chief of the Australian Army, the present Australian of the Year (2015) and, concurrently, the new Chairman of the Diversity Council of Australia, David Morrison, has ‘gone in hard’ on the issue of ‘guy offensiveness’. Morrison, extraordinarily maintains that the word ‘guy’ should no longer be used for men and women. Notwithstanding the word ‘guy’ is NOT deemed to be ‘sexist’ in the Macquarie dictionary and is literally a modern-day collective noun, this idiomatic, gender-neutral, generic word must be applied ONLY to the male of the species.

I once – NOT so long ago – replied to an associate, another Peter, that I found the term ‘political correctness’ to be a scourge because its use was conducive to discrimination, waffling, spindoctoring, mendacity, social tyranny and dissembling. What Morrison is attempting is a real threat to free speech. He wants to expunge ‘guys’ from the workplace because he alleges the plural word is “implicitly sexist” to quote him. Utter Codswallop!

I assert that practitioners of ‘political correctness’ are fond of labelling anyone who expresses mainstream views as bigots. The irony is that those who finger others as bigots are themselves guilty of discrimination. These ‘political correctness’ practitioners are palpably Left ‘progressives’ who tend to be humourless – and social thugs, at that.

Cartoonist – and another excellent, cogent writer, Patrick Cook’s summation on the topic sums it UP properly for me. “Political Correctness is NOT enforced to protect the sensibilities and shield the vulnerabilities of the helpless and the different and the UNfairly maligned. It is enforced to enhance the conceit and swell the power of the enforcers”.

Satirist and Columnist, Rowan Dean, I note is a fearless advocate of ‘safe UNpolitically correct paces’ where individuals may assemble with the express purpose of nobody caring what anybody else says or how they say it’. Dean is plausibly accurate in his surmise that if Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare were alive today they would ‘Rock UP’; be the first two attending the ‘Opening Night’of the first such venue.

Free Speech in a democracy such as Australia needs to be enshrined in law. And it may come to that with the future Republican Scheme of Things. We, absolutely, must never allow ‘political correctness’ practitioners to decide/determine what it is that You OR I may hear, say and see. Nor, whom we may associate with, short of UNacceptable consorting.

Blog No 3 of 15 June, 2016...Writer: PETER CONSANDINE of The RPA

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

The ‘NON-EVENT’ Event

If my Aunt Kitty Hurley were alive in this time of the 2016 Double Dissolution federal
election she would describe the whole shebang as a ‘NON-EVENT’. A journalist until
retirement with the old Melbourne daily newspaper: The Argus, she was very much “set in
her ways” OR a “dyed in the wool Conservative”; a rusted-on Liberal, no less. I know for a
fact that she voted for – in succession without variation – in the time I knew her: Robert
Menzies, Harold Holt, John Gorton and William McMahon. I dare say, if alive beyond 1971,
she would have voted for subsequent Liberal Leaders namely: Billie Snedden, Malcolm
Fraser, Andrew Peacock, John Hewson, Alexander Downer, Brendan Nelson, John Howard
and Tony Abbott – three who went on to become Prime Ministers. Today, I believe she
would even categorise herself as a ‘Del-Con’ – a disillusioned/disenchanted Conservative
Liberal who could NOT bring herself to vote for Malcolm Turnbull. To Kitty, Turnbull would
be a ‘NON-EVENT’ – a usurper she could neither respect nor trust let alone consider
favourably. Turnbull would be anathema to Kitty. She would define Turnbull as ‘Labor-Lite’ in my honest opinion.

Alas, this ‘Labor-Lite’ perception is commonplace today in the body politic. Doubtless, there
is profound, general disappointment amidst, primarily, rusted-on contemporary Liberals,
writ large. At the half-way mark in a marathon election campaign, it is apparent even in the
PMs own Seat of Wentworth that a modern-day tragedy is potentially ‘in the-making’. And,
whereas Turnbull has spent $600,000+ to secure his Seat hitherto, the ‘word’ is that he has
budgeted more than double this sum to defend Wentworth this time around. Desperation
and overkill/over-reach is omnipresent with ‘My Dad’ sentimentality-orientated, colour
DVDs being posted to every elector in Wentworth and very far beyond. I readily
acknowledge that I would be very alarmed if I, perchance, was the incumbent Liberal in a
Seat where the qualitative polling was indicating a 10% loss in my primary vote – and this far
out (3 ½ weeks) from election day.

However, ALL the expenditure under the proverbial sun might be ‘for nought’. The Liberal-
headed Coalition might just ‘scrape home’ with a dangerous, working majority of 3-5 or so
Seats in the House of Representatives but with the loss of their Header on the battlefield-
proper. Thus, a 3 rd time loss of an incumbent Liberal/Conservative Prime Minister – in his
own Seat – since Federation: Stanley Bruce in 1929 and John Howard in 2007 being the
other two doubly-defeated, incumbent Prime Ministers. Turnbull has many enemies in the
so-called ‘Blue Ribbon’ electorate of Wentworth and no more conscientious and fierce a
sparring, streetwise warrior than Geoffrey Cousins. In tandem with the likes of the ‘Get-UP’
anarchist organisation, Turnbull might be felled. The ignominy attaching to such an
occurrence would discredit him for ALL time and BIG TIME. At a guess, the Point Piper
mansion might be ‘sold UP’ and the big move would be ON to an aristocratic stronghold in
England, albeit, the ‘Old Dart’ is an hereditary monarchy.

I won’t have been the ONLY interested observer at this election – and this juncture in
Australian political history – to inform Turnbull that he is most probably going to have to
invite 1 to 2 representatives, perhaps 3, from other successful political parties in to the
federal Coalition. Oh Yes, a modern-day tragedy is in-the- making simply because a ‘saving of
the political furniture’ – in his case – won’t do. For starters, his National Party Deputy Prime
Minister, Barnaby Joyce, will fearlessly drive a much harder National Party agenda than his
predecessor, Warren Truss, and Joyce most likely will tighten the 10-point working Coalition
arrangement. In the wash-UP, an entirely UNpredictable future-scenario shall probably
obtain – with another federal election (possibly, even another Double Dissolution) within 18
months or so “on the cards”. The normal key to stable, predictable government in Australia
is the componentry of The Senate. It’s anyone’s guess how that will ‘pan OUT’ this time
around...there are just too many variables – a veritable bookie’s paradise!

In my own safe-Liberal Seat of Mitchell in North-West Sydney I have already notified my
local MHR, Alex Hawke, that I won’t be voting for him. But neither would I give a first
preference vote to whomsoever are the Greens and Labor endorsed candidates for the Seat.
I most likely will “go my own way” and Vote: ‘NONE-of- the-ABOVE’ in the Lower House and
vote preferably below-the- line for 12 candidates in the Upper House, as I invariably always do.

In my role as the National Executive Director of a re-registering political party [The
REPUBLICAN PARTY of AUSTRALIA or RPA for short] I shall be ‘sitting this one OUT’ for the
first time in more than three decades. I shall especially look forward to analysing the end-
outcomes of this DD election post-2 July.

So, it’s a NON-EVENT up until and inclusive of federal election day, 2016. But it will be ‘game ON' in the aftermath.

Malcolm Turnbull was too smart-by- half in forcing through – expediently – the changes to
the Commonwealth Electoral Act this year and more specifically in abolishing the Group
Voting provisions of same apropos The Senate. The cunning-as- rats-Greens and the uber-
populist , stuntpersons of the Nick Xenophon Team connived with Turnbull but both these
minor parties are likely gainers and winners – the Liberals the losers in a pyrrhic victory; the
Senior Coalitionists of the Hung Parliament-of-Sorts.

Then again – from a pragmatic perspective – ALL political parties are and, indeed , must be
vested-interested, Win or Lose. NON-EVENTS are nonetheless Events!

Blog No 2 of 8 June, 2016...Writer: PETER CONSANDINE of The RPA

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Appointment of Peter FitzSimons as ARM Chair was a Mistake

Shortly after Peter FitzSimons (RB for short) delivered his first address to the National Press
Club (NPC) in August, 2015, a friend (Brian) wrote and asked me if I was going to “pack down
and push together with RB to get the Republic across the lime”?
I responded that, quote: “My early thinking is that RB may not have been the best
appointment as the [new] Chair of the ARM”.

To another friend (Fred) who wrote to me a few days later with, essentially, the same
enquiry, I was a fraction more expansive...I told Fred that I thought – from a positive
stand-point: “The ARM in ALL of its [then] 24 year history has never appointed a prominent
Australian female as Chair of the lobby group. I would, for starters, proffer two very
competent women Sarah Brasch and Alison Henry. Both have been active subordinate
officers of the ARM in the past. Either of them could have been selected”.

Going on 12 months into his Chairmanship of ARM, RB has – as a crowd-stirrer – brought
considerable momentum to The Cause. This was possible because (a) he had ‘duds’ as the
previous two Chairmen and (b) he was starting from a very low base. But, in his very ‘blokey’
style, RB has also brought considerable opprobrium to The Cause. In fact, it could be argued
that the ARM has possibly quintupled its membership whilst the nation-as- a-whole has
dramatically lost support for and interest in The Republic – if the proper analysis of the
February/March 2016 OmniPoll quantitative research is the yardstick.

Anyway, my first inclinations are correct. The time has come for a prominent Australian
female to head the ARM. The above-stated two women would or could be the ‘stepping-
stoners’. However, the likes of successful, indeed popular Australian women e.g. Geraldine
Doogue, Wendy McCarthy, Susan Ryan, Helen Irving, Di Yerbury, Chrissy Sharp and Lucy
Turnbull would and could, over a rather short elapsement of time, “win over” the women of
Australia – those hundreds of thousands who do not want to even consider a patriotic
change and who, very understandably, would prefer the adherence to the status quo over
some jingoistic, fraudulent, ANTIdemocratic, yobboish, ranting process as presented by RB.