The veteran shemozzle

 Those who know me in the real world know I spent some years in uniform. 

The Federal government (Australian) defines anyone who did a day of fulltime service as a veteran. This is different from my understanding of the term as someone who got shot at overseas. So that's the ANZACs, Kokoda veterans, Vietnam, Korea and so forth. These days I also add Afghanistan, Iraq, Rwanda, Cambodia, INTERFET and a few others.

In my mind that's still the case, even if our government says different. There's certainly a cost to spending time in uniform, potentially injuries to body, brain, mind & a huge cost to your family. Despite this, there's still a division in my head between those of us that got processed through the system - and those of us who did that but also played the game for real. 

In my time I did a trip to a small island where I endured boredom and too many cigarettes for too many months. I had a few moments being scared, mostly by the locals and a few times by nutters in the same uniform. Not a war by any stretch. I don't put myself in the veteran camp for that reason. 

So why is it all a shemozzle? Well, it's complicated.

Firstly, we have to think about the ANZAC industry. I don't know who coined the phrase, but I'll steal it, patriotism is the last refuge of a scandal. In modern Australia, grabbing some ANZAC branding will help mitigate a lot of sins in the public sphere. 

Our eyebrow-adorned little PM John Howard threw a heap of money at Defence (but hollowed out DVA) and under his watch 'diggers' became effectively saint-like. Add that to the effects of the WW2 50-year anniversary in 1995, the effect in Aussie society was to inflate ANZAC myth to levels we never saw before. 

I have heard one commentator say that ANZAC day itself was now much more militarised, the people in uniform now get the backslaps that used to be for the 'returned' service person. I think this is an accurate observation. This means that for a lot of people in Australia anyone who has served or is in uniform is almost deified. 

I do have an argument to make here, but I will come back to it, work is getting in the way.

PART 2 (finished after work)

So - we have a semi-manufactured ANZAC industry. All well and good, we do have some great people in uniform and defending Australia is an important job. The problem is our young guys and girls buy into this deification of our uniformed people. Next thing you know they leave the ADF and in the real world that service doesn't actually get you very far. A sense of entitlement can be a problem, where once people got on with life, some of these young folks launch into a new career as disenchanted ex-serving people. There are some perverse incentives for doing just that.

The 'broken digger narrative' is a pop culture thing that is really pervasive. After serving a few years, with a few injuries to show for it, these young guys and girls are encouraged to line up for the compo and the pension. Money doesn't make for a satisfying life by itself. Nor is it healthy to dwell on the injuries and scars of service. In many cases these guys and girls are being paid quite well to sit at home and think about what they've lost (health, opportunity etc). It's counterproductive but it's the current system for our ex-serving people.

So, there's the ANZAC industry, compo and the broken digger narrative. The last element is the ex-serving organisations (or veteran support organisations and other iterations). These groups start with a disenchanted or inspired ex-serving person or family member with an idea. Unlike other industries, there's no minimum standard or real regulation. Many of these organisations seem to appear overnight, all promising to deliver where others can't, often overlapping or duplicating or just simply looking to profiteer from the DVA dollar. Most, if not all, of these organisations start with the best of intentions. But it's a crowded market-place, the founders have no experience, and some of them are unwell or ill-suited.

Hence - it's an unhealthy, poorly regulated, murky, shemozzle.

I'm off to watch Jarryd Goundrey. If you didn't laugh you'd cry really.

Lets see how this plays out

 Right - I'm supposed to start with some kind of impact sentence to 'arouse' the reader.

I'm not inclined to arouse my readers, they might get distracted and that could lead to dancing and the end of civilisation.

I will spell out my motivations for writing this.

It all comes from the fact that I would love to get into a debate about how the world is (as I see it) and how it should be (my opinion). 

My problem stems from the fact that the average person starts to glaze over when I start talking capitalism versus socialism, the social contract, personal freedom versus common good.

In the absence of equally dull people I find I can only get these ideas and frustrations out to an imagined audience.

If anyone should actually read this, take comfort in knowing that I am normally quite brief. I don't find myself punching out more than half an A4 page in anything I write about.

So - to my imagined audience I want to spell out what has been on my mind lately. Whatever 'woke' is it seems to be missing the point, all your dictates about what is or is not acceptable are not going to make anyone's life better. I will run with an assumption that the 'cancellers' think they are acting to better humankind.

So why is 'wokeism' missing the point? Because that movement has fallen into the core belief that the personal is political. If you wear leather you murder animals. If you struggle with misgendering trans people then you are an unsalvageable bigot. If you haven't boycotted Nestle then you don't care about their abuses. None of these are hitting the key problem.

The key problem - is our unquestioning acceptance of the current systems. Which systems? Well - we accept the power of the wealthy, we accept (implicitly) male violence, we accept a patriarchal system that hurts men as much as women, we accept a capitalist system that measures humans in economic terms. 

The real secret is that drag queen book reading is not a big deal. Our outrage has been redirected by certain wealthy old white men. There's so much anger and outrage about what are piddling issues. All fomented by rich white monsters (looking at you Murdoch). It's the equivalent of the magician misdirecting our attention while he steals our watch. 

What should be obvious is that we are getting ripped off - our media friends pump out manufactured outrage and shitty reality TV. All this while our wealthier betters have us over a barrel, taking our natural resources, running monopolies and all the while telling us to work harder for a better life. No one ever died wishing they'd spent more time at work.

Wake up you lot.