RUTHFULLY YOURS

Australians are all undergoing an immersion experience, washed over by a sea of   taxpayer-funded “progressive” propaganda. It is so pervasive that we may  hardly notice it. For young people, the Left memes are as self-evident as gravity. What follows are a few samples. I’m sure Quadrant subscribers, who all enjoy online posting rights at this site, can add their own to the comments thread below.

ABCTV 7pm News Victoria– Monday’s show (20/11) had an item on a counter-terrorism report by ex-Police Commissioner Ken Lay and former Supreme Court Judge David Harper. The footage focused on Bourke Street Mall, where Demetrious Gargasoulas is accused of driving at reckless and breakneck speed on January 20. Six were killed and dozens injured. His trial is in progress.

ABCTV reporter Melissa Brown said the new counter-terror report “makes 26 recommendations to better protect  Victoria and respond to religious and right-wing extremism.” Gargasoulas doesn’t fit the ‘right-wing’ bill.  Indeed, he told a magistrate last April, “Your Honour, did you know the Muslim faith is the correct faith according to the whole world?” Police say he has a history of drug use, family violence and mental health problems.

In reporter Brown’s reference to “religious and right-wing extremism”, we once again see the ABC’s near-total inability to utter “Islam” in any context other than the most laudatory. Inside the ABC’s green-left bubble, there is also inability to mention left-wing extremism, of which there is plenty in Victoria, with Antifa’s thugs to the fore.

Indeed, the ABCTV report  shamelessly distorts the Lay-Harper report which says on its second page (emphasis added),

Terrorist organisations continue to develop and distribute violent extremist propaganda to influence people that may be vulnerable to radicalisation – whether it be from the far-right, far-left extremism or extremist Islamist ideologies.

Those were the report’s only references to Left and Right ideologies. What’s up, Ms ABC Reporter Brown, can’t you read?

Australian Story: Up next on  ABCTV was Australian Story, which covered the tragic death in July of Australian expat Justine Damond Ruszczyk, who was shot by a Minneapolis cop firing across his partner from the front passenger seat of the police car which responded to her call for help about suspicious noises.

It is 20 minutes into the 30-minute program before the ABC lets us know the cop’s name was Mohamed Noor, and its two references to Somali-born Noor involve all of ten seconds (20.20 minutes to 20.30). The program showed total lack of interest in Noor’s background – which would definitely not be the case if the shooter were, say, a Trump  flag-waver, or an evangelical pastor.

Here are some facts about Noor which the program managed not to mention:

• Noor  had previously been lauded by the mayor and Somali community as  one of the first Somali-American cops in the area
• In his two years as cop, Noor was named in three complaints and is being sued for allegedly assaulting a woman.
• His police training had been fast-tracked to promote diversity in the ranks, according to the Star Tribune, but this is denied by the police chiefs.

The ABC, in its quandary over how to report a guy called Mahomed doing bad stuff, decided “Nothing to see here” and gave that aspect of the story only ten pitiful seconds.

Culture Section:  I went to a recent performance of Beethoven’s 9^th  in the Victorian Arts Centre. At the start there were three consecutive announcements by three managers. I can’t remember exactly what – turn off your mobiles,   changes to the cast and whatever. The first official began with an acknowledgement of the traditional Aboriginal owners of the site. And so immediately did the second. And so immediately did the third. A three-peat as the footie fans say. They were all variants on the MSO’s official screed,

“The MSO acknowledge [sic] the Traditional Owners of the land on which we are performing. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present, and the Elders from other communities who may be in attendance.”

The script does not bother to specify what group the traditional owners were, let alone why all these “Elders” past and present are entitled to more respect than anyone else, especially Elders from “other communities” near and far who happen to also be fans of Beethoven’s 9^th.

Trashing C.Y. O’Connor: A week ago I was in the Fremantle Maritime Museum and enjoying its excellent imported Pompeii naval exhibition – notwithstanding that as many as five exhibits were dated wrongly by 2000 years (do curators every check this stuff?). My sister’s two-hour car park was nearly up, but I still had five minutes to check out a small slice of the regular displays. First off was stuff about the “invasion” of Australia. The second involved fiction about the so-called Stolen Generation, but the third was the real ripper: it described engineer C.Y. O’Connor blasting the bar across the Swan River outlet in 1894, finally creating a decent port for Fremantle. Great job, Charles Yelverton O’Connor!

Not so fast, the Museum’s caption seem to insist. It reads (emphasis added):

A rocky limestone bar and silting at the entrance to the Swan River prevented most ships from entering. Dynamite was used to destroy the bar.

Some Aboriginal people believe that an important heritage area was damaged or destroyed along with the bar.

Let me get this straight. “Some” Aborigines “believe” that  C .Y. O’Connor — a real bastard, obviously — blew up their  “important heritage area”. An accusation can hardly be weaker than that. O’Connor shot himself eight years later, after riding his horse into the sea from Fremantle beach. His Fremantle Harbor was a resounding success. He also had completed the Perth-Kalgoorlie water pipeline but was depressed by the mean-spirited criticism of the media, local notables and authorities. The Maritime Museum caption continues in that vicious strain more than a century later, hammering fresh spikes through a dead man’s coffin and reputation.

This display is at Fremantle. Keep in mind the City of Fremantle cancelled this year’s Australia Day fireworks and celebrations in favour of a culturally-inclusive alternative event on January 28.

The Maritime Museum is part of the WA Museum, chaired by Justin Mannolini, law and finance whizz at Gilbert + Tobin. The deputy chair is none other than our PM-in-waiting Julie Bishop. In the latest financial year the Maritime’s visitors tumbled by 18% — 23,000 no-shows, in blunt numbers. I for one don’t intend a repeat visit next year.