When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorises it and a moral code that glorifies it.
Frédéric Bastiat
July 24, 2022
This personal responsibility horseshit in dealing with Covid-19 is ludicrous. We mandate car registration, drivers' licences, seat belts, driving on the left hand side of the road, using indicators when changing lanes and turning corners. Even then, over 1,000 Australians die on our roads every year. Imagine the carnage if all this was left to personal responsibility. Wear a bloody mask.
Blotreport
July 20, 2022
There will be a lot of talk in the coming days about [Boris] Johnson’s achievements - how he ‘delivered’ Brexit and ‘took the right decisions’ during the pandemic. Yet Brexit has only been delivered in the sense that a flat-pack piece of furniture is delivered. It hasn’t been assembled yet because it won’t fit through the front door, several of the pieces are missing and the instructions are in Russian. More ominously for Johnson, the public inquiry into the pandemic will soon be up and running and the bereaved will want to know why he presided over one of the highest Covid death rates in Europe.
Billy Bragg
July 11, 2022
The unbridled joy that comes with knowing we will never again have to deal with the entity formerly known as Prime Minister Scott Morrison is leavened by the fact that we had to put up with him in the first place. Not just put up with him but act as if the destruction he was wreaking was somehow invisible. That the studied neglect which was the hallmark of the way in which he pursued what can barely be called ‘governance’ was not obvious. Now they tell us about the problems with the energy markets. Now they tell us about funding holes in the NDIS. Now we hear that the National Gallery in Canberra is falling down, falling down because of underfunding. Now we hear they stopped funding recovery programs for endangered plants. Now we hear all the things. Sure, the media reported many of these instances over the last few years, but even as they did, their methodology resisted drawing conclusions. They showed us the dots, but they don’t join them.
[https://meanjin.com.au/blog/scott-free-but-still-in-chains/]
Tim Dunlop
July 8, 2022
[Greens leader, Adam] Bandt believes the election of more Greens and climate action independents means voters want the Parliament to act more in line with the climate science calling for more ambitious emissions reductions. He may be right, but at the same time, would these same voters prefer to see no legislated targets delivered by an unholy alliance of the Greens, the Coalition and Pauline Hanson?
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2022/06/21/paul-bongiorno-peter-dutton/
Paul Bongiorno
June 21, 2022
I went to an Extinction Rebellion meeting to discover what the movement was about. Lo and behold there were a lot of rich folk there…lots of family homes are built on the coast and river foreshores, and they love their children and future grandchildren too. After the floods and fires the penny is dropping that slowing climate change from human folly and greed is the priority.
Margaret Cowan
May 23, 2022
The intrigue about ‘who would run the country’ if [Anthony Albanese] travels to Japan for the Quad is hilarious in the extreme - because let’s face it - the only answer that really matters is - it wouldn’t be Barnaby Joyce.
Laura Harding
May 19, 2022
For [Scott] Morrison, words are just distracting noises that come out of a hole in his head. They are not connected to any logic or fact or principle. They are not constrained by anything he has said or done in the past, nor do they commit him to any future course of action. To expect otherwise is to make a categorical error. Morrison’s political career provides no grounds for believing that he will ever give a straight answer to any question, offer a cogent and consistent argument, explain himself in any way, or do anything he says he will do. He has never baulked at any hypocrisy, small or large. He speaks in order to make the very act of questioning him an exercise in futility, addressing no concrete reality beyond the immediate imperative to generate static. It is a form of anti-oratory: the rhetorical equivalent of avoiding an awkward conversation by starting up a leaf blower.
[https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/essay/amen-snorter-rotten-fish/]
James Ley
May 16, 2022
When Christians talk about how they are being ‘persecuted’ what they really mean is that they are discontent at no longer being able to use social and political power to force their views, their morality or their dogma onto other people the way they once did. They can no longer burn people at the stake, prosecute people for blasphemy, and have much less of an ability to oppress minorities and ‘keep them in their place’. The dogma, ignorance and authoritarianism that is required for Christianity to maintain control has greatly diminished and religious authorities and their institutions no longer have the power nor the respect that they once had. This makes them feel that they are being unfairly persecuted, though they actually have no real understanding of what that word really means.
Ephraim C. Brown
May 13, 2022
The Twitter [Right Wing Nut Jobs] who think that the Morrison [Government] is wonderful also genuinely believe that Trump won the last US election, that Michelle Obama is male, and that Deves and Joyce represent the pinnacle of the intellectual and moral achievements of humanity.
