From the Horse's Mouth

Well, I'll be damned if Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation chief executive Simon Haines isn't conceding that our much-vaunted Western civilisation is "wicked, colonial, imperialist and racist":

"But normal academic processes will be followed, and the centre will have no power of veto. If the centre doesn't like the direction in which the university takes the course, it will withdraw. 'If we felt, three or four years into the degree, that this is not working out, the stories we are getting from the students [are] that most of the courses are pointing out that the West is a wicked, colonial, imperialist, racist... civilisation, we would say, 'look, we didn't give you the money to do that, we want something balanced'." (It may be academic, but it's talk of the town, Jordan Baker, Sydney Morning Herald, 23/6/18)

He just wants some balance, that's all...

Night Thoughts of a Western Civilisationist

Those baby boomers have a lot to answer for, it seems:

"Western civilisation is losing its pre-eminence because it threw it away in the 1960s. When the burgeoning demographic of Baby Boomers reached angry adolescence, they had found the truth in sex, drugs and rock and roll and making love not war. Being angry at the establishment was exciting. Many never learned another thing and, like Peter Pan, never grew up, especially those who taught humanities and social sciences in schools and universities. Their minds turned towards subjects where victimhood and identity politics determined intellectual content, and violence and intimidation became the medium of communication. These are the eternally young Philistines who are responsible for the Australian education system today. The Ramsay Centre is a wonderful antidote but it is fighting a war against a large barbarian enemy and will need more troops and a well-developed strategy to win. Rome fell because of the enemy at and within the gates - and the loss of civic virtue. The West faces China, Russia and militant Islam and this cancerous social disease of eternally young and stupid totalitarian toddlers inside. The new dark ages are a distinct possibility." (Letter of Jim Wilson, Beaumont, SA in The Australian, 29/5/18)

Only in the Murdoch press...

Spartans in Afghanistan

The 'exploits' of an Australian death squad, operating until 2013 in Afghanistan are currently the subject of a major Sydney Morning Herald investigation. Central to the story is an officer known only as 'Leonidas', "who cannot be named for legal reasons." If 'Leonidas' isn't proof that Hollywood is far more than a US Weapon of Mass Distraction (as if that were not bad enough) but a form of spiritual pollution which plays havoc with the minds of the cretins who flock to its juvenile productions, I don't know what is:

"At the time (2009), he was part of an SASR [Special Air Service Regiment] patrol that was increasingly dividing the regiment. A warrior culture was being embraced by some special forces troops but loathed by others. It involved tattoos and a devotion to the Hollywood movie 300, which glorifies the fighting prowess of the ancient Spartans, and whose climactic moment involves an enemy soldier being kicked off a ridge. Several former SASR officers say this rock-star ethos emboldened certain soldiers to test the elasticity of the rules of engagement - rules that govern when a soldier can take a life. 'The regiment over time prided itself on being an organisation that broke the rules but not the law,' explains one former officer... 'What happened, though, was during the Afghan campaign, there was a group of individuals who believed they were immune from the law'... [In] the patrol Leonidas belonged to... sources say, junior members were pushed to kill rather than detain." (SAS's day of shame: war crime allegations: bound detainee kicked off cliff and executed, Nick McKenzie & Chris Masters, 9/6/18)

As a SMH reviewer wrote of 300 back in 2007: "Welcome to the new double-speak. Sparta as a metaphor for America, courtesy of Warner Bros, in which the politics of eugenics is reborn amid one of the most sickeningly violent and mindless films of the new millennium. Adolf Hitler would have been pleased: he may have lost the war, but his ideas live on in mystical, military propaganda like this, aimed at spotty boys in need of heroes. God help us. Of course, latent fascism isn't new in American military movies. It's just that it's rarely as politically naive as it is in 300. That's me being charitable. It's just possible the filmmakers intended it to be as inflammatory as it is. These are strange times and 300 fits the mood of a part of the West that would like to see the Middle Eastern barbarians bathed in their own blood. This is their kind of movie, complete with references to 'barbarians' and 'Asian hordes'. Perhaps the Klan has become a new demographic for Hollywood." (In the name of freedom, Paul Byrnes, 6/4/07)

The 'genius' behind this filth, director Zack Snyder, was quoted at the time as saying, "My feeling is if a movie's not sexy and fucking violent and fucking cool, then why go sit in the theatre? I look at the screen and half the time I'm like, 'I'm going to fall asleep. Somebody's going to have to kill somebody. Or fuck somebody.' A movie should kick you in the face." (Sympathy for the Spartans, Stephen Applebaum, The Australian, 21/3/07)

And guess what? Snyder's 'movie' did just that - to an innocent, handcuffed, Afghan shepherd, Ali Jan:

"[A] junior soldier described a scene he'd witnessed which was haunting him. It involved an irate and frustrated Leonidas grabbing one of the PUCs [Persons Under Confinement] and walking him to the edge of a cliff... Leonidas gave himself a short run-up then kicked the detainee. As he plunged, his face smashed into rocks. Then the injured man was executed, the junior soldier told his superiors. A second witness... has corroborated that story. He says he saw Leonidas kicking 'the hell' out of an Afghan detainee. The witness says this incident mirrored the climactic 'kick' scene from the Spartan movie, 300."

I really don't think I can take too much more of this Western Civilisation shit.

Get Thee to a Monastery!

Stop the search, John, Dreg, Tony! I've found just the place for the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation. Heaps of room and like-minded inmates:

"A remote 800-year-old hilltop religious retreat in Italy is to become the latest in a wave of right-wing academies attempting to shape the next generation of populist leaders in Europe. The Trisulti monastery, about a two-hour drive southeast of Rome, is being converted by Benjamin Harnwell, a conservative Catholic ideologue from... England, who said he was determined to 'defend the Judaeo-Christian roots of society.' Boasting connections at senior levels in the Vatican, Mr Harnwell, 42, is also backed by former White House strategist Steve Bannon... " (Monks out, right-wing believers in, The Times/The Australian, 9/6/18)

Er... shouldn't that be Binyamin Harnwell?

Hypocrisy Alert!

Dreg Sheridan, foreign editor of Murdoch's Israelian, currently has his knickers in a knot over the Australian National University and Sydney University's thumbs-down to the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation. (This currently homeless entity, significantly, is chaired by former Liberal PM and warmonger John Howard and includes Tony Abbott on its board.)

The Australian National University's rejection of the Centre, he rants hysterically, "has shown us beyond doubt how illiberal, intolerant and anti-Western our big public universities have become... Western civilisation has a huge number of enemies at universities. Ramsey looks like a businessman preparing for a Rotary Club meeting when actually he has been invited to a knife fight. (Our universities are no longer seeking the truth, 7/6/18)

However, as Sheridan has earlier admitted, he and his bestie, Abbott, have been veritable purveyors of illiberality, intolerance and wilful ignorance since their own university days in the 70s: 

"No doubt the silliest thing we did at the [Australian Union of Students] conference was to attend a Palestinian film night. Because AUS was spending our money, we wanted to assert... our right to be there. So we heckled the film a bit." (The Tony that I - and others - remember was never violent at uni, The Australian, 12/9/12. See my 13/9/12 post Greg & Tony Do Monash 1.)

So instead of viewing the film with open minds and maybe learning something new, the pair attended with only one aim in mind - to prevent others from learning about Palestine. Apart from any other concerns (such as the Centre's potential for acting as a Trojan horse for the whitewashing and/or celebration of European/US imperial and colonial crimes, to take but one example), our universities are right to be wary of anything touted by such arch hypocrites as Sheridan and Abbott.