To most Australians today is a time to reflect on how good it is to be Australian. To others, the left wing, it is a day to
denigrate with
snide comments and undergrad humour all that we stand for.
Others, like Club Troppo, have an interesting thread on ‘
What we are best at ‘ that is worth the look and conversely there has been a lot of dicussion about the Aussie flag at the Big Day Out music fests. For some reason, unclear to me, comments have centred on the flag and not the bearer.
Ban the Flag has been the cry when it shouldv’e been
Ban the Thugs using the flag for nefarious purposes.
Australia Day also brings out the
Change the Flag mob. Suggestions include the Eureka Flag long lowered in currency by the BWF and a host of
Sorry contenders wanting Indigenous motifs at the masthead…you know, the
Invasion Day mob.
Our flag has flown over our building and barracks for well over a century now and I see no reason to change it. It appears to me that all advocates of change have political agendas that deny our history or denigrate it. They want a new flag because they hate the British or want it to represent a very small minority of the nation by having it adorned with indigenous motiffs.
Not reason enough for me.
I read the
Australian Days Honours List with interest. I note Brigadier John Graham CALIGARI DSC, Qld. has been awarded the AM for Command and senior army staff appointments. I first met John when his father Barry was the Commanding Officer of 1RAR and John was a brand new lieutenant. He went on to command the Battalion completing a rare father and son act. Even then the thought that one day he would be in the Honours list would not have surprised me.
Even though I smell a touch of political expediency and currency in
Tim Flannery’s appointment as Australian of the Year I look forward to a more prolific debate on the environment. I don’t subscribe to the alarmist statements being peddled by extreme environmentalists but recognize adjustments are needed. I think Gore’s offerings are more theatre than fact and if the answer is Kyoto then someone had put the question poorly. Neither am I a fan of Flannery’s evangelistic preaching of the new gospel of the Global Warming Church of the Latter Day Alarmists but, as I say, debate is needed.
Tim starts his year in the hot seat attacking Howard’s Water Management plan, particularly encouraging more agriculture in the north’s more wetter climes;
“But it seems reasonably well established now that the additional rainfall we’re getting across northern Australia is not caused by global warming – it’s caused by industrial particulate pollution in Asia, so that (is the) smog haze that they get across Asia.
Even if the monsoons are effected by
industrial particulate pollution in Asia they are still monsoonal and encouraging agriculture in a wet climate must have some merit.
Like most Australians I’m a skeptic, a patriot and I like our flag and if you have issues with any of that I feel sorry for you.
Enjoy your day Australia and don’t forget others a long way from home.
Australia Day celebrations at Headquarters Joint Task Force 633 in Baghdad (L-R): Lieutenant Commander Petrus Jonker, Lieutenant Timonthy Minion, Corporal Krissy Dalton, Flight Lieutenant Glenda Preston, Lieutenant Kristen Leydon, Squadron Leader Tharron Kingston-Lee, Corporal Peter Herbert and Leading Aircraftman Aaron Beavington.
Facebook
Twitter
re the “ban the flag” bit, It always looked like a commercial decision – try to exclude a small group of thugs through a really stupid act of censorship rather than hire adequate security.
re “change the flag”, I lean towards sticking with the current one for 2 main reasons, 1. longstanding tradition, and 2. the odds are good that whatever replaced the current one would look more like a logo than a flag.
Good stuff as always Kev.
About the flag – if we have a vote we’d stuff it up just like the anthem.
I recall that vote.
it was for NATIONAL TUNE – not song.
Waltzing Matilda should have won hands down but people didn’t like the words, so we ended up with Advance – not really as stirring as hearing Waltzing Matilda. It is interesting to note that at the time I was was living near the Murray River, and the local Shepparton TV station played Waltzing Matilda to a different set of words – I thought it would have made an excellent anthem.
Anyway what’s wrong with the current flag?
And I too was amazed at the young people going around with the Aussie flag. We were at the local pub, on the balcony and there were cars driving past with the flag plastered all over them.
And they are all young people. It really surprised me – the way the young have embraced the flag.
It’s a good thing I think
Just my 2c worth:
I have always associated the ban-the-flag movement with being an instance of ban-the-inanimate-object movement that seeks to deny the efficacy and importance of individual human choice. Attacks on gun ownership fall into the same category. The more that blame can be placed on inanimate objects and systems that ‘allow’ the objects to be possessed, the more that blame for wrongful action can be removed from reference to people’s moral choices and onto ‘social systems’ that we are then exhorted to let be taken over by the social (socialist) engineers.
Of course, each ban-the-X movement has its own additional purposes. For the flag, it is a symbol of a past history of private property, mutual respect for individual rights, and the right to pick and choose our own mates, and defend our mates, when and how we see fit. They are not attacking it on nationalist grounds per se, not even racist grounds, but the _content_ of the culture of our particular nation, because that too gets in the way of their social agendas. Bans on other flags were either a cover for that motive or were more instances of the same motive as applied to the contents of those other national cultures (especially the USA, GB, and Israel).
JJM