ROMULUS IS NOT MY FATHER

by James Reed
Professor Raimond Gaita is professor of moral philosophy at King's College, University of London and professor of philosophy at the Australian Catholic University. He is the author of the book "Romulus, My Father", which has been made into a major film starring actor Eric Bana (who has also played Bruce Benner in the Marvel Comic film "Hulk").

Gaita has recently said in an article inn The Australian (4/7/07 pp.24-25) that "one of philosophy's primary tasks in public discussion is to be an uncompromisingly sever judge of intellectual laziness." That being so, let us take a philosophical look at "Romulus My Father".
As one critic put it in the review: "The immigrant experience underpins this tragic story of a fractured childhood." Gaita tells the story of his immigrant parents. His father's wife Christina leaves Romulus for his best friend. The book and film takes us through the tragic twists and turns of this family. The impression left in my mind - and this could be my own reader's bias - is that Australian culture somehow is responsible, at least in part for at least some of the family's plight. This has become something of a literary genre.

If this interpretation is right, I say that this is utter nonsense. The post war migrants were fortunate indeed to have been let into this country. Most of them have done well in Australia. As well, I say: there is nothing specially sad about the tragedies described in "Romulus, My Father". Tragic for young Raimond, yes - but not exceptionally so. In my own family and circle of people I have known, I have experienced or know someone who has experienced, worse.

For example, my best friend had a son who was the type of son any man could wish for. He was happily married at age 24 with three young children and a beautiful wife. One day he was killed in a hit and run accident. The funeral was attended by an enormous number of people - most could not be seated. His young wife collapsed on her knees by his coffin and kissed it as she said goodbye. She raised the children alone. She never married and still mourns for her husband. The film "Titanic" made $1 billion out of those sort of emotions, but it is present in our own experiences.

I have known old timers who fought in most of the major battles of the 20th century. Men who were gassed in the trenches during World War I and suffered the trauma until they died. Men who cried out at night; men who could never get the sound of battle out of their ears. But they worked on, until their death, with no complaint, no psychologist and no film made about their suffering. I ask: who speaks for them? Who writes for them?

The story of the Anglo-Saxon suffering that built this nation on sweat and blood is being forgotten. Today all that counts in the literary world is the migrant experience. But, it needs to be "deconstructed", just as their intellectuals have "deconstructed" our life. If the aim of philosophy in the wider sense is to encourage the critical examination of core assumptions of our ideology, then Australia sorely needs "philosophy".

DID OUR DIGGERS DIE FOR THIS?

by James Reed
The Australian soldiers who went off to fight in World War II, largely against the Japanese, did not want to see Australia
become an Asian colony. Yet today that seems to be happening. Consider John Howard's seat of Bennelong, once an Anglo-Saxon one. The number of non-English speakers is 36.3 per cent and over half of Bennelong (58.8 per cent) were either born overseas or have parents that were. In the future, diversity breeds more diversity, until a new homogeneity - 100 % Asian occurs. What is true for one city is in principle true for all. That is how a nation changes.

Criticisms of immigration seldom appear in our newspapers. Lionel Shriver "Turn of the Native," The Australian: Literary Review 6/6/07 pp.7-8) has come close to raising a concern : "[There] may be a psychological tipping point at which even initially kind, broad-minded populations start to feel overrun. When a Host country's people no longer feel visited but invaded, big, scary emotions come into play, emotions little different from those of a homeowner whose house is being burgled."

I would add to this metaphor, that the "burglar" has long kicked the homeowner on the street and the system, with its ideology of hatred of tradition stands ready to punish any who object. Shriver cites an example from America of a ranging family in New Mexico whose range has a border with Mexico. Each day 500 illegal immigrants cross the land.
This includes drug smugglers and armed "coyotes". And "having been held up more than once, the ranchers are fearful every time they walk out the door, and have written off whole tracts of their own property as too dangerous to set foot on."

I fail to see how my suggested augmented metaphor is inappropriate. The situation is well known to officials who allow it to happen because one of the benefits of immigration is cheap labour for the furnaces of capitalism.

OUR SOCIAL DECLINE : PROSTITUTING YOUTH

by James Reed
Although attention has been finally directed towards the shocking sexual abuse of Aboriginal children, let us not forget that White children are also being sexually exploited. In Adelaide and other cities, children as young as 13 and possibly younger, have been working as prostitutes on the streets and sometimes in brothels. ("Prostitutes as Young as 13 on the Streets", The Advertiser 25/6/07 p.1.)

This is a clear indication of the social decay of our society and our descent into a dark age. It makes a mockery of the economic reductionist claim that all is well with Australia because the economy is 'bubbling along'. These economists, clearly, seldom walk the streets after dark.

WATCHING BRITAIN BURN

by James Reed
Terror alert and fear grips the media again as the members of a British plot to unleash a wave of car bomb attacks across Britain are captured. Articles appear in our press warning of up to 3000 young home-grown terrorists that could become radicalised in Australia. Analyses are published telling us that "Islam Must face Its Uncomfortable Truths" (The Australian 3/7/07 p.12). But the problem is much deeper than that.

An article in the UK International Express (26/6/07 pp.24-25) "Destination Slough" says that Slough in Berkshire is struggling to cope with a flood of immigrants. The sub-headline says: "As the government admits immigration is out of control, racial tensions grow in the Berkshire town where 80 languages are spoken and a quarter of the population have come from abroad." Books such as Mark Steyn's "America Alone: The End of the World As We know It" (2006) are right to see radical Islam as a major threat to the West. But it is only part of a major general immigration led disaster.

The UK Department of Education has just released figures showing that in London primary schools, 53.4 per cent of students do not use English as their main language. In secondary schools the figure drops slightly to 49.3 per cent. These sorts of statistics are replicated across the country. No nation can survive the type of chaos caused by the undermining of a common language.

Thus the British government's commission on the future of a "Multiethnic Britain" has rejected the concept of "Britishness" itself and advocates that British history be "revised, rethought, or jettisoned". They call it multiculturalism, but we should call it cultural genocide, the attack on our kind.
The original of the political correctness ideology, as argued by Frank Ellis in his book "Political Correctness and the Theoretical Struggle", is firmly rooted in communist doctrine.
Old Chairman Mao spoke and wrote about it a lot. Now we live under it: hasn't Lenin, Marx and Mao really won? Perhaps the first battle, but we must not let it end this way!

Hmmmm…. THE POPE ABOUT TO UPSET THE JEWS?

by Betty Luks
The present Pope has announced that the Old Latin Mass, suppressed in 1969, will make a comeback. But, the old rite has passages saying that the Jews live in "blindness" and "darkness" and a prayer is made that "the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ". (The Advertiser 30/6/07 p.75.) It will be interesting to see if race hatred legislation will be used against the Roman Catholic Church. There seems to be at least a problem in Victoria with its very restrictive Racial and Religious Tolerance Act.

Patrick J. Buchanan: An American Catholic, Mr.Buchanan had the following to say about the "Return Of The Latin Mass, Traditionalists Triumph, Despite ADL". 9/7/07

"Elevated to the papacy at 78, Benedict XVI will take no action greater in significance for the Catholic Church than his motu proprio [English | Latin] declaring that the Latin Mass must be said in every diocese-on the request of the faithful. Dissenting bishops must comply.
"What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us, too," said the Holy Father in his apostolic letter, as he authorized the universal use of the sole official version of the mass allowed in the four centuries between the Council of Trent and Vatican II.
To which many Catholics will respond: "Alleluia! Alleluia!"
And so the pope has come full circle. At Vatican II, the future Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Holy Office for the Defense of the Faith under John Paul II, went about in coat and tie and was seen as a radical reformer and modernist theologian in the mould of his friend Hans Kung.
Now, Kung is silent, Ratzinger is pope, and the Latin Mass, which had fallen into disuse with the introduction of the new rite in 1970, is back. Why? Because the Holy Father knows the solemnity, mystery and beauty of the Latin Mass hold magnetic appeal, not only for the older faithful but the searching young.
And he acted to advance a reconciliation with traditionalists out of communion with the Holy See, including the 600,000 followers of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, excommunicated in 1988, who belong to his Society of Saint Pius X.…"

HITLER, SYPHILIS AND THE HOLOCAUST

by Peter Ewe
The title of the article is "Hitler's Syphilis Blamed for Holocaust" (The Advertiser 22/6/07 p.37). A psychiatrist, Dr. Bassem Habeeb has said that there is "ample circumstantial evidence" that Hitler had syphilis. The claim was made to a Royal College of Psychiatrists' meeting in Edinburgh. The disease's effect on Hitler's brain and Hitler's belief that the disease originated in and was propagated by the Jews may have led to Hitler's blueprint for the Holocaust, Dr. Habeeb said.

David Irving conclusively refuted the claim that Hitler had contracted syphilis by 1940 (through a youthful encounter with a Jewish prostitute). The argument and evidence is given in David Irving's book, "The Secret Diaries of Hitler's Doctor". Hitler's doctor was Professor Theo Morell and he had tested Hitler who was tested negative for syphilis.

However, if syphilitic insanity was the cause of Hitler fuelling the blueprint for the Holocaust, there is a problem. The received version of the Holocaust requires Hitler being a morally responsible agent. If he was really insane, then he could not have been morally responsible because moral responsibility presupposes voluntary and sane action !
Hence Hitler, if insane, would not have been morally responsible for the Holocaust! Bad conclusion. Perhaps the logical ramifications of this idea should have been examined more closely.

HOWARD WITH SECRET PLANS FOR TROOP WITHDRAWAL?

Is P.M. John Howard secretly planning to begin withdrawing Australian troops from Iraq by February 2008? According to the Sunday Telegraph, 1/7/07 quoting an unnamed senior military source, described Howard's withdrawal plan as "one of the most closely guarded secrets in top levels of the bureaucracy."

The newspaper said the drawdown of troops would focus on soldiers based in southern Iraq on security duty with Iraqi soldiers. Australia has about 1,500 soldiers, sailors and airmen in and around Iraq.
Howard, a close ally of President Bush, has been a mainstay of support for the U.S. military presence in Iraq. As recently as last week, Howard said there were no plans to withdraw Australian troops from Iraq, and has consistently said that Australian troops would remain in Iraq for as long as needed.

A spokesman for Howard referred to the prime minister's statement last week and said he did not want to give credence to the newspaper report.

$530 MILLION DAMAGES CLAIM - AND SO CLOSE TO FEDERAL ELECTION!

One of O.T's readers just happened to pick this news snippet up. It was an article in The Age on 22/6/2007.
Our reader wrote:
I get a daily email from Netwealth that includes a small section from newspaper articles with a link to the full article. Generally I don't bother going into the link unless I think there is something of particular interest, like this one following.

"FEDERAL Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull, jailed businessman Rodney Adler and a group of seven others will face the full force of a $530 million damages claim arising from the collapse of insurer HIH after an attempt to nobble the lawsuit failed. Mr Turnbull, business partner Russel Pillemer and his former employer, investment bank Goldman Sachs Australia, had hoped they could ride on the coat-tails of a pre-trial application by the bank and a pair of reinsurance companies that attempted to reduce the size of the mammoth case. The trio had hoped to limit the scope of the lawsuit by striking out two key claims from the three-limbed case.
The suit dates back to when Mr Turnbull was insurer FAI's financial adviser during its takeover by HIH eight years ago. HIH collapsed two years after buying FAI, owing creditors about $5.3 billion.

Other defendants include a reinsurer controlled by the world's second-richest man, Warren Buffett, and former FAI finance director Tim Mainprize and chief operating officer Daniel Wilkie. They are accused of withholding information about FAI's financial health and failing to advise HIH about "illusory profits" in FAI's accounts. The reinsurance contracts enabled the company to turn losses into profits.

In the NSW Supreme Court yesterday, Justice Clifford Einstein ruled that the case against them should remain the same because they had failed to prove the case was "doomed to fail".
"The respective defendants' submissions on this strike-out … are of no substance," Justice Einstein said. They had argued that there was not enough evidence to prove that HIH lost more than $100 million as a result of the takeover of FAI, which relied on their advice.
The case is due to go to trial later this year. The reinsurance contracts issued to FAI in 1998 were earlier criticised during the 2003 HIH royal commission. In 2004 the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority disqualified six Gen Re executives, three of whom left the company."

AUSTRALIAN HOUSEHOLDS DROWNING IN A SEA OF DEBT

According to the Housing Industry Association and the Australian Property Monitors company, Australian households are spending a record amount of money on interest payments as they try to keep on top of rising mortgage, credit card and general household debt Bigger property loans, multiple personal loans and surging credit card bills are sucking almost 12 per cent out of wages each week just to pay interest costs.

The ongoing lure of credit has pushed up total household debt to a record $1trillion for the first time and the total is still rising, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia. The latest debt figure, at May 30, is 13 per cent higher than May last year and the growth rate shows no sign of slowing. Credit card debt now stands at about $40 billion while investors have also racked up a massive S30 billion debt for margin lending.

Mortgage levels account for 86 per cent
The ratio in Australia of household debt to household income has climbed to be among the highest in the world, RBA statistics reported. One of the biggest contributors to the record $1 trillion dollar debt is home mortgage levels, accounting for about 86 per cent of total household debt.

According to the Housing Industry Association, housing affordability is getting worse in Australia. "Home purchasers are borrowing more than ever, just to enter the housing market," HIA senior executive director Chris Lament said last week.
"In the five years between 2001 and 2006, monthly mortgage repayments have risen from $780 to $1300 - a 50 per cent increase, while household incomes have increased by just 31 per cent," Mr Lamont said.
"It does not take Einstein to see that people are taking longer and having more difficulty in paying off mortgages," he said.

The latest Government Census report for 2006, released last week, found outright home ownership (no mortgage) had fallen from 41 per cent 10 years ago to just 31 per cent now.
In its latest market report, research company Australian Property Monitors said many low income households could "go to the wall" if interest rates rise again. However, many families were already under severe stress and there was still some fallout to come from the past rises, PM operations manager Michael McNamara said. "Monetary measures have had a profound affect on those lower income mortgage holders. There will no doubt be more repossessions, forced sales and bankruptcies, following the extra burden of higher mortgage repayments as last year's three interest rate hikes take their toll," Mr McNamara said.

As for Credit Cards:
On the credit card front, Australia has now passed 13.5 million card accounts for the first time, as a massive 548,000 extra credit card accounts were opened up during the past year. Total credit card debt has also surged to a record $39.63 billion.
The average personal credit card now has more than $2100 outstanding. The higher debt levels appear to be taking a hefty toll on households and families.

Bankruptcy and personal insolvencies increased 12 per cent in Australia during the past year to 8113 people in the latest March quarter. Debt agreements, where creditors agree to partially pay off a debt or pay over time, increased the most up 28 per cent compared with a year ago.
Victoria's increase in bankruptcies were lower, up 7 per cent, but debt agreements jumped 64 per cent in the March quarter. According to debt recovery company Dun & Bradstreet more younger people are defaulting on debts.
About half of all debtors are now under 32, which is a 25 per cent increase on a year ago, according to D&B chief executive Christine Christian.