Newsletter for the Rotary Club of Western Endeavour - Issue No.: 405 Issue Date: 5 Sep, 2010

Given the volume and escalation in rate of socio-economic and technological changes, our future society most likely will comprise lad and laddette elite performers and as many supermodels as we can build through excess physical activity, plastic surgery and illicit and licit drug addictions. 

Just maybe, too, a few wags and handbags will manage to survive to thrive as well. 

Ooh … and perhaps we’d better keep some of the more myopic educators, bureaucrats and judiciary; retain some of the cannon fodder still hanging around, and suffer in silence the few hardworking carers still managing to avoid burnout – at least until we know our side has definitely won the war, and the hard work has actually all been done.

So do we really want to encourage a 21^st Century replica of Hitler’s plan for a superior race?

A society comprising definite personality preferences to be selfish, aesthetic, able, inhumane, self serving, greedy and non caring?

Aristotle says those who forget their social history get destined to repeat it.  

Hitler was a visual artist who suffered massive desensitization throughout his life, starting when he was a child.

Failing to gain entry to the Vienna Academy of Art, and although born in Austria, he volunteered to fight for Germany at the Battle of Ypres, after the Austrian authorities determined him to be unfit to serve.

Given the known existence of his artistic sensitivity, it is proposed Hitler most likely experienced post traumatic and chronic stress due to battle fatigue, given his unit suffered tremendous casualties during the war and he was wounded, gassed and blinded, whilst avoiding many other close calls. 

He was also regularly reported as indicating that he expected to survive the war, suggesting that by this stage he had been desensitized to the stage of being totally insensitive, given he considered himself bulletproof. 

As such, death was unlikely to have remained a primal fear for him, so this would have helped to make him fearless.

Indeed, besides his two Iron Crosses, Hitler was awarded the Bavarian Military Medal 3rd class with bar, and later received, as did all wounded soldiers, the Cross of Military Merit.

However, embittered although he was, that his side had lost the war, (he refused even to attend Christmas truce celebrations during the war), Hitler was keen to support Austrian integration with Germany – but initially only through custom and trade treaties. 

After all, Germany, like Austria, had been penalised severely, given their loss of substantial territory – unconscionably taken by the victorious allies for their own use.

So at that stage, both nations were hyper-vigilant, but neither yet able to protect their own national interest or sovereignty.

But over time Hitler’s experience of absolute power and protection through sovereignty also corrupted him.

So whilst he sought to build his Arian race to (superior) perfection, genocide ceased to be seen as a problem to him, nor were torture, trauma or other types of crime against humanity or discrimination. 

Every censorship of the press or restraint of citizen civil liberty, such as deprivation of life, liberty and equality, or freedoms of speech and religious beliefs.

None are sacrosanct from being pursued – but then again, Germany did declare itself to be in a state of emergency.

So today, as I shake my head in disbelief, each day I just keep reminding myself, once again, of the realities of life....

All I need to do to be readily accepted in Australia is to crush my own sense of humanity and self efficacy, so as to make myself selfish, self centred, insensitive and unsure enough that I will choose to always put the care and protection of myself - my interests, my image and my self preservation - first.

To do so I must make sure I prioritise my time to do only those addictions valued and allowed by a desensitised majority - sport, excess physical activity, work “busyness”, licit psychiatric drug taking, gambling for charity, hot sex, shopping and plastic surgery.

Otherwise I need to learn a sense of helplessness, so I can be empowered to lean on the forgiving care, benevolence or penitence of others whilst retaining a sense of entitlement for their ongoing support.

If I do the first two and not the third I'll probably end up being rich, thin, beautiful and well dressed, sitting in first class, image protected and shock and age proofed, sipping the one glass of red I’m allowed - but also wondering - especially when  I'm older - just where did everyone go?

But let me meet along the way, any bad luck or karma from tragically unexpected traumatic loss or terrifying misfortune, and my scenario dramatically changes - even if I really don't want it to or choose to deny that it has. 

Although once or twice I might bounce back with resilience, more often than not I won't.

Neither will my family - especially if I'm their primary carer.

So come on Australia’s politicians - let’s debate the policy first, and report to our United Nations on the real humanitarian crisis and human rights issues  – those existing here, right now!

Remember too, our Oz is never going to be landlocked - so that takes away the options of putting up the rabbit proof fence around our coastline or just battening down the hatches so as to stop those invading terrorists and tardy tourists.

Chronic, Acute and Post Traumatic Stress; Suicide and Euthanasia Prevention; Crisis and Emergency Management; and Gender Desensitisation Early Intervention, so as to prevent  Psychiatric Disability, Self Harm and Suicidal Ideation in our community from Systemic Bullying, Racism and Ageism, Victimisation, Armed Conflict, Domestic Crime, Vicarious Trauma, Carer Fatigue and Learned Helplessness and Hopelessness are all priority issues that must be addressed by every responsible government in the world - right now.  

After all, what's the use of living a longer life once you've decided your life’s no longer worth living?
None of these situations in our commmunity comprise a circumstance where the cure is better for our society than awareness raising, community education, early intervention and humanitarian aid. 

The consequential costs for our health, education, lost work and productivity, law enforcement, community, road and occupational health,  safety and welfare are huge - let alone the associated lifelong disability costs and opportunity losses.

Saying it is so doesn't make it so. 

Doing what I say and not what I do, doesn't make it so.

Envisaging it to be, doesn't make it so.

We must now walk the talk and show Al Qaeda that it didn't actually lose a battle but win the war after 911.

Also such humanitarian and human rights are jus cogens, as well as non derogable under international law!

We need to resensitise our desensitised and insensitive as much as we can.

We must educate the wider community about human development life cycles and the evolution of humanitarianism; inform them about gender and age socialisation, the reality of human intelligence quotas (IQ and EQ) and personality trait preferences and the implications of armed and domestic conflict or chronic stress on sensory, intellectual, brain and mental health.

Finally we must counsel them about the value of family reconnection and remind them about humanitarianism, so they might validate the true feelings and bodily sensations of all our children - men, women, women, humanitarians, soldiers and burnout employees and carers.

For my community, just where is its right to life, liberty, security and dignity of the person, and to equal treatment under the law?

I keep trying to get my message across here to the majority, but most times they still prefer not to listen.

So thank God a humane United Nations allows an affected individual to complain directly about their own State's lack of compliance with international laws and treaties it’s ratified!