Sort of a Rant – sillysocksonfriday

Topsy turvy world

The words lebensraum and Anschluss probably have little significance for today’s world. They were clearly announced in Hitler’s book Mein Kampff.

In the 1930’s the militarisation of the Rhineland occupation of the Ruhr, occupation of Sudetenland, Bohemia and Moravia, annexation of Austria and invasion of Poland were justified by the desire to unite German speaking people, a need for resources, a desire to expand or gain back former land, and extreme nationalism.

They were unilateral incursions by superior military forces driven by ruthless politicians

90 years later, with MAGA we have seen:

the unilateral renaming of the Gulf of Mexico
Kristalnacht scenes of the apprehension, removal and incarceration of people within US cities by jackbooted troops;
the bombing of Iran
the obliteration of boats in international waters
the kidnapping of a Head of State and his wife and
the capture of an oil tanker under a Russian flag.
Threats of further action against Iran, Cuba, Colombia and Greenland have been made with impunity.

In fact, these acts have been owned with pride and self righteousness.

The two images that loom in my head are a schoolyard bully and Adolph Hitler.

These actions by the supposed leader of Western civilisation can only be seen as ‘legitimising‘ Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and lending justification to China’s invasion of Taiwan.

Guess who doesn’t give a toss?

Congress won’t check him; a few judges may rule his actions illegal in the dim and distant future…ho, hum!

Again Caligula comes to mind … initially welcomed, he reversed treason trials and brought back exiles but descended into despotism, executing rivals, squandering funds, and demanding worship, leading to his assassination by his own guards.

What next? Domestic acclaim and a stunned silence from allies and neighbours (cowed by threats of invasion?) could lead to increasingly brazen and rash acts.

Greenland to be the new 51st state, Canada to be the 52nd ….. why not Mexico as the 54th? Heyy!! Why not all of the Americas…??

Oh yeah, the other one who comes to mind is Kim Jong Un, and Vladimir of course

Awake!

The Bondi Beach massacre gave rise to a number of raw thoughts.

Can indiscriminate massacre in a peaceful community be justified by the claim of retaliation for people killed in retaliatory attacks on soldiers within a community?
Will the hero, who may well be a Moslem, be safe in Australia?
How long before vigilantism rears its ugly head?
Surely this will see a swing to the right, with more following Barnaby Joyce’s direction?
Will the right to keep and bear arms become of political moment?
I thought Netanyahu’s accusation against the Australian government was spot-on!

“Your government did nothing to stop the spread of antisemitism in Australia. You did nothing to curb the cancer cells that were growing inside your country. You took no action. You let the disease spread and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today.”

On a slightly different theme, I was irritated to see the soberly dressed morning show talking heads at the murder scene. Somehow, vultures came to mind. Virtue signalling and looking for gobbets of human pathos are not really what journalists should do.

Not a word yet from Coalition or right wing pollies: too afraid to grasp the nettle.

This is their opportunity to show up the woke, weak Albaanese government for the weak and ineffective leaders they are!

I can almost hear their twittering: “you go first, no it should be you,…. but what shall we say…..”

AAaaarghhh!!

We need someone to speak clearly and simply:

no more refugees or immigrants from Palestine and Sudan, no more potential supporters of radical Islam
get tough on youth crime
stop the mad stampede into renewables
stop buying votes with rebates

Men are qualified for civil liberty, in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. . . . Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

The debilitating effect of false sympathy, created by a misguided education

Edmund Burke “A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly”

Ja nee

Lulu got swooped by a butcher bird the other day; it clipped her bum and she leapt away. Quite funny, until it had a go at me..!

Magpies and kiewiets/plovers also get huffy. Being strafed while cycling is not amusing.

My Auntie Bunty said it was very frightening when it was a German bomber doing the strafing, which happened to her in WW2. Obviously they missed, as she told us the story.

It’s going to be one of those days with bits and pieces.

Such a moment in time, when the world makes kiss kiss to that awful orange man. Peace in Gaza was inevitable, there was nothing left. The Donald’s timing enabled him to claim the glory, but he was really only the final straw.

Let him crack the hard nut of the Ukraine and I will echo his own nomination for the Nobel Peace prize

These are quotes from stuff I have been reading lately. Hope they titillate your fancies.

“Journalism largely consists in saying ‘Lord Jones is dead’ to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive.” –G.K. Chesterton

“There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.” Umberto Eco

All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

George Orwell

“The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

Margaret Thatcher

… the Internet will bring about Idiocracy

Trump ….”tribalist, kleptocratic, authoritarian cultural imperialist? “

” He cares about getting rich, persecuting his enemies, and eliminating threats to his own power—just like his Middle Eastern counterparts do. “

Nick Catoggio

A hit dog will holler.

“Anyone who calls us authoritarian is going to prison,”

“If you can’t call fascists fascists, then the fascists have won.”

Democracy insists upon enfranchising the ignoramuses, who also get a vote on any number of other issues about which they know little or nothing. Two cheers for democracy and all that.

United States and China are firmly locked in a cold war struggle whose outcome will be the most important determinant of peace, prosperity, and quality of life in international politics over the next decade.

The second half of this decade is set to be a critical inflection point in this contest.

Stephen Weber, Cold War Statecraft for the 2020s

We would be better off if we did a little bit more work understanding what people actually think (and why) rather than inventing arguments that are designed to make us feel virtuous in comparison.

Kevin D Williamson TMD 24 Oct ’25

He was talking up the Ideological Turing Test which he believes will help us all avoid unsubstantiated sentimental pronouncements about others’ arguments.

Hope that stimulates some thought, sorry it’s so serious…

WTF?

I suppose that I could have written the full words. But, I doubt that the internet censors are as civilised as the US President.

There were almost as many headlines about the Trumpeted expletive as there were about whether World War III had started or ended in just 12 days.

My values must be from another age: I cringe when I see Heads of State return salutes of uniformed military personnel. A red baseball cap with a slogan does not compliment a business suit. It probably resonates with younger generations, so whatever?

(Why does he wear a tie for goodness sake? – maybe I should send him my blog on Silly Socks campaigns?)

What really did irk was the frivolous dance and sham theatrics of powerful nations with lethal munitions as props.

Trump stamped his foot and uttered a profanity because his Trumphant plan was spoilt.

Iran, with the largest military force in the Middle East, pre-warned the US of its missile attack! This allowed a total defence to the attack. The Iranian government could report their military audacity to its populace (blinded and deafened without internet and tv). Everyone quickly fell into line.

Now there is doubt over the effectiveness of the strike on Iran’s nuclear armament bunkers – looks like it was all for nought. WTF! Was it all a sham show?

That’ll really pee off the Donald! He’ll look like a right banana! Tee hee!

Will he bomb any new Iranian nuclear facilities? What about the 400 kg of enriched uranium that reportedly eluded the big bang?

Nuclear enrichment elimination was his stated intention. Might become too murky and involved for his liking.Maybe TACO is a good plan B?

No one has said anything about that other cream cracker’s offer to give Iran a few ready made bombs from his ample stocks in North Korea. Is there was any other person more deserving of a bunker bomb or two?

Now we have the NATO conference, where nearly everybody will rush in to kiss Trump’s ring, as if he was a bishop. They will pledge huge increases to their military budgets and the military industrial complex conundrum will rise again.

The political pendulum will be dragged right and war will become a way of life for many for years to come.

What is your call? Will Russia really invade Lithuania as is rumoured?

Will India and Pakistan again rumble or maybe India and China or China and China or Cambodia and Thailand?

Plenty of scope for armament sales for years to come … now that’s a strong basis for re-industrialiation of the mid-West Rust belt.

Think of all the problems resolved by revitalised economies, national service and the perpetuation of western civilisation…

Sorry, got a bit carried away….

I must confess to mixed feelings, again.

I am glad that clear and potent action has been taken to stop Iran’s nuclear kabuki which the world has tolerated for so long. Now that door has been kicked down once, it can be kicked down again.

Iran can read from that lesson that its sponsorship of terrorism in the Middle East and beyond must end. Others will pay attention.

Uncontrolled immigration and the delicate treatment of refugees and illegal immigrants needs the strong treatment.

Burgeoning and entrenched bureaucracies, DEI policies and Woke tactics need to be eviscerated.

Trump is doing the hard yards with these things- not very delicately, but WTF!

How can you hate somebody but like what they’re trying to do?

Paying us with our own credit card

We choose government representatives. They decide how much money to collect from us. They also determine how to spend it for our benefit.

We expect them to be honest, disciplined, anticipatory and prudent.

We expect them to spend only what they can collect.

Without fear, favour or prejudice.

Just before an election the current Australian government is paying more money to every household.

It will have to borrow money to do so.

Is it trying to persuade us it is a good government by paying us money that we will have to pay back?

Well, Jim Horner, that is our pie and our plum – you are not a good boy!

If the people re-elect this government, they deserve what they will have to pay for.

In the future, more will have to be spent on government debt than on services to the people.

This has go to stop!

Pastoral

Nevil Shute wrote a love story between an RAF Pilot Officer and a Section Officer in the Womens’ Auxiliary Air Force in World War 2.

He distils the stress and strain during war on lives in a socially divided society. The encounter, enchantment and engagement are all repressed by social convention. Subterfuge had to be employed to discover names and first names were only used after the second ‘date’.

It is all very distressingly proper and restrained. It was not done to be seen together unaccompanied by others: “…. good WAAF officers did not contract relationships with young men on their own station.”

It was the two world wars which radically re-defined social conventions in the western world, particularly in Britain. Working class men showed they could fly, lead and fight just as well as the upper classes, as did foreigners and colonials and they could not be denied entry into officer ranks.

Women stepped out of the domestic and secretarial world and made huge incursions into previously male-only worlds, performing, surprisingly to men, very well.

Once a door has been opened, it is nigh impossible to shut … right Hodor?

These societal changes occurred during savagely destructive warfare, with death just another sunset away for many.

The demands for further changes to society structures and institutions have continued with the woke demands to re-define history, condemn iconic leaders for new-found blemishes, deny platforms to opposing views and tolerate deviances in those deemed to be historical victims.

In an astounding re-definition of apartheid, instead of identity being disregarded as a basis of distinction, it has become the basis for societal status with some requiring exaggerated preferment and others exclusion and condemnation.

The impacts of this woke wave of change have seen Europe and the US swamped with unchecked millions of African, Arab and Latin refugees and immigrants from former colonies. Gone are the days that countries can deny entry to other than formal applicants through proper channels.

You can’t say no to a refugee or return them to their country of birth.

So we in the West are left with a different society, highly stratified and diverse with greater welfare expectations and minimal political principle to withstand changes demanded by social media.

Authoritarian regimes who enforce societal compliance will rise and dominate the world. Sharia law and Social Credit sytems will become the order of the day.

They will halt the woke erosion, by Diktat and gulag!

Just a splatter of thoughts…

I have no drive to develop and blurt out emotions about the current state of affairs, but will perhaps just mention a few things that gave pause for thought.

“Loot” by Tania James is a book centred on Tipu Sahib a fierce but progressive Rajah of late 18th Century India. “Better to live 2 days as a tiger than 200 years as a sheep.”

When his son asked his mother which was he: a tiger or a sheep, she replied “neither: you are a boy”.

I also took a sidestep; I am an old man.

“We are here because you were there” is a piercing retort to those who object to too many Indians in the UK. That is another clear battlefield in the World Woke War!

There are many current issues where one side controls the narrative, and the other is intimidated into silence – making a topic ‘taboo’ is an ideological weapon. Speak the truth while you still can.

JP of course!

A new woke war cry has clearly been heeded, gender-based health inequity; although how it came to exist, if it really does, is incredible. The far greater majority of medical practitioners are females – I defy those who say they are so feeble as to allow such a state of affairs.

The Queensland government has clearly drunk the Kool Aid – it has devoted $249 million in its budget to address the problem!

There is another woke battlefield: the virtue of vegan:

The world’s top food delivery services are failing to implement strategies to reduce meat and dairy consumption, despite the climate emergency.

There is a lot of “I” in this piece. but they are my thoughts…

Kamala did quite well against Donald, I thought. He seemed a bit old, which I haven’t thought before.

Glad the Olimpics are all over, there is such a thing as too much gush…

Sorry to see Bill Shorten go. I mean I didn’t like what he usually stood for, but he was a competent hard pollie with a real backbone; certainly preferable to Albogreasy…

I saw a cane toad this morning: summer is here.

Crime does pay

Criminals and wrongdoers will be somewhat chagrined (polite version of pissed off).

Why? – because they are not the ones getting the money – the Government does.

What’s more, we the public pay without a squeal!

Every third year on 1 July, there is a blanket increase of the value(?) of a penalty point, called indexation, which means of course, that the Government gets more money, so crime pays.

Fines are standardised by the allocation of penalty points e.g. not controlling your dog in a public place costs 5 penalty points.

One penalty point is now A$161, up from A$154 (4.2%); CPI is only 3.8% over the same period.

Dear me, inflation is terrible, yet Government continues to find ways to maintain the flow of money paid by us all. Without lifting a finger or risking public debate in Parliament. Such a cunning trick to ensure its revenues are maintained.

Like Justice, these increases are blind – they do not take into account whether there has been an increase or decrease in offending or whether the penalties deter or eliminate crime.

In fact, it appears that the number of offences detected on camera for every 1,000 vehicles has reduced. “This is a promising sign of changing driver behaviour.”

Yet the penalty amounts increase!

The state government forecast its Camera Detected Offence Program (CDOP) would bring in $465.8 million in revenue in 2023 financial year — up nearly 70 per cent on the $274.5 million collected in 2021-22.

Yet the then minister stated “Research tells us that CDOP was associated with a reduction of 897 casualty crashes in 2020 and 1191 casualty crashes in 2021,”

From next financial year, the government forecasts CDOP revenue of $503.5 million – the equivalent of $1.37 million per day!!

What started me of on this theme was recently the penalty for allowing one’s dog to walk unleashed in a public place increased from $322 to $806!

Why ?

I really don’t want to get started on how governments control its citizens by making them criminals or government ingenuity on extracting money.

To me it’s simple: if you don’t control your dog adequately, you will be warned. If it happens again your dog will be destroyed.

If you drive without a seat belt, in excess of speed limits, using a phone, or go through traffic lights, you will be warned. Next time your licence is cancelled. Third time – you go to gaol.

Offences will dry up quick time. But so will revenue…

Is that likely to happen? Yeah, right!

Why Do People Avoid Thinking About Serious Stuff?

… look away now if you’re not up for it

Not everyone does a lot of contemplation … when asked to elaborate … they are forced to parrot whatever echo chamber to which they subscribe. I blame the schools, all of them.

We are a culture of people who would rather be distracted than confront real issues, and we shy away from acknowledging problems because if we actually notice them we’d have to work to fix them.

My dream is that we find a way to incorporate critical thinking into the education system. Not only would we encounter people capable of having an intelligent conversation, we’d be more likely to hold politicians, business people, and everyone else accountable for their decisions and what they advocate. Imagine a return to fact-based decision making!

If the success of religions since the dawn of civilizations taught us anything, it is that most people are terrible at thinking independently and would much rather be told what to believe, think and do.

Most people don’t talk about deep stuff because they are shallow. They are shallow because they were never challenged properly as children to develop their critical thinking faculties. Children are constantly told to shut up and listen or else. Hence followers are manufactured in the home.

It’s a cycle that won’t be broken until someone brings forth a functioning model that provides working methods for existing damaged people to inadvertently not damage their children.

Once you’re raised to follow, you can’t listen to the truth because it forces you to violate your dependency on others which is now hardwired into your brain for survival. Hence the prevalence of dominance hierarchies.

These are responses on Reddit to the title question, not my words, although they resonate with me

How red is my neck?

The Altemeyer RWA scale measures right wing authoritarianism. I was curious so did the test. Now write down what you think I scored.

(22 is minimum and 198 is max).

I will tell you my score at the end of the blog.

Is compromise good or bad?

In a long ago industrial relations training session I was mildly scorned as I maintained compromise should be the realistic and most pragmatic outcome. Society in South Africa at the time generally endured an authoritarian regime and was engaged in a national power struggle .

Compromise seems to have an undesirable reputation and various negative meanings and circumstances attach to it. But in the context of bargaining I still firmly believe it is a better solution than total victory, unless the relationship is broken beyond repair.

That is because each party gets something, admittedly not what was desired but enough. If one can widen scope from total victory to partial victory then a solution is possible.

Of course, the degree of antagonism means that compromise solutions are difficult.

But that is what must prevail in Ukraine and Gaza as the degree of antagonism is reduced by the grief and loss felt by both warring countries. Sadly the latter seems to be spiralling out of control as fringe participants step up their antagonisms.

Both these regions existed for centuries in relative harmonies before borders became so darkly drawn on maps.

My RWA score was 33! Even I was surprised!

A call to take up inoffensive weapons in a global campaign … (woke speech)

The time has come, as the Walrus said, to think of other things.
The organisation / association / school of which I am proud & happy to have been a part for over a decade, has decided to broaden its campaign.

It has been accepted that the global campaign against neckties has had some impact. Sympathisers have increased awareness that tying decorated strips of cloth around one’s neck is folly and a clear symbol of submission to the yoke of ridiculous convention.

I attended a seminar in the city recently. It was depressing: I had to seek guidance on how to access the lift – there were 6, with no buttons. One had to mechanically alert a console in the foyer as to one’s destination & it advised which lift would convey you. The damn thing had only a clock & an alarm bell & took me straight to floor 20 without stopping.

Even worse were the attendees: 90/100 uniformly attired in black; decorative nooses tightly wound around male necks & jackets buttoned …. slightly amused at my grey flannel slacks and cardigan, politely ignoring my lack of necktie.

All I could think of was urban clones. The lawyers who adressed us, could have been brother and sisters, raised by a Sergeant Major! I am so glad I don’t work in the city!! The campaign has a loong way to go.

The Israelis, those clever industrious aggressive people, who are the best national example of a general rejection of that corporate noose, are not doing well with PR at the moment though!

So, a different campaign, a strategic feint, is considered appropriate to garner fresh attention,

Being easy going, we understand the courage and daring involved in resistance. The Man is mean, unreasonable and unrelenting – a challenge of this nature is likely to invite institutional condemnation from up high.
The Man, who has tolerated this absurdity for many years, will have to admit his own folly to recant.

That is hard and would attract labels such as radical, liberal and, horror of horrors, may risk refusal of entry to the Club! So any challenge will be stifled.

Of course, women do not have to comply – that is discriminatory; but don’t tell a lawyer that, there will be an answer. Perhaps men should wear skirts to work – they could call them kilts …hmmm!

Take courage, talk about it, debate it, defend it, attack it!

We still believe wearing silly socks can bring about a gradual erosion of urban uniform mentality.

Start on Fridays & spread the word; encourage participation, praise creativity. It cannot be faulted (it is underwear , after all)

To socks, to socks!

This is a re-post of a very early (slightly edited) blog published on 28 July 2006