Red Jim

In October I blogged on Jim Cairns, the doyen of the left and hero to the Anti-Vietnam war protesters. Wayne Wood, at Troppo Armadillo obviously a member of one of the above groups, took me to task for blaming all Vietnam Veterans ills on Cairns. Wayne muddies the waters with this statement.
Jim Cairns was an average politician who, after spending so long in opposition and without any useful role models, cocked up his stint as Treasurer and did pretty much what any of us would have done if a Junie wiggled her bum in our face. To try and make anything more out of Cairns’s life is simply beating up the sad tale of what can happen to an otherwise smart bloke when he tries to live out his sexual fantasy.
All of the left-wing and most of Australia’s apathetic, ‘Commercial TV news educated’ populace ignores the basic unpleasant truth of Cairn’s life. ..otherwise smart bloke living out sexual fantasies is one thing but being a communist, wanting and pursuing a communist victory in Vietnam to the disadvantage (read death and wounds) of Australians and being Deputy PM while also the President of the World Peace Council is another matter entirely. I have no problem with Wayne it’s just that he is symptomatic of Australians who ignored the truth on the Anti-Vietnam campaign. Disagree? – No worries; the right to dissent? It’s yours; March through Melbourne’s streets in protest using your given rights to peaceful assembly? -Go for it. Act as Chairman of the Local Soviet Union Peace body while Deputy PM? uh uh. Not on. Travel to the USSR and give them moral support and encourage more arms to kill fellow Australians? No – not included in our given rights. Invite a delegation of North Vietnamese industrial leaders to Australia while our wounded are still recovering in hospital? Likewise – very tacky. John Ballantine, in this morning’s Australian Inquirer does a good job of outing Cairns and his Soviet sympathies
In November 1970, on returning from a visit to the Soviet Union, he declared he had found no more suppression of civil rights in Russia than in many aspects of Australian life.
What a startling statement. In November 1970 I was on patrol in Vietnam along with thousands of other Aussies. Cairns would have been an Opposition front bencher that year. How cute.
The Melbourne congress subsequently evolved into a more permanent body called the Congress for International Co-operation and Disarmament. Under Cairns and Goldbloom’s leadership, the CICD played a big part in mobilising the vast nationwide anti-war protest movement that became known as the Vietnam moratorium. It made history on May 8, 1970, when 75,000 protesters – one of Australia’s biggest public demonstrations – occupied the streets of Melbourne, bringing the city to a standstill.
The only group to receive advantage from the Moratoriums were the communists. The only group to be disadvantaged – the Digger. Do I have an axe to grind? You betcha! Will I forgive and forget? No way.

17 comments

  • While I have never had any patience with the misguided fools who believed they were achieving something good by donating money to the North Vietnamese and shunning their own soldiers, I reserve my real and lasting hatred for those who, like Cairns, were willing and knowing traitors to their country and actively campaigned for an enemy victory.

    I said at the time, and will say it again, I cheerfully dance on this commo bastard’s grave. My regret is that it wasn’t me or one of my 50,000 Vietnam Veteran brothers who put him in it.

    Epitaph: Rot in Hell, mongrel.

  • A sad post by an obviously sad human being. I dare say you’d prefer a good war to a Sunday sleep-in anyday.

  • Not at all Nial – I have no time for war but if we have to fight one then the soldiers should only have to fight on one front. If Jim was one of your role models then fair enough – that would explain your confusion.

  • You wouldn’t dare say anything in person Niall. Since you are such a failure in private life, the internet is the only place that gives you a sense of order and power.

  • Oh really Gary? Would you like to meet face to face? I’m willing if you are. Name a time & place & bring your mates. I’m up for it.

  • Niall – you need to apply the same standards to comments on my site that you demand from visitors to your site. I will not, however, delete your comments at this stage as they are a great insight and possibly a lesson in debating for those less gifted.

  • It’s rather interesting to note that the “people’s revolt” that the Cairn’s and Jane Fonda’s of the world supported was an abyssmal failure in the long run and is now the oppressor of the people. The next people’s rebellion is underway….one towards capitalism. The final victory.

  • I don’t need to bring my mates agents you Niall. Beside it wouldn’t be fare would it since you have none. I will be flying to Queensland sometime this year so you will have the chance to pry your decrepit body from the toilet and open the door for first time in three years. In the mean time you’ll have to continue projecting your misery on others. And adding to your long list of failures.

  • My standards and yours, Kevin, aren’t all that different, except for the type of commenter we attract, or rather prefer to attract. I think the comments from Gary back my case rather well, don’t you?

  • No Niall, you’re making outlandish comments in the full knowledge that it will wind my readers up. Whenever you’re bored go on over to Kev’s, leave a confrontational comment and start the debate. It’s easy, I’m right wing, ex military and predictable but you’re predictable too so you leave no surprises . I don’t mind. I’ve been around too long to let it worry me and it gives the boys a chance to let of verbal steam.

    Do you really think it’s OK to have as Deputy PM a man who was also chaiman of the local USSR committee and actively campaigned here and in the USSR for the defeat of the West? Don’t you really think the soldiery should have been left out of the debate? Do you really think it’s OK for the communist element to phone up parents of our dead and tell them they deserved it.

    I have no problem with a good left/right debate but my point is we should draw the line and exclude the estremists of both sides having any creditability in later discussions

  • You don’t have to swear in order to insult people Naill but being a failure you just cant see it. I must have hit a nerve to make you reply in “comments” because its the truth.

  • I fuckin’ do. Niall: you’re a fucking wanker. Piss off.

  • ’tis a free world, Kevin. If you don’t want me or anyone else who doesn’t think as you do visiting your blog, you have the option of the IP block. It’s not as if I visit you on a regular basis because I don’t, but in fairness, unless you decide to ban my IP, you have to expect that in an open environment like the internet, I and others who think as I do will drop by, and comment on things that deserve same. Your readers certainly don’t attract me, I can assure you of that, and combative derogatory debate is not my style, regardless of what you may or may not perceive.
    Outlandish comments? Take a gander at your readership and tell me what they have to say is in any way factual or reasonable. You know damn well it’s not. Most of it simply follows your lead, which is only to be expected given the general demeanour or the individuals concerned.
    Do I respect Jim Cairns as a thinking man, a dedicated socialist and an individual unafraid to speak his mind on a range of issues from a well versed and educated viewpoint? You bet your life I do. Whether or not his leanings were communistic is conjectural. Were the ‘soldiery’ left out of the debate? I wouldn’t know, much less care as it’s anathema to the debate, a strawman fallacy. Do I think it’s ok for people of any persuasion to call the parents of dead military and tell them they deserved it? Most definately not, but again, another strawman. You say you have no problem with a sound left/right debate, yet you take a position on the far right after claiming it’s only fair to exclude extremists. Hardly an objective viewpoint in a debating arena, hmmm?

  • Niall

    If that is what you think, then your blog is fare game but as well as being a failure you are also a hypocrite. You have been told to stop commenting on several blogs yet continue to do so. Your policies of deleting comments that you don’t agree with is your undisputed right so start respecting other people rules. Or do the adult thing and stay away.”combative derogatory” That’s all you ever do you bloody hypocrite.

  • Jesus Mary Joseph and Judas, will the whole fucking lot of you just get OVER yourselves and stop for a moment to realise how pathetic you are? Who or what precisely does all this left-vs-right bullshit serve, anyway? What the hell inadequacies are driving you people that you feel such uncontrollable urges to abuse people you don’t even know to the extent that you do? Do you think it makes some sort of difference? That calling someone else a “hypocrite” or a “fucking wanker” or a “failure” or “a sad human being” helps “the movement” or something in some mystical way? Guess what: there is NO vast cosmic or otherwise force out there called the “Left” or the “Right”, and every time someone on one side attacks someone on the other side it has no effect on anything. Gibbering competitions like this don’t make the “Left” stronger or weaker, they don’t make the “Right” stronger or weaker, they just make the participants look like insecure clowns with anxieties about the sizes of their penises and nothing useful to do with their time. You want to beat each other up over left and right, that’s up to you… just stop deluding yourselves that it means anything.

    And Niall, Kev’s right. You don’t tolerate this sort of horseshit at your own blog and it doesn’t behoove you to try it here yourself.

    All right, back to work, my blood pressure is already high enough as it is…

  • Thanks James – fitting closure to the comments.

  • closure? neil thinks that any LAY-BORE politician is ok. cairns was a traitor and a failure as a government official. i hope the prick now resides on the seventh level of hell. Rot In Pieces, you wont be missed.