It is easy to be alternately frightened, appalled and head-shakingly despairing about what comes out of Trump’s United States. Officials deleting all references to climate change from official documents; immigration policies that make Peter Dutton look like a raging leftie; ongoing attempts to ban abortion or make them impossible to get; spiralling defence spending compared with poor health and social services; and, increasing inequality.
Democracy and its discontents
Much of the fevered discussion on the future and failings of democracy is based on misconceptions, particularly the fact that some see democratic discontent and growing authoritarianism as a re-run of the 1930s – something possible but extremely unlikely.
There are also serious misconceptions about the history of democracies. Most accounts of the system start with Athens despite it being a society characterised by slavery, civil wars and coups bearing little resemblance to a modern democracy. Indeed, Greece has been largely thus for much of the past couple of millennia with the last coup only 60 years ago.
Communication companies and physics
When PR and other communication companies start making references to science and scientific theories in promoting what they do it is time to take a deep sceptical sniff.
The alva group (not a typo but literally their lower case brand style which says something or other) started a recent blog post on its work with the statement that: “Wave theory isn’t just for physicists: it can equally be applied to the study of a company’s reputation.”
The Battle of Coral-Balmoral
Tim Fischer’s death reminds us that the Australians fought an even bigger, longer and more deadly battle than Long Tan (discussed in the most recent blog) in Vietnam – the Battle of Coral- Balmoral – at which he was wounded.
The battle took place over many days in May 1968, after 1RAR and 3RAR, established Fire Support Base Coral. Shortly after the North Vietnamese attacked the base and overran several positions. In close quarters hand to hand battle the Australians, with assistance from mortar and artillery fire, drove the NVA back.
They did what they were trained to do
They did what they were trained to do, a friend and fellow Vietnam veteran said to the blog about the new film, Danger Close, when they caught up this week.
This was not to denigrate in any way the sacrifice and bravery of 108 infantrymen with supporting artillery, helicopters and ultimately Armoured Personnel Carriers. Rather he meant to emphasise that the Australian Army trained, trained and trained its members to confront exactly that sort of situation and worked to inculcate a culture and camaraderie which produced professionalism, resilience and bravery.
When is a quote an argument from authority or just apposite?
Commonplace books are probably less than common these days although maintaining them online should make them easier to compile and access particularly when for some of the items stuck in them scanning is easier than scissors and paste.
They have always had a basically personal role – reminding the owner of some wisdom, odd fact, memory or a source to be plundered to illustrate other writing or to provide a veneer of intellectual breadth.
It’s not only the Russians
As well as having to keep an eye out for Russian electoral interference we now need to watch out for the fake news promulgated by knights of the realm – and the employee whistle blowers who provide the evidence of what their knightly employers, such as Sir Lynton Crosby and his company CTF Partners, do.
Putting lipstick on a pig
The phrase putting lipstick on a pig is probably unfair to pigs. For a generation brought up on Miss Piggy it might even be incomprehensible. But it does sum up a public relations innovation which resulted in a man who had been convicted of sexual assault getting positive coverage in the US magazines Forbes, HuffPost and National Review.
Cairns – aquariums, indigenous achievement and climate denial
Cairns in Far North Queensland is a remarkable place where remarkable things – excellent, good, bad and odd – occur.
For the good, the odd and the bad start with the Cairns Aquarium. It is one of Cairns’ most popular tourist attractions but one has to wonder what messages visitors take away from it and how it subtly reinforces climate denialism.
Where did it all start?
“From whence and whereof cometh yon Trump? From some distant time or world?” Well that’s how it might be put in cod Elizabethan dialogue.
Yet reading Taylor Branch’s trilogy about America in the King Years (the blog has read the 3000 plus pages of the volumes over the years – taking somewhat longer than it took Branch to write all three plus some other books) it is remarkable how much the divisions in the US in the 1960s through the assassinations of Martin Luther King, JFK and Robert Kennedy and the Vietnam War are still resonating today in a way which makes Trump less of a new phenomenon and more a throwback to, or logical outcome from, another era. Indeed, in many respects they make today’s America look just like a distant time or world or at least one formed in that distant time and world.