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Last updated on March 6th, 2018 at 12:31 am
The Age’s Traceeee Hutchison is concerned about Australia’s flag:
Sydney’s Big Day Out passed without incident despite huge numbers of patrons defying the leave-the-flags-at-home urgings of organisers, but imagine the outcry had a bunch of flag-clad idiots done some real damage? Imagine if someone was badly injured in a flag-induced frenzy?
Imagine if someone was badly injured in a Traceeee-induced frenzy. Imagine the outcry had a bunch of Indymedia-reading idiots done some real damage. Imagine anything you like, because nothing bad happened at Sydney’s Big Day Out concert. Despite that …
Perhaps the time has finally arrived to come up with a flag that unites, not divides, us. To be reminded of a country that welcomes not rejects. A country that makes peace with its past and looks to its future with self-determined optimism and hope. A country we can all feel proud to be part of.
Go ahead, Hutchison, and design that flag. The flag of unity. We’d love to see it. Over at the Bulletin, Adam Shand was of similar anti-flag mind prior to last week’s concert:
There is no doubt the Australian flag has been used to divide our people … There is no deep love here for our flag.
If there’s no deep love for the flag, how does it generate the passion to “divide us”? Are we being ripped apart by something we don’t care about?
- This is making me want to buy a flag…Posted by anthony_r on 2007 01 30 at 08:31 AM • permalink
- “If there’s no deep love for the flag, how does it generate the passion to “divide us”? Are we being ripped apart by something we don’t care about?”
It’s a similar story when the Greens (and Democrats in recent weeks) get all hot and bothered about Howard appealing to “fringe extremist religious groups”. Australia has a compulsory voting system so appealing to small groups instead of the “vast majority of Australians” seems obviously self-defeatng for the Liberals.
How can an appeal to small groups on the fringe of society help the Liberals win in an election of 10 million-odd compulsory voters?
Posted by Villeurbanne on 2007 01 30 at 08:39 AM • permalink
Imagine if someone was badly injured in a flag-induced frenzy?
The only “flag-induced frenzies” I can think of involve people dipping a flag in lighter fluid and torching it. Somehow, I doubt that’s what Traceeeeeeeee was thinking about.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 01 30 at 08:47 AM • permalink
- The flag Tracee is talking about is solid white and should be waved over the head vigorously. Then everything will be okay!Posted by Jim Treacher on 2007 01 30 at 08:57 AM • permalink
- The extra ‘E’ in Tracee stands for ‘excrement’.
imagine the outcry had a bunch of flag-clad idiots done some real damage?
I imagine Ms Hutchison wrote a similar article about the flag wielding
thugs who set off flares in Federation square and then clashed at the Tennis? Non?Far easier I suppose to tilt at windmills that won’t fight back (or blow up your car).
- I would be very interested to hear Traceeeeee’s opinion of the Country Music Top Single of the Year, Beccy Cole’s “Poster Girl”, a tribute to our Diggers in Iraq.
On second thoughts, no I wouldn’t.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2007 01 30 at 09:20 AM • permalink
- But Traceeee, we can imagine all kinds of things that could have happened but didn’t. What if the “I’m sorry” crowd had been subjected to a surprise attack by carnivorous, leg-climbing wallabies, with air support from freetail bats suffering from irritable bowel syndrome? What if Michael Leunig went out one day to do some bird watching and got stomped to death by a herd of enraged moas?
Obviously, she is disappointed that there were no incidents (just as I am disappointed that my own little fantasies didn’t come to pass). BTW, I think Traceeee‘s ideal flag would show a map of Australia punctured by a stilletto heel.
- “Sydney’s Big Day Out passed without incident despite huge numbers of patrons defying the leave-the-flags-at-home urgings of organisers, but imagine the outcry had a bunch of flag-clad idiots done some real damage?”
OK, so the flag wavers are not a bunch red neck rioters, but imagine if they were? This is on the level of “I’m not rich, but imagine if I were.” You are just creating a strawman argument here Traceeeeeeeee. Utterly stupid.
- Complete codswallop from Adam Shand too
The flag has also been stolen by far Right Wing and neo-Nazi groups. It has been used to reassert what it means to be Australian to this bigoted, blighted, ignorant minority. In this case, they are white Anglo-Saxon male values. Notice how few women feel the need to join such groups and protests and you will see this is a gender-based bigotry as well
Well Adam, looks like a lot of women (and various ethnic groups too) have joined the bigoted, blighted minority
The bigoted minority must have all been in Sydney on Australia Day – and somehow they brainwashed women, children and many people from different ethnic backgrounds to be part of their far right neo Nazi bigotry
This must be it because the majority of people I saw around Sydney had either flags draped over their shoulders, were waving little paper flags, had hats with the flag displayed, and a horrific sight (for Adam had he seen it) – a few pretty young girls who had cleverly made the flag into stunning little dresses
The final example of this far right bigotry was a happy family of Muslims -perhaps Lebanese busily taking photos of themselves draped in the Aussie flag
Adam Shand would have slashed his wrists at all these displays of bigotry
Posted by aussiemagpie on 2007 01 30 at 10:02 AM • permalink
- Exactly right cosmo.
The resurgent patriotism on display on Australia Day is killing these damn commies.The only people trying to use the Australian flag to divide our people are these asswipes.
Generations of Australians have proudly lived, fought and died under the Australian flag and these bastards want to scrap it!?
What a contemptible lot they are.
- There’s nothing like using a strawman argument to whinge about something that one doesn’t like to demonstrate one’s lack of analytical and cognitive abilities.Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 01 30 at 10:44 AM • permalink
- Is Sydney’s Big Day Out supposed to be a patriotic event? If so, I can’t imagine why the organizers would think it was appropriate to tell people to leave the flags home.
And there is no flag that could be designed to please people like Traceeeeeeeeeee. As long as it represents a free country, to her it is a symbol of oppression.
- In Leftardese, “divisive” means “having the bad taste to disagree with us.” George Bush is always referred to by Democrats as “divisive” – witness how he divisively invited Ted Kennedy over to the White House for popcorn and a movie his first week there. Fortunately, Kennedy was too principled to accomodate such divisiveness.
- #27: Along the same lines, you always hear the MSM refer to this or that Republican politician as “conservative” or even “ulta-conservative”. When’s the last time you heard the Johnny Weissmuller of Chappaquiddick called the “ulta-liberal”, or even just, “the liberal” senior Senator from Massachussetts?
- Dave S.
Fortunately, Kennedy was too principled to accomodate such divisiveness.
Or flat on his ass drunk (have no fear, cranes have been ordered to upright Mr. Whale Kennedy…Kennedy denies this, saying his fall, was a fluke) Or having his house help butter his tub, so he can slide, Or pressing his 69 waist underwear, Or showing off in front of friends in emptying his pool, with one belly flop, Orrecovering from the head injury received when he actually tried to view his toes, while standing.
- Another flag-hating brain-dead moron here.Posted by AlphaMikeFoxtrot on 2007 01 30 at 03:00 PM • permalink
- I think Traceeee’s ideal Australian flag would be a tilted head on a field of white.Posted by Harry Buttle on 2007 01 30 at 03:59 PM • permalink
- #33: thanks for that link, Paco. I sent it to all my friends, who will appreciate it in ways you never imagined.
You’re welcome RebeccaH.
Hours later. Sitting in Lazyboy chair, reading newspaper after dinner. Hears commotion in front yard.
Mrs. Paco: Honey, there’s a bunch of people in the yard wearing “Che” t-shirts. They’re yelling and carrying signs and trampling the gardenias and demanding that you come out on the porch.
Me: Can you tell what they want? That’s not the Knights of Columbus Membership Drive Committee again, is it? If I’ve told those people once, I’ve told them a thousand times, I’m not a joiner and I’m certainly not going to walk around attired in a dracula cape and the hat of a Prussian drum major.
Mrs. P: No, no. They look like a mix of hippies and would-be guerillas. Maybe a few professor types. It sounds like they’re complaining about some article you linked at Tim Blair’s blog. I told you not to spend so much time at that place.
Me: Ok, ok, let’s not go into that, again. At least I, er, gave up smoking. Uh, how’s your hay fever doing these days, anyway?
Mrs. Paco (smiles knowingly): Much better. Listen, are you going to talk to these folks or not? All that racket is upsetting the dog.
Me: I don’t need to talk to them. Is the Pressurized Anti-Communist Occluder hooked up?
Mrs. Paco (sighing): You mean the garden hose?
Me: Yeah; the really big one.
Mrs. Paco: Looks like it.
Me: Ok, stand back.
Steps onto porch, turns faucet on, “let’s her rip”, blasts moonbats into gutter, moonbats withdraw in disorder. Hoists “Jolly Roger” on flagstaff.
- Tracee seems to hate almost everything about mainstream Australia. Our flag, our values. Our insistence on having people adapt to our culture instead of adapting to theirs.
A wonder she doesn’t take the 2 and a half hour flight to NZ where she can live in her gaia friendly, non-confrontational moonbat paradise.
- Excuse me Traceeeeee – I’ve seen more Australian flags being flown by ordinary citizens this year than I have in any previous year.
Just in the past four days alone I have seen seven private vehicles displaying the Australian flag.
In the case of two trayback utes, they were flying two flags each.
Idiot lefties have not idea about the Australian psyche in that if we’re told that we’re not allowed to do something, then we’ll do it more so.
Lefties aren’t proud of their country, they are filled with unrepented self-hatred.
— Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2007 01 30 at 04:55 PM • permalink
- #34 – AlphaMikeFoxTrot, I dream 1 punch, just 1 little punch will wipe this ugly black mozzie cunt out for good.
Green didn’t have the balls to do what a hell of a lot of Aussie’s wanted and The Boyo always picks 2nd rate fighters to fight him so I guess it will always be a dream.
Posted by ozconservative on 2007 01 30 at 05:05 PM • permalink
- #1 for about a year now, I’ve been contemplating getting an Australian flag tatooed on my right arm. My son can get me a full colour version for me for around $400.00.
I’m seriously contemplating getting it for my next birthday. Is 53 too old to be getting tatts?I also see, Anthony (Bruvver) Mundine’s new (c)rap video shows residents of the block burning the Union Jack. Burning the Australian flag would have been too inflammatory, I suppose.
- Why do bitter vituperative lefties always use “we” and “our” in their articles when they really mean “you” and “your?”
I recall after 9/11 the US lefties (well, some of them anyway) decided that the Stars and Stripes was their flag too, and they were no longer going to let rednecks and fascists preempt it.
So they started flying it.
After the second week they started looking a little sheepish and hangdog, wondering when it’d be okay to take them down again, because lots of the right wing troglodytes were still flying theirs… so gradually the lefties snuck their flags back inside.
For a brief moment there, though, they were actually defiantly proud to display the flag, claiming they’d “taken it back” from the right. It never occurred to them that nobody on the right burned the flag, or spit on it, or shredded it, or walked over it. Yet somehow their turning their back on it morphed into somebody taking it from them.
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2007 01 30 at 06:49 PM • permalink
- “Is 53 too old to be getting tatts?”
Yes. Getting tattooed is something you do when you are nineteen and drunk.
As for Tracee, imagine her writing something intelligent. Nope, can’t be done. There are some things so impossible that not even the Red Queen can imagine them.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2007 01 30 at 07:44 PM • permalink
- #9 Jim
Yes. Traceee can find instructions here on how to make her own new Aussie flag (thanks to the innovation of the French) Age flag
Posted by pommygranate on 2007 01 30 at 08:05 PM • permalink
- For the life of me I cannot see what is wrong with the flag. It says “thanks, you Pommy bastards, for the all the great things you gave us that has made us into one of the most enduring democracies on earth but the other three-quarters of Australia are the things we have done for ourselves under the Southern Cross.”
This year the number of countries that has endured an unbroken century or more as independent true democracies rises to seven -USA, Australia, Britain, Canada, Switzerland and Sweden will be joined by New Zealand. On my count, five of those have their roots in British justice and only one of those five had the need to throw off British rule by force. Not a bad reason to respect the Union Jack.
- Ok, dim wit American here…why would (or, did) the organizers of Australia Day festivities enourage Australians to leave their Australian flags at home?
Call me clueless, but even politically-correct, multicultural ninnies in the US would do such a thing, i.e. tell people to leave the stars and stripes at home on the 4th of July.
Cheers.
- Perhaps the time has finally arrived to come up with a flag that unites, not divides, us. To be reminded of a country that welcomes not rejects. A country that makes peace with its past and looks to its future with self-determined optimism and hope. A country we can all feel proud to be part of.
Oh, you mean Australia and the Australian flag.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 01 30 at 08:36 PM • permalink
- For the Australia Day weekend I strung up Australian flag bunting across the front of my house. I did this deliberately to divide the community and cause “flag induced frenzies.”
Needless to say I was dissapointed with the result. Nothing but a sense of quiet pride. My wife thought it looked nice. Maybe I need bigger ones next time.
- #50: Michael’s right. And even if you get a tattoo when you’re young, it can look quite different later on. My brother got a tattoo of the Harley-Davidson logo when he was 19 and in the Marine Corps. He was a slender, but muscular guy then. Now that he’s much, much older, the biceps have started to sag a little, and the tattoo seems to read “Harky / Dawdsoo”.
- I not only like the Australian flag; more importantly, I like what’s behind it.
- I’m surprised that someone hasn’t brought up this example of a flag being able to unite a community. Maybe that’s what Traceeeeee has in mind.
- Clearly the solution here is to print The Age on a copy of the Australian flag and then see what happens.
It’s ironic that this reluctance to be Australia-proud as it were stems originally from a British notion of modesty and reluctance to be too pushy in public.
But the people pushing this reluctance are all narcissistic idiots who can’t stand the thought
of ever holding themselves or their emotions in check in any way.It worries me.
Posted by carpefraise on 2007 01 30 at 11:30 PM • permalink
- BTW, I’d be happy with the Aboriginal flag.
I think it’s very suitable.But I wonder what these writers would think about flag-pride if it were the Aboriginal flag that was being worn and displayed as a sign of nationalistic pride were it the official flag?
Hmmmm, I really do wonder…
Posted by carpefraise on 2007 01 30 at 11:33 PM • permalink
- Imagine if Muslim women used the Australian flag as a burka.
Talk about culture shlock!
Posted by carpefraise on 2007 01 30 at 11:51 PM • permalink
- If Americans had kept their original flag they’d never have needed to change it every time a new state entered the Union.Posted by David Morgan on 2007 01 31 at 05:04 AM • permalink
- I must admit that I’ve never been a huge fan of the Australian flag, it’s rather dull and too much like Un Zuds for my liking; it has however grown in my affections in recent times for its ability to send the likes of Traceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, Phatty, Mike Carleton and assorted like types into a parxym of indignant, spittle-flecked rage.
I’m gettin’ me one of them there flagpole thingies.
- #42. Your ‘one punch’ dream reminds me of when the idiot Mundine declared that Sven Otke ‘punches like a girl’ in the lead up to their fight in which Otke knocked him out cold.
A few days later t-shirts went on sale with the picture of Mundine prone on the canvas.
Above the picture was the line; ‘Things I wish I’d never said’.
Below the picture was; ‘Sven Otke punches like a girl’Posted by AlphaMikeFoxtrot on 2007 01 31 at 05:38 AM • permalink
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