HUNTFEST, GREEN BIGOTRY AND LITTLE SISTERS OF THE INACCURATE DECEPTION

Once upon a time, in a more tolerant universe that now seems so very far away, if an individual didn’t approve of an event, a culture or a business, the way to demonstrate that disapproval was to deny it one’s support and patronage. For instance, if one didn’t like the Catholic faith, one went C-of-E. If one didn’t like Folk or Jazz, one avoided Folk and Jazz festivals, and of course if one objected to gratuitous sex and violence, one avoided watching Parliament Question Time on the tele.

What one certainly did not do was seek to stop the event or practice altogether simply because it offended the individual’s sensibilities in some way. To do so would have been considered profoundly un-Australian. In fact, I think it still is.

Enter The Greens, and suddenly selective tolerance and an ‘ends justifies means’ philosophy sprinkled liberally with subterfuge, bigotry and hate-speech, becomes the new community standard. This is not my opinion; it is simple fact, and fact that is borne out in The Greens’ own propaganda. 

Nowhere is this fact so clearly demonstrated than in The Greens’ views on hunting and firearms ownership.

There are seemingly endless examples of Greens’ statements referring to a “guns culture” or a “hunting culture”, so it is clear by the evidence of their own mouths that they recognise both as cultural pursuits, and having done so they wilfully encourage the community to be utterly intolerant of those cultures.

They claim their justification in statistics drawn from overseas, and based upon the occasional deplorable incident on our own shores, but their true motivation is simply cultural intolerance and paranoia – in short, ol’ fashioned, uncomplicated bigotry.

Were one to suggest that the culture of Islam is unwholesome and dangerous based on the activities of suicide-bombing, acid-tossing, female-oppressing zealots overseas, there would be a hue and cry from The Greens, deploring such suggestions as irrational and xenophobic.  Yet they openly and proudly condemn hunters and vilify them for their cultural pursuits, which are not to Green tastes.

If anyone doubts their campaigns against hunters are racially targeted, for proof one need look no further than The Greens’ relative silence on matters pertaining to Australian Aboriginal hunting.

The Greens’ make no bones about their opposition to the activities and culture of Australia’s white Anglo-Saxon/European (WASE) hunters, claiming they’re cruel, irresponsible, a threat to delicate ecosystems and the sustainability of vulnerable native species, despite the fact that WASE hunters are restricted to hunting non-indigenous (‘feral’) species alone.  However, Aboriginal traditional hunters harvest native species and often with technologies that offer nothing like the accuracy and the swift death promised by even the most basic modern recurve or compound bow, let alone the rifles of today.

Yet The Greens are absolutely mute on the issue of Aboriginal hunting practice, and nothing short of gushing in their praise of efforts to preserve Aboriginal culture in all its diverse and wondrous complexity.

The image of an Aboriginal Elder teaching a child how to fashion and wield a spear or a boomerang is something to be celebrated as an example of a cultural practice preserved. The image of a WASE Elder (grandpa or an uncle perhaps) showing a child how to use a bow or a gun is viewed as an image of manifest irresponsibility; an effort to brainwash children into a culture of violence and cruelty with all manner of negative ramifications that should be of deep concern to the public.

Should Aboriginal Australians hold a festival celebrating their hunting culture, it is seen as something wholesome and cause for celebration. In fact Greens will come from far and wide for the opportunity to immerse themselves in a “highly spiritual cultural experience”.  They will enthusiastically acknowledge the significance of hunting traditions and applaud their preservation as integral aspects of Aboriginal culture.

Should a white Anglo-Saxon/European hunter be photographed with evidence of the success of his/her hunt, the image is repudiated and the hunter reviled as a heartless, violent, sick and in all ways morally corrupt “murderer of innocent animals.”

And the list of racially bias and culturally bigoted hypocrisies goes on.

Of course The Greens have their “anti-hunter” minions, upon whom they rely to make the outrageous statements and conduct the vile and unethical campaigns that the public simply wouldn’t tolerate if they came directly from political representatives. The Greens turn a blind eye to even the most offensive and patently illegal activities of their minions, until challenged to denounce them, at which point they may claim that they had no direct involvement in the activity, and, at a push, perhaps they will even mildly criticise those responsible. But seldom do they denounce actions that deliver on Green objectives.

It’s a real piece of work, is your hard-core anti-hunter. Utterly bereft of ethics, conscience and self-restraint, let alone commonsense, they form The Greens’ front-line national guerrilla network. They come from all walks of life – doctors, public servants, full-time rent-a-crowd activists, schoolteachers, hairdressers; even nuns – and they all claim to be peace-loving nurturing non-violent souls who aspire to build a safer more loving world for us all.  But when it comes to demonstrating tolerance for a culture they cannot empathise with, they demonstrate time and again that they have no ethics and within their breasts beat hearts that are colder than an Alaskan well-digger’s arse.

There is no tactic so low that the anti-hunter will not stoop to plumb its depths, and no threat too evil. Threats of extreme violence against hunters and their families for “murdering innocent animals” are often grotesquely imaginative and unimaginably perverse. For instance, who could forget Emma Garcia's heartfelt wish for a hunter on facebook:

"I hope they get your children, Corey. I hope they get them in the most physically agonizing and psychologically excruciating scenario imaginable. And I hope there's a picture we can share. I mean it and pray for it. I look at that picture of him with that dead, mutilated [insert species here] slaughtered in its prime and I think how better the world would be if the offspring of this monster who share his values would be photographed with rusty saws inserted into their external sphincters as they were beaten to death. If you share his values and have children (I'll be looking so adjust your settings) I hope they meet the same fate.”

Corey’s crime? Well, he shot one of the world’s charismatic species. He shot it legally and humanely, and regardless of one’s personal philosophy with regard to trophy hunting, I ask you....rusty saws for his children, is that an appropriate response, ever?  It is certainly not a rare one!

Every hour of every day, Australian hunters are subjected to unparalleled hate messages and violent threats, both in person and via social media, all from defenders of animal ’innocence’ and people concerned for the existence of guns in the community.

But violence is not their only weapon, nor threats their only language. Public misinformation campaigns, fear-mongering, standover tactics and even forgery are all routinely employed as the weapons of green minions and anti-hunters.  Take the continuing saga of Narooma’s HuntFest for example.

For those readers unfamiliar with the name, HuntFest is a hunting expo held in the NSW south-coast township of Narooma, on the June long weekend. It’s a very new event; in fact this year will be only its second, but the organisers, a small local hunting club, hope that it will someday grow to rival Bendigo’s very successful, annual Wild Deer and Guiding Expo.

Narooma itself is a very beautiful town that was once a recreational fishing Mecca. Caravan parks and hotels were always filled to capacity during the Christmas/New Year period, and the local economy did OK out of seasonal game fishing events and a fairly consistent flow of recreational fishers throughout the off-season too. Then came The Greens, who pushed for the area to be declared a marine park. They were successful, and according to the locals the town’s economy has suffered ever since.

Hotels and businesses are struggling, many shops lay vacant and the economic future for Narooma is a little uncertain. The local Greens and anti-hunters claim the way forward to a future of prosperity for all, lies in the development of ecotourism, based on the re-badging of the area now referred to as “The Nature Coast”. Nothing may be allowed to get in the way of this dream!

If you are a resident and your culture, ideals and philosophies are not commensurate with those of the local Greens and antis, you will be persecuted, your culture roundly criticised and condemned, your initiatives and festivals will be objected to at every step, sabotaged, misrepresented and lied about relentlessly. If you are a hunter or a shooter, you will be called thill-killer, redneck, weekend cowboy, weekend warrior, cruel, heartless, sick, a disgrace etc. You will be accused of putting the community at risk, attempting to normalise a US-style guns culture, trying to brainwash local youth into that same culture, and, in general, the Greens will represent you as a threat to the very fabric of society, harbouring antisocial behaviour, death and mayhem as your ultimate goals.

The Greens may even open a facebook cause page in opposition to your initiative, and if you are really ‘lucky’ you might find your photograph posted on the site to serve as the focal-point of their hatred, below which the antis will post comments making puerile comparisons between gun and penis size, or they may even suggesting that you, “look like the sort of man people should keep small children away from”.

This is what happened to Mr Dan Field, Narooma resident of many years, contributor to the fabric of his community, hunter and one of the organisers of HuntFest.

When Mr Field’s teenage daughters stumbled upon the facebook site vilifying their father for his culture, they pleaded with the administrators to remove the offensive comments, and demanded that the vilification cease.  The response was so very heart-warming. 

A local Greens councillor responded expressing regret that the young women had been offended by the comments made about their father on what the Councillor very tellingly referred to as “our site”, but regretfully informed the teenagers that their father was a public figure and so subject to public criticism. Not until a concerted effort by outraged hunters brought pressure to bear, along with the threat of exposure, was anything done to address the young women’s concerns.

The facebook cause page was pulled down completely, though, I might add, not before a certain outraged hunter (hello!) saved the whole offensive shebang as a stand-alone .HTML file, a copy of which is awaiting the scrutiny of a firm of very competent forensic investigators in order to ascertain if it was, as suspected, a cause page hung off the Eurobodalla Greens’ official facebook presence. Stay tuned!

The inaugural HuntFest was held in 2013 and it was a modest, but encouraging success. Not a single bushwalker was gunned down, the streets failed to run red with blood, mass graves filled with slaughtered native animals failed to materialise in the bush as predicted, milk didn’t curdle, the anti-Christ was not born of the Jackal, the sky didn’t fall and the sun done rose again over Narooma the day after HuntFest 2013.

Not to be out manoeuvred by unaccommodating Fates, the anti-HuntFest offensive is on again in 2014 and already it has exceeded all previously set low standards.

Last night I received an email forward from and anti-HuntFest campaigner.  The email purports to be the work of a local Franciscan nun with form as an anti-Huntfest campaigner, among other things.  Yes, I kid you not, a nun! The email begs people to hearken to the concerns expressed by the good Sister, and pleads with people to sign her anti-HuntFest petition. Further, the email entreats people to pass the word thither and yon, because the Sister’s petition hasn’t found quite the support in the local community it was hoped it would. And boy oh boy, haven’t some run with the ball!  The forward email trail reveals that it has been sent to politicians (local, state and federal) and the entire membership of the National Trust for some bizarre reason, amongst other destinations.

But the plot thickens, because you see the email forwarded on the good Sister’s behalf also carries an attachment purporting to be an example of HuntFest promotional material, which is, in fact, a forgery and a fraud! Oh it carries the HuntFest logo alright, and the South Coast Hunters Club logo too, but they’ve been appropriated from the net, as have the photos of gun-toting kiddies that also adorn the pamphlet without parental consent. And of course the accompanying text has been contrived specifically to misrepresent, mislead and generally infuriate the reader and prejudice his/her views toward HuntFest.  Deary me, a nun?  I may never look at Julie Andrews in quite the same light ever again. Perhaps I have been naive all these years, thinking that Maria risked her life and virtue for love of Austria and the Captain. Perhaps she was a Nazi sympathiser all along, leading those dear little Von Trapp kiddies to their doom trekking aimlessly through the freezing Alps yodelling: edelweiss, edelweiss, every morning you..... 

Fraudulent flyer distributed to damage HuntFest

But seriously, where do these people get off fraudulently misrepresenting HuntFest in order to manipulate opinion and thereby control what may and may not be celebrated as culture?  Is there nothing to which they will not stoop; no depths of unethical conduct too great to plumb?

Bendigo’s Wild Deer and Guiding Expo has been a boon to its community. Last weekend more than 6,000 visitors passed through the gates on day one of the event, and over the whole weekend organisers were hoping to better last year’s figures, when more than 15,000 people attended the Show. Add to that the partners and children who came along for the trip but didn’t attend the event, and we’re talking a lucrative draw-card for the Bendigo community. In fact a quick cruise ‘round the online fora reveals that many didn’t sally forth to Bendigo last weekend, simply because local accommodation was maxed-out. Yet there will be no reported increased in gun violence, no wholesale slaughter of man nor beast; just a culture celebrated and a substantial boost for the local economy rendered as a public service.

Even temps in the 40s failed to deter people from lining to enter
Bendigo's Wild Deer and Guiding Expo

 One cannot help but wonder what will be the consequences of bigoted anti-HuntFest lobbyists denying Narooma the benefits of a similar boost to the off-season economy? Well, let’s look at that...

The Greens and antis claim that guns and the hunting culture pose a threat to the community and imperil the welfare of local youth. Well NEWSFLASH - so does economic hardship!

Suicide rates are at crisis point in the bush, and two of the main drivers of the epidemic are debt and economic uncertainty. When businesses struggle, families suffer, relationships break down and the emotional needs of children are neglected as parents work obscene hours in an effort to keep the family business afloat. Men in particular are given to taking their own lives under the burden of responsibility and due to the feelings of failure they harbour, leaving their partners and children to deal with their loss as well as the loss of the family business and the family home. And of course there’s the knock-on effect.

Each business that fails will have had a staff that now shares in the boss’s misfortune. They also have homes and mortgages, families and financial obligations they can no-longer meet. Unemployment is a strain that will test any relationship and impact negatively on the children of that relationship. When parents are stressed and pushed for time, kids go off the rails. They leave school and in their impotence they may turn to drugs and alcohol as an escape. Youth are by no means strangers to the despair that leads to suicide either. This is something we know only too well on the far south coast!

So tell me Greens, anti-hunters and nuns...how much responsibility will you shoulder for the senseless social carnage your bigoted opposition to HuntFest may bring about? What level of community contempt are you willing to suffer in humble silence because you opposed an initiative that had the potential to relieve the economic burden on the families of Narooma, simply because you are culturally intolerant? 

You have put no plan on the table outlining an alternative to HuntFest with the same economic potential. Will you open your wallets to help these struggling families with the same remorseless vigour that you applied to opening your mouths in opposition to people who are trying to establish a festival to help ease the economic destruction that your Marine Park wrought on a community dependent upon the recreational fishing industry?

To use an overworked catchcry, “exactly how many lives will it take” before you accept that your preferences are not all important, and that your bigotry may in fact cost lives?

I don’t live in Narooma, but if I did, I might be inclined toward a little social activism of my own. I might visit the homes of the local Greens and Antis, and for every suicide or drug overdose that can be associated directly or indirectly with economic distress, I might tie a little posy of flowers to their letterboxes in peaceful recognition of the lives Green and anti-hunter cultural intolerance have destroyed.

Anyway, I’ll get outaya way now...

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