Happy Halloween- Any plans?

[Outbackmanyep]

Any kids coming up to trick-or-treat are gonna get the hose!

[snowyskiesau]

Originally Posted by Outbackmanyep

Any kids coming up to trick-or-treat are gonna get the hose!

I like the sentiment

I live on a busy main road so don't expect any little freeloading visitors but might get the pepper spray out just in case ...

[seanliddelow (Sean)]

Im 14 but I dont really trick and treating. I just scare the hell outof other kids with a scream costume

[Enchilada]

Originally Posted by matt

You might also want to apologise to our numerous American IIS members while you're at it
There were some fairly anti-US sentiments expressed in here.
We celebrate plenty of our own traditions, by the way. There's no reason we can't embrace a few more even if they're not 'our own', if just for the fun of it.

??? Apologise for what?

I was trying to make a point about celebrating our traditions and values. Why does the local media, especially when aimed at young children, need to perpetuate the need that somehow American culture is somehow superior than our own. One has only got to listen to the current television ad on the Walt Disney "A Christmas Carol", which is blatantly said as being "Disney's A Christmas Carol." The story was written by Charles Dickens and is considered classical English literature. My jaw drops every time!

As to Halloween, just type in google "Halloween in Australia" as see how many hit you get. For instance, the site Halloween Australia, which says;

"Halloween is fast becoming a popular occasion in Australia, with regular Halloween events, parades and fetes at schools, house decorations, parties, and groups of children and teenagers dressed up in Halloween costumes, trick or treating through local streets."

Sinking of other peoples cultures by misleading the young is a common form of subversion. IMO it should be avoided, not because someone else is doing it - if they want do it that's their business. however, it should not be a part of Australia, especially because its origins are related to us at all.

As said in the news.com.au article; "Should Australians be Hallo-weaned off Halloween celebrations?" http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574...33-421,00.html

As Andrew Banks says;

"I'm not bothered whether we have a proper Halloween or not, but sooner or later Australia has to decide: are we in or are we out? Do we drop the whole idea or do we embrace it properly?"

My opinion is we should dump it, even by law, and we should all publicly say so!

I was also interested in the response of a "doolie of perth, who said ay 3.37pm (well after my original post here;

"Very sadly we are becoming Americanized to the extent that even TV adds have fake yanks doing their thing. Get rid of all of this Yankeeism now before it's too late. We do not want to be perceived as arrogant, overbearing and as ignorant of worldly affairs as they are. Keep Oz for Ozzies."

The poll results on this site, with 6447 votes at the time of writing said to the question ; "Should Australia ditch Halloween as an event on the calendar?" Guess what. 84% said "Yes. It is totally irrelevant!"

Only 15% of people agreed with it, and I'd assume most of them probably were the kids doing the door knocking.

Let the Americans have their Halloween - and I hope they enjoy it - but don't expect me or our Australian children to be subverted by a cultural celebration that is unrelated to another country.

My suggestion was only to encourage another reason to celebrate our own worthy cultural values. They killed "Guy Fawkes Night" because the kiddies my get hurt be the fireworks around this time of year, so perhaps we should do something else?

The question i want to know is the Halloween drive being driven by deliberate subversion though the media (foreign and domestic), or is it symptomatic of the long-term rise of American culture in the minds of Australian.

Should we be expected to conform to the extent of also celebrating "Thanksgiving" or even the "American Independence Day" (and never do "blackface again' ) to appease American sensibilities? I know already, they would never embrace Australia Day or ANZAC day.

That my "buck-o-nine's" worth…

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

We had 2 boys trick and treating earlier, I didn't have any sweets, otherwise I'd have freely given to them.

Whilst I'm not a fan of the good ole US of A as a general rule, I see no real issues with celebrating Halloween in Australia. True, it's really the wrong time of the year from a seasonal perspective, but the original tradition is seemingly long since lost. Shall we discontinue Easter and Christmas because their original meanings are lost (they were pagan holidays LONG before Christianity came along)?

Oh, and it's not just the US that celebrates Halloween, Canada and the UK do as well.

Thanksgiving and American Independance day are US specific "holidays". Halloween is NOT. It would have been brought to the US when many Irish emigrated to the US during the potato famine.

Dave

[Enchilada]

Originally Posted by Outbackmanyep

Any kids coming up to trick-or-treat are gonna get the hose!

Interesting idea, but treating little kids that way probably will deemed as some kind of abuse.

Perhaps the best way is to just challenge the ankle biters with a open tête-à-tête. This was the response my mother was told to do and still make your point.

When they say "trick or treat", ask them a question

"Are you American?"

When they say, no, you then say.

"Well, as far as I know, they only celebrate Halloween in America? Aren't you Australian, because you must come from another country?"

Usually the response is pure terror, because it questions their loyalty to their own country. Considering schools focus very much on Australian culture and values, if several people did this it might make them question why they are doing it,

Just simple reverse psychology!

[Enchilada]

Originally Posted by dpastern

Thanksgiving and American Independance day are US specific "holidays". Halloween is NOT. It would have been brought to the US when many Irish emigrated to the US during the potato famine.
Dave

Dave I agree. All I was questioning is how far do you go?

Again. I don't understand how this relates to Australia? Should we have events like the tomato throwing that happens each year us Spain Bunoi in Spain, or celebrate Chinese New Year, and give out little presents in red boxes of money?

As for my kids doing it, well I'd certainly tell them NO. I'd be worried some nutter poisoning the candy!

Is it odd that nearly all the $2 shops have the paraphernalia for Halloween.

"There's just one thing, yes there's just one thing
Who can stand in the way, when there's a dollar to be made?"

Who can stand in the way.
Midnight Oil : Red Sails in the Sunset

Positively shameless!

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

But - does it really do any harm? Kids going out (supervised of course), enjoying themselves, one night a year. Dressing up, having fun.

Dave

[matt]

Originally Posted by Enchilada

??? Apologise for what?

Well...first of all for the fairly shockingly selective editing (hatchet) job you did on my post and your subsequent quoting of me.

You conveniently left out the part where I referred to: but comments like "bugger the yanks" and "Aren't we more intelligent in Australia than to follow the lame brain American culture?" don't come over too well.

That's a couple of examples of comments which I think are fairly contemptuous and rude toward our American cousins.

Answer your question?

Anyway...Xmas is not too far away. You can really go to town on that one with some Bah-humbug!!!!! And then you can get stuck into Easter and a few other annual cultural traditions which have been introduced from 'other' cultures.

BTW - a large section of our (Australian) society does celebrate Chinese New Year.

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Well said Matt. Well said.

Dave

[Zaps]

One of the reasons I headed south was to escape c**p like Halloween. Another reason was to escape religious losers. It would be really disappointing to discover that the northern religious losers had managed to export c**p like Halloween down south. So many Australians seemed absolutely fixated upon becoming American, and I just cannot understand why! Aussies in general are way better people than that.

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by dpastern

We had 2 boys trick and treating earlier, I didn't have any sweets, otherwise I'd have freely given to them.

We had one group of three primary school age dressed for Halloween. While I was out picking up take-away I saw another group of four high school girls in their witch's gear. It's a bit late now to expect any more.

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Hang on here - Halloween doesn't really have anything to do with religion, unless you are a pagan like me. True, the Christians took the original pagan holiday and adopted it to keep the pagans happy and help convert them to Christianity, but it never was really a major Christian holiday imho, not like Christmas or Easter. As an aside, are you saying that we should drop Christmas and Easter as well? Or are you being (incorrectly) one eyed and blaming Halloween on the Americans? If so, I suggest that you do some research and you'll see that Hallowen did not originate in the US of A.

In your opinion it's crap, in others views it's a bit of harmless fun. The world could do with more fun imho.

Dave

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Originally Posted by mithrandir

We had one group of three primary school age dressed for Halloween. While I was out picking up take-away I saw another group of four high school girls in their witch's gear. It's a bit late now to expect any more.

Yeah, it's probably a bit late now to expect more as well. One of the 2 boys made an effort to dress up, the other one didn't. They were in their early teens I'd say. Both were very polite and well mannered.

My friend from work, Meg, has made a nice costume (was a backup costume, as her dress didn't arrive in time ) and will dress up tonight and do the makeup thing as well. She even made this very cute doll, which was awesome! She cosplays, so she loves this sort of thing. I think it's great that people are getting out and relaxing and dressing up and just having fun.

Dave

[Enchilada]

Originally Posted by matt

Well...first of all for the fairly shockingly selective editing (hatchet) job you did on my post and your subsequent quoting of me.

You conveniently left out the part where I referred to: but comments like "bugger the yanks" and "Aren't we more intelligent in Australia than to follow the lame brain American culture?" don't come over too well.

That's a couple of examples of comments which I think are fairly contemptuous and rude toward our American cousins.

I didn't answer this deliberately in wanting to stir the pot any further. In the end, I think you are taking me well out of context..

What I said prior to saying "Bugger the yanks", was;

"Why do we promote something that represents the perpetuation of conformity in human cultures rather than establishing and celebrating the unique diversity of all world cultures. In OUR southern hemisphere, we should out and celebrating the coming of summer, where the winter chills are forgotten, and we can all be out in the open air, enjoying our skies and country"

Here I was referring too the homogenisation of culture being consumed and conforming to someone else ways instead of forging a path defining our own culture. Clearly the concept of Halloween is about the change of seasons going into winter (as stated so eloquently by mithrandir.)
In the southern hemisphere the seasons are reversed. My solution is to instead to add something new to our Australian way of life . Bugger the idea of being mere followers of another foreign country, lets follow our own destiny and celebrate aspects of OUR culture.That's is all I said!

As me saying "Aren't we more intelligent in Australia than to follow the lame brain American culture?" Well considering the number of people seemingly here willing to follow the cultist festivals, well perhaps Australians are equally as lame brained as the American culture!
IMO, Halloween as celebrated by the Americans IS lame brained - and I think some American folk agree also with me! It seems an odd mixture of paganism, commercialism and propaganda to serve the Hollywood film machine to impose American culture on the rest of the world - as already established at least since the 1950s.

Frankly I want my cultural background to become more Australian. not less! "Halloween" is being export to Australia based on the American culture through the television media.

Ever wonder why the majority of TV each week is American? Have you thought how this impacts Australian culture, especially by targeting our children, and now consequentially, Halloween is being propagated through the schools. This is the same methodology as the blitz on advertising done by McDonalds when first establishing its operations in this country.

Ever wondered why the morning programmes flog Hollywood gossip as news or morning new programmes on nearly every commercial Australian networks? I.e. Sunrise and Today?

Why do the TV stations do this. I.e. What is their motive? Clearly they rely on American productions to fill in the airways, with the carrot being discounts on packaged studio-based a whole gambit of good and bad material. We buy the product, they fill our heads with mostly propaganda.
Perhaps instead of calling them lame brain, I should have called it as it simply is - media brainwashing. Rule #1. Get the little kiddies first. Works a treat everytime.

No wonder 84% of people in that poll I linked are against this event!!

As for those appearing as American apologists - well that another story!

[DavidU (Dave)]

Ah yes, Aussies love an extra public holiday.
Give it a decade more and Halloween with be yet another day off.
Queens birthday? that's good ! A horse race? GREAT, Moomba?????

[matt]

Originally Posted by Enchilada

In the end, I think you are taking me well out of context..

Too funny

[Enchilada]

Originally Posted by DavidU

GREAT, Moomba?????

What's Moomba?

Didn't they first do that in Sydney at one time?

[Enchilada]

Originally Posted by matt

In the end, I think you are taking me well out of context..



Too funny

Personally, I think that the reverse is quite true…

53rd or 54th State anyone?

[matt]

Someone get Harry M Miller on the phone.