June 20, 2004

MAGICAL CURE REVEALED

Germaine Greer calmly analyses Australia’s many problems:

The country I love has been crazily devastated by whitefellas who knock down its mountains, grind up its trees, divert its watercourses, build high-rises on its flood plains, creating an endless nightmare of suburbia from which our kids try to escape by sticking needles in their arms. It is obvious to anyone that Australia's "sophisticated recreational lifestyle" comes at a huge cost in terms of non-renewable resources. The senescent bush along the densely populated foreshores will one day explode in firestorms that will wipe out the insurance market and bring the whole shonky economy to its knees.

A good deal of energy has been expended on diagnosing the malaise that leads to high levels of alcoholism, addiction and crimes of violence in Aboriginal society. Whitefella spiritual desolation is seldom admitted, let alone discussed. Problem drinking affected whitefellas long before it made devastating inroads into Aboriginal society, and continues to wreak havoc today. It is one of a galaxy of self-destructive behaviours making a continuum with suicide, drug abuse, reckless driving and self-harming, all of which are rife in the "lucky" country.

So how can we stop this nation of junkies "knocking down mountains" with their "reckless driving"? Germaine has the solution:

The way out of the predicament in which we find ourselves, I suggest - guilty inheritors of a land usurped by our deluded, desperate forefathers - is the simple admission that ours is an Aboriginal country. All of it. Every single bit. Try saying it to yourself in the mirror. "I live in an Aboriginal country."

Germaine Greer lives in England.

Posted by Tim Blair at June 20, 2004 02:10 AM
Comments

She needs a husband.

Posted by: Richard at June 20, 2004 at 02:15 AM

The senescent bush along the densely populated foreshores will one day explode in firestorms...

solution:

grind up its trees

Posted by: drscroogemcduck at June 20, 2004 at 02:18 AM

California isn't Australia, but it does have a lot of experience with "firestorms". Not only is the insurance industry still around, California is improving.

So, based on that analogy, I can only conclude Germaine Greer has her head up her arse.

Posted by: The Real JeffS at June 20, 2004 at 02:23 AM

"'The way out of the predicament in which we find ourselves, I suggest - guilty inheritors of a land usurped by our deluded, desperate forefathers - is the simple admission that ours is an Aboriginal country. All of it. Every single bit. Try saying it to yourself in the mirror. "I live in an Aboriginal country.'

Germaine Greer lives in England."

Maybe she means the Celts?

Posted by: Lewis at June 20, 2004 at 02:25 AM

Maybe we should just force all of humanity to move back to the Olduvai Gorge. I mean, what right did any of us have to despoil the rest of nature for our selfish desire to live and procreate?

Posted by: charles austin at June 20, 2004 at 02:26 AM


Boy, now that I have read this article I realize what a horrible, racist, sexist, environmentally-degraded, backward, spiritually desolate, drugged-out place Australia really is!

To think I never remotely understood this when I actually lived there! But then, who am I going to believe - my own lyin' eyes or the brilliant Germaine? Silly me.

Posted by: Bruce at June 20, 2004 at 02:52 AM

I demand that Germaine Greer apologize for the invasion of England by those bloody Normans in 1066.

Posted by: Gideon at June 20, 2004 at 03:11 AM

"Whitefella spiritual desolation is seldom admitted, let alone discussed. Problem drinking affected whitefellas long before it made devastating inroads into Aboriginal society, and continues to wreak havoc today. It is one of a galaxy of self-destructive behaviours making a continuum with suicide, drug abuse, reckless driving and self-harming, all of which are rife in the "lucky" country."

Seems to me the whitefellas ain't the only ones been drinkin' and druggin', after reading those tortured sentences.

Posted by: ushie at June 20, 2004 at 03:12 AM

Germaine Greer doesn’t even bother to distinguish the Australian aborigines from aborigines of other countries. That’s how real, or rather unreal, they are to her. That’s the problem with the word “aborigine.” In Spanish America, the amerinds are known as los aborígenes.

Amerinds & Australian aborigines alike have many languages, so it would be difficult to settle upon aboriginal-language names for such comprehensive groupings. I’ve long thought that it would be a nice & elegant gesture, at least, to support their adopting plainly “backformative” words as the names of their peoples, that is to say, names that make it seem as if their respective continents had been named after them.

“Australs” for the Australian aborigines, for instance.

Posted by: ForNow at June 20, 2004 at 03:23 AM

She shopuld have gave the solution she gave on the UK BBC's Question Time programme last thursday - to "bring back the Communist party".

Posted by: Gazaridis at June 20, 2004 at 04:07 AM

It just occurred to this American that, in Australian English, “an Austral” would rhyme with & sound the quite the same as “a nostril.” So maybe “Australe” would be better.

Posted by: ForNow at June 20, 2004 at 04:19 AM

...I can only conclude Germaine Greer has her head up her arse.

There's a famous picture showing how Greer got that way. I googled for it but couldn't find it. I think we're all fortunate in that.

Posted by: Angie Schultz at June 20, 2004 at 04:23 AM

Germain Greer is my favorite monster after the Mummy.

Posted by: Amos at June 20, 2004 at 04:27 AM

I love Australia. I've been there several times and God willing I'll be back several more.

Australia is even better because Greer, a decrepit old pedophile, lives in England. The US should follow the Aussie's lead and send all of our aging hippie pervs to the UK, too.

And may she rot there with her boy lovers.

Posted by: CrusaderGirl at June 20, 2004 at 05:04 AM

Gideon beat me to the punch. I agree that Germaine and her ilk should get out of England and give it back to the Saxons... er, the Angles... the Celts?.... the Picts?...

Also, what about those bloody Dorians and Ionians in Greece? And shouldn't the Etruscans get back a good chunk of Rome? I also think the Hans of China have a bit of explaining (and packing up) to do.

People who agitate to undo human migration (which has been going on since... well, yes, since we popped up out of Olduvai) are simply stupid.

Posted by: Rebecca at June 20, 2004 at 05:06 AM

if that's what the thinks then I grant she has the consistency to piss off and live in a whitefella country.

she needs to drop the posessive 'our' about the place though, the silly old bat.

Posted by: baker at June 20, 2004 at 05:14 AM

Hey, Tim. What's going on in the comments section? I was just told I couldn't make my post due to "questionable content". But I don't think that I wrote anything that was questionable. At least not anything that a computer might flag. No profanity or racism. What gives?

Posted by: Sean at June 20, 2004 at 05:14 AM

I accidentally clicked on the link to the Germaine Greer article in the Guardian, and how ever briefly exposed myself to the tendentious inchorent rant of one truly stupid person. Details about Australian and Aborigines are not important. The only thing important is how anyone could pay any attention in anyway to someone this dumb. The Stalinist nomenklatura (i.e., liberals) hate the modern world because they're too dumb to reap the rewards like the smart and hard working people do and so they routinely publish these utterly fatuous screeds against it.

Posted by: Kamperken at June 20, 2004 at 05:17 AM

Boy, now that I have read this article I realize what a horrible, racist, sexist, environmentally-degraded, backward, spiritually desolate, drugged-out place Australia really is!

gosh, now i really want to visit!

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at June 20, 2004 at 05:39 AM

Weren't your "deluded, desperate forefathers" shipped to Australia against there will??? Sort of like African Americans! Use that argument and you people OWN the place.

Posted by: KellyW. at June 20, 2004 at 05:46 AM

Sean: MT-Blacklist bans certain innocuous words that unfortunately have become common usage in spam. You probably used one of those. The message you get with the denial is supposed to tell you what the banned word or phrase is.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at June 20, 2004 at 06:37 AM

The funniest part is at the end of the article where the Guardian has posted this little informational item: "this is an edited extract from Whitefella Jump Up". Good Lord. What was the unedited extract like?

Posted by: MD at June 20, 2004 at 07:20 AM

Vile, stupid old woman! Been hangin' with Margoid, has she??

Posted by: Kate at June 20, 2004 at 08:39 AM

Andrea, thanks for the info. It did tell me the words but it didn't make any sense at all. It said the words were: "ha[s] it"--a phrase so innocuous that I just assumed it was some sort of glitch because nowhere had I mentioned my addiction to online erection enhancement or free credit reports.

Posted by: Sean at June 20, 2004 at 08:44 AM

Obviously it wasn't a glitch because I had to bracket the "s" to get the last post through. Weird.

Posted by: Sean at June 20, 2004 at 08:45 AM

Does it never occur to these collectivist morons that if the land belonged to the tribal people who were there first on the basis of collective ownership that today the land still belongs to everybody and that therefore, anyone who wants to should be able to build whatever, whereever the damn well please.

It belonged to the aborigines. They ceded ownership by virtue of abandonment/neglect and now that the land has been improved with utilities and roads it's a little late to claim they were swindled.

If the land belongs to everybody then it's a criminal act to prevent the use of the land by many to placate the whining of the few.

Posted by: jim at June 20, 2004 at 08:56 AM

Careful jim, its saying dangerous things like that that caused that mental giant kernel failure to label us all monarchists and bigots.

:)

Posted by: Quentin George at June 20, 2004 at 09:01 AM


How long before this crackpot publishes a book:

Stupid white fellas - unfortunately she has been beaten to it by some other oxygen thief.

How about:

Hey mate, what you done to my country you white cxxx?

Once again too slow!

Posted by: Rob at June 20, 2004 at 09:38 AM

Lets hope she stays in England this time.

Posted by: Michael Sutcliffe at June 20, 2004 at 10:05 AM

One interesting point about Ms Greer is that many if not most of the Australian Aboriginals who have actually had anything to do with her reportedly consider her to be rude, overbearing, paternalistic (or whatever the feminist equivalent) and consistently and terminally ignorant of and insentive about their culture and manners.

Hardly surprising, given her behavior in the broader world.

Posted by: Chris at June 20, 2004 at 10:05 AM

There has to be a word for white women who hate the male half of their race. I don't think she ever forgave Norman Mailer for not fucking her.

Posted by: Sean at June 20, 2004 at 10:10 AM

The other thing that really gets to me about her is the fact that here we have a supposedly intelligent woman in full control of her sexuality and she has had several abortions. So many in fact that she could no longer bear children. Didn't she ever make the connection between having unprotected sex and getting pregnant? Didn't she reaslise that this was a risk you take when having an abortion?

I read an article written by her a few years ago where she moaned and whinged about not being able to conceive and how much pain she went through after each procedure. Unbelievable that she couldn't control herself or her partners to at least put a rubber on.

Posted by: Rob at June 20, 2004 at 10:22 AM

"Germaine Greer lives in England."

And aren't we glad of that.

Posted by: Craig Mc at June 20, 2004 at 10:38 AM

Recently I've seen her on Newsnight Review (on BBC) and the first thing you notice is that she is not terribly insightful. To get attention these days she has to resort to shock and controversy. Anyone read Margaret Talbot's utter annihilation (in the New Republic) of Greer's big comeback book "The Whole Woman"? It was a grisly mutilation of an already rotting corpse.

Posted by: Sean at June 20, 2004 at 10:56 AM

Dear Miss Greer

I feel no guilt.

Now, please, you raddled, sanctimonious, overbearing, pompous, mentally-defective harridan, STFU!

Thank you.

Posted by: BruceT at June 20, 2004 at 11:11 AM

Good thinking. If you want to get away from alcoholism and crimes of violence, England is definitely the best place. We do have whitefellas, however.

Many of my best friends are whitefellas, but that?s as close as I care to let them come. Seriously, would you let your daughter marry a whitefella?

Posted by: Harry Hutton at June 20, 2004 at 12:11 PM

I was born to whitefella blood. But it wasn't like I could choose my father. Speaking of whitefellas, wasn't Goodfellas a great movie for a bunch of whitefellas?

Posted by: Sean at June 20, 2004 at 12:39 PM

Fortunately no one except our chattering elites and the ABC has taken Miss Greer seriously for, oh, 20 years. As she declines into her dotage we can see her for what she always was - a whining, bitter spinster. Still, that's what residing in the UK does for you. We'd all be raving mad if we lived in those conditions.

Posted by: walter plinge at June 20, 2004 at 12:45 PM

Fascinating incident occurred a few years ago when Greer visited Alice Springs and declared nothing had changed in the town in 20 years and the plight of Aborigines there was just as bad or worse as on her previous visit.
This happened to really enrage the Tangentyere Council (wrongly spelt, I'm sorry, I don't remember it off hand)which is an Aboriginal organisation which has spent the past 20 years developing housing estates and a whole range of services for Aboriginal people in the town.
But in one sentence Greer made it seem they'd done absolutely nothing.
How typical that she'd turn up in town, walk down a few streets and shoot her mouth off without knowing what she's talking about.

Posted by: rosemary at June 20, 2004 at 01:13 PM

Everytime I hear terms like 'whitefella' I cringe with embarrasment.

ENGLISH: Figure it out, or get the fuck out.

Posted by: Amos at June 20, 2004 at 01:21 PM

For Ms Harris:
Ms Greer presenting her best form:
http://www.screwmag.com/slimeline/slimeline2.htm
Scroll to Bottom.

Cheers
JMH

Posted by: J.M. Heinrichs at June 20, 2004 at 01:44 PM

AIEEEEEE!!!

J.M Heinrichs, pointing to that link was a hate crime. Kindly place a 'do-not-view-immediately-after-eating' warning on such abominations in future.

Posted by: Al Bundy at June 20, 2004 at 02:03 PM

For Sean
The word you're after is misandry.
Ref. the New Shorter Oxford.

Posted by: kwol at June 20, 2004 at 02:33 PM

Heh. It's better to be a Twisted Spinster than a bitter spinster!

Posted by: Andrea Harris at June 20, 2004 at 02:41 PM

Oh God! My eyes! MY EYES!!! Damn you, J.M. Heinrichs!

I'm pretty sure, though, that before I lost my sight, I saw the "senescent bush" that _ought_ to go up in flames...

Posted by: Larry at June 20, 2004 at 02:44 PM

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

You didn't HAVE to look ... but it does have a Margo K-esque quality to it.

Cheers
JMH

Posted by: J.M. Heinrichs at June 20, 2004 at 03:11 PM

Germaine wants us all to feel really guilty like the indoctrinated left wing british intelligentsia.
Unfortunately we do not have the Imperialist background of the brits to draw on, so she is only too keen to supply us with alternatives.
We cannot even flagellate ourselves over the ladies underwear fiasco !
Did the ABC ever check if any ladies under wear went missing from the AUSSIE forces ?
That should be worth a series of insights.

Posted by: davo at June 20, 2004 at 04:46 PM

KWOL, I know that one. What I'm talking about is a peculiar subcategory--not hatred of all men but a particular hatred or contempt for men of the same race. It's the in thing among certain bourgeois white lefties of the, um, feminine gender. That grotesque Liz Winstead (Air America Radio) is also afflicted, though I believe she's a lesbian.

Now about that photo! Jesus H. Christ!!! I'll never jack it again.

Posted by: Sean at June 20, 2004 at 05:06 PM

The best thing Greer ever did was to leave the country. Her and Pilger.

While in the UK a few years ago I saw her on some wanky art show, vomiting on about how much she hated the Lord of the Rings movie. Somehow she came up with the idea that the film was pro-Bush propaganda or some other incomprehensible garbage.

Don't be upset by anything she says - it's on par with the ramblings of any city wino you see having a conversation with a shopping trolley.

Posted by: Mr T at June 20, 2004 at 05:33 PM

Yeah, but she's like a bag lady with money and fame.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at June 20, 2004 at 06:37 PM

Somehow she came up with the idea that the film was pro-Bush propaganda or some other incomprehensible garbage.

Maybe she was referring to the subtle Christian undertones.

Regardless, seeing as how Tolkien witnessed the horrors of war in person at the front in France, I doubt he was trying to glorify war in the way Ms Greer would believe.

But he was presenting a clear good vs. evil picture of the world.

No nuance! Lefties hate that.

Posted by: Quentin George at June 20, 2004 at 10:35 PM

Way to plug your blog Andrea!

Posted by: TimT at June 20, 2004 at 11:30 PM

Yeah, but she's like a bag lady with money and fame.

Just goes to show how little it takes to rise to the top among the Left.

Posted by: PW at June 21, 2004 at 12:18 AM

That was QUITE a frightening link.

But now I do feel I understand Ms. Greer a bit better; her maniacal, surreal ravings are now in context. Her writings have all the hallmarks I'd expect - immaturity, petulance, misandry, misplaced "woman power", geographical incoherence, ignorance of technology, economics, and history - from someone who willingly posed for Screw magazine with her "shrubbery" spread for all to see.

Posted by: kimberly at June 21, 2004 at 01:00 AM

"The country I love has been crazily devastated by whitefellas who knock down its mountains, grind up its trees, divert its watercourses, build high-rises on its flood plains"

The Aborigines' use of firestick farming devastated the environment leading to a predominance of the highly flammable eucalyptus trees. http://www.voea.vic.edu.au/VCE_resources/megafauna_modified.htm
and now perhaps "The senescent bush along the densely populated foreshores will one day explode in firestorms that will wipe out the insurance market and bring the whole shonky economy to its knees." Shonky economy? How 1970's. http://www.business.nsw.gov.au/factsReports.asp?cid=20&subCid=36

Posted by: FlyWhiteGuy at June 21, 2004 at 01:14 AM
Way to plug your blog Andrea!
Sizzle, baby! Posted by: Andrea Harris at June 21, 2004 at 01:28 AM

"I live in an Aboriginal country."

Germaine Greer lives in England.


Yes, and your point is...? :-)

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 21, 2004 at 01:38 AM

The point is she hasn't lived in Oz for 35 years and has hated the country most of her life. Moreover, the Aborigines themselves have no great affection for oncers who come and go from the very nuanced milieu of Aboriginal advocacy.

For example, Greer says nothing about the endemic violence towards women and the sexual abuse of children that exists in many Aboriginal communtities. Such problems have become the number one concern raised by Aboriginal women in many parts of Australia. She also exhibits complete and utter ignorance of contemporary thinking on what constitutes eirenicism within Australian society regarding white/black relations. The modern discourse is focussed on reconciliation, not undergraduate utopion idiocy centered on the recognition of an overarching Aboriginal sovereignty.

There is no such sovereignty, either in law or fact, to say nothing of the reality that many non-European Australians have made Australia their home who have no cultural linkage to the colonising era and prefer to think of themselves as culturally distinct but assimilated (or assimilating) Australians.

Most astonishingly of all, but unsurprising, is that Greer was one of the chief propagandists of the 60s revolution that helped create the morally vacuous, gender-warring and drug-tolerant world inherited by today's young adults.

Greer was always a woman with exaggerated notions of her own genius. Australians prefer innovators who scarcely pause to be recognised but who get on amateurishly and humbly with their lives and their work. Greer has always been ridiculed because she's so earnest and sanctimonious. She's too serious ever to be taken seriously here.

Returning to the theme of her article (and Tim's post), a few years ago she claimed she never came to Australia without first asking ceremonial permission from the relevant Sydney tribe of Aborigines. Trouble was, the Elders of that mob had no recollection of Greer ever approaching them.

Germaine Greer now lives in a bitter world inhabited by pet geese, the ghosts of the relationships her ego destroyed, the glory of a single 'seminal' work written nearly 40 years ago - which is neither well written or revolutionary - and the memories of an Australia that has passed her by.

She, like many feminists, fancies that men fear her but the truth is they just don't respect her. As for women - and their's is the gender one should never cross if at all avoidable - they regard her as, at best, an amusingly eccentric representation of everything they're glad they're not.

Posted by: CurrencyLad at June 21, 2004 at 02:22 AM

ForNow -- I was going to say, "For politeness' sake, we might ask the aboriginals what their name for themselves is."

The problem with that is that almost all if not all aboriginal names translate to "the people," with the explicit assumption that the rest of us aren't.

It's a fine tradition Islam has upheld for millennia...

BTW, wonderduck, aren't British aboriginals called 'chavs'?

Posted by: richard mcenroe at June 21, 2004 at 08:42 AM

Sean, I had the same problem a couple of days ago (glitch, telling me the banned phrase is "ha[s] it"). Dunno what that's all about.

BTW, what is the female version of "whitefellas"?

Posted by: Rebecca at June 21, 2004 at 11:06 AM

Greer last tried to live in Australia for an extended period in 1972. Two highlights from that year:

1. She stalked my father (a handsome bloke) around Randwick Racecourse. What on earth she was doing there, I've no idea - perhaps observing the Australian male in his natural habitat.

2. Another visitor to Australia that year was David Frost. He did a show with an audience of kids, and in one segment he showed them photos of famous people and asked them to identify them. They quickly identified Greer:

Frost: "Yes, Germaine Greer. Doctor Germaine Greer. Did you know she was a doctor?"

Kid: "She's a witch".

That wasn't you, was it, Tim?

Posted by: David Morgan at June 21, 2004 at 11:35 AM

We came ....We saw ....We conquered

Posted by: Le clerc at June 21, 2004 at 12:50 PM

Alright who knocked down the god damned mountain...I told you to leave that up....now I am going to turn my back and I want it back there quick smart........... otherwise there will be trouble when your grandman greer gets home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: David at June 21, 2004 at 01:45 PM

Rebecca, I have explained and explained and explained what "that's all about" -- in fact I have explained to Sean right here on this very comment thread. If you want to know all about MT-Blacklist, what it is, and why it is implemented on this and other sites, go here.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at June 21, 2004 at 02:27 PM

Explosive fire storms? When all the bush has been ground up!

Posted by: Paulm at June 21, 2004 at 04:33 PM

Germaine, get back on your broomstick.

Posted by: Alex Robson at June 21, 2004 at 07:45 PM

I often wonder why, if the state of Israel is not legitimate (the eeeeevil colonialist displacement and disposession of a native brown-skinned populace), we don't have nutjobs questioning, say, Australia's right to exist.

(I had assumed that letting enough time elapse and then institutionalizing rights to a decimated population were sufficient.)

But, here we do have someone saying that, we must right even centuries-old wrongs if we are to save our souls.

Bravo, Ms. Greer, for following the Far Left's logic to its ridiculous conclusions.

Posted by: Joe Grossberg at June 22, 2004 at 10:01 AM