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I don’t care what they say, one or two conservative poseurs, Italy’s new prime minister is far, far right. Memo to the ABC, BBC and the New York Times, one far is not enough. Sure, Giorgia Meloni (above) looks pleasant enough. But the rub is in her slogan. God, Fatherland, Family. Next, she’ll be putting Italy first and we know where that kind of sentiment led in the United States in 2016.
I bracket Signora Meloni with the likes of Trump, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán, and that Tony Abbott fellow. All believe in God or at the least pay due lip service. All are nationalists. All are family oriented. Another complete giveaway is that they are all committed to securing their nation’s borders.
Meloni wants to blockade boats carrying hundreds of thousands of Muslim economic refugees from Libya to Italy. Apparently 750,000 have come since 2015. And she’s not grateful for this offset to Italy’s low birth-rate! Gives a heightened meaning to the word ‘ingrate’.
Abbott of course – not to mention John Howard before him – inspired a lot of this unaccountable reluctance to embrace hordes of culturally-clashing illegal migrants. Turning back boats. And to boot, providing life-boats to turn back those who sank their own rickety boats in hopes of scoring warm blankets and hot chocolate on Australia’s shores. And, seductively, what Abbott can do, maybe we can do too, spread like a disease around the far, far right world. I assume it did anyway.
A recent intercessory prayer at my church condemned offshore detention of illegal migrants, another Abbott policy. So you can appreciate how sinful it is to control who comes into one’s country and the circumstances in which they come. Howard, take note.
Of course, it’s not sufficient to condemn the slogan of ‘God, nation and family’. We have to extol its polar opposite; its converse. Here you need to bear with the task because it is a moving goalpost in some respects. Ever-changing fads and fashions have to be respected.
It’s moot, but combatting climate change is currently a fitting replacement for God; more broadly Gaia has long-lasting application. Paganism stands in the wings for those who might yearn for a bit of spiritual uplifting from time to time; gods and goddesses of fire and water etc. Though simply nothingness; nihilism, if you will, has its merits.
The nation state has long since passed its use-by date. We are global citizens. The world is all of the motherland, the fatherland, the gender-bending land. We are one though we are many. As the anthem of that island continent presently referred to as Australia says, “For those who’ve come across the seas / We’ve boundless plains to share.”
Let the things of old pass away. As a global citizen you’ll be in the in the nurturing hands of Herr Schwab and his elite colleagues, Bill Gates et al, at the World Economic Forum (WEF). You will own nothing and be happy. Your digital and biological identity will be fused via the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Not happy about that? You’re a Neanderthal and Gates will sponsor the development of an injection to make you feel content.
Finally, the family as it was understood for millennia is old hat. Commonplace illicit sexual congress, marriage an optional extra in relationships, divorce on demand, abortions at will, they have all seriously undermined the institution. Now LGBTQ+ couplings and marriages have rather cooked its goose, so to speak. Time to move on.
The family, if the term is used at all, must now be understood fluidly. So, Paul Keating, ‘two blokes and a cocker spaniel’ really can a family make. And, moreover, any grouping of people can decide to call themselves a family, provided they realise that their real family is the global family of human beings. All for one and one for all, under benevolent global governance.
To sum up, to keep it simple: No God, no country, no family is the key to happiness and a powerful slogan to defeat the naked popularism of those who want to hold back progress towards an inevitable and bountiful future of human-to-human and human-to-nature harmony. WEF save our gracious world.
Daylight saving is so last century. Call north south and south north so the sun can rise in the west at last. Cancel all traditions.
Peter, years ago the anti-psychiatry movement produced David Cooper who wrote a small but influential book called ‘Death of the Family’. It was very popular in my university days in the nineteen sixties. Later, David Cooper suffered a psychiatric breakdown and guess what? He was cared for in the loving bosom of his sister and her husband and their family. And our own Germaine Greer, of those times so outspoken on ditching marriage and living in a commune in Tuscany with a handy local woman to do the cleaning – well, now Germaine, at eighty-three has come home to Australia to roost in the tender care of her brother and his family.
So families aren’t got rid of so easily. However, we are now seeing, as you outline, a very concerted effort to interfere in legal ways with traditional family formation. Parent One, and Parent Two, for example, and the idea of parent is likely to be next in line: we’ll be Caregiver One and Two before we know it, a very movable definition.
That said, I’ve just watched from our beachfront balcony on holidays in Rarotonga a small ‘destination’ family wedding take place. The participants had taken the time and expense to come from Australia to reinforce the meaning of the day, and were all of white anglo background. Tradies families, as they made clear from the speeches – the bride met her husband when he came to mend the dishwasher. Ten silk-swathed chairs on each side were placed near the water’s edge overlooking the lagoon reef for the ‘joining’ families as they watched their young ones offer the sort of vows of love they make these days. Everyone was wearing floral Polynesian hair bands of flowers (reminding me of those I saw all of the women of Stockholm wearing at midsommer some years ago). Guitars strummed with love songs as the walk down the ‘aisle’ started and the dad proudly offered his daughter into the care of another man. They exchanged rings. The ceremony was run by an older Polynesian man who declared his authority under Rarotongan law to join the couple, and whose introductory speech to them, while not deistic, was nevertheless in this firmly Christian island strong on duty, the seriousness of the vows and care for each other ‘even into your old age’, all based on joint love and trust. The old institution still seemed to have a lot of familial power going for it. It was lovely to see everyone decked in their Polynesian best doing the usuals and congregating afterwards for the photos – ‘come on Billy, you’re in this family too’ called out the mother-of-the-bride to a shyly bystanding fellow in his Hawaiian shirt who’d clearly come along as that special species, ‘a friend of the family’.
Homes
So long as there are homes to which men turn at close of day,
So long as there are homes where children are, and women stay,
If love and loyalty and faith be found across those sills,
A stricken nation can recover from its greatest ills.
So long as there are homes where fires burn, and there is bread,
So long as there are homes where lamps are lit, and prayers are said,
Although a people falter through the dark, and nations grope,
With God Himself back of these little homes we have sure hope.
(This was from the 1969 CWA Cookbook)
Fountain of wisdom the CWA.
Unfortunately, the Sydney – based head office has imposed a “welcome to country” at the commencement of each meeting, with singing of “God Save the Queen/King now an occasional relic.
We have just watched Michael Shellenburger on an app, ADHTV, online streaming from CPAC.
How much has changed for the good, when we can hear in the middle of the Pacific his words as they are spoken in Sydney, pushing the view of a need for a new stress by conservatives on abundance, and on love as a defining feature of human life (to follow on from the wedding above!), within a world created by energy security and improving technology. He outlined how so much of the so-called green movement’s peccadillos are actually counter-productive: that solar panels are becoming cheaper only because they are produced by slave labour, and that plastics should go to landfilled not recycling if they are shipped to the third world to end up in the oceans. He’s a liberal in a traditional sense in many ways, as he admits, but brings new thinking to nuclear and other energy policy matters. And he’s optimistic! Bravo.
Strange how, worldwide, the most brutal, despotic, oppressive, extremist governments are all left-wing or politically allied to the left (Iran), but a conservative Italian woman in charge is somehow a catastrophe. Ma que cosa!
Words mean different things in other countries, obviously. To help readers out, some Italian translations:
Far-right – any political ideas to the right of Mao.
Fascist – conservative
Conservative – anyone who prefers his country’s culture any time before 2016.
Far-left – centrist, moderate; Mao, for example.
Biology – let’s not go there.
Political misogyny – unwarranted contempt for a strong, independent female leader who speaks her mind, except if she is far-right (see above).
They say no to God, nation, and family because those things are external sources of responsibility and duty. Simply put, they hate being told what to do and want to place themselves at the centre.
So consequently they hate Christianity, hate the Australian nation, and hate you. Yet when I say this to people I get told that just because I disagree with people doesn’t mean they are evil or hate Australia. Spot the strawman.
Admittedly hate is a very strong word, but I can’t reconcile 750,000 illegal immigrants with anything other than a racist contempt for Italians. If that isn’t included in hate then what is it? Love for atheism, globalization, and narcissism?
Funny that the latte-left and their fellow travellers think 750000 illegals to Italy is OK, but object to a few hundred abandoned English boating to Australia, as it has become, in the late 1700s.
melb,
Stranger, now no more unknown,
Let my comfort be your own,
Friend, for whom my dwelling stands,
Take your joy from both my hands.
Love, for whom my hearth logs shine,
Fill your heart with peace from mine.
God, to whom we make our prayer,
Keep us warm within Thy care.
“Rhyme for a Fireplace”. In the Coronation Cookery Book, C.W.A., NSW Branch, 6th Edition, 1952.
Reading on, page 261:
“The host should give his right arm to the lady of highest rank and lead her to the dining room, and should be followed by the lady second in rank, and so on. The gentleman of highest rank should follow last with the hostess. When a case of precedence occurs in which either gentleman or lady must give way, the gentleman gives way to the lady.
A gentleman offers his right arm to a lady. The host should place the lady he takes in on his right hand at the bottom of the table and stand until all guests have taken their place.
Husbands and wives with their children should not sit near each other.”
……….
Back to the present, we have children reading tablets sprawled on the floor eating Maccas freestyle with parents variously on a bed or couch watching TV or with men sitting around the bar getting pissed and pizzaed. How etiquette and the art of conversation has changed in 70 years. Geoff S
Geoff, may the warmth of your CWA 1952 cookbook flow to your family as our 1969 version has to us. Ours was a gift from my dad back then along with a Golden Wattle and a teapot that could pour without dripping.
The National Anthem of Australia is an evolving work-in-progess. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Australia_Fair
As to the rest of Peter Smith’s dissertation, rant, or call-it-what-you-will, I would quote the words of the Immortal Bard as the most fitting and suitable: “So have I heard and do in part believe it.” (Hamlet, Act 1, Sc 1.)
Smith’s case as set out above is so compelling that I do in part agree with it.
As regards fascism, the article by Henry Ergas in this weekend’s Australian is very well worth reading.
I’ve got no idea how you can put up with leftist politics in Church, Peter. I’ve not gone for years due to the lack of conservative values being preached in what you would think would be the heart of conservative thought.
Ian, all you need now is a good lay down , then you’ll be in lock step!
Nowadays many churches worship a woke, social justice empowering Jesus where his sermons might begin with something inclusive like:
“Before I begin I would like to acknowledge the Canaanites as the original inhabitants of this land”.
Yes, I like that John!
Or “We acknowledge the traditional owners: the Packer and Murdoch families…”
Oh John, your being naughty.
You’re
There is of course a biological basis for the web of close relationships created biologically in the nuclear family. Or, as my mother used to say, “blood is thicker than water”. However biology is now contra-indicated in favour of ideology aka wishful thinking. And, as we have seen during the last two years, plausibility is now much preferred to scientific evidence. Anything that sounds good to the average pea-brain is their ‘truth’ and must be respected. “What is truth?” asked Pontius Pilate, prophetically, not waiting to hear the answer.. The big challenge here in Victoria is to try to persuade people not to vote for the pseudo-Neanderthal currently in charge.
Yet another illustration that voters will support a party espousing main-stream values. In the recent Australian federal election we’ve seen what voters think of a party that tries to be Labor-lite. What part of this don’t the Liberal party understand?
What part of the Liberal routing in WA at the last State election did the federal Libs not understand?
In reply to Ian Mackenzie.
Labor were elected and they campaigned as Liberal lite. The Coalition lost and they campaigned as Labor lite.
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Neither major party advanced our democracy. In fact this small target campaigning undermines our democracy. It prevents new policies being developed and debated while a party is in opposition when policies can be modified, improved and gain acceptance following constructive feedback from public debate.
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The approach prevents governments being held to account by an opposition promoting improved policies rather than simply looking for gotcha moments. That’s Peter Dutton’s main approach now: to look for gotcha moments.
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With this small target lite approach by both major parties we aren’t given a real choice. And we aren’t given any real leadership.
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Labor won the election because they played the small target lite card better than the Coalition played the lite Labor card. Neither major party showed any real leadership during the campaign and they both paid the price. The primary vote of the Coalition and the primary Labor vote were actually reduced.
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The Coalition’s vote was reduced to a 70 year low. That’s why they lost. But the Dutton lite opposition has managed to reduce the vote even further!
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Peter Dutton is incapable of winning an election being who he really is. And he certainly won’t win an election being who he isn’t. A lite Peter Dutton will take the Coalition to a real thrashing where many more “safe” seats will be lost, resulting in decimation of the Coalition.
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Expect Labor to remain in office as long as Peter Dutton is opposition leader. Two maybe three or four terms. That’s why the left media are going easy on him personally. They’re very happy for him to lead the Coalition.
Yes BO; someone once said to me that a political party has principles, policies and tactics.
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If a party hasn’t got the first two, it is bad for it and bad for us.
If you don’t think the left media are going easy on Peter Dutton have a look at the recent ABC Four Corners program on him.
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And think if you can ever recall someone like Tony Abbott being treated as even-handedly by the left of centre media.
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Yet Tony Abbott was good enough to win resoundingly even with the way he was treated.
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Peter Dutton isn’t even a pale shadow of Tony Abbott. That’s why the left media is going easy on him. He’ll never win an election for the Coalition. And they know it.
The credo now is as John Lennon wrote in his 1972 song “Imagine”.
Imagine there’s no countries
And no religion, too
Imagine no possessions
A brotherhood of man
What I find at once most amusing and most tragic about the atheistic woke left is their espoused fawning acolytes’ signal inability to accept that whatever else is or may be thought to be true, whatever ‘gender’ may be thought to be, whatever reality they may seek to recreate through their postmodern comic obsession with politically correct pronouns, indigenous lip service and reframing of basic terms such as ‘husband’ and ‘wife’, God, who made all things, even them and the theatre of creation they exist in, had the first word, by which He breathed the world into existence, and He will have the last word. One day, the scoffers who mock God and all that He holds dear, will suffer the penalty of judgment and eternal destruction. God will not be mocked. And so the scoffers and the mockers will be severely judged on this side of Heaven too. When we accept God, who is the one and only truth, only blessing follows. But reject God and refuse to take Him at His word, and He walks away from us; we lose His protection. To such people, God says, “Your will be done.” He “gives us up”. The West is, as we know, in the death throes of a vast social experiment premised on the rejection of God and anything worthwhile, for example, human life and the family. From where I’m sitting, that experiment is not working out too well. We are experiencing Parkinson’s Law in mental health: the work of mental health practitioners is expanding to fill the ever increasing number of people whose mental health needs professional help. Nor will it end well. As a society, Paul summed up our collective and individual error in one sentence: we have “exchanged the truth about God for a lie” (Romans 1:25). The West is morally and spiritually bankrupt, and we have only just begun to reap the bitter harvest. “Climate change” (née “Global warming”) nut-jobs regard drought as our worst calamity. For many, it is. Drought brings famine and untold suffering. But they fail to see that there are far worse calamities than hunger for food and thirst for water. We are experiencing a ‘famine of God’s word’ in public life, in our legislatures, in our schools and in our homes; even in some of our churches! A godless academy and a godless media are just givens. But one thing is clear. This fatally flawed path the West is on is not going to end well, unless a silent majority turns the tide and, with God’s help, we turn back to Him. The Bible is replete with the history and disposition of people and nations who neglected and rejected God. It never ended well. Like the Saul of the Old Testament, the West is “playing the fool”. If we don’t want that to be our epitaph, then, like the other Saul of the Bible (who became Paul), we need to turn back to God, and run the race set before us as God intended. That’s my prayer for us as a people, and a nation.
I’m retired with too much time on my hands and this morning before reading this article I watched this video on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCy96-fkrWA
It’s from Dave Rubin and features a black American Professor speaking inanely about cultural appropriation. There he is sitting comfortably in a Saville Row style Suite and tie destroying his own argument completely by appropriating British culture.
It’s amazing how unwoke the woke actually are!
At last the small target Peter Dutton has found something he can really get his teeth into.
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He’s been relatively silent on the economy, the serious inflation threat and most of what the Albanese government has been doing. And when he’s had something to say he’s usually expressing a fence-sitting view or agreeing with Labor. And there’s a lot he could be criticising Labor for, particularly on the inflation threat.
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So what is the national Coalition Labor lite leader suddenly so vocal on and so forthright in his view on? He’s calling for the Essendon Australian Rules Football club to reinstate it’s leader who resigned after only a day or so in the job.