"Hate" mail

Yup; I get it quite often.

No - nothing aimed personally at me, but the dumbed down propaganda that is designed to appeal to the "patriotic" side in all of us.

And I get it from some remarkable sources.

From friends who have a knee-jerk reaction and just hit the "Forward to the World" button.

Got one today; it's been doing the blogosphere and certain bulletin boards since at least November of last year. Won't further ramble about what it is and isn't - I've posted it and my response back to the entire list it was sent to.

Decided that rather than just hitting the delete button, is better to actually respond and debunk.
The red is the intro from my friend, the bold italics is my reply to each para or part there of, and the small font is the forwarded "Hate" mail.

I recommend letting loose with this sort of a reply if you have the time. So much better for all involved than just hitting the "delete" key. It MAY stop others from unthinkingly spreading this unwarranted muck.

I know some of you may have seen this and perhaps there are even a few of you that may not agree with it...but I do and feel quite strongly about some of the things said in this.

Grant, darling. As we live in a democracy, we have a right to say what we feel (up to a point), and generally in a debate there is a right of reply. I hope you aren't offended by me exercising my right of reply.

Australia - The Right to Leave -

Our Country - YOU Have the right - the right to leave!

After Sydney not wanting to offend other cultures by putting up Xmas lights and after hearing that the State of South Australia changed its
opinion and let a Muslim woman have her picture on her driver's license with her face covered. This prompted this editorial written by an
Australian citizen. Published in an Australian newspaper.

This was not published as an editorial (unless the "Hinterland Grapevine" is actually a newspaper, buit can't access it as Websense classifies it as a sex site...), but has been floating around the blogosphere and bulletin boards since November last year


Quote:
IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take it or leave it I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture.

OK - I'm sure the Euroa people and all the other indigenous nations had that attitude as well. When persons travelling from lands controlled by one nation to another, they did announce themselves, and acted in accordance with time honoured protocol. Not a perfect system, but there was respect for each sovereign nation, and respect for the land.

Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.

Please don't confuse "patriotism" with media and government fuelled fear; always politically nice to have an external bogeyman at our doorstep to get people to lose their common sense or ability to think clearly.

However, the dust from the attacks had barely settled when the "politically correct" crowd began complaining about the possibility that
our patriotism was offending others. I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by
coming to Australia.

The "politically correct crowd" have been bemoaning nationalistic jingoism etc for a hell of a long time.
As for the last sentence, if it weren't for a better life, why would ANYONE come here? This shows something about the original author

However, there are a few things that those who have recently come to our country, and apparently some born here, need to understand.
This idea of Australia being a multicultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity. As Australians, we
have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle.

This is a really disturbing statement. We have NEVER had a static national identity. Anyone who tries to tell you that we have is falling into a Howardian nostalgia trip.
Since the beginning of white settlement in Australian there has been divide between corrupt gaolers and the convicts; between the squattocracy and the ticket-of-leave holders; between Anglicans and Catholics; between English and Irish; betwen city and bush; blacks and whites.

This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom.
Tosh.
The first 70 or so years of settlement was a fight to survive, and the levels of brutality and corruption were pretty well unparrallelled. The only reason that Australia was settled was that the American Colonies would not take any more convicts, as the treatment of convict labour by the English overlords was even more reprehensible than the then treatment of plantation slaves.
Yes, struggles to offload the cloak of authoritarianism, struggle for change, and for acceptance of diversity.
This paragraph is designed to make people think of our "titanic struggles" in glorious batttles overseas where the culture of mateship and the aussie digger was born.

Up until the end of vietnam, there was a total of 1,003,038 enlisted australians who served overseas (source :Australian War Memorial http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/statistics/1885_1973.htm); and the first overseas postings was 120 years ago (but those 770 were mainly British born soldiers anyway). There were 61,000 deaths in WWI and 39,400 deaths in WWII - of which more than half the WWII casualties were non-battle related. Hey, that looks strange, but at least I can quote my sources.

We speak ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part ofour society, learn the language!

Well - the original white invaders didn't bother to try and learn any local customs or languages. Also, from the NSW HSC High Acheivers results list for 2005, 416 of 913 students had "distinctly" non Anglo names. SOURCE http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/ebos/static/ALRND_2005_12.htm - and in this state, the % of people in a Non-English Speaking household is about 16%

"In God We Trust" is our National Motto.
BULLSHIT!!! In God We Trust is NOT the Australian National Motto; The Commonwealth of Australia does NOT have "an official motto"; while it may be debateable, many would say that the "Unofficial" motto is "She'll be right, mate".

This is not some Christian, right wing, political slogan. We adopted this motto because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.

This country was founded on bloody OLD TESTAMENT values of "an eye for an eye", and lets get this scum out of Britain. There was huge religious divide for the best part of 150 years. THAT IS CLEARLY DOCUMENTED. This para is taken straight from US right wing hate propaganda

If the Southern Cross offends you, or you don't like "A Fair Go", then
you should seriously consider a move to another part of this planet.
Who / what is this aimed at?? This is only in there to incite "fair minded / fair skinned" readers that there ARE people who are "offended" by the Southern Cross, or the concept of "A fair go". This sort of propaganda is put out by those who think that immigrants get "too much of a fair go", so they turn it around that the "immigrant whingers" don't like the concept.

We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change.

yeah, and until the "invasion" of the original "wogs" post WW I, and more since WWII we didn't have decent coffee. Spaghetti wasn't even available in a bloody can; as for French cuisine - foreign muck; thai, vietnamese etc was unheard of, and Chinese was only acceptable coz they had been here for as long as most 1930's WHITE Anglo occupants' forebears.

This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you
every opportunity to enjoy all this.

This is no ONE group's country; no country is able to survive in isolation and stagnation. Those that did succeed in doing so for a while ALL went way backwards in relation to the rest of the world. Who is any one of us to say that we will "allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this"?

But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag,
Our Pledge, Our National Motto, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage
you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, "THE RIGHT TO
LEAVE"

For God's sake; it is left wing anglo's who complaign about the flag (and not having an AUSTRALIAN head of state), we DON'T have a National Motto, we DON'T pledge allegiance, and the way of life here is not at issue.

If you aren't happy here then leave. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted. It's pretty easy really, when you think about it.

I am personally thinking strongly about leaving Australia.
The racial tension is disgusting, Alan Jones et al should be charged for inciting violence;
Debnam talks about the "hundreds" of "middle eastern" trouble makers from Dec 12, but NOT the 5,000 Anglo troublemakers who really got things going;
the Federal Government is not honouring the constitutional rights of informed debate in the Senate;
the "ordinary worker" is being shafted by their "elected representatives";
if I'm not careful how I phrase this, I could be held without charge for 14 days without being able to let anyone know;
any relationship that I may want to get into will not be recognised here, and if I wanted to register for a civil union in another country, they currently beleive that I do not have the right to receeive a "certificate of no impediment for marriage";
an "illegal immigrant" is mentally disturbed after being in a concentration camp so the Immigrration Department pays for 140 seats on a commercial flight to Eastern Europe to get rid of him.

This propaganda refers to "founding principles"; we no longer have an honest and impartial senior public service; our politicians are rewarded for lying.

We don't have a fearless and balanced media; and when a major scandal breaks, it isn't followed to the end.

The last time there was a referendum about constitutional change it was engineered so that it could do nothing but fail - rather than asking a simple question.

Don't get me wrong; this is a great country, if you are lucky. If you have a social conscience, or on a low income, or god forbid like me, BOTH, it can be really oppresive and depressing.

I figure if we all keep passing this to our friends it will also, sooner or later get back to the complainers lets all try, please.

There are real and meaningful race and cultural issues to be discussed rationally in this society that we all share; this piece of propaganda was put around before some of those really became so horrifically clear at the end of last year. However, this only cuases confusion to those issues, and doesn't really warrant the time that this took to reply.

However, per my email to you Grant, and to a couple of others on this list, on Dec 12th, I am no longer going to ignore or sit back and bite my tongue when one sided, generalised, mis-informed commentary comes my way. To again paraphrase Martin Niemoller "and I did not speak out, because I was not [insert supressed stereotype here]"

If ANYONE has anything that is actually well thought out, original and in actual context to an issue, I will respect and debate the point. This sort of stuff is dangerous because it is too easy to make simplistic sweeping comments; things that look authoritative etc. That look as if they are "patriotic" (whatever the f that is supposed to mean - my prime minister can beat up your prime minister?). People get a fleeting thought "yeah thats right" coz it has an inkling of truth about it, and then HIT THE FORWARD TO THE WORLD BUTTON. It is just viral marketing of the most pernicious manner. So, no, sorry, I WON'T "No matter how many times you receive it... Please forward it to all you know." I will instead take the time to let the sender know how I feel about it. And if the sender has not followed his own plea of 3 years ago about bcc'ing group listings, I will let all the other recipients know as well.

Peace and love to all,

Bernard