http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PfDro1UGUo&feature=related

I came across an old clip from Barry McKenzie and it made me laugh. It spoke volumes about the value we once put on our nation. We had a straight talking way about us back then, migrants and first generation included. We didn’t see the offense in the parody as it was “just taking the piss” as they say in the colloquial. There were no pograms or civil disobedience in response to the Politically Incorrect parodies, we stated the obvious and moved on, probably to have the piss taken out of us from another, we were all mates, varied individuals and etnicities but collectively we thought we were all in the same boat.

OUG used a farewell line in a recent post that summed up Aussie humor…”See you later big ears”….This old Aussie slap on the way out reminded me of how we really did not take ourselves as seriously back then. But we did take the nation we lived in seriously, and guarded it from agricultural pests alien financial interests and political subversives.

Was that a positive or negative cultural trait
Is there such a thing as “Australian”?
What gives a nation its identity?
Is Australia still, football meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars?
Was it ever that way?
Are we a united people?
Are we diverse groups living under the same roof?
Is it hard being a migrant in Australia?
Is it hard being an old Aussie in this multicultural Australia?
Is it hard being an old Aussie in this evolving multi religious society?

sonofgloin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PfDro1UGUo&feature=related

I came across an old clip from Barry McKenzie and it made me laugh. It spoke volumes about the value we once put on our nation.

Sounds like a plan. A good one.

Yes sonofgloin

Back when we were know as THE LUCKY COUNTRY.

Now we are over governed, over coplienced, over regulated and heading south quickly.

Bring back the good old days.

rehctub,

"...THE LUCKY COUNTRY"

You mean this Lucky Country?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Country

"I've had to sit through the most appalling rubbish as successive generations misapplied this phrase."...so said Donald Horne.

The biggest change I've noticed is that more people nowadays are far more prudish, uptight and conservative than they were 30 or 40 years ago. A modern equivalent of a show like Number 96 most likely wouldn't go to air and the re make of Puberty Blues is actually pretty racy compared to most dramas on TV. I grew up near Bendigo and on trips down to Castlemaine or Daylesford in the 1970's it wasn't uncommon to see people walking about in various states of undress, I remember sitting in the car in Barker St Castlemaine waiting for my parents to return and watching a "rubenesque" hippie woman skip down the street wearing only a floppy felt hat and tootling away on a flute.

Poirot, thanks for reminding us of the “a luck country run by second rate people”. Never has it been as valid as it is today.

I accept that with time comes change so culture and social etiquette evolve. Thirty years ago we were a more homogeneous society regardless of root ethnicity or religious infighting such as the very real divisions that came from the Catholics vs the Protestants. Regardless we had one thing that bound us psychologically and that is this simple statement, “we are Aussies”.

Because we share no boarders and are geographically isolated the nations psyche grew an identity of self. The land that the British stole from the indigenous peoples evolved into an egalitarian society where formality and posture was seen as the pretense it is. A self determination evolved with isolation and the understanding that “we” are all we have got bound us as a nation.

I believe that self determination has gone from our society. We have lost the ability to self sustain and that has come about by the dropping of tariffs. We now struggle to see a positive in this country that is now just a mine with 22 million inhabitants.

The only identity we have left is in the sporting arena, and that took a beating in London this year. Who are we?

Rechub: "...THE LUCKY COUNTRY"

I, like most people, had heard the term but it never occurred to me as to whence it came. I just thought it referred to the fact that as Australians we live in a "Lucky Country." Meaning we have a bloody good lifestyle, the freedom to say & do just about anything our heart desires. After that, we didn't analyse it. No deep & meaningful, soul searching, no looking for the reason why. We just accepted the fact that we are lucky to be Australians.

Some people live their lives in a bottomless, dank wet, dark cave. All they ever see is blackness. I suppose if they are lucky they may live in a Cairn, such as Loughcrew in Ireland or Maeshone in the Orkneys, at least the sun shines in to the furtherest dark recesses of the grave twice a year. These people suppose everyone lives in such a similar place. So Sad.

Most people visit these places occasionally but they don't live there. They return to the surface & bathe in the sunlight again. Some people live in eternal sunshine & only occasionally glimpse these places as they stroll past. When I was much younger I did have occasion to visit a Cairn or two but now I prefer to stay in the sunshine. All people have a choice as the where they live or visit as tourist. (inside their heads) It is they, themselves, who make that decision, no one else.

Cont.

I imagined this reference to Bazza was to bring a little sunshine into an otherwise black hole some of us have been visiting of late.
cont.

I was lucky, I suppose for I grew up in a time where everyone had a nickname. We laughed if one of us did something silly & fell over , then we helped them up. this laconic attitude of Australians is being taken away from us by Academics & the Politically Correct among us. The “Lucky Country” as I knew it is fading because of these people who live in bottomless, dank, dark caves. I think it’s time we bricked up the mouth of these caves so their vapours don’t infect us anymore.

Regardless of what Homes says about his phrase, we still live in a "Lucky Country."

Sonofgloin,
Alexander Dugin, Identitarian Ideas 4.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtFbK_dm4-k

Alex Kurtagic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O--TKIBPTog&feature=related

JOM, I watched most of each of those Utube offerings & a couple more in that vein. I have to say, sadly, they reminded me of "The EuroVision Contest." I don't know why. They just did. Maybe I didn't get the humour or something. I dunno.

Jayb,
Hardy har, they're talking about the decline in National identity and the way systems collapse, relevant to the topic at hand and Sonofgloin's question "Who are we?".
Dugin is talking about a rejection of the modern forms and failed ideas of the past 300 years and moving to a world of multiple polarities instead of totalitarian Western Liberalism, Kurtagic points out that a political activist from,say 1840's Australia probably wouldn't be able to follow a political discussion if he were magically resurrected today. I guess in a sense because Australia as a nation was founded on purely modern ideals there is no "going back" to pre modern European values as Dugin suggests, unless such values be those of pre 1788 indigenous Australia...which is an interesting idea in itself.