Australian vs American culture

[spacesailor]

If the attacker,s thought for a moment, they could lose,  I don,t think they Would attack !.

spacesailor

[old man emu]

Getting back to American culture.

 

I watched this today and I think that it shows that in America, snake oil salesmen are still very active. It implies that the prevailing ethic in the USA is to dupe people out of their money without any thought to ones scruples. No wonder "In God We Trust" has the added rider, "all others pay cash".

 

 

 

It all starts with the kids

 

[willedoo]

48 minutes ago, old man emu said:

I watched this today and I think that it shows that in America, snake oil salesmen are still very active.

Plenty of them about. A couple of them have even held the Presidency in the last few years.

[onetrack]

I can recall just about all of those "snake-oil" ads. As a horny juvenile, I dreamed of having a pair of those X-ray specs that would allow me to see girls naked under their clothes.

But somehow, I never did acquire a pair of them. I guess there was always a lingering suspicion they weren't telling the truth.

 

I did actually purchase a Charles Atlas body-building course - because I was a pretty puny 97-pound weakling as a juvenile. Army rookie training soon fixed that.

The Charles Atlas course was well-meaning I think, and wasn't necessarily snake oil. Charles Atlas promoted the principle of building muscle strength by using "Dynamic Tension".

 

Dynamic Tension doesn't work as a stand-alone body-building technique, but needs additional exercises, such as weight-lifting, and a structured muscle-building programme, with a muscle-building diet included. As with all body-building techniques, you need to keep at it, a dozen times a day for an extended period - and you need someone motivating you.

 

I never had anyone motivating me or giving me a structured weight gain course until I entered the Army. I gained a stone in upper-body muscle, in 12 weeks, in the Army - I went from 9 stone to 10 stone (57kgs to 63kgs). Even I was surprised.

At 71, I still have a satisfactory build and fitness for my age, even though I've gained weight to 74kgs. I don't have a gut, I can still see my old fella when I look towards my feet.

 

I can recall the Ventriloquist ad, the Seamonkeys ad, and several other "snake oil" ads - but many were based on a degree of truth - they just stretched it in the ads.

I can also remember the magic gearbox and diff oil additive, "Krause", sold by a bloke in Sydney, in little ads in the Modern Motor magazine. It was expensive, but it quietened noisy gearboxes and whining diffs like magic, the ad claimed.

 

I actually bought some to cure a whiney diff in my EJ and EH Holdens, after the diff drain plug fell out on corrugated gravel roads (a common early Holden fault). I was disappointed to find the "Krause" product was only diff/gearbox oil with a concentrate of Molydenum Disulphide added. The whine reduced a little, but it was still highly noticeable, and only a replacement diff fixed the problem.

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by onetrack

[Marty_d]

That mother Sea Monkey had pretty good legs, didn't she.  Funny how they were all aimed at male adolescent fantasies.

 

There's an interesting article about all that stuff here - https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/sea-monkeys-and-x-ray-spex/

 

[old man emu]

13 hours ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

I reckon Swedes have taken political correctness too far. 

 

13 hours ago, old man emu said:

I have a Swedish email-mate (is penpal an archaic word?) and have sent him what Jerry wrote so that he can comment on it.

Hello Mark,

 

I am using the text you sent and am adding few notes from my side, I hope this is information would be of some help, if not then please let me know.

 

And also, the perception of what is right or good for oneself or the community is very much subjective (within extremities) based on individual situation, culture and education... and your trust in the government. In Sweden, they have great trust in the government because of what it has accomplished.

•  

  That is truth, and we have several examples that shows how the system works. As one example and which we had quite recently was of the director of the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), Dan Eliasson, that was sacked in 1 day, after he did travel to Spain to visit his daughter over Christmas while he recommended days before for the swedes to NOT travel anywhere to prevent the disease to increase. In a nutshell, the man at the head of Sweden’s crisis preparedness agency travelled to visit family in the Canary Islands over Christmas, at a time when everyone in Sweden was supposed to be avoiding travel unless absolutely necessary.

•  

   

  The trip has prompted anger from very many in Sweden, who see it as an overly generous interpretation of the national recommendations which said only necessary travel should go ahead and which resulted in him to be removed from his chair in 1 day.... so the government is trusted by most of people and a transparency on the ways of working and how things are done helps a lot to increase even more the trust we have on the government.

   

  

People would be happy paying taxes because they feel they get good value for money. The government has probably focused on the collective good rather than narrow and vested interest.. Also, their culture is (or was) a lot less self-centred. I watched a documentary on Sweden some time ago and the thing that struck me was a community spirit of a Swedish word that roughly translated to "enough".. That is, they were happy with enough for a comfortable life... they weren't obsessed with individual greed (on the whole). Although I am in no way anti-immigration, my guess is Sweden has much lower rates of immigration against a much older established culture than the US, Aus, and the like, which makes it easier for the government to cater for the needs of the population - a monoculture is easier to serve than multi-cultures...

• The Swedish mentality as I see is very different and unusual to people of other nationalities, especially to workers who have worked in highly competitive environments (like Brazil for example) and are used to working 80-hour weeks and sacrificing personal life for work. The Swedish business culture finds its roots in ‘lagom’ or as you say “enough” which translates into a holistic and humanistic approach at the workplace… there should be a balance between your professional life and your personal life; everybody follows this and you are not expected to conquer the World or be the best… you have to work enough to live and enough to have a good life.

  For instance, the Swedes are a punctual lot. They believe in arriving on time and leaving on time. In fact, they even take their breaks on time. Moreover, they consider their five weeks of yearly vacation as sacred. It is in sharp contrast with other countries where you are under too much pressure to even think about holidays. One of the problems I feel, as an outsider, is the “hardcoded” bug I have in my behavior that I brought from Brazil… work, work and work. It is difficult to understand that this way of living is not valid here and that I should have my brains reprogrammed and adapted in order to not be sick as I am.

  Another interesting aspect that is worth to mention of, is the way the system works in terms of completely transparency. Here, each year Sweden and Norway publish everyone’s income tax returns so everybody in the country can inspect them… isn’t that beautiful? Many  outsiders doesn’t like it, but I do. You know from top the government down to me, how much we all have for salaries and benefits, so you know where does it goes to the high taxes we pay for… and you see the benefits out there on the streets and everywhere as well. It is easier for one to judge how good or bad the government is doing if you have transparency. You can find more information about that by googling the word “Jantelov”, which means “no-one is better than anyone else”.

   

 

 

All this combines to instill trust in the government of the wider population and this was borne by their approach to the pandemic. There was no lockdown and the government trusted the people to do the right thing as advised by the government and they generally did. Social distancing, masks where required, elderly and vulnerable protected. Yes, Sweden's numbers are up now, but the government has put their hand up to the mistake - not tried to cover it up.

• Yes, Sweden opted for a calmer – as we see it on the international Media, a controversial – approach led by the state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell (NOT a decision taken by a politician like in most of countries), instead to have a hard ruled lockdown, swedes were instructed to use their judgment, and to take individual responsibility within a framework that rested on mutual trust, rather than top-down control. Disregarding of how effective this decision did in order to hold the spread of this pandemic, everyone (swedes) respects and follows the rules; Yes you can see gatherings of people, but quite often you will notice that there are immigrants or of foreign origin. As I see it, the Swedish model would never work in other countries, like for instance Brazil and you name it, simply because the levels of social and institutional trust are much lower.

  There is a number of questions I got from other countries, including from a cousin of mine who lives in Brazil; he says that at the Brazilian news they stated that even our Majesty The King  complained in an audience about the decision that the Swedish parliament have chosen; I get amazed to see how untruthful the media can be! Nothing like that happened!!!! I saw myself the speech of the King and what he said was rather that despite of the decision to not have the lockdown, we are not able to stop the covid spread, meaning either one option or the other can not refrain the disease in an effective way. 

•  

 

 

[Marty_d]

Those Swedes seem like a sensible lot.

[onetrack]

As regards COVID-19 control, I still prefer the Australian model of control as compared to the Swedish model.

 

And I'll wager they will eventually regret freely allowing in so many radical Middle Eastern immigrants, whose cultural outlook is diametrically opposed to the Swedish cultural outlook.

 

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by onetrack

[Jerry_Atrick]

Well, I'm gald I wasn;t too far off, and it goes to show... The BBC (which is where I got the documentary from) isn't as biased as it is claimed to be...

 

Compare the sacking of the government official to here in the UK...

 

In the first lockdown, which ironically is much tougher than this one where the numbers and infectiousness is much higher, Dominic Cummings, the cheif advisor to BoJo, and a master arhictect of the Brexit leave campaign, was caught about 60 miles from his house in the Midlands somewhere... No charges were laid.. His excuse? His eyes wqere playing up and in preparation for a drive back to London after the lockdown, he was testing how they would go driving some distance.

This was clearly a breach, and while a country, like Aus, where the people complying were missing sending off loved ones, grannies couldn't hold loved ones and the horrendous death rate in aged care homes because the government forgot to make PPE supplies available to them. But forget all that.. what the f! is anyone doing driving a car to test their eyes?  "Oh, I can;t see properly.. your know what, let's jump in the car and see if it good enough to drive rather than call for a medical appointment. If I kill someone.. because I can't see.. who cares.. they shouldn't be out in a lockdown anyway?".. Seriously peoples, you cannot make this up. Cummings finally resigned, but not after another couple of blunders both COVID and non-COVID related... It was rumoured, he was steerign the ship and to be honest, since his departure, I am inclined to agree.

 

Then you have a SNP member of the national parliament feel pretty crap, so she gets a COVID test. While she's waiting for the results, she boards a train from, presumably Edinburgh, but somewhere in Scotland, to London to sit in parliament. She gets the results - a positive... and what does she do? She boards a train to go back to Scotland! To Nicola Sturgeon's credit, she, as the Scottish (not national) first minister and leader of the SNP, immediately expelled the recalcitrant from the SNP. 

 

The Met Police (London) investigated and didn't lay charges - why.. .for some reason, although they were prepared to fine us mere plebs, this MP apparently only breached "guidelines". Having said that, various constabularies around the country ended up recscinding many fines, anyway - not because they were issued incorrectly - I would wager because the admin hassle when people didn't pay wasn;t worth their time...

 

On Christmas eve, some from our village met at the village green (an equilateral triangle of grass about 5 metres per side) to have a socially-distanced drink. Many were saying how stupid the lockdown rules where.. because they all believed a proper lockdown was required. Unf, there are vested interest at play trying to preserve the short term and the vast expense of the longer term.

 

OT - I agree - I think the Swedish will rue not takign a tougher stance, but at the same time, they have fared a lot better than us int he UK

 

@OME - please invite your Swedish pen-pal to the forums.. we can always use views and opinions from those who experience a different way of life to us (in the UK... and.. the.. COLONIES :-))

 

[edit]I am Aussie born and bred -so I can call Australia the colonies ;-))

 

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by Jerry_Atrick

[Bruce Tuncks]

Thanks for the Swedish stuff OME, we hope to hear more from him.

I have to agree though with the idea that moslem culture is almost the exact opposite of Swedish culture in just about every way. My guess is that having imported millions of moslems, they will change in time.

[old man emu]

Just to clarify, my friend was born in Brazil, but from an Eastern European family. that's why he makes reference to Brazil where he still has family.  I don't know how much contact he has with Middle Eastern people in his local area.

 

In 2019, approximately 28% (159,342 residents) of the population of Gothenburg were foreign born and approximately 46% (265,019 residents) had at least one parent born abroad. In addition, approximately 12% (69,263 residents) were foreign citizens. That puts him in the 46% group. In 2016, 45% of Gothenburg's immigrant population is from other parts of Europe, and 10% of the total population is from another Nordic country.

[Jerry_Atrick]

All the better to invite him to to the forums... Quite a background!

 

[old man emu]

Yes, he's no dumb-dumb. But our connection is WL series Harley-Davidson motorcycles. He hasn't much interest in flying.

[nomadpete]

What! No interest in flying?

Not sure whether that's acceptable.

[Jerry_Atrick]

49 minutes ago, old man emu said:

Yes, he's no dumb-dumb. But our connection is WL series Harley-Davidson motorcycles. He hasn't much interest in flying.

Well, that is OK.. This site,although inhabited with flyers, doesn't talk that much about it... C'Mon OME.. You can do better than that!

Edited January 15, 2021 by Jerry_Atrick

[Yenn]

I think the response in the UK has been what I would expect. The British government has been full of bumbling fools since the days of Anthony Eden.

The latest US president could well outdo all those bumbling fools together, but it is all down to what the locals will put up with. Unfortunately we in Australia appear to be following in the footsteps of the Poms and Yanks. It is time to look at what our leaders are saying and doing and assess their relevance to us.

 

[nomadpete]

Yenn, you have just expressed the very reason behind all that has so recently played out in USA.

The disenchantment

The belief that fools govern us.

The loss of faith in our elected representatives.............

[nomadpete]

And, yes, we have the same problems here in our own country.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Agreed NP... This is the same in many countries where thopse in power are pandering to narrow sets of interests.. The problems in Eastern Europe where governments are implementing almost sectarioan policies is astounding... Its obvious here.. ScoMo's government is acting incredibly in favour of the fossil fuel lobby... There just doesn't seem to be some any middle ground anymore.

 

This youtoob vid popped up in my feed... very poignant:

 

 

[old man emu]

From my Swedish friend

G’day Mark,

 

Well, let me start these comments one by one:

1) Covid root cause and source; nobody can say where the first case came from, some says it came from China or via China; it is truth that the the greatest majority of covid cases are among the refugees that are coming here. The critical area where we have most of covid cases is Stockholm and nearby, just the are where you have the largest number of immigrants. The fact that they opted to live excluded from the Swedish society is a factor that complicates even more the scenario; thanks to them, the anti-immigrants feeling is growing exponentially.

You can find more information on the link below, but feel free to ask questions. I will answer them all as I perceive it.

 

https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-rise-of-sweden-democrats-and-the-end-of-swedish-exceptionalism/

 

2) Women not safe in Sweden? Not truth, or partially not truth, depends where you are and at what time. Sweden is a safe country but we have criminality problems here that did not exist before...when I came to Sweden in 2007 Sweden was a totally different country, with much less immigrants, no baggers and etc.

Malmö, which is the 3rd largest city in Sweden, close to Denmark, is a city where it has areas that are dominated by Muslims immigrants and yes, there is a place where nobody is safe. Swedes doesn’t live there since it became dominated by these immigrants.

Check this link for you to have an idea...

 

https://euobserver.com/social/146538

 

MY COMMENT

I'm not sure of my mate's political leaning, but he is a middle class professional working at the the middle management level. He's a project manager at Ericsson. the communications and IT mob. I suppose that would put him in the same socio-economic grouping as a lot of us here. He lives in Sweden's second biggest city. Previously he hasn't mentioned matters of ethnicity, apart from saying that native Swedes are slow to welcome non-Swedes into their social circles. At the time we were talking about this he was saying that even as a person of Northern European ancestry, he was finding it difficult to join in the social life of his work colleagues.  

 

The first link above provides a good insight into the "then and now" of Swedish socialism. It is interesting that Sweden has taken in , and is third in the world of the most refugees per capita behind Canada and Australia. In 2015, Sweden had a record-high of 162,877 applications for asylum, primarily from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan—or about 1.6 percent of Sweden’s population of 10 million. The influx of non-Christians into a Christian country has made integration difficult and has resulted in the establishment of ethnic conclaves - much in the same way as we see in Australian cities.

 

The second link deals with the reporting of crime and ethnicity in a suburb of Stockholm. After reading it, I find parallels with the lowest socio-economic level areas in Australian cities. Poverty, unemployment and lack of education in those Australian areas has produced lawlessness not seen in the other parts of our cities where these disadvantages do not reign supreme. Once again the media focuses on the sensational to report the bad. It's a case of "give a dog a bad name ..."

 

It's one thing for a government to big note itself by throwing open its country's borders to the weak and down-trodden, but another to fail to assist the newcomers integrate into the host society by failing to firstly provide language and cultural education, and then by setting up these monstrosities of suburbs of social housing.

[onetrack]

Quote

....they opted to live excluded from the Swedish society

And right there, the Swedes have a major problem, which is endemic to most major, uncontrolled immigration moves by peoples of "lower socio-economic" levels to areas of highly civilised society.

The problem is many of the immigrants come from violent tribal societies. They are inured to violence and crime and corruption and they will readily adapt to criminality as a source of easy income.

 

This is not helped by their refusal to integrate. Easy integration is made more difficult by their "different" physical appearance or cultural habits, such as the compulsory wearing of hijabs and niqabs.

Then there is the lack of acceptance of the host countrys democratic institutions - which they believe are inferior to their religious culture. 

They are nearly always reluctant to involve themselves in any higher education. Poor English skills are one of the reasons, but a perception that higher learning is unnecessary, is a problem, too.

 

The reason why Australia benefited from immigration in the period from the 1920's to the 1970's - despite having the now-detested "White Australia" policy, was that the immigrants selected for immigration to Australia, had to have the most basic and most important cultural and personal characteristics;

 

1. A cultural background that was compatible with Australian/Anglo-Saxon culture. For this reason, the vast majority of immigrants came from Europe, where Anglo-Saxon culture was compatible with their local culture.

2. No criminal record, and some level of skills-set, or a willingness to learn a skills-set, on the immigrants part, was important. Basic English skills were deemed necessary, but many Europeans managed to get into Australia with minimal English skills, and this seems to be most prevalent amongst the Italians, many of whom never learned to speak a good level of English.

However, the vast majority of the Italian immigrants made satisfactory progress in Australia. The fact that the Italians were virtually all Catholic was a big asset, as the Catholic religion was already compatible with Anglo-Saxon culture.

3. All immigrants in that era had to be "sponsored" by a friend or relative who was to take a degree of responsibility for them - either by offering them a job or by finding them one. 

4. All immigrants in that era were "on probation" for 2 years after immigration to Australia. If they indulged in criminal activity during that time, there was a very high chance of them being deported.

 

 

From the early 1970's, a policy of promoting wholesale immigration without any of the above checks and balances became Govt policy - aided by crooks such as Al Grassby and numerous other corrupt and radical-left Whitlam Govt ministers.

Malcom Fraser perpetuated the shift to the importation of undesirable immigrants by bypassing the Immigration authorities and rules, and allowing tens of thousands of criminally-inclined war refugees from Lebanon into Australia in 1976-77, with no background checks.

These "refugees" were hand-picked by the Syrian Army as the greatest troublemakers in Lebanon, that they would rather see exported out of the country. The Syrian Army destroyed all the criminal records of these people, so no background checks could be carried out on them.

 

Fraser later refused to acknowledge this destructive move on his part, claiming he had no part in it. That's a blatant lie, and it was Frasers "do-gooder", soft attitude towards war refugees that saw him insist that this criminal fraternity be allowed into Australia.

 

This group (virtually all religious Muslims) moved into the Western Sydney suburbs and have been a thorn in Australia's side ever since. Their propensity to indulge in crime on a major scale is breathtaking - car-rebirthing, drug-dealing, violent assaults on police, "no-go" areas, and a group that set themselves up as a separate cultural group, in the form of a "Little Lebanon" in Western Sydney, has been a very detrimental feature of the immigration programme into Australia in the last 50 years.

 

The area has been a hotbed of Islamic radicalisation and a source of home-grown terrorism ever since they landed here. Numbers of the Western Sydney Lebanese joined up with IS and fought with and for them, and numbers have been jailed for local terrorism planning. They should all be deported, AFAIC, they are a total waste of space.

 

I note that nowhere in any of the Swedish reports has there been any major mention of the breeding up of radicalisation and terrorism in their lower-socioeconomic immigrants, particularly from the countries where radical Islam is prevalent.

It's high time the immigrants who refuse to integrate and adopt Western Democracy, and who insist on persistent criminality as a way of life, are sent back to where they came from.

 

It's interesting that a group of Maronite Christian Lebanese had already been allowed into Australia from around the late 1800's onwards. These people were quite compatible with the Anglo-Saxon culture of Australia and they were not anywhere near as criminally-inclined as the later Muslim Lebanese.

The Maronite Lebanese made a large and satisfactory contribution to Australia from the late 1800's, and I believe they were appalled when they learnt that a bunch of Muslim Lebanese criminals were allowed into Australia by Fraser.

 

 

 

Edited January 17, 2021 by onetrack

[Yenn]

My statement that we should look at what iur leaders were saying was not meant in the way that it is happening in the USA. What I meant was that we should listen to what they say. Work out what they mean, because it is not necessarily what comes out of their mouths and then assess it for sensibility and suitability.

Just going back a few months to when Bill Shorten was still the Labor leader. He said words to the effect that Donald trump was an idiot. I never heard another politician say that and it was the most accurate summing up of the truth.

Listen to Scott Morrison, analyse what he is really saying and then make up your own mind as to whether or not he is the right man for the job.

What i was not meaning was that we should assume that all politicians are liars and out to do us down.

We must make sure we know what is intended, rather than listen to a party political broadcast telling us what a good bloke we are listening to and how bad the opposition is.

[old man emu]

2 hours ago, Yenn said:

rather than listen to a party political broadcast telling us what a good bloke we are listening to and how bad the opposition is.

When our politicians can stand up for forty minutes and talk sensibly about a proposed plan, including describing the pros and cons, I'll stand and listen. Until then the way I'll treat the party political broadcast is to apply <FAST FORWARD>

[nomadpete]

I try to do what Yenn suggests but I'm not very good at it.

 

Due mainly to a monopolized media, we do not get much objective unbiased analysis of any political speech. So we do not get much help to figure out what meaning might be hidden behind the weasel words emerging from politicians lips.

[old man emu]

When was the last time you heard a politician give a speech in Australia? A speech is a talk, given by one person in order to influence an audience. Sound bites don't count. Standing in front a of a group of television camera operators with a few cohorts behind you nodding like toy dogs on the parcel shelf of an EH Holden and mouthing a few inconsequential words, is not a speech.

 

Listen to this Presidential candidate speech of Obama in 2004. He says a lot. He says it with meaning. He says what his beliefs are.