Upside down happenings

[Freeky]

Yeah, you'd think people who couldn't possibly be farther away wouldn't be as stupid.

[Deepthroat Chopra]

Indian Call Centre workers are trained to treat us all as if we are stupid. I've always assumed that selling something to someone else begins with the belief that the potential buyer is stupid. I've never kept a call centre person on the phone long enough to find out their assessment of our collective intelligence, so I don't know. A Mother Jones reporter went "undercover" to find this out -

http://www.news.com.au/national/what-indian-calls-centres-are-really-told-about-australians/story-e6frfkvr-1226100495649

In "dissecting" the Australian psyche in 20 minutes, the teacher told the class, "Just stating the facts, guys. Australia is known as the dumbest continent. Literally, college was unknown there until recently, so speak slowly".

[Placid Dingo]

That's fantastic.

[Placid Dingo]

New report points to culture of sexual abuse in ADF.

People who abused or turned a blind eye are probably in senior positions.

http://m.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/defence/australian-defence-force-lifts-lid-on-history-of-abuse-after-legal-review/story-e6frg8yo-1226292734187

[Deepthroat Chopra]

It's like the ADF are training the forces to prepare for some kind of battle against women. Are we preparing to invade that island that Wonder Woman comes from or something? I think it's in the Pacific, even though there's not a hint of Polynesian features amongst all the white women that live there.

[Deepthroat Chopra]

So, a bit on Australian stupidity.

I was talking to an American when I was in Argentina in 2000. I was comparing the amount of flags (Argentinian) on display in Buenos Aires with America, and explained that in Australia, people who fly the flag outside their house were looked at as being nutters. The American was surprised, saying you were considered nutty if you didn't display the flag, kind of thing.

In the years since, it seems you can't go anywhere here without some wanker toting a flag. Little plastic ones waving on both sides of cars, people with those stupid "Love it or Leave it" t-shirts, and those Southern Cross tattoos that in some places, it seems every second person has. I've seen this as a big step backwards in our intellectual development. The Southern Cross is on every flag in the Southern Hemisphere, but these folk think it's uniquely Australian. The Union Jack is on every second flag in the Pacific. So if we lined up our flag with Fiji's, New Zealand's, the Cayman islands and probably a dozen or so more, I doubt the folks tattooing it onto their necks would even tell the difference.

Through the 70's, 80's and half the 90's, in spite of their many faults, our politicians started looking outward to Asia, proclaimed an internationalism, and started talking it up. Many racists shut up. Travelling in 1994, if anyone said Australia was racist, I would argue that yes, Australia has racists, but overall, it's a tolerant place that accepts racial difference. Travelling in 2000, if someone said the same thing, I wouldn't argue, but nod in agreement.

From the mid 90's, we had politicians that belonged in the 50's, openly saying racist things about a variety of ethnic groups, and the racists felt empowered to sprout their crap again, on radio, TV, in public, in op/eds.

The point is, we got collectively stupider, via the mechanisms of mindless nationalism and ignorant patriotism. I will have more to say.

[Deepthroat Chopra]

Watched the first episode of a show called "Dumb, Drunk and Racist" last night. Four people are brought over from India to test the hypothesis that Australians are dumb, drunk and racist. There's a lot of things the show could have done better, but I like the idea of it, especially since these things aren't really investigated much by our media. I'm not sure what the point of staging a life-guard saving one of the Indian lads from a rip on Bondi beach is, but at least this show is starting a conversation about some of the less impressive parts of Australian life and culture.

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/dumbdrunkracist/episodes/ep01.htm

It's refreshing to watch somehitng that's critical of this country. While there was a time when media and film did explore the ugly sides of Australian life, the past century has seen it all glossed over and anything critical about the place is excluded. Might be interesting.

[Cain]

Incidentally, the Australian move to try and be an "Asian nation" was seen as highly offensive by most Asian nations at the time.