The PR Blog

Let’s look at the swap of WNBA player Brittany Griner for Viktor Bout.

Bout, aka The Merchant of Death (a moniker gifted by his prosecutors), was convicted for “trying to kill Americans”. Actually he was convicted of trying to sell arms to FARC, a group of Columbians that were fighting the Columbian regime supported by the United States. This attempted “killing of Americans” amounted to trying to arm people who were fighting U.S. military and bureaucratic forces who were in Columbia ostensibly enforcing U.S. drug laws. Bout was arrested in Thailand. There have been no allegations he committed his “crimes” on U.S. soil yet, he was tried and convicted in a New York courtroom.

I’ve started and restarted this article, pondered how to avoid hurting anyone’s sensitivities, and in the end have decided to accept Admiral Farragut’s advice at the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864: Damn the torpedoes - full speed ahead!

I have an intellectual and emotional stake in this matter of the Charge of Beersheba (Be’er-Sheva). My maternal grandfather, 2788 Trooper John Joseph McGrath, was a horse breaker who served in the 2^nd Remount Unit for more than three years under Major A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson in Egypt and Palestine. My father, QX 17611  S/Sgt James Hammill served in the 2/ 14^th LHR between the wars, then in Tobruk and the Middle East, including Palestine, with the 2/9 Bn. The subject of the Charge of Beersheba was not an infrequent topic at home and in places that I visited.

The slave mentality is still very much among us. A class of people have emerged who believe that they only have to put in minimal work effort while expecting the ‘master’ (government) to take care of them. As more and more people become addicted to entitlements, they become more apathetic and less likely to work for what they need. 

The mentality of the Slave is actually enslaving them and they are embracing their slavery through ideology.

They are the unsung heroes who actually did save us from a fate worse than death and they did it in spite of the handicaps heaped upon them by Macarthur and Blamey. They all fell victim to the little man syndrome that afflicted Blamey and the ego of Macarthur that needed constant feeding.

We keep warning the world about these evils and the catastrophes they’re unleashing on our society, and then we get branded “conspiracy theorists”.

And then when our predictions inevitably come true, the same people who branded us kooks and conspiracy theorists then proclaim “Sure, these bad things happened, but they’re just coincidental and having nothing to do with what you warned us about! 

One of the most famous and best known characters in Australian folk lore, Ned Kelly was a murderer, bank robber, horse thief and a Robin Hood of the Australian bush. No story is better known amongst Australians than the gunfight at Glenrowan where he and his gang met their “Waterloo”. Up in “Kelly country”, north east Victoria, one still needs to take care of what one says if the topic of the Kellys comes up over a few beers or three. He still has many supporters. If my comments appear to be biased it is because I am.

So how did this legendary bushranger become part of our folklore? This is Part One of a series about a man who is regarded as a larrikin and murderer by some and a hero to others.