June 24 is “Midsummer” (mid winter in the southern hemisphere) or St. John’s Day, the feast celebrating the nativity of St. John the Baptist.
St. John, the precursor to Christ, was proclaiming that one far greater than he is coming and would fulfill the prophecies. The New Testament reveals that John was beheaded by order of Herod, who acted while drunk at the request of the dancer Salome, whose mother advised her to ask for John’s head on a platter. The Jewish historian Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews, has a less romantic hypothesis: Herod saw John as a potential problem for rebellion, so had him executed.

     For the early Christians, one false move could lead to arrest, or even execution - fed to the legal lions.  THE LAW then, and more so each day now, causes everyone to shake in their boots.  The politically correct ideologies of today for example, now extends human rights protections for transgender Canadians on the federal level (Bill C16) — failing to be correctly addressed (gender expression and gender identity) as a hate crime.
These doctrines serve the interests of the elites, just as the elites of Rome had their own interests in their day. What is significant is that Rome fell. Rome, like Greece before it, became decadent, both in morals and economics. There is considerable scholarly debate about exactly why Rome fell, the correct mixture of social poisons that destroyed it, but it is clear, that whatever factors led to its fall, the West has it many thousands of times greater. Probably only technology and the last drops of economic growth hold the system together.

     I have written, and spoken so much about all of the ethno-racial civilizational crisis which we face, that I sometimes come down with world weariness, and its neighbour, world weirdness. In this state one gets a severe flu, sore throat, and “absolute diarrhoea”, which is an unpleasant illness, depleting one’s fighting reserves, let alone bodily fluids and vital essences. But, after a few days crawling through the existential mud, I bootstrap myself up, and go on. Here, is a brief rundown on things which collectively put me down for a count of nine, this week, a doomsday shopping list.

     It is strange for the Third World to lead the First in the political correctness stakes, but it happens. Colombia, in South America, has now recognised a polygamous marriage of three gay men. Apparently this family was once four men, but one of the party died of cancer. Then there were three. Colombia legalised same sex marriage last year, and has now recognised gay polygamous marriage in record time.  If three can be recognised then why not 500? No doubt, if it has a precedence somewhere in the world, then it will happen in record time in good old Oz. This will mean that traditional marriage becomes basically meaningless. But, of course, that was the plan.

to THE AUSTRALIAN
     It is good to see Maurice Newman’s invocation of forbidden author W. Cleon Skousen (‘Masks slip to reveal the ugly face of the future’, 21/6) and his 1960’s analysis of the danger of a future communist world presided over by the UNO.  As to that ‘brutal authoritarian face’ behind ‘the seductive mask of socialism’, it must be remembered that Skousen published a sequel to ‘The Naked Communist’ in 1970, entitled ‘The Naked Capitalist’.
     This was a detailed analysis of insider Carroll Quigley’s 1300-page book ‘Tragedy and Hope’, which exposed what former communist Dr Bella Dodd called ‘a much bigger conspiracy’ behind the communist conspiracy. Quigley’s book suddenly became almost unobtainable for several years. His thesis makes good sense: there is obviously enormous financial power behind the spread of the ‘cultural Marxism’ that Newman deplores.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic

     The movement to rewrite the Bible, to make it politically correct, gender inclusive, and sensitive to homosexuals etc. etc. is well underway in America:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/southern-baptists-embrace-gender-inclusive-language-in-the-bible/529935/;
https://www.landoverbaptist.net/showthread.php?t=110015.
So much for the Biblical maxim that man is not to change the word of God: Galatians 1:6-9; Revelation 22:18-19.

     In the context of this on-going war against Christian civilisation, it is refreshing to see the article by Kevin Donnelly, defending the proposition that Australia is a Christian nation: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/lets-not-deny-our-christian-roots/news-story/878614f0355a7dec05751932c55aa814. This is really good stuff, indeed:

     If you follow world events, then you can be excused for having mixed feelings about the confused signals emanating from the ‘halls of power’ via the devious mass media.  Donald Trump has upset the ‘climate change disciples’ (it is a cult!) by honouring his election promise to withdraw from the ‘Paris Climate Agreement’ signed by his predecessors.
     Why shouldn’t he withdraw from the agreement when it was a factor in his election commitment to the American people?

     In Australia, this raises many points for discussion if you believe we live in a democracy. There are issues which must be understood for a harmonious relationship between diverse peoples and the progress of our Civilisation.  Can an elected government bind all future elected governments to its wishes for ‘time immemorial’? I don’t think so as this is a recipe for stagnation!

     Relativism, the philosophical position that there is no objective standards of rationality, and that truth can only be defined with reference to some conceptual framework, has led to the position, championed by modern Leftism, that reality is a social construction. A classic article defending even the most extreme forms of relativism is D. Edwards (et al.), “Death and Furniture: The Rhetoric, Politics and Theology of Bottom Line Arguments Against Relativism,” History of the Human Sciences, vol. 8, 1995, pp. 25-49. This article was essential reading in my daughter’s Psychology methods class.

     The paper by Edward (et al.), attempts to knock over the two main bottom-line arguments given by common-sense realists against relativism. The “furniture” argument is that there is a bottom-line physical world that we live in that does supply an objective basis for existence. The relativist philosopher attacks this by attacking the notion of material objects; if really educated they may refer to quantum mechanics, which shows that there is no objective world outside of observations, and observations are social constructs. It is clear that such a line of attack cannot be defeated by appealing to common-sense. However, we should ask; why stop with the social construction? What is this mysterious entity “society’ from which all in the universe flows? Who says that even this exists, even relativistically? Surely the idea of social constructionism is itself, a social construct, and true relativistically only within that paradigm or frame of reference. Outside of that framework, it can say nothing. Ergo, we critics are free, by the Leftoids own standards to ignore it.

     Although things are pretty grim, as the boys report in their articles each week, or is it every day now, with the internet requiring instant reporting and news analysis, there are still same rays of hope breaking through the dark storm clouds.

     A survey of American opinions via a Rasmussen poll, shows that most Americans, both men and women, still regard fatherhood as a man’s most important role: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/lifestyle/holidays/june_2017/fatherhood_still_seen_as_man_s_most_important_role. It was found that  70 percent of adults agree with the statement that “being a father as the most important role for a man to fill in today’s role.”
     With the sustained attack on Traditional manhood, engineered by the feminists and behind them, the Dark Lords of Mordor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxkYJOupv9g, it is hopeful to see that the game of life is far from over.

     Here is my attempt at ironic writing, although I don’t know if I am off to a good start by telegraphing my punchline. Anyway…    It looks like everything will be just peachy-cream with the North Korea situation. The reason, is given in this article from: https://www.stripes.com/news/army-s-1st-openly-gay-general-celebrates-advances-during-pride-observance-in-s-korea-1.473623#.WUcMGdqGNaQ, a military magazine:

“ONGSAN GARRISON, South Korea — The U.S. military’s first openly gay general says advances in granting rights to the military’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community have increased the ability “to fight tonight” in South Korea.
Maj. Gen. Tammy Smith, the 8th Army’s deputy commander for sustainment, spoke Thursday at the LGBT pride observance on the main Army base in Seoul — only the second time the event has been held in a reflection of the hard-won gains for gays in the military.
“To be ready to fight tonight, you know, we’ve got to be able to access the potential of our entire force,” Smith said in remarks in a ballroom at the Dragon Hill Lodge. “We are competing with corporate America for talent and we must demonstrate that we value talent regardless of the demographic that it comes from.”
In a milestone for gay rights, Smith became the first general officer to come out when she was promoted in 2012, less than a year after the controversial don’t ask, don’t tell law was repealed.”

     Jewish song writer/singer (in a fashion), Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman), received the Nobel, not Noble, Prize for Literature, with a storm of controversy, since he is regarded as a musician, not a writer. Critics wanted the prize to go to a Third World writer, some guy from India whose name is on the tip of my tongue.

     Now there is another Dylan controversy: in his Nobel Prize lecture he said that the book Moby Dick “makes demands on you.”  Oh, come now, it is not a very complex text compared to other works in the Western cannon.  Anyway, so demanding was the text on poor Bob’s mind  that he seems to have plagiarised sections from a student guide to the novel. Yes, not a fellow English lit professor in a peer reviewed journal, but a student guide, great for struggling students, but one would have expected a little more in a Nobel Prize lecture: https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/6/17/15809156/bob-dylan-plagiarized-nobel-lecture-sparknotesh. In short, he ripped off stuff that if it was done by an undergraduate student, would have led to a failed essay. And, he walks away with the loot, to boot.

     Before World War II, long before the Dark Age of political correctness and the rule of the elites, historians often advanced the Aryan hypothesis, that White European tribes, of a warlike barbarian nature, swept into areas such as China and India and conquered the lands, or at least joined the ruling elites: http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2017/06/18/western-greatness-and-its-enemies/. Such a view became heretical after the end of World War II.

     However, evidence has continued to mount, of White, often red-haired  Europeans in China, now preserved as mummies: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2015/07/18/these-red-haired-chinese-mummies-come-from-all-over-eurasia-dna-reveals/#43117b1b3e2c, and now India: http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/how-genetics-is-settling-the-aryan-migration-debate/article19090301.ece.

     The elites continue to pour out their pro-refugee, migration propaganda:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/opinion/only-mass-deportation-can-save-america.html,  while the evidence from Europe is that mass immigration is having massively destructive effects, spiralling into an uncivil war.

     Each day, scores of horrific rapes are reported by the MSM, which are a drop in the ocean of misery, since most rapes go unreported, out of fear of “racism”: https://www.rt.com/news/393238-germany-asylum-seekers-rape/.
This is now common news.

     The latest from Safe Schools creator Roz Ward, is that up to half of all young people are gay: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/safe-schools-founder-up-to-half-of-child-are-gay/news-story/4de46d3e53990c19e21ddc4592031281.

     What is being claimed here? It sounds like 50 percent of young people are gay. If so, then there will need to be appropriate funding from taxpayers for whatever. But, the “up to half” talk is meaningless. It could easily be replaced by “up to 100 percent” and still be vacuous. There is no evidence that 50 percent of young people are gay.
     Just another day in the cultural wars.

     Just as the big stores have end of financial year sales, the government periodically has a national gun amnesty, so criminals and terrorists can hand over their hard-earnt guns. Ha! Australia is awash with illegal guns, in the hands of the underworld, and it is just plain stupid to think that they would surrender anything:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/government-toughens-gun-laws-in-response-to-shootings-and-gangs-arms-race-20151027-gkk18x.html
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/as-many-as-600000-illegal-guns-in-australia-20161020-gs74ay.html
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/automatic-pistols-from-southeast-asia-spotted-on-local-black-market/news-story/a1c16504680a792cfaf0566aecaa0e3e

     The claim that a national amnesty would do anything to stop terrorism is beyond ridiculous, as even mainstream sites have recognised http://theconversation.com/a-national-amnesty-will-not-rid-australia-of-violent-gun-crime-7956.
 In fact, as I see it, all of this is just about the social control of ordinary citizens, with the hope of removing more guns from the ordinary people.  It will make it easier for the white genocide waiting down the tracks, when TSHTF, and TEOTWAWKI (The end of the world as we know it).

     The comments in an interview given recently by Prince Harry to the American magazine Newsweek in which he stated that: “the heavy burden which comes with the throne isn’t something anyone aspired to” are being broadcast - and often misinterpreted - on Australian television and other media.
     In many ways, Prince Harry is quite correct. To be monarch is an awesome burden. Not only does one have to be on call 24 hours each day, read through State papers, meet with ministers to be consulted and to advise, attend various events and functions almost every day but also, worse, the monarch and heirs are in the public spotlight continuously.

     The Queen has carried on her duties for over 65 years immaculately. Even though the 24/7 news cycle occurred only more recently during her reign, Her Majesty has taken it all on board and has unflinchingly continued to serve the people.
     Service and duty is today what the monarchy is all about. As Prince Harry said in his interview “Despite the challenges that come with it” the monarchy was “a force for good”.
     Australia’s system of constitutional monarchy has upheld our democracy for well over a hundred years during which time so many countries became republics and then dictatorships.

Riding on the City of New Orleans Illinois Central Monday morning rail
Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders
Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail
All along the southbound odyssey the train pulls out at Kankakee
And rolls along past houses farms and fields
Passing trains that have no name and freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles

to THE AUSTRALIAN
     Civil Liberties Australia argues that Australia is not a Christian country, but Kevin Donnelly disagrees (‘We are a Christian nation’, 15/6). Each party describes Australia in the way it wishes to see it;  but the truth is that we look a bit like the ‘muddle’ that E. M. Forster saw India as being a century ago and later described in ‘A Passage to India’.

     What kind of nation should we aim to be? My answer is that we should seek to be a people who are collectively aware of the numinous and the mysterious. That is where we should primarily locate the sacred, not in theology or past works of art or acts of charity (as Donnelly does).
     He wants to resuscitate a mode of Christianity that appears to be in slow terminal decline. Liberty Australia thinks to dance on its grave. Neither approach will lead to a fruitful tomorrow. Only a fresh visioning of the ‘worlds beyond’ will be sufficient.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic

     I was not surprised to read that “ “Despite there being many illegal migrants and failed asylum seekers from North Africa and the Middle East, last year the Berlin government has overwhelmingly deported only migrants from the Balkan states”: http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/06/12/80-per-cent-migrants-deported-berlin-balkans/. For, after all, the future of Germany is to become part of the Islamic caliphate, aided and abetted by Merkel.

     I was not surprised to read that Merkel was in Mexico, saying that walls are bad, bad, bad, because, presumably, borders should not exist: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/angela-merkel-criticises-donald-trump-mexico-city-walls-us-border-infrastructure-german-chancellor-a7786116.html. She did not condemn Israel’s wall, which is working fine: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-of-israel-s-security-fence. After all, the future of the United States is to be, the Disunited States of Greater Mexico.

     So sung the Eagles in their 1976 song “The Last Resort.” While some segments of the high tech elites are looking to abandon Earth for space: http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/stephen-hawking-warns-that-humans-must-leave-earth-in-100-years/news-story/4b979ea1ab2d0fe6f3eb68f45b0d25c0, there have come warnings that this may not be possible any time soon.
     Space cadets will face the onslaught of cosmic rays once in space, outside of the protective magnetic shield of the Earth. With this will come, not super powers, as depicted in the Fantastic Four comics, but cancer: http://www.naturalnews.com/2017-06-12-astronauts-extremely-likely-to-die-from-cancer-if-they-travel-to-mars-warns-new-science-study.html. Cosmic rays will severely damage the DNA of cells, and affected cancer cells may alter near-by cells, or “bystander” cells, causing mega-mutations. Merely having thicker shields and space suits may not solve the problem, given the length of time to be spent in space, let alone staying there, forever.
     We are all going to stay on this planet and see how it all pans out. No doubt, everything will come out in the wash, one way of another.

     Hey, that’s the sort of paranoid conspiratorial title readers have come to expect, and love, from me. But, the title is only a paraphrase of “Aussie Unis Boost Chinese Military,” The Weekend Australian, June 10-11, 2017, p.1.
     The story here is universities are supplying the Chinese military with technological leadership and knowledge which China needs for advanced military and industry superiority. The claims have been made by public intellectual Clive Hamilton. Here is how just some of this works, courtesy of your tax payer’s dollars, according to The Australian:

“For instance, last year the ARC awarded a $400,000 grant to Adelaide University for a research partnership with the Beijing Institute of Aeronautical Materials, which is part of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China. Government-owned AVIC is the major supplier of military aircraft to the People’s Liberation Army Air Force.
As Mr Hamilton and Mr Joske say, “when the PLA unveiled its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, it was loaded with Shenyang J-15 fighter jets built by AVIC”.
The Adelaide University project is intended to help develop materials and devices that, the ARC’s proposal says, “are comfortable, quiet and energy-efficient” for use in aircraft, motor vehicles and ships. The authors point out: “It will also enhance the PLA Air Force’s capacity to improve the performance of its most sophisticated warplanes.”

to THE AUSTRALIAN
     Noel Pearson is fantasising when he claims (‘Token change is not an option for Pearson’, 16/6) that the establishment of the Constitution in 1901 has led to a ‘lack of structural power’ for our Aboriginals that ‘cascades down into the daily lives on the streets of communities.’  There are plenty of reasonable life opportunities for today’s Australians who happen to have Aboriginal blood, so there is no need at all to create national political division where there is none. It would be statesmanlike for Pearson to admit that any kind of constitutional recognition is against the interests of the great majority of today’s Australians and to rededicate himself to uncontentious efforts to improve Aboriginal welfare.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic