I have been quite surprised at the reaction to Mark Latham’s latest vitriol on the about Australian Defense Force, which is by the way a topic that provides a plethora of material to condemn. In a way that suggests Latham is trying to take the title of media slut back from the chk chk boom girl he says “One of the habits of our national life is to glorify all aspects of the military, I have always assumed this gushing, out-of-proportion praise could only come from those who have never met our soldiers and experienced first-hand their limited intelligence and primeval interests in life.”
Not to go all unpatriotic, but I am with Latham on this, whilst he could have said it in a more polite way. He would have not garnered as much press, falling short of the desired outcome. Besides we would have missed out on the lovely phrase “primeval interests”, conjuring images of Flintstone era men. But why has the whole nation gone into this tut tut crowd of how dare he?
People, are you choosing to forget that each year we get some story of ADF blokes getting themselves into a drunken stupor and usually either, A do something racist , or B do something sexist. The shenanigans of our soldiers are only outdone by that of the NRL football douches.
We will probably never be free of war precisely because too much of our world is populated with those with primeval interests, to blow shit up and shoot at people. That being said, Latham may want to think twice before labeling man mountains with AK’s as meatheads.
My Digression 