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Tag Archives: Trump

Trump Grants God An Audience!

“Well, I got a call from God the other day… not so much a call as a… he spoke to me and he said we needed to schedule a meeting and I said…you know, we’re both busy men… me with all the fake witch-hunts and the election and you with all the… God things… and anyway he was insistent that we needed to talk and so I squeezed him in and we met and He thanked me and I said, ‘So what can I do for you?’

“Well, He’s very old you know, he’s even older than Sleepy Joe Biden… I know, I know, that’s hard to believe, but unlike Sleepy Joe, God’s still loves America and wants to do what’s right… So I asked him what He needed to speak to me about… We don’t waste time, we get down to business and get things done…

“So God said to me that He was getting tired and that He’d probably need someone to take over in the next few years… I could see where this was heading, so I cut him off and… And said that I’d be pleased to help Him out because that’s the sort of thing that… but… I did wonder… so I said, ‘What about the kid? I mean I always thought that he’d be… you know… that you’d be… you know, handing over the reins to him…’

“And God said, “Let me stop you right there.”

“And I said, “Nobody stops me…”

“And then we both laughed and laughed because… well, I don’t know… but it’s true… a lot of people said ‘They’ll try and stop you, Mr President’ and I tell them I know that they stopped counting the votes and… where was that… we were in front and they stopped counting the votes and just declared Biden the winner… Mm, oh we were behind when they did that… They claimed that Biden had won that state and they stopped counting because they couldn’t find any more votes, but I’ll bet they could have found some if Sleepy Joe had asked them…

“After we stopped laughing, God went on to say how Jesus was never as popular… the ratings for my show were so much larger than the Sermon on The Mount which was, apparently his biggest… what did he call it a parable, no that was something else… Jesus was never as popular as me and that he spent his time on Earth hanging around with the wrong sort of people and God needs someone who’d drain the swamp just like I did with Washington… Jesus couldn’t even organise enough food and he had to borrow some loaves and fish from one of the supporters and that would never be enough to satisfy all the people who come to my rallies which are really, really big and they’re doing something that’s really important and that’s why God wants me to take over…

“He really liked my Make America Great Again slogan and thought that I might be able to come up with something like that for Him. I said that I thought Capitalism Creates Calm Kids would look nice on a cap and He nodded and told me that I was His greatest creation and that He had no idea when He created the Heavens and the Earth that it would turn out so well and that there’d be someone like me as a result of what He’d done…

“And I said, ‘Thank you, sir!’ because I am respectful and modest. In fact… I may be the most modest person God has ever spoken to… I don’t know but I just might be…

“But I had to go because I can’t spend all day just talking to God who, by the way, nobody ever voted for… but that’s all right, because He wasn’t a Democrat and He knew that they’d find a way to crucify Him if He stood for President because he wasn’t born here just like Barrack Hussein Osama who never showed me his birth certificate but he allegedly had one if you believe the Fake News, so God never stood for election which is why He admires me so much because I didn’t have to but I decided that someone had to save the country from all the criminals and woke people trying to say… what are they trying to say? Well, who knows? Nobody understands them and nobody cares because they’re dangerous and when I’m in charge we’ll build another wall like the one I built which was really good as far as it went but it didn’t join up at the other end so those Democrats just waved in all the terrorists and drug dealers and Latinos… When I’m President I’ll build a wall and put all the woke people behind it and we can have democracy again because we’ll be left with only people who believe in it and me because we’re Ameri-CANS not Ameri-can’ts… I said this to someone the other day and he said that he was Ameri-can’t… a very merry one… he meant someone by that but… I don’t know…”

“So, I’m off to court tomorrow where that hateful judge is going to try and stop me speaking but I’m on first name terms with God so nobody can stop me and… I don’t know… hopefully there’ll be some other judge there because the one who told me that I could speak to the jury while the woman on the stand just making up lies… he showed who he was voting for… and who voted for him. Maybe a bolt of lightning will hit him or something… “

“God bless America and all of you!”

 

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Australians must not ignore the Religious Right’s global warnings

Australians have begun to see the new face of extreme religion in our “conservative” politics. The international influences are varied and interconnected. These radical forces are not a private feature in politicians’ lives, but threaten the freedoms we value. It is only through better understanding the global impacts that we can protect our democracy.

There was jubilation around Australia at the defeat of the Morrison government in May. Some rejoiced at ousting the man himself. For others the relief was inspired by the majority uniting against a government signifying climate inaction or corruption or misogyny. Scott Morrison’s insertion of American-style religion into the Australian civic space contributed to his loss. If Australians had understood how alien this ideology is, it would have been much more central. The defeat of Morrison, however, is not the end of that religious intrusion into Australian “conservative” politics; it is part of the global phenomenon of reactionary Religious Right authoritarianism. In the month Morrison left the Lodge, the American majority was reeling at the implications of the leaked Supreme Court decision on Roe v Wade. In Europe, Queer Ukrainians were finding themselves pincered between the deep sexual stigma that pervades the culture of the invading Russians as well as the countries like Poland and Hungary where many are finding refuge. The Australian Religious Right draws on the power of the global movement’s successes like the Dobbs decision. It becomes more dangerous in its merging with secular bigotries and reactionary forces. Reflecting global political trends, it works not for “the next election, but the next generation.” It, and the culture wars that harness its votes, will not be backbenched with Morrison.

It is not only the faith-driven that make Religious Right politics a threat. These forces are bolstered by marriages of convenience between apparently incompatible forces. Secular libertarian members of the Republican Party embrace social conservatism and even perform devotion to faith to draw in the energised Religious Right voting bloc. British Tories are a dominant model for the Australian secular Right politicians with their boisterous “war on woke” which carries out overlapping attacks without the religious foundation. LGBTQI people and reproductive rights are the crucial targets for the interlinked movements. Trans people’s existence provides the wedge towards driving all LGBTQI people back into the closet. Britain has fallen from first to 14th place in LGBTQI rights rankings in only seven years, concurrent with the Tories’s Brexit debacle. Attacks on feminism from the traditional sex-role obsession of the Religious Right and defensive traditionalism of the secular Right are underpinning attacks on access to abortion. Driving women back out of the civic space and into the home is a shared passion. These campaigns are expanded in daily retail politics through disingenuous Right Wing media outlets in their culture war battles against the Left.

For less faith-driven “conservative” politicians, religion can also be deployed as a core characteristic of an embattled – mythical – national culture. Throughout the West this manifests as denoting Christianity as an integral component of Western Civilisation, also coded as White.(1) Any attention granted to First Nations or non-White people within the Right’s self-defined White nations is defined as divisive rather than reparatory. Reversing the various gains of the civil rights era is the goal. The blending of misogyny and various bigotries into the “conservative” supporter base draws misogynist Men’s Rights activists and White Supremacists into the cohort. There is a strong thread of this in Australian “conservative” politics with Tony Abbott (alongside his Budapest posse) as the most obvious warrior in defence of “Western Civilisation.” In Australia, we recently saw Bob Katter and Pauline Hanson touting their sudden interest in our Christian roots, with Katter even emulating Trump holding a bible aloft. This was posed as a rebuttal to Labor discussing a First Nations Voice to Parliament as well as the question of the relevance of Christian prayer in a secular Parliament. Inclusion is depicted as a destruction of all the glories of tradition. Diversity is an existential threat.

Pentecostal implacability

Given that the Australian “conservatism” has modelled itself particularly on its American partners for decades now, the US provides us with a critical warning. In America, the electoral contest is no longer a tussle between competing political platforms and styles; Religious Right dominance of the “conservative” party has made democracy literally impossible. Ezra Klein has analysed the current polarisation of their politics and noted that the overlap of many aspects of social identity has made political ideology far more tribal than it was historically. More problematic than that, however, is the certainty in Religious Right politics that the Left is an existential threat with no right to form government. While conservative Catholics and other faiths buttress the causes of the Religious Right in America, its dicta are dominated by Evangelical/Pentecostal tenets.(2) In this version of Christianity, Dominionism is central. This is the idea that Evangelical versions of Christianity must dominate the Seven Mountains of the civic space including government. The purity of the nation must be legislated and enforced. Within this cosmology, a secular state is a Satanic obstacle. Perhaps worse is the fact that natural disasters are seen as harbingers of End Times, so the more dramatic the impacts of the climate emergency, the more rapidly purified the nation must be.

The degree to which the growing Pentecostal movement is a poor fit with democracy requires understanding. Most institutions preach “spiritual warfare” where “literal demons” are present in people and events. Trump’s neo-charismatic “personal pastor,” Paula White, preached that Trump was fighting “a worldwide demonic conspiracy.” In this fringe world, LGBTQI people smell of demons and African and Asian sorcerers are a threat. Catholics and Mormons are said to practise dark magic. They argue that places and institutions such as bureaucracies, universities and journalism itself can be taken over by demonic forces. Spiritual warriors saw the Republican red of the map illustrating Trump’s victory as showing the “blood of Jesus” cleansing America’s sins. His election signified the looming overthrow of “Jezebel,” the literal demonic spirit behind reproductive and LGBTQI rights. The fantastical ideas that are compulsory parts of faith in these churches ready its adherents to accept other fantasies. In the pandemic era, the rapid growth of QAnon pervaded the evangelical churches, evident in Pentecostal Scott Morrison’s apology for “ritual” child abuse in Australia. QAnon’s focus on evil progressive elites stealing children was a comfortable fit for a faith that sees progressive political parties as evil. Much of the Trump support has taken on a religious devotional tone where he is the new saviour from the demonic Left.

Most Pentecostal/Evangelical traditions furthermore believe in a Rapture or Millennial Kingdom which destroys any impetus to tackle the climate crisis. Looming “End Times” create enormous anxiety about current moral status, but not about the future of the planet. This majority believes that storms and plagues are further signs of the imminence of the desired Premillennial moment. Geopolitical tensions arising from climate pressures will only be interpreted as more apocalyptic signs. Global action involves working with global political entities. Global entities, however, are depicted as aligned with the Antichrist. This is compounded by strategists within the fossil fuel sector driving Evangelicals to embrace these mineral resources as God’s gift which it would be ungrateful to leave in the ground. Rational debate is scotched in the face of divine mandate.

In this worldview, progressives are “godless.” Secularism is still linked to Communism. The freedom they demand is not “freedom from” but “freedom to.” The freedom to “force others to be free” only possible by “obedience to one narrow understanding of God’s plan.” Secular freedom, by contrast, leads to “chaos” and authoritarianism because tolerance is an imposition. The Evangelical movement’s pressure on American politics is such that no movement to protect equal rights is safe. The purity mission drives illogical policy making as well as being harmful to individuals within the churches. The attack on LGBTQI rights is such that the Southern Poverty Law Center has labelled a number of these lobby groups and churches as hate groups. The Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade and the resultant extremity of several states’ abortion laws illustrates the degree to which reproductive-aged women and AFAB people will be constrained and surveilled. Removing access to contraceptives has been raised too. The implication is that women’s access to the civic space will be revoked by uncontrolled fertility, and LGBTQI existence will be erased either visibly or actually.

This is not a movement that thinks in election cycles. It has taken almost a century for American businessmen and preachers appalled by atheist communism to make over the Republican Party as a Christian Libertarian force. Civic programs and civil rights were seen as the work of the enemy, crushing liberty. The government had no place in replacing elective charity with state programs. Instead of the sexual tolerance of libertarianism, however, this ideology is controlling. Socially, reactionary White Christians wanted their wives obedient, Segregation in place and their youth docile and chaste. Racism was inherent in White Evangelical churches, and a toxic emphasis on women’s purity and submission accompanied this. Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority took the decision to unify the movement over the issue of abortion and it became a powerful force against political liberalism through the 1980s. Together with Billy Graham they brought Christian Libertarianism and the Evangelical bloc ever closer to the levers of power.

Pentecostal/Evangelicals are now central to Republican power. Donald Trump received 80% of the white Evangelical vote in 2016 and 75% in 2020. They form 35% of the Republican coalition. Trump’s personal sins are dismissed in the pursuit of the rewards he could grant for their loyalty. In 2022 his demographic offers even more fervent support for his Big Lie with the convergence between Evangelicals and Qanon followers. The labels Christian Nationalist and even Christian Fascist are being embraced by the MAGA Right now. Trump surrounded himself with Evangelical and conservative Catholic figures. He achieved the primary goal of this coalition when he handed them control of the Supreme Court, one of America’s primary law-making institutions. The Federalist Society which gave Trump the names to place on the court is led by Opus Dei-linked Leonard Leo who has packed the court with “radical schismatic Catholics.”

#TradCaths and Rad Trads

Support for Evangelical positions comes from besieged “Rad Trad” Catholics in the Religious Right coalition who believe the Catholic church has been subverted from within. For some, Pope Francis’s institution is an “an antichristic church.” Others believe that he represents “the replacement of Catholicism with a globalist, multicultural “eco-theology,” grounded in socialism.” It is out of this fear and anger that Archbishop Viganò wrote to Donald Trump in 2020 supporting a Qanon-infused crusade against the liberal elite. This crusade is intricately intertwined with a European defence of “Judeo-Christian values” and of Western Civilization. These are coded messages in the White Supremacist perception that that old Europe is being overwhelmed by an Islamogauche (progressives aligned with Muslims) takeover.

Bill Barr, Trump’s last Attorney General, delivered an address at Notre Dame university in 2019 that illustrated the anxieties in ultra conservative Catholic circles. The “militant secularists” were executing a “campaign to destroy the traditional moral order.” All kinds of “social pathology” were undermining America as a result of this progressive war on the “traditional Judeo-Christian moral system.” Groups like Church Militant present a crusader model of Catholicism which fights alongside Evangelical Christians for an end to abortion and a return to “traditional” sex roles. Church Militant is also fighting alongside Groypers – the White Supremacist trolls and thugs that threaten anyone depicted as Other, who are becoming more overtly religious in their rhetoric.

The Christian Libertarian ideology is present in this Catholicism too. Steven Bannon, Trump ally, represents the most extreme libertarian position as well as ultra conservative Catholicism. His economic position was captured in his fostering what he described as Trump’s “deconstruction of the administrative state.” Bannon embraced this as part of his anarcho-capitalist project to destroy the system. He was posited as the antithesis to the Pope in the battle for Catholic allegiance and was at the forefront of the resistance to a diverse and inclusive church, as well as America. Bannon actively worked to spread Neo Nazi messaging in his time as Breitbart executive.

European Nativist/Religious fascism

This trend coincides with a worldwide resurgence of authoritarian regimes. In classic fascist mode, a central feature is intolerance and bigotry associated with the defence of a mythical past of national glory. Religion is a key component of the culture defended, of a homogenous nation these movements believe can be recreated if only its defenders are ruthless enough. It not only excludes those who are of different “race” and religio-cultural traditions, but also the liberal and inclusive blocs within the state. The coercive push to dictate how private lives are lived, and what life choices become criminalised, is central to these populist authoritarian forces. The defence of “family values” or “traditional culture” is used to justify persecution of the targeted “out groups” in typical fascist identity politics style. These regimes depict theoretically traditional roles for women and the exclusion of LGBTQI people as critical for public safety, community, and even national security. This is true in Russia, Republican America, Poland, Hungary, and Brazil. This trend is not limited to Christian nations. Modi’s “Hindu India” vision, for instance, embraces the same “tradition” justifications for oppression.

Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant traditions all become part of a Christian fight for a West they believe to be at risk of destruction. Last year in his state of the nation address, Russian Orthodox Putin declared the “Spiritual and moral values which some countries have started to forget have made us stronger, and we will always defend them.” Both ultra conservative Catholics and American Evangelicals have seen Putin – and his Hungarian Reformed Church echo, Orban – as a hero fighting back against the marauding non-whites, liberals, perverts and feminists of the modern world. Bannon factions in Catholicism revive the belief in Moscow as the Third Rome, believing that Putin’s Russia can be a bulwark against secular modernism. Pat Buchanan speculated that Putin might give the keynote speech at the World Congress of Families a few years back, summarising the perception: Putin’s stalwart fight for the “family values” campaign contrasted shamefully with an America that had capitulated to “a sexual revolution of easy divorce, rampant promiscuity, pornography, homosexuality, feminism, abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, assisted suicide – the displacement of Christian values by Hollywood values.” Russian and American Evangelical “family values” groups have been working together since the 1990s. Having fought back their own godless totalitarian regime, nationalist Orthodox Christians tell their fellow “family value” activists that the Russians have the ability to help the Westerners defeat the new liberal totalitarianism. (This extreme end of the Republican Party also supports his invasion of Ukraine which is characterized as a defence of Christian Russia from Western weakness and homosexual dissolution.)

These prejudices permeate society in the former USSR. The Tokyo Olympic coverage in Russia featured derogatory talk about the taint of “perverts” and “psychopaths” at the games. Commentators complained in horror at LGBTQI athletes, who should be segregated into their own games away from wholesome athletes. Parliamentarians joined in expressing their disgust. In Russia’s neighbour Georgia, the 2013 “pogrom” against the LGBTQI rights parade is celebrated in these circles. Levan Vasadze, Georgia’s “family-values superhero” described it as the day Georgians “pushed back against the agents of the Western ‘totalitarian dictatorship of liberalism.’” The totalitarianism these former Iron Curtain dwellers – and their Western allies – imagine is characterised as the “total exclusion of religion and religious thought.” Within this international “family values” army there is absolutely no space to allow LGBTQI existence. In their essay on this united movement in 2015, journalist and author Masha Gessen interviewed the man about to lead the World Congress of Families. This took place two years after Gessen moved from Russia to America to protect their rainbow family. They asked him if they gave up some of the rights and freedoms that, effectively, marked them as equal, could they live alongside his Christian family in amity. He said starkly: “No.”

The accelerated changes of the modernising world have been particularly challenging for the countries long kept isolated by the Iron Curtain. Modern nations in the West embracing diversity in changes such as the legalising of same-sex marriage is only part of the challenge. The exodus from the Middle East and Africa of those displaced by climate and geopolitical crises (often created or exacerbated by Western interventions – regime change, military incursions, World Bank strictures) has added to the tensions in Eastern and Western Europe. Manipulated by Right-Wing movements and parties, “offering visions of a simpler, better society: a return to a romanticised vision of the nation,” the discomfort with rapid change is funnelled into virulent bigotry. This draws on 19th century quasi-religious conceptions of the nation with moral qualities implicit: the “cultural nation” was seen as rooted in religion, the most important of the “cultural goods.”(3) The “third wave” of radical Right activity in Europe brought religion back onto its agenda. Religion has become part of distinct version of ultra-nationalism and, to some degree, a cause of it. This is the identity politics that is invisible to the mainstream, linking conservatives and the radical Right.

While the radical Right’s identity politics is distinctly national, it is international too. Orban’s ideological influence is visible in Australian “conservative” circles. On the weekend of Morrison’s defeat in Australia, the hard right American “conservative” conference CPAC was hosted in Budapest. The attendees represent the most radical and Trumpian end of their political movement, gathered in the country that overtly represents their goal for home. Orban models virulent defence of Christian and Western civilisation in his overt focus on ethnic homogeneity. Elected originally as the cool leader of the youth party, he now instead boasts of making Hungary an “illiberal democracy.” Western liberalism represents weakness, miscegeny and immorality. CPAC’s organiser described Hungary as “one of the bastions of the conservative resistance to the ultraprogressive ‘woke’ revolution.” Orban opened the conference calling for the assembled to unite. “We need to find friends, and we need to find allies. We need to coordinate the movement of our troops, because we have a big challenge ahead of us.” They share the sense that the Great Replacement is a real threat: Jewish forces are importing Third World immigrants to replace the White Christian patriots. At home in America, the New York Times reports that the Murdochs are complacent about their chief pundit regularly promoting the theory. They also report that Australian News Corp editors are taking their instructions from Carlson’s show. Carlson made the CPAC visit possible when he broadcast for a week from Budapest in 2021, celebrating authoritarian order. Orban appeared at the Dallas CPAC event in August, repeating these toxic sentiments but will leave that to his acolytes in the Sydney CPAC to take place in October.

Australia

This decade of Coalition government in Australia has been deeply shaped by the international radical Right. The influence comes from the top through opulently-funded thinktanks to the mass’s conspiracy wild-lands, connected by internet platforms. The demographics are entwined by the Right’s media ecosphere fomenting panics across the socio-economic and educational strata. They infuse a mixture of deep belief and shared strategy. The manifestation of the battle and its constant effort to radicalise are focused in “culture wars” about distortions of trivial examples of liberal speech. Its bigotry has been on display from decades of abuse of refugees exercising their right to seek safe haven through to the cynical deployment of transphobia in the 2022 election. These bigotries reflect cultural anxieties amongst conservative groups but are justified and cleansed by an association with religious doctrine and superiority.

In Australia, the combined ethnonationalist and religious fearmongering has been domesticated into the Coalition’s own policies and messaging. The growth of the Religious Right faction in the parties has come to the fore over Morrison’s tenure. Its most divisive manifestation in this last term was the attempt to pass a religious discrimination bill. The core aim of the bill was to allow religious groups, dissatisfied by the passing of marriage equality legislation, the ability to discriminate according to the tenets of their faith. In the final week of the campaign, Morrison not only reignited talk of the bill, but allegedly had transphobe Katherine Deves’s campaign out of his office. Niki Savva described moderate Liberals as believing Morrison was aiming to purge the party of the figures described as “bedwetters.” Labor stepped carefully through the landmine of the religious discrimination debate. It had traditionally been a home of a working-class Catholic vote in Australia and retains politicians from that socially conservative demographic. Apparently, Anthony Albanese worked constantly communicating with progressive and faith-driven parliamentarians to unite to negotiate a path created to wedge them. Their goal was a version that would protect faith communities of all kinds without the harmful aspects of the bill.(4) Now fringe “conservative” politicians to the right of the main parties are working with conspiracy groups such as the “freedom” network, where Pentecostal religion is evident too.

In Australia, conservative religious movements have been recorded as branch-stacking LNP branches. Candidates are selected that do not reflect the values of the party or of the region to be represented. The result is that to vote “conservative” can mean to vote Religious Right. The campaign to co-opt the Victorian Liberal Party in particular has been documented in the press. In 2017 and 2018 journalists recorded factional opposition to Mormons, conservative Catholics and Pentecostal groups targeting branches. The current campaign sees a number of very conservative preselections in the face of an attempt by the party to present itself as a progressive choice. The most notable is Moira Deeming who represents anti-trans and anti-abortion politics and was considered too extreme by Scott Morrison’s federal bloc. Last week, a new report emerged of stacking and attempts to take positions in the party’s internal state assembly.

An Existential Threat

The combined forces of religious extremism with religion as a central cultural attribute of a mythical national identity makes it a deeply dangerous force, with any groups in the community marked as a threat to the imagined homogeneity of the traditional nation targeted for increasingly ugly retribution. This perilous bigotry is used to garner support for hollowing out democracy in the interests of controlling diversity. The divisions and resulting democratic recession are disastrous in the face of the climate emergency. As the mainstream political Right becomes more colonised by these interconnected radical forces, it cripples the national and international ability to act on crises that threaten even human civilisation. As governments fail us, people in their desperation and anxiety turn to counterproductive “solutions.” The disasters and pressures inherent in the climate emergency serve to pour energy into the movements that most cripple our ability to minimise or respond to the challenges. Pentecostal religion in particular is tied to authoritarian movements around the world.

Progressives in Australia as elsewhere tend to focus on shorter term goals and risk much by ignoring the long-term strategising of the Right. The origins of the American radical Right’s production of the current moment’s crises can be sited in the Cold War, or even the Civil Rights era, depending on the narrative. Justice Samuel Alito’s majority decision in the Dodd case that overthrew Roe is only one of the cataclysms. Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurrence illustrates that he sees parallel precedents that made homosexuality legal and access to contraceptives possible should be overthrown too. Leading Republicans are now discussing making abortion illegal nationwide when they next hold power and moves to reverse LGBTQI equality have also been mooted. These impositions of extreme religious morality on a majority that does not support them are a culmination of years of work by political entrepreneurs of the Evangelical minority, bolstered by conservative Catholics. Legislating minority morality is only possible by undermining democracy. These same forces are at work in Australia, their enthusiasm to strip rights from Others within the nation galvanised by their peers’ success in America. The Coalition’s disdain for women in the civic space was a key factor in their May defeat. Their attacks on the nature of our democracy were legion. They continue to focus on American-style culture war battles to gin up the base even in the clear evidence of the disaster it has caused there. In concert with radicalised ethno-nationalist figures who see Christianity as a core marker of White Australian nationalism, the parties of the Australian Right are utterly infused with a toxic international Right’s concerns and strategies.

It is not just the rights of individuals but the (flawed) democracies that have gradually made room for civil rights for more groups than just property-owning White men that is at stake in the rise of the authoritarian Religious Right. These democracies are more likely than authoritarian regimes to protect the equality of Others, preventing the persecution and even the atrocities that religion-infused extremism can foster. Without data-driven secular governments, our capacity to tackle the climate emergency is crippled. It is critical that we perceive the risk that is reflected in the speeches of Scott Morrison to his Pentecostal audiences. It is not merely a foreign faith movement uncomfortably shoe-horned into our secular state; it is a threat of incalculable scope. We must work together to keep authoritarian religious radicalism out of our government.

(1) This is not limited to the West. Nor is Christianity the only faith drawn into the nativist nationalist trend. In India, the Hindutva movement aims to subdue all Indians within a Hindu nation with one faith and language. Shinto is central to a Japanese nationalist movement. Buddhism is key to Myanmar and Sri Lanka’s nationalist movements. Israel is self defining as a Jewish nation and imposing second class status on non-Jews within its borders.

(2) The overlaps and distinctions between Pentecostal and Evangelical protestant Christianity can be hard to delineate. The Pentecostal movement is the heart of the democratic crisis, with many churches infused with the Pentecostal ideas. It is the Pentecostal movement that is at the heart of the idea of Spiritual Warfare, Seven Mountains and Dominionism. Some Evangelical churches eschew these trends, but the overlap is strong particularly in the White Evangelical sphere. In the Trump and pandemic era, the American fashion has become strongly interwoven with QAnon and a deep devotion to Donald Trump. Elle Hardy’s account of the rapid growth of Pentecostalism around the world is important reading. Some institutions that are clearly Pentecostal deny the label because of the weight it has accrued. The most important unifying feature is the individual’s direct experience of the Holy Spirit. Pentecostalism is non-denominational and outside the traditional hierarchical Christian churches. Hardy estimates that globally 30% of Christians are now belong to the aberrant Pentecostal form of the faith and that by 2050, 1 in 10 people will belong to the movement.

(3) German historian Friedrich Meinecke writing in 1908 quoted in Michael Minkenberg’s chapter “Religion and the Radical Right” in the Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right. Minkenberg explores the complexity of religion as part of nationalism in increasingly secular societies.

(4) This was gleaned from a lengthy off-the-record conversation with a – then – Shadow ministerial staffer.

 

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Law And Order Takes Over The Speaker’s Chair!

A few days ago I wrote about confirmation bias.

Like I said, I always feel like I need to find ways to check that I’m not the victim of my own confirmation bias. I mean it’s easy to see it in others. Clearly the free kick was there and if the umpires and the opposition supporters didn’t see it, why they just need to watch the replay, but that mightn’t help because the last time I got them to do this, the station broadcasting the football altered the tape and…

Anyway, with the events in the USA, I felt that I should make sure that I didn’t resort to the echo chambers of my own like minds, so I did the unthinkable and I watched Fox News for a while.

I discovered a number of things:

  • Speaking generally, they didn’t think that people should be allowed to storm Congress and stop elected representatives from conducting the business of government. I was pleased that even outside my echo chamber there was some consensus on this.
  • Some of the protestors were treated appallingly because they were pepper-sprayed when all that they were doing was trying to push past police and take over the building. I mean, this was appalling. Didn’t the police realise that these were the same people who support law and order? After all, that’s what the POTUS tweeted so surely if you support law and order you should be allowed to do what you want and go wherever you want.
  • The people who smashed property must have been members of Anti-Fa who’d infiltrated the protest because Trump supporters would never do such a thing.
  • One interviewee managed to point out the tremendous over-reaction from the police when the protestors were peacefully smashing windows.
  • The guy who sat in Nancy Pelosi’s chair and was showing an envelope that he took from her desk hadn’t stolen it because he left a quarter. If I had his address I’d consider breaking in and taking his beer and leaving a quarter. (That’s twenty-five cents, not a quarter of his beers.)
  • There was a woman who was pepper-sprayed and all she was doing according to her own words was “mounting a revolution” when she entered the building. What’s America coming to when you can’t overturn the government by force without someone trying to stop you?
  • It was the tolerance shown to the Black Lives Matter protests that led to this because we’d reached a point where violence was acceptable even though it was a peaceful protest.

I’m sure that I learnt lots more things but I wasn’t taking notes so I may have forgotten what I learnt which is the sort of definition of learning that we expect from our formal education at school…

Anyway, I was waiting for them to do an interview with Trump, but I suspect that the security forces have told him that he needs to go into the bunker and that they won’t let him out for the next two weeks. If you see Trump before then, look very closely and make sure that it isn’t Alec Baldwin doing his Saturday Night Live impersonation.

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Nuclear weapons – always inhumane and unacceptable, now illegal

The nuclear weapons ban treaty has achieved the 50 ratifications needed for its entry into force.

By Tilman Ruff

On Saturday, 24 October, the 75th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, Honduras brought the number of nations to ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) to 50. This means that 90 days later, on 22 January 2021, this treaty will enter into legal force and become international law, binding on the states that have already ratified it, and all those which subsequently do. Outlawing nuclear weapons is an essential step to eliminate them, the only reliable way to prevent their use. This is a historic achievement and an enormous win for planetary health.

For its role in achieving the treaty, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), founded in Melbourne, became the leading civil society coalition working with governments to conclude the nuclear weapons ban treaty. For its work for this treaty, in 2017 ICAN became the first Australian-born entity to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Growing danger

The treaty is especially needed in the face of the real and present danger of nuclear war climbing higher than ever. The hands of the Doomsday Clock stand further forward than they have ever been: 100 seconds to midnight. All nine nuclear-armed states are modernising their arsenals with new, more accurate and ‘useable’ weapons; their leaders making irresponsible explicit nuclear threats. The cold war is resurgent – hard won treaties reducing nuclear weapons numbers and types are being trashed, while nothing is being negotiated to replace them, let alone build on them. If the Trump administration allows the New START Treaty to expire, then from 5 Feb 2021, for the first time since 1972, there will be no treaty constraints on Russian and US nuclear weapons. Armed conflicts which could trigger nuclear escalation are increasing in a climate-stressed world. The rapidly evolving threat of cyberwarfare puts nuclear command and control in jeopardy from both nations and terrorist groups. Close to two thousand nuclear weapons remain on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched within minutes of a leader’s fateful decision.

The radioactive incineration unleashed by nuclear war involving even less than 1% of the global nuclear arsenal targeted on cities in one part of the world would be followed by a worldwide nuclear ice age and nuclear famine, putting billions of people in jeopardy.

As the World Health Organisation and Red Cross/Red Crescent movement have confirmed, health and emergency services could not respond substantively to the needs of the victims of even a single nuclear weapon exploded on a city. When there is no cure, prevention is imperative.

Treaties work

The TPNW fills a gaping hole in international law that for far too long saw the most destructive weapon, the only weapon which poses an existential threat to all humanity and to the biosphere, as the only weapon of mass destruction not to be prohibited under international law.

Consistent lessons come from experience with biological and chemical weapons, antipersonnel landmines and cluster munitions. Treaties which have codified in international law the rejection of an unacceptable weapon have provided a crucial basis and motivation for the progressive work of eliminating these weapons. Providing one legal standard for all nations has been essential to the substantial progress made in controlling banned weapons. All the weapons subject to treaty prohibition are now less often justified, produced, traded, deployed and used. No indiscriminate and inhumane weapon has been controlled or eliminated without first being prohibited.

Nine nuclear-armed states, the 30 nuclear-dependent members of NATO, Australia, Japan and South Korea appear unlikely to soon join the TPNW. Australia’s opposition to the TPNW is at odds with its support for all the bans on other inhumane weapons. The sticking point is that Australia cannot be serious about nuclear disarmament while claiming that US nuclear weapons are essential to Australia’s security, and providing assistance for their possible use. There is nothing in this treaty which stops non-nuclear military cooperation with a nuclear-armed state, as other US allies like New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines have already proven.

There are welcome signs towards Australia getting on the right side of history, including support for Australia joining the treaty from parliamentarians from a wide cross-party spectrum. Labor leader Anthony Albanese and shadow foreign minister Penny Wong welcomed the 50th ratification and affirmed Labor’s National Policy Platform commitment to joining the treaty.

A sure sign that this treaty matters is the strong opposition it continues to arouse among nuclear-armed states. Last week the Trump administration wrote to all states that have joined the treaty saying it “turns back the clock on verification and disarmament and is dangerous” and admonishing them that “… you have made a strategic error and should withdraw your instrument of ratification of accession.” They are clearly nervous that the treaty becoming international law puts their continued justification and possession of nuclear weapons on notice and exposes their failure to deliver on their obligation to disarm.

Another important sign that the treaty matter is that money is already moving away from companies that profit from making the worst weapons of mass destruction, soon to be illegal. The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund (in Norway), major banks (like Deutsche Bank, KBC in Belgium and Kyushu Financial Group) and pension funds (including ABP, Europe’s largest) are among the growing number of financial institutions that have divested from companies building nuclear weapons. Every responsible financial institution should now do the same.

In a dark time, the TPNW shines a light on the most promising path to free the world from the risk of indiscriminate nuclear violence. Not only does the treaty provide a comprehensive prohibition of nuclear weapons, it also provides the only internationally agreed framework for all nations to fulfil their legal obligation to eliminate these weapons.

Further, the TPNW obliges nations which join to provide long neglected assistance for the victims of nuclear weapons use and testing, and to undertake feasible remediation of environments contaminated by nuclear weapons use and testing.

All states should join the treaty as a matter of urgency and faithfully implement it. Time is not on our side. The treaty provides our best hope for the worst weapons.

A/Prof Tilman Ruff AO is co-president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (Nobel Peace Prize 1985) and founding chair of ICAN (Nobel Peace Prize 2017).

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Surplus to requirements, ScoMo?

Applause, stamping, hoots and catcalls resound up and down our wide brown land as another big week in Oz-politics lives down to expectations, as John Crace says of Boris Johnson, now the incredible sulk, after his inevitable Brexit flip-flop just flops with a not-so-super Saturday vote to delay, a thinly-disguised ploy to sink the whole mad shebang in the middle of the Irish Sea. Brexit continues to make fools of fools, says Crace.

A week when our parliament is actually sitting, despite its increasing rarity, has a similar effect. This week the government tries to fool us that Labor is in government and to blame for all kinds of feckless fiscal ruination.

Like our own populist tosser Morrison, professional political clown, Boris is clueless about what to do – that’s for “girly swots” – and neither narcissists can take advice – so every waking hour is an epic battle with reality.

At home, a fever of anticipation erupts at the chance of being re-tied to Britain’s apron strings with beaut new trade deals, an agile Coalition with economic management in its DNA can whip up in weeks. Or a year. Tops.

“We are match-fit and ready,” ScoMo’s already promised Boris, an MP with whom he feels an immediate affinity. Scott’s got his mandarins all sworn to secrecy and totally Sco-Motivated to all-new levels of public service loyalty and fidelity. It’s not just manspreading or mugging for the camera in Fiji’s Rugby change-rooms, ScoMo channels the blokey banality of the footy coach in his unsubtle instructions to our public servants.

“It’s the bacon and eggs principle – the chicken is involved but the bacon is committed,” he says. Boom-Boom. Somehow, it’s all about how ministers can only set direction by being sensitive to quiet Australians, whose deepest desires can only be deduced through some miraculous phatic communion.

“Look beyond the Canberra bubble” says our PM, who is nothing but Canberra Bubble. A former Liberal apparatchik and player in the game of mates before being called to lead his people as prophet and seer; a high priest of populism and neoliberal revival. As William James and Bertrand Russell said of the turtles who hold the flat earth in its place in creation, for ScoMo, it is Canberra Bubble all the way down.

How good is a well-done Free Trade deal? Our brilliant new Free Trade Agreement with Indonesia has been quietly simmering since 2012. Morrison promised it August last year, when after six years it had progressed to a most promising single page but hopes no-one recalls. Then – as now- the fact of its brevity does not mean that it is not miraculously close to conclusion. He’s doubtless been out praying. And the spirit’s there.

We only have to “paper it”, as President Bone Spurs says, faking a breakthrough in his tariff war with China.

Stealing the show is Gladys Liu, MP (via AEC poll-booth signage simulation) for Chisholm who’s finally sorted her membership of Chinese organisations known to ASIO. She’s clear of them all, “she thinks”. Or is she?

In a flash, Rupert’s Hun is on to her, protesting Ms Liu’s links with top property developer Chen Guo Jing, whom the MP described as one of her “good friends” in her maiden speech. Chinese language sites call Chen the “implementer” of the Australasia Belt and Road Advocacy initiative, The Herald Sun adds helpfully.

Gladys is now well beyond hapless Sam Dastyari’s villainy in the latest instalment of rabid Sinophobia, Yellow Peril 2.0. She’d resign immediately but “Mandate” Morrison’s government has only a one seat majority.

Rushing to assist, is cuddly Peter Dutton, the Minister for Home Affairs, whose portmanteau portfolio covers everything best left unsaid. Whilst we love to profit out of China’s coal and iron custom, its tourists and its students, whose insatiable thirst for knowledge causes them to take up full-fee paying places in tertiary institutions, there’s just one thing about our biggest single trading partner. Its government’s values suck.

“Our issue as I’ve said before is not with the Chinese people,” Dutton thunders. “My issue is with the Communist Party of China and their policies to the extent that they are inconsistent with our own values.”

Aussie values include lying, spying, cheating and stealing as the case of East Timor reveals. Witness K and his lawyer Bernard Collaery are still holed up in a secret trial in Canberra where they are not even permitted to know the charges against them – except the bleeding obvious; they have embarrassed the government by reporting the fact that Canberra bugged the cabinet rooms of Timor-Leste in 2004 in order to draw up geographic boundaries which would yield Australia more than its fair share of gas and oil.

Alexander Downer is still pouting. Lord knows how his friendship with ScoMo’s going now he’s promised Trump he’ll snoop on the spy-master; find out just how Downer morphed into a small “L” Liberal; set the Mueller Inquiry on to that fake Russian collusion witch hunt. Be very careful with your bus-travel, Alex.

As fans of Q&A, Sunrise and The Drum would know, freedoms come into (and out of) the grab-bag of Aussie values a fair bit, in what is fondly termed “our national conversation”, (but which isn’t ours or even national – and so often turns out to be a power elite talking to itself in public).

Freedom? Sheesh! It’s right up there with crony capitalism, gambling, racism and elder abuse- yet we are currently debating how we know just how much freedom of speak we are allowed to have? Seriously.

Word comes this week that former Amnesty poster-boy Phil Ruddock’s religious freedom bill which would have restored some of the losses felt by the anti-marriage equality brigade pleases neither church nor state.

Given that it was a solution in search of a problem – religious freedom is already protected in law -it is hardly surprising but will ScoMo’s “top priority” just go? Leave privilege unprotected? Impossible.

But don’t rule out another inquiry. At present the draft bill offends all parties – and cross-bench Tassie Senator, Jacqui Lambie can’t see the need for it. Unlike her sympathy with national security justifying expanding state power even further. We’re world leaders in this field.

Australian Human Rights Commissioner, Edward Santow, notes Australia has “passed more counter-terrorism and national security legislation than any other liberal democracy since 2001”.

Instead of agonising nightly on The Drum about how we need to “get the balance right”, wouldn’t it be a whole lot easier just to ask government permission? A journo with a story that seeks to hold a government department accountable must run the story by the government first. It’s the position favoured by Mike Pezzullo who is the eyes and ears of Dutto’s Home Affairs mega-department. What could possibly go wrong?

In the meantime, Attorney-General Christian Porter confirms, on Sunday’s ABC Insiders, that his government will continue to intimidate journalists by refusing to rule out AFP raids. He pretends that the AFP is at arms-length from government. Hilarious. Lie. The AFP comes under the (big right) wing of Minister Dutton.

Turning the thumbscrews, Porter would be “seriously disinclined”, he reckons, “to sign off on the criminal prosecution of journalists” for public interest journalism, but says he cannot give any guarantees. No-one on Fran’s panel calls Porter on his pretence that the AFP is independent of the federal government of the day.

Canberra Times veteran, Jack Waterford reminds us that never in its forty years’ operation has the AFP come up with a finding which might embarrass a sitting government – apart from Abbott’s Peter Slipper witch hunt.

“The AFP behaves rather more as a department of state, pathetically anxious to please the government of the day. The department seems to lack internal checks and balances, and sometimes seems to put outcomes ahead of process and sound management, and seems to lack people with the courage to stand against any of the enthusiasms of its secretary,” observes the former editor and investigative journalist of 43 years’ service.

We can’t blame Fran Kelly – or any of her guests for not nailing the minister on the furphy of the AFP’s independence or the farcical pretence that as Attorney-General, Porter is led, like a lamb, to slaughter offending journalists.

But don’t shoot the mixed messenger.

Our ABC is under extra pressure in the form of a ripper new bill for silent Australia due in the house early next week. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Rural and Regional Measures) Bill 2019 requires the ABC to set up a Regional Council, at a cost of $100,000 PA to help it contribute to a sense of “regional” identity” as well as “a sense of national identity” and to reflect “geographical”, as well “cultural diversity”. Sounds as simple to get sorted as the Nicene Creed.

Accompanying the push to the bush, a second bill is a sop to Pauline Hanson. It’s an ABC “Fair and Balanced” yard-stick-slogan-logo-thingy while the bill also orders Aunty to supply regional content – even though this is totally impossible on a reduced budget. The result is to give the government a new big stick or two to beat the public broadcaster into compliance. Or soften it up before it’s sold off as in the IPA wish-list.

“This regional push by the Coalition government is no benign shepherding of the ABC back to its core duties. It’s actually designed to tie the corporation up in red tape and shift its attention away from national coverage – and the machinations of federal government” warn Sydney University’s Fiona Martin and Michael Ward.

News this week that Dili wants a $5bn refund to compensate for gas and oil illegally taken is likely to be music to Josh Frydenberg’s ears given that he’s making it clear that his government’s surplus fetish does not mean “surpluses are like a trophy in a cabinet,” The AFR’s Jennifer Hewitt reports. But that’s exactly what it means.

It takes genius to con so many Australians for so long that a meaningless line on an annual budget is a sign of good management – let alone the allied bullshit about “fiscal responsibility” and “living within our means”. Yet to claim a budget surplus means anything at all, is a hoax. And a cruel hoax when it means that NDIS applicants, for example, are made to wait or face stricter qualifying tests to “save up” a surplus.

The only reason a budget surplus ever comes in handy is as a brake on inflation,Greg Jericho reminds readers of The Guardian Australia. No danger of that now where even the Reserve is begging the government to do something about a shrinking economy. Would Joe Hockey squander his $80 billion gift/investment in 2014?

The Opposition is addicted to panic and crisis”, Bovver Morrison hollers across the despatch box as he accuses Albo of a stacking a tantrum. Not only is ScoMo a past master at projection, he knows we live in the present. In the eternal now of modern politics, he assumes that few will recall the metanoia of Tony Abbott’s hyper-partisan opposition’s debt and deficit disaster fear campaign when Labor borrowed to get us out of the GFC.

Forgotten, also, he hopes, is Abbott’s brief-lived Coalition government led by “warrior” Peter Credlin with its war on the poor, on indigenous Australia and on workers amongst others. We have yet to recover from its sick militarisation of compassion – the paramilitary Border Force with its ludicrous uniforms and cruel protocols.

Clayton’s PM Junkyard Abbott’s sidekick BJ helped warn us all that Whyalla would be wiped off the map or that we’d being paying hundred dollars for a lamb roast. They rushed to kill off their carbon tax scare.

Their subsequent revoking of a price on carbon has helped lead us to record carbon emissions ever since.

ScoMo opened Christmas Island just for his Medevac scare, an extension of his asylum-seeker paranoia, a rabid and irrational fear febrile of others. Jacqui Lambie may now help him get to revoke the Medevac Bill.

Yet he proceeds with his name-calling, baiting and jeering at Labor for what they might do to ruin us all. It helps create an illusion, as Katharine Murphy of the Guardian observes that Labor is in power -yet by some miracle that Morrison, a solo act throughout his career, is a PM primum supra pares (first above the rest).

In a moment of madness, Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon proposes a bipartisan war cabinet for the drought. Settle down, Fitz. That would be like a union between the arsonists and the fire-fighters. Besides, could you really trust any of them on their past performances? No-one else in the world takes their climate figures seriously.

Australia is a world leader in climate change abatement per capita in the Coalition’s Gospel according to Morrison. Doo wah boy, Gus Grassgate Taylor, Minister for Global Warming Energy and Big Irrigation does backing vocals.

“The comments made by the Prime Minister at the UN, that we are going to meet our emissions targets, was a gross misrepresentation and was staggering for someone in his position,” protests former Liberal leader, John Hewson, addressing the Round Table in Canberra. Global warming heretic Hewson favours regenerative agriculture. Expect his immediate retribution via ridicule in some Rupert rag.

Reverting to wilful ignorance and disinformation, the Australian economy is not tanking a bit, insists the PM, despite this week’s IMF growth downgrade by almost twenty per cent from 2.1 to 1.7. On the contrary, our nation’s growth something to shout about in parliament.

“Australia’s economic growth is the second highest if compared to the major Group of Seven economies, and the government has helped create 1.4 million new jobs,” ScoMo misleads parliament.

Reliant on resources, Australia lacks diversification of exports and its economy is now more like that of a developing country with fewer prospects for growth, reports the Harvard’s Atlas of Economic Complexity. It predicts growth to slow to 2.2% over the next decade, ranking us in the bottom half of countries

Australia is not even in the G7, however much ScoMo loves to boast about his special invitation to observe last August’s meeting; a token of his government’s leading role as hyper-partisan US ally in the ruinous trade war between Trump’s administration and China.

As for jobs, his claim covers six years. Growth doesn’t even keep up with population.

A stoic ScoMo won’t be spooked by international events; or lift a finger to stimulate a stagnant economy. All this – and more – promises the PM’s turd-polish unit, which accidentally emails the media its jumbo economy super-savers’ pack of lies meant for Coalition MPs, this week.

It’s an innocent mistake. And easily made. Our media lead the world in recycling government press releases. No heads will roll this time. The chooks just get an extra feed of MPs’ “talking points”, the rich mix of fantasy, lies, evasions, disinformation and other conversation-stoppers confected non-stop by the PM’s spin doctors.

Australia’s national net debt is now a record $400 billion plus, according to Matthias Cormann’s own Finance Department’s report last Friday. It’s a peculiar type of nincompoopery that can take Labor’s puny $174 billion net national debt and double it in six years, despite some of the most favourable global economic tailwinds in history, yet the Coalition is on track to get to $700 billion in a canter.

The biggest issue for the economy remains the decline and fall of our household incomes. This will not be revered by some slick tax cut. Nor will it show any improvement, whatsoever, if the government having utterly no idea what to do by way of stimulus measure clings to the mantra of a budget surplus.

But that’s not in the talking points.

There’s so much to crow about it’s not funny. Cue standing ovations from the poor, the elderly, the under-employed and those who need wait only a matter of months before they’re trampolined off welfare and back at work at the local widget factory.

Above all, Australia is God’s Own Country and as the PM reminds a national prayer breakfast, Tuesday,

“The only prayers that you can be assured are never answered are the ones that are never prayed.”

Our latter day saints, the nation’s hard-working farmers are clearing land at record rates yet some find the time to take out of helping cause the problem to wax ecstatic over Drought Relief; the Coalition’s most shameless pork-barrelling since its 1700 kilometre Inland Rail boondoggle. No-one’s getting any money for a year and the $7 billion doesn’t add up, former farmer’s lad Alan Jones berates the Prime Minister.

Jones asks how all of the drought relief grandstanding that’s been going on three months is going to feed a cow?

How good’s a Farm Household Allowance worth a measly $250 a week? $5 million for rural financial counselling? $115.8 million that Morrison says “went directly to drought communities”. Morrison finally gets to talk. He embraces the theme of weed eradication. Jones cuts in, “Oh, PM, don’t talk to me. I’m a farmer’s son, you’re not.”

When the IMF tells you the economy is down the gurgler and your own Finance Minister reports the same – When Alan Jones gives you a bollocking, ScoMo, you may need more than a new set of talking points.

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Look on…

LOOK ON IN THE ABSENT HALLS OF OUR OWN CONSCIENCE, THE HUNGRY WALLS OF OUR OWN LIVING ROOMS, LOOK ON…

One cannot gloss over what has happened!

We witnessed the brutal cruelty and destruction of Afghanistan and its people at the hands of the Taliban.

We witnessed the brutal wars on neighbouring countries, ethnic minorities and its own people in Iraq at the hands of Saddam Hussein.

We witnessed the total destruction of civil war in Syria and the devastation of its cities and people.

We continue to see the brutality levied by Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu in Lebanon and Israel on the Palestinian people.

We have seen the brutal acts of terrorism across the world at the hands of ISIS; and ignored the far greater threat to democracy by our own western governments, which use this as propaganda against human rights, their own people and constitutional freedom and democracy.

And while all this has been going on, we have silently witnessed and ignored our own complicit terrorist acts against Yemen at the hands of the Saudi king and president, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, as the West supply the Saudi- led Arab coalition with military arms to systematically bombard and indiscriminately destroy the men, women and children of Yemen.

We witness Trump rattling his lips and sabre against Turkey, Iran and refugees, and like the fake presidential coward and mercenary he is, he acts only in his own inseparable corporate and political interests, to secure his own moribund electorate and hungry games. We witness Morrison and Dutton in Australia, who in all likelihood are far worse as they tighten their demonic grip on democracy and rattle their delusional snake-strung evangelical tongues.

As a result of our own political navel gazing, we have ignored the catastrophic impact ISIS, successive regimes and dictators have had throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world; and on the eve of the latest campaign, this crusade – withdrawn from Syria’s borders and abandoned the Kurds, who not only fought as allies against ISIS, but now face the brutality of Turkey’s foreign policy at the hands of Tayyip Erdoğan, and more genocide to follow.

The Kurds are a people who are familiar with this cruelty and national obsession, as they continue to be demonised and eradicated not just by ISIS, but Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, they have no homeland and nowhere else to go. By now we should be familiar with this systematic pattern of human abuse across our planet, the repeated history glossed over and our part in it. But are we?

The heinous crime of Western countries is to have allowed extremist groups like ISIS, Taliban, dictators and cruel regimes around the world to flourish, while imposing and justifying our own outlandish empires; and now we do it again. We create the vacuum for their success and look on, worse we install and feed these cruel regimes with sick diplomacy and arms. And when we are done we turn our gaze on refugees fleeing from these rivers of blood and cruel regions, lock their people up in prisons, we turn our propaganda machine on the people who flee the tyranny of their oppressors to be subjugated and demonised within and just off our very own shores and borders.

And when that campaign wears thin, the evil eye of Sauron turns on its own people, lighting up domestic fires, demonising the poor, unemployed, students, the elderly, humanitarians, peaceful protesters, our own social and ethnic minorities, those who are sick of this wretched and cruel neoliberal straight jacket, our commercial bombshell.

As the Kurds defend democracy first against neighbouring countries in the region, ISIS and now Turkey, the West once again abandon their supposed allies. Behrouz Bouchani, a Kurd and journalist fleeing from Iran has been imprisoned on Manus and now PNG for the past 6 years, since 2013. He has become the offshore absent conscience of Australian politics. He is one of Australia’s many political prisoners and yet he has committed no crime, broken no law, there has been no charge, no lawful detention or justice. All he ever wanted was to report the abuse, to tell the truth, to live, to be free. He is one of the many. Morrison and Dutton look on.

We like to watch our TV, we witness, we gloss over and we allow this injustice to continue on all fronts, even in our own country, in the absent halls of our own conscience.

Look on…

GODLESS MOUNTAIN

For sake of the
crusade I learn
to slaughter men,
women and children

For sake of a
godless world
I substitute freedom
for religion

For sake of peace
I keep my mouth
shut, eyes closed
to death and suffering

For sake of
humanity I live
with the knowledge
of shame and doubt

If I could climb a tree
and shake the
mountain, I’d
paint the sky myself

and live without

(AB, 4 July 2019)


Poem first published in Poetry is a Mountain: A Poetry Anthology, 17 September 2019, Kevin Watt (eds), Independently published, San Jose CA, Amazon.
Source: https://allpoetry.com/poem/14593002–Godless-Mountain-by-Barddylbach

Reference: Kurdish refugee Behrouz Boochani warns of ‘genocide’ in northern Syria, Nick Baker, 15 October 2019, SBS Australia.

 

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Is Donald Trump mad? (Revisited)

By Ad astra

Around two years ago, The Political Sword published Is Donald Trump mad? In November of last year, it published Is Donald Trump crumbling?

It could be argued that Trump’s recent behaviour warrants another such article. But why bother? We’ve said it all before, as have columnists the world over.

Trump’s recent behaviour has been characterized by requests directed to the Ukraine leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, and less specifically, to ‘China’, to ‘investigate’ his adversary Joe Biden, and his son Hunter, whom Trump accuses of corruption. This foray portrays an even more bizarre motive than most – to discredit a possible opponent in the 2020 Presidential election. Biden may not be his opponent, but Trump, exposing his deep-seated paranoia, wants to kill him off politically well ahead of time.

More recently, Trump announced that he was withdrawing his troops from Syria’s border with Turkey to allow Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to carry out a plan to create what Erdogan calls a ‘safe zone’ in northern Syria. This move has evoked astonishment, anger and trenchant criticism from fellow Republicans, who regard this precipitous move as foolhardy and dangerous. Many regard the deserting of the Kurds, a loyal ally against Islamic State, as reprehensible. The awful outcome of Erdogan’s invasion of Syria is being displayed on our TV screens every day. Islamic State fighters may soon be unleashed once more to wreak the brutal havoc they have exhibited in the past.

So instead of repeating the well-worn words of dismay that you are now reading in countless political columns, let me remind you of what we’ve said previously.

Here’s the introduction to Is Donald Trump Mad?

No, I don’t mean ‘hopping mad’. We know that he is hopping mad with the media and its ‘fake news’, with CNN particularly, and with some of its commentators whom he has chosen to label as intellectually deficient, and unpleasant to the eyes (bleeding from a face lift!).

We know he is hopping mad about the criticism he attracts.

We know he prefers admiration, adulation, even reverence.

We know he craves the hero worship he received as host and star in his TV reality show The Apprentice. We know he needs his image to be polished endlessly. Fame is more important to him than fortune.

No, I mean ‘mad’ in the clinical sense, in the sense of the many synonyms of the word: mentally disturbed, insane, lunatic, maniacal, even crazy or crazed. Some peri-clinical synonyms of ‘mad’ too might be applicable: unstable, erratic, unsafe, dangerous, perilous, foolish, even senseless.

‘Mad’ derives in part from the Old English ‘gemædde’: ‘out of one’s mind’, ‘extremely stupid’, ‘insane’ or ‘foolish’.

Do you see a nexus between these words and Trump’s behaviour?

Let me present you with some evidence so that you can make up your own mind about whether Donald John Trump, President of the United States of America is indeed ‘mad’.

Click here to read the whole piece.

Now, read the beginning of Is Donald Trump crumbling?:

As you witness the increasingly bizarre behaviour of Donald Trump, the President of the United States, the mightiest nation on earth, do you wonder about his mental state? Do you speculate about his stability, his judgement, his reasoning? Recent events, piled on each other, beg the question; ”Is Donald Trump crumbling”?

Mental deterioration can afflict any of us quite suddenly. On the other hand, it can overcome us in a number of smaller steps. Could this be the case with Donald Trump?

Let’s recount some recent events that are indicative.

Take the devastating fires in Southern California that Vox described ”…as the single most destructive and third-deadliest fire in state history”. In its account of the fires, Reuters reported: ”Donald Trump is known for his fiery comments, but his recent tweet has outraged prominent celebrities who slammed it as ‘demented’.

What did he say? Did he empathise with those who had lost their houses? Did he express horror at the appalling loss of life? No. He reflected on the emergency, in a Tweet of course, with: “There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!” A dire threat as a proxy for empathy!

This example alone is sufficient to raise the suspicion of significant mental deterioration, even in someone as bizarre as Trump.

The president of the California Professional Firefighters assailed Trump with “The president’s message attacking California and threatening to withhold aid to the victims of the cataclysmic fires is ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines.” Celebrities lashed out at Trump’s ’ill-judged and out-of-touch’ tweet as an absolutely heartless response…there aren’t even politics involved. As you tweet, there are good American families losing their homes and evacuating into shelters.”

But that’s just the start. Read the rest of the piece here.

Steps are now well advanced to impeach this man. Not only Democrats, but may others see him as a dangerous liability to the United States.

How impeachment will proceed is anyone’s guess, but the need to remove him from office occupies the minds of not just countless Americans, but international observers too.

What a dilemma Trump is for international statesmen and ordinary folk the world over, all of whom fear what this erratic, unpredictable, unbalanced, loud-mouthed, egocentric man will do next. Just listening to his daily harangues from the White House forecourt, and reading his endless Tweets, are enough to alarm any sensible observer. His pronouncements on trade and economic issues have confused the stock market and sent it into disarray.

Which is why we ask once more: Is Donald Trump mad? Let us have your opinion.

If you still have lingering doubts about Donald Trump’s mental state, take a look at this YouTube videotape from MSNBC: The Dangerous case of Donald Trump; 27 Psychiatrists Assess.

 

 

This article was originally published on The Political Sword

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Downer, The Spy Who Gave In What He Was Told…

So, let me see if I have this straight:

Alex Downer and Trump adviser, George Papadopoulos, meet in a London bar where, according to George, he doesn’t tell Alex that the Russians have damaging material on Hillary Clinton. Then Downer passes on the information that he didn’t receive to George. This led to the Mueller investigation, because there was an announcement by the FBI that they were still investigating Hillary’s emails in the days preceding the 2016 election. This action was evidence that the FBI were part of a global conspiracy to prevent the election of Donald Trump, even though the release of the material actually harmed Clinton…

Now before some of you start jumping up and down and telling me what terrible human beings the Clintons are, I want to make it clear that I have no wish to defend any American presidential candidate, I’m just trying to establish the facts here. Yes, you can tell me how “House Of Cards” is based on the Clintons and not some BBC show from twenty years ago and how they ran a pizza parlour which they disguised as a pedophile ring. Whatever! The Clintons are not the issue here. We have another global conspiracy to stop the election of Donald Trump for reasons I’ve yet to quite understand.

Anyway, according to the current narrative being pushed by Papadopoulos and the other Trumpsters, Alex wasn’t told about the damaging information that the Russians had on Hillary but Downer reported this non-existent information. The investigation into the investigation would like to delve more deeply into this because according to George – the man who pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI – Downer recorded their conversation. If there’s one thing worse than a diplomat passing on information they were given after a couple of drinks, then it’s one who records and passes on information that they weren’t given. The Australian government is only too happy to help… We’re not releasing the transcripts of anything written but we’re happy to release Alexander.

Yes, it’s all a bit John Le Carre rather than James Bond. Whatever, Scottie says that there’s nothing wrong with helping an ally with an investigation. Pity, the Ukraine isn’t an ally, I guess.

Then again, Scottie is very helpful these days. When it was discovered that one of the councils being given drought relief was actually experiencing a bumper season, our PM told us that he made no apology for being generous… which would be fine, were it not for the fact that the councils to which he was so generous didn’t seem to be in any Labor electorates. I’m mildly surprised that the metropolitan electorate of Chisholm wasn’t given drought relief, not because it’s a marginal electorate, but because city people have to pay higher food prices thanks to the drought…

And then there’s the NDIS which is so generous that it had more money than people needed. How else do you explain the $4.5 billion in unspent funds this financial year? Incompetence in its administration? Ridiculous. The Coalition is in charge! An obsession with returning the Budget to surplus no matter who suffers? You cynic! As if the government would do such a thing.

Of course, generosity has its limits and you certainly can’t go increasing money to those on NewStart. No, as Minister for Family and Social Services told us, that would just lead to more money going to drug dealers and pubs.

I don’t know what she’s got against pubs. Or drug dealers, for that matter. I mean, the economy needs a boost from somewhere and it’s certainly not going to get one from increases in the NDIS or the dole. If it has to come from some hotel owner or ice dealer buying a new car or adding to his bling, then it’s better than slipping into recession. Besides, can’t the Liberals remember that when Labor suggested putting a limit on pokie machine losses, they banded together with the clubs and pubs and told us how this would lead to massive job losses. Yet now, we can’t have an increase in unemployment benefits because it would help the pubs.

It seems just a few days ago that the Liberals were telling us how good they’ve been at creating jobs. I suppose if you use the word “creating” in the sense of a making up a thing that’s not really there, then one would have to agree.

 

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CPAC’s travelling show can pack up and go home. And stay there.

“I’ve been to the border,” Fox TV’s Judge Jeanine Pirro says. US citizens living there talk of “rape trees” upon which the clothes of rape victims are hung she says. They talk of children having their hearts cut out with machetes. The US, as Donald Trump regularly tweets, is under siege; its way of life threatened by an invasion of rapists from south of the border. Trump’s re-election campaign team repeats the siege message 2199 times in paid Facebook ads since January.

Welcome to the Conservative Political Action Conference or CPAC ‘s travelling show, a rabble of far right US fear-mongers, liars and conspiracy crackpots convinced by Trump’s canard that George Soros or The Democrats fund the migrant caravan. It’s a popular idea which provokes distrust and permits inhumanity.

Peter Dutton expresses similar ideas regarding our refugees on Manus and Nauru. He claims they are “economic refugees” who own “Armani jeans and handbags”.

Add the odd stray Brexiteer and sundry alt-right camp followers. Blend in two, confused members of the Morrison government, Craig Kelly and Amanda Stoker, bestowing a type of legitimacy -and presto -we have a three-day bag-fest of racist hatred, intolerance and ignorance vital to any healthy democracy. Or so our Federal government insists.

CPAC’s enriched US politics. It helped launch Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, two useful idiots who could attract, repel or just distract the masses while lowering taxes and elevating naked greed; allowing finance, business, mining and gambling get everything they want. It’s a recipe for success that the Morrison government is following religiously.

The gory border story is a fiction told by Trump buddy Judge Jeanine. It’s all part of the enriching offerings to a conference which our Coalition government has sagely declared not to be white hate speech at all. Nope. Nope. Nope.

CPAC’s the voice of sweet reason itself, a symposium vital to any free speech-embracing democracy to add to its community conversation about why we should hate Mexican rapists, child-murderers and fear refugee-invasion. In local content, Craig Kelly MP says the CSIRO should go to jail for its science and calls for us to embrace nuclear power plants.

How good is the power of the nuclear energy industry?

Pirro’s in Sydney to help spread hate and fear at CPAC, a forum for the lunatic right, which began in 1974, with a speech from Ronald Reagan who entered national politics ten years earlier after a televised address promoting Barry Goldwater. Reagan’s talk did not help Goldwater win the election. Oddly, voters saw Barry as a dangerous, right-wing extremist.

True, Goldwater did want to nuke Hanoi. But this strategy was also advocated in 1965 by the US military’s Joint Chiefs during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency, Daniel Ellsberg reports, a plan, he believes, which was aimed at provoking a nuclear war with China. The Joint Chiefs envisaged a big show which would need 500,000 to a million troops.

Even more oddly, Johnson said no. He chose to do some socially useful projects. His Great Society and War on Poverty.

All was not lost, however. California’s business elite saw in Reagan a man with the charm to sell right-wing extremism. Reagan was duly recruited as Republican Party candidate for Governor of California. He won easily by promising tax cuts. His victory was helped by a smear campaign against his opponent, Pat Brown. Trump’s rise to power has many parallels.

Star of her own Fox reality TV show, Justice with Judge Jeanine, Pirro is more than an incendiary hate-speaker, she’s a total pyromaniac. Her role as a tireless Trump cheer-leader has helped her to rebuild her TV career after a setback in the 1990s when her ex-husband Al Pirro, a Trump power-broker, went to jail for conspiracy and tax evasion.

Trump’s a HUGE fan. Not only does their friendship go back decades, the pair enjoy what The Washington Post’s Sarah Ellison calls “transactional loyalty”, a concept well understood by Morrison and Liberal Party leadership strategists.

“She’s as sexy as hell,” Trump tells New York Magazine; Pirro’s show is a relentless defence of everything Trump, but this week, she’s in Sydney spreading a type of lie that inflames prejudice and helps incite violence. Invasion is a fixation in the online manifesto of Patrick Crusius, the 21 year old who is accused of killing 22 people in a Texas Wal-Mart.

Headline speakers, such as Pirro, peddle xenophobia, bigotry, misogyny, hatred and work themselves into a lather with their lurid anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic murder and rape fantasies in a ballroom set up with brown vinyl chairs at Sydney’s Rydge’s World Square Hotel, Friday to Sunday. But it’s not all rabid hate-speaking. Organisers thoughtfully include some local comic talent. Clown duo, Mark Latham and Ross Cameron, for example, do the warm-up.

Boosted as the largest gathering of conservatives in Australia, in fact it’s tiny; roughly one tenth of the size of all registered Tasmanian Organ Donors or 0.17% of the Melbourne Cricket Club’s waiting list.

But size doesn’t matter. Organisers have deep pockets; grand plans. CPAC’s powerful backers tell The Guardian’s Michael McGowan, they are committed to making the event a “multi-year, forever-type project” aimed at “galvanising” the right wing of Australian politics. Why not? Luigi Galvani even made dead frogs’ legs twitch by applying an electric current.

CPAC’s a show that ScoMo & Co sagely decide we all need to see. In fact, there are more than a few members of the government mad keen to attend – but don’t for a moment think MPs’ attendance is any endorsement, cautions failed Dutton coup numbers man, Matthias Cormann. No? Nor does it add any legitimacy to see George Christensen in the crowd, Jim Molan, former deputy PM National Party hack and mining shill John Anderson with Tony Abbott on stage.

Liberal Party MP when he’s not doing stand-up comedy, Craig Kelly’s a crack-up with his routine about how Tony Abbott won the Coalition’s election for it by attracting all the “crazies” to Warringah. “Took the bullets” for the others, he says, in what has to be least well-judged metaphor of the week. But wait. There’s more. Kelly says CSIRO ought to be in jail.

He accuses the science agency of a “bogus report” on energy costs because its 2018 report finds solar and wind generation technologies are the cheapest power stations to “build new”. CSIRO, of course, is correct. So, too is The Climate Council which reports Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s conclusion,

“Due to the continued fall in the cost of wind and solar, as well as the higher international price for black coal, it is now the same cost or cheaper to build a new wind or solar plant in Australia than to continue operating old coal power stations in New South Wales and Queensland.”

“If an ASX-listed company said that in an annual report, they would likely end up in jail because of how misleading it is,” Kelly claims modelling, himself, the sort of wilful disinformation he tries to rail against.

Meanwhile, Federal Energy Minister, the Watergate and Grass-gate survivor, Angus Gravy-train, Taylor is forming “a new taskforce” to pressure AGL to keep coal-fired Liddell power station open. It’s all part of ScoMo & Co’s big-stick approach.

Taylor says his taskforce, to be set up in partnership with the NSW Government, will consider “all options” – Liberal code for putting on blinkers; propping up coal. He does not rule out using taxpayer money to extend the life of the plant. AGL responds by pointing out that doing so would cost “a lot of money” and any such move “does not stack up.”

The IMF reports that the Australian tax-payer is already subsidising fossil-fuel industries to the tune of $29 billion a year.

In the CPAC spirit of personalised ridicule, Kelly has a presentation trophy to award to Labor Senator, Kristina Keneally.

“This is the CPAC Freedom Award, which goes to the individual who has done the most to promote the CPAC conference,” Kelly tells about 200 attendees. Thigh-slapping hilarity erupts on one side only. Keneally sees it as part of a Two-minute Hate and straight from the pages of George Orwell’s dystopian vision of the future 1984.

“It’s uncanny how much CPAC is exactly what it claims to oppose,” Keneally tweets. “They are … spending all day yelling about their ‘enemies’. This is exactly how people under totalitarian regimes behave.” And key National Party figures.

Farmers’ friend and champion of the man on the land, John Anderson was chairman of coal seam gas frontrunner Eastern Star Gas, bought out by Santos in 2011. He’s one of a herd of former Nationals MP who model transactional loyalty, locally, despite some fuddy-duddy farmers seeing the defection from agriculture to mining as a betrayal.

Former Nationals MP, and pro-coal energy minister, Garry West ,chairs, for undisclosed sums, the Integra Vale, Ulan coal, Moorlaben coal, and the BHP Caroona Coal project, adjacent to Shenhua Watermark’s mine. It’s all part of the mining industry community consultation hoax. Former Nat, Larry Anthony, a former Shenhua Watermark lobbyist, was an advocate for a coal mine which was recently in the news for rigging the storage volume of underground aquifers.

“The values used were implausibly high based on our research,” Ian Acworth, UNSW Emeritus Professor, says in May.

Asking the questions, always more engaging than a talk, Ando interviews his old pal Abbo – who makes a double debut as ex-MP, and ex-PM. Australia is now a nation that offers “death on demand” warns the former minister for women, a master of the hollow three word slogan.

In NSW, an abortion law reform bill which has yet to pass the upper house, had been sprung on voters. “No due consultation”, protests the former PM who sprang a postal vote on marriage equality on the entire nation rather than face a divided party room. Victoria’s recent, assisted dying law proves we’ve lost our moral anchor points. Christianity used to anchor our morality, asserts Abbott, whose former spiritual mentor and adviser was Cardinal George Pell.

Death on demand? Lost moral anchor? “It’s pretty rich”, writes Junkee’s Joseph Earp, “coming from a man who helped speed along an environmental apocalypse that will cost the lives of animals and humans alike.”

“Faith is a gift,” Abbott offers generously. “Some people have it, some people don’t.” Go bite an onion.

Recording or photographing Abbott’s riff is forbidden. He insists. Some of the small audience applaud. The left, he says, opaquely, is wallowing in identity. Wallowing. “Spiritually we’ve rarely been worse off than we are now,” he adds for good measure, perhaps, a typically public-spirited projection of his own long, dark, night of the soul.

Equally benighted but in Australia’s post-modern under-paid, casual, part-time workplace where wage theft is rife, Queensland senator, Amanda Stoker drones on about how industrial relations means labour hire and localised enterprise-bargaining, a vision of the future, surely, now that the government has its Ensuring Integrity bill through the lower house. The cross-bench will be sure to fall in line, especially if demon union thug John Setka’s name is mentioned.

But don’t get the wrong idea. So the government is cosying up to the lunar right in public? Don’t mean a thing. OK? But it does lend a dangerous legitimacy to the lunar right, as Jason Wright thoughtfully observes in The Guardian.

Raheem Kassam, a former Breitbart London editor who calls the Muslim holy book, the Quran, “fundamentally evil”, and Islam a fascistic and totalitarian ideology,” is a “career bigot” says Shadow Home Affairs Minister, Kristina Keneally. Last month, Keneally unsuccessfully asked that he be denied entry to the country.

Friday, in a speech largely devoted to attacking Kenneally and accusing her of putting his life in danger, Kassam says,

“She should be ashamed of herself … There’s nothing Christian about silencing your opposition,” he says, preferring an ad hominem attack on Senator Keneally and her Catholic beliefs, to any reasoned rebuttal. Kassam illustrates the fallacy of the Morrison government’s claim that CPAC even vaguely involves or promotes rational debate. Kenneally is closer to the mark when she describes the gathering as a “talk-fest of hate”. And anger.

Warming the chair for Sky’s David Speers, ABC Insiders’ Patricia Karvelas asks an evasive Simon Birmingham if “we are we seeing a more aggressive position taken by conservatives after the election of your government?”

Birmingham evades Karvelas’ question. He might well quibble with her misuse of the term. CPAC is conservative in name only.

Morrison’s government is cosying up in public to win votes from the radical right attending CPAC and those who share its prejudices, its racism and xenophobia. It is also being disingenuous about its motives and the effect of its attendance.

“Their attendance at this conference does not imply agreement or endorsement with the views of any of the other speakers attending in any way,” a dangerously deluded Cormann would have us believe. He fails to explain how or why not.

“The government will always stand against divisive, inflammatory commentary which seeks to incite hatred or which seeks to vilify people.”

“However the way to defeat bad ideas, bad arguments and unacceptable views is through debate, especially with those we disagree with. It is not by limiting our conversations only to those who at all times share all of our views.”

Cormann forgets Scott Morrison’s 2011 suggestion that the Coalition exploit anti-Muslim sentiment. Or when in 2015 Abbott allowed George Christensen to attend an anti-Muslim rally. Or Tony Abbott in 2015 insinuating Muslim leaders do not condemn terrorism: “I’ve often heard Western leaders describe Islam as a ‘religion of peace’. I wish more Muslim leaders would say that more often, and mean it.” Or when Abbott chose Syrian refugees on the basis of religion.

We could add many more examples. There’s Handy Andy Hastie’s “Islam must change.” But this just brings him into line with the budgie-smuggler who declared that Islam has a massive problem and who called for a “reformation”.

Penny Wong points out the difference between hate speech and “bad ideas.” The nonsense that any of the speakers attending is willing to enter into rational debate or is as farcical as expecting the Morrison government to heed the science on climate change or to expect Peter Dutton to retract his scare campaign on the dangers of refugees using Medevac legislation to flood our shores. Or issue an apology for his Melbourne African gang fear-mongering.

Having Cormann lecture us on bad ideas is hilarious coming from a man who tried to make Peter Dutton PM. As for rational debate, this is the Finance Minister who claims that tax cuts for the rich stimulate the economy. Sorry Matthias, you Belgian sausage, all evidence is to the contrary – especially in Trump’s Dis-United States of America.

But it’s a top show. Sponsored mainly by US organisations and gun, oil and cigarette industries, CPAC has deep ties to the Koch brothers. Our IPA, LibertyWorks and Advance Australia are also right behind the far right.

Augmenting top acts from Trump’s America is not only “Mr Brexit” nifty Nigel Farage, former head of the United Kingdom Independence Party, introduced to the CPAC audience as “quite possibly” Britain’s next PM. Seriously?

“A snake”, hisses Nigel Farage attacking a straw man; a mythical Malcolm Turnbull who starts out all right but who engineers a serpentine leftist coup. The crowd cheers, thrilled by Nige’s Olympian detachment, halcyon objectivity and utter historical falsehood. Farage’s farrago of lies offers a ludicrous parody of the hapless captive of the right.

“Your Liberal party, your conservative movement was hijacked by the other side, taken over by Malcolm Turnbull, who pretended to be a conservative but actually turned out to be a snake.”

Wrong in fact and egregiously wrong in function, CPAC and its backers can stay at home in the USA in future. We don’t need to invite far right ideologues or neo-fascists or hate-speakers to Australia. We have enough of our own at home, already.

Nor do we need to kid ourselves that CPAC speakers are interested in debate. All we’ve seen and heard is personal abuse and an eagerness to win converts to conspiracies.

There is a world of difference between freedom of speech and being granted a licence to spread hate-speech. And the last thing our politicians need is to court the far-right or let themselves be used to legitimise your fear-mongering and your lies.

Forget the idea of a “multi-year, forever, project”. Once is way more than enough.

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Donald Trump And Watching Repeats Of “The Apprentice”!

From what I could work out from watching the trailers, “The Apprentice” consisted of Donald Trump giving the contestants various tasks and when they failed to do what he wanted, he’d utter the magic words, “You’re fired!” and they’d disappear. Apart from the trailers, I only ever saw a snippet of the show when I was some distance from a channel changer and too tired and emotional to process the idea that there were actually better programs to watch.

From what I can work out of Trump’s presidency, it consists of Donald Trump giving his own appointments and any other White House staff various tasks and every now and then just announcing that they’re fired. And it’s working a treat because his ratings now exceed not only Arnold Schwarzenegger’s, but are reaching heights he never managed when head honcho on “The Apprentice”.

It’s pretty amazing that the Trumpster can get even better ratings with what amounts to nothing more than a re-run of “The Apprentice”. I call him the Trumpster because that makes him seem all warm and lovable. Without such lovable nicknames as “The Donald”, “the Trumpster” or “the Orange-u-tan”, he may come across a little bit like that guy running North Korea, Kim without the lovable nickname…

Ratings are what it’s all about. That’s right, isn’t it? Some people think that it’s all about the hokey pokey, but Trump knows that the hokey pokey allows you to put your left limbs in, and he only wants the right limbs in.

Although to call Trump a right-winger, overlooks the way he’s reached out to Russia…

All right, I know that at this point there’s going to be some rabid left-wing type who’s going to accuse me of completely overlooking the way the United States has been a force for evil in the world and that any criticism of Trump is an endorsement of the industrial military complex that has been responsible for not only wars, but also the cold sore on their lip. So let me just make it clear that I would have marched against our involvement in Vietnam were it not for the fact that my mother wouldn’t let me… I was younger then and I needed my mother’s permission for just about everything. Although I did say to her at the time of the ’72 election, “Go ahead, vote for those runny lackeys of the imperial system who want to send me off to be killed in Vietnam… You’ve got other sons and even if they’re not as lovable as me, I’m sure you’ll learn to love them just as much eventually.”

She still wouldn’t let me go to the protest; neither did she vote for Whitlam. In spite of the sexism of the era, women didn’t listen to their youngest son when it came to politics.

I really shouldn’t blame my mother. After all, I’m not Resources Minister. And, while I’m on the subject there’s no truth in the rumour, that Matt Canavan is being investigated for bigamy because his mother had him married to an Italian girl when he was 26. You need to sign something to be married. And to become an Italian citizen but apparently your mother can sign citizenship papers on your behalf if you’re not capable of looking after your own affairs.

Anyway, back to Trump…

As someone who was appalled by the way people who had any association with Russia or Communism were treated during the McCarthy era, I’m pleased that the Republicans now think that colluding with Russia to affect an election result is hardly worth investigating, because it’s nowhere near as bad as colluding with people like Obama and Hillary. I mean, we all know what they are. No, I’m not being racist or sexist. How could you say such a thing? I mean, Obama is a man and Hillary’s white, so clearly my problem is that they’re Democrats!

You know, Democrats. Do you know the difference between a Democrat and a Republican?

Well, neither do I. But I think it’s that some Democrats believe in socialism. At least in the form of not letting people die because it’s a rich country and we all should have some form of health care. Not all Democrats, mind you, but some. I’m pretty sure that both parties believe that America is the same as the United States, even though the USA is only a small part of the continent. After all, it is the most important part because, well, it has most of the toys and when it doesn’t get it’s own way, it’s pretty good at chucking the toys out of the cot…

Mm, I just got to thinking about the refugee swap that wasn’t a swap. You know the one where Donald didn’t hang up on Malcolm because Malcolm stood his ground. I mean that was pretty unbelievable: Malcolm standing his ground. The one where everyone agreed that the swap was going ahead… But only after “extreme vetting”. I just wondered if Malcolm was going to ring again any time soon and say, “How’s that vetting going?” Just so Trump can tell him that it’s still happening but that you can’t expect us to take people that Australia has decided are lawbreakers, can you?

Next FBI Chief – Who Will Trump Appoint?

Ok, James Comey is gone. And while the White House initially told us that it was on the basis of advice from the Deputy Attorney General, Trump later told us that he sacked him because Comey wasn’t doing a very good job. I haven’t been able to confirm if the T-Rump believes this because he’s been unable to uncover evidence of the President’s involvement with Russia, and he believes that anyone who’s failed to do that must clearly be incompetent.

So who will take over?

The acting head of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, would be the logical choice to take over, but he made it clear that he didn’t want the job by the declaring that he thought that Comey had the support of the agency. When he added, “Simply put, sir, you cannot stop the men and women of the FBI from doing the right thing, protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution,” he disqualified himself, because The Donald certainly doesn’t want a man like that in the job.

So what other possible candidates are there and what are the odds.

Rudy Giuliani – Loyal Trump supporter. Helped Trump draft a “more palatable” travel ban. Has experience in public office. Would be Trump’s most sensible choice, so highly unlikely. 25-1

John Cornyn – Senate Majority Whip and former Texas attorney general. Possibility, although he sits on the Intelligence Committee and Trump hasn’t shown any inclination make any appointments where the candidate has any Intelligence in their background. 5-1

Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher – A woman so probably excluded on those grounds alone. 8-1

Jared Kushner – Already has security clearance by virtue of the fact that he’s a Senior White House Adviser and confidant of the President, as well as being his son-in-law. While Trump might possibly just add “FBI chief” to his list of roles, there could be some concern that Kushner would have too much to do given that he’s also in charge of brokering peace in the Israeli-Palestine conflict. 6-1

Keith Schiller – Trump’s bodyguard who delivered the letter to Comey informing him that he was terminated. (At least, it would have informed him of that, but as it was already on the news, Comey already knew.) Anyway, Schiller has been critical of the FBI for not being more aggressive in their investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails. In addition to this, Schiller has forcibly removed reporters and punched a protester. As one of Trump’s most ardent supporters, he’s almost a certainty, so I won’t be offering odds on him.

This, of course, overlooks the possibility of Trump deciding that the only way to get the FBI back on track is to appoint the current head of the KGB to run the organisation.

 

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The United and Ununited States of America 2030

Way back in 2016, when Donald Trump won his first election, I had sworn never to return to the USA while he was at the helm. I was 61 then, now I’m 74. The age when we attend more funerals than weddings, birthdays and christenings combined. So, it recently came to pass that I wanted very much to attend a dear friend’s funeral. In Mississippi.

Now, in 2030, we don’t know much about the USA. You see, by the time the 2020 election happened, many people were no longer allowed to vote. If a person was unemployed (and there were a LOT of unemployed by 2020), they could not vote. If a person was female, they could not vote. If a person had not been born in the USA, they could not vote. If they were a known LGBTIQ person, they could not vote. Trump was elected again. That was the last election in the USA. Trump, now 83, continued to tweet every morning but everyone except his fans ignored him.

By 2018 California was no longer part of the USA. Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Illinois, Connecticut, Rhode, Island, Vermont and New Jersey had all left the federation by 2021. They were now, if you like, the Ununited States of America. Yet to form a new nation formally, negotiations were ongoing. It was a bit like the Europe of old. Most of the military had aligned with the Ununited States, something that had apparently infuriated Trump because he could no longer threaten to invade other nations. Canada and several of the other Ununited States had built walls. Mexico had built a wall along the Texas/Mexico border, but California and Mexico enjoyed a mutually profitable and politically stable relationship.

I landed in Los Angeles as I always had in the past, to then be interrogated at the USA/California border before continuing my journey into the unknown. Although as an Australian, I could still get a visa waiver for California, the USA demanded to interview every non-citizen at the border. As there were no longer embassies around the world (except in Russia) it was impossible to be interviewed in Sydney or Melbourne prior to travel. Travellers were advised to allow a minimum of five hours for the interrogation.

The alternative of flying into Dallas Fort Worth, Texas was risky. If I got refused a visitor visa in California, I could just go back to my hotel. If I was refused a visitor visa on arrival in Dallas Forth Worth, I’d be incarcerated overnight then put on a return flight. While the chances of my being incarcerated were slim, I hoped, I did have a vocal anti-Trump history – if they found it. My phone was a disposable and I had a little old lady Facebook profile for just this sort of thing. Better not to take the risk.

California didn’t look much different than it had done when I had last visited in September 2016. The airport was just as busy as ever, although security was a little tighter. This, I was told, was to manage the never-ending stream of refugees from the USA. Trump, it seemed, had no problem with people leaving – if they weren’t with the program, they could go. The problem, of course, was California and the other Ununited States just didn’t have the capacity. What had started as a trickle had become a deluge in recent years.

I stayed overnight in LA. The hotel was luxurious without being ostentatious, the service was good, the staff were happy.

The next day I had a contact drive me around. I saw little evidence of homelessness or unemployment. California was a hive of activity. There was not a gun in sight except for the police. I read the local papers and watched the news channels. The crime rate was significantly lower than the peak in 2018, just prior to California leaving the federation.

Then came the time to go to the airport to fly into Trump territory. The queues were short – no-one was going in unless they had to. The five hours involved questioning and the immigration agents delving through the travellers’ phones, iPads, cameras, social media, emails and extended family connections. A lengthy questionnaire was required to be responded to in person. I almost expected to be blood tested. Finally, travellers were fingerprinted and x-rayed. I mean really x-rayed. On a table. At least this obviated the need for an internal examination. At 74 I wasn’t too keen on that idea.

There were plenty of empty seats on the plane. I popped up the armrests after take-off and slept much of the way. The plane wasn’t clean, the toilets smelt, there were not enough cabin attendants. The arrival lounge was grim. The one thing I noticed was no-one was smiling. I mean no-one. There was almost a suspicion of anyone getting off the plane, a “Why would you come here?” expression on peoples’ faces. It was very disconcerting.

In my taxi to the hotel I noticed an odd gender imbalance. There were old white men by the score, many fewer young men of any ethnicity and very few young women. I asked the taxi driver, “Where are all the women?” He scowled. In a deep southern drawl, he told me the women leave. They marry out, mostly to Chinese and Indian men (two countries with a historical shortage of women), he spat. His language was not quite as polite as I have relayed.

The people and the place looked poor, like a third world country. I’ve been to third world countries, I recognised the look, the smell, the facial expressions. The buildings were neglected, the roads badly needed repair, many of the traffic lights no longer worked. Businesses were boarded up.

What children there were (given the shortage of women) didn’t seem to be in school, but roaming the streets aimlessly. Homelessness seemed to be rife – and I was in the better part of town.

The hotel was reasonably clean, but everything was old. It was as if nothing had been replaced or refurbished for fifteen years. The food was passable, the service was sullen.
If I had to sum up the atmosphere in one word, it would be despair. No-one seemed to be happy. Everyone seemed to be living hand to mouth.

The television was obviously tightly controlled. As was the internet and print media (yes, it still existed). The news was strictly local and all wonderfully good. Trump’s policies were working, people were happy, wasn’t it terrific. Trump was the best President the world had ever seen. There might have been 1% happy, the faces I was looking at were certainly not.

I had been going to stay a few days, spend time with people I knew. I couldn’t, the place was too depressing. As soon as I had paid my respects at the funeral, I left. I spent those days in California.

I have never been so glad to reach Australian soil as I was today.

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Authoritarian regimes: Zimbabwe, Venezuela, next the USA

It is no secret I had grave concerns about the suitability of Donald J Trump. Now I’m having trouble sleeping at night. I’d like to pull together several articles I read today. Each paints a concerning picture in its own right. Together, they almost spell Armageddon. I’ve always been concerned about not what is happening today, but where it is leading. This is not just some small country having a few political issues. This is one of most powerful countries in the world – the outcome affects us all, especially other democracies. We’ve already seen our own government embrace Trump’s immigration bans.

The first is an article by Jennifer Wilson on this site, Trump’s Chief Strategist: I want to bring everything crashing down.

The relationship between Donald Trump and Steve Bannon is an unholy alliance, in which the shared goal is the destruction of institutions, and the undermining of the authority of traditional agents of governance and administration in the US.

There is a Twitter hashtag of #PresidentBannon indicating he is seen as the power behind the throne. He may have more difficulty than he thinks, trying to use Trump for his own agenda, as we shall see later in this article. That aside, he is a nasty piece of work with a lot of power as Wilson evidences.

The second article, How to Build an Autocracy, is written by David Frum, who was a speechwriter for President George W. Bush during 2001–02. Not exactly, one suspects, a man wearing a democratic button.

First Frum paints the future.

The business community learned its lesson early. “You work for me, you don’t criticize me,” the president was reported to have told one major federal contractor, after knocking billions off his company’s stock-market valuation with an angry tweet. Wise business leaders take care to credit Trump’s personal leadership for any good news, and to avoid saying anything that might displease the president or his family.

The media have grown noticeably more friendly to Trump as well. The proposed merger of AT&T and Time Warner was delayed for more than a year, during which Time Warner’s CNN unit worked ever harder to meet Trump’s definition of fairness. Under the agreement that settled the Department of Justice’s antitrust complaint against Amazon, the company’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has divested himself of The Washington Post. The paper’s new owner—an investor group based in Slovakia—has closed the printed edition and refocused the paper on municipal politics and lifestyle coverage.

Then he goes on to look at the global situation, citing a “democratic recession” – democracies are in decline.

The exercise of political power is different today than it was then—but perhaps not so different as we might imagine. Larry Diamond, a sociologist at Stanford, has described the past decade as a period of “democratic recession.” Worldwide, the number of democratic states has diminished. Within many of the remaining democracies, the quality of governance has deteriorated.

What has happened in Hungary since 2010 offers an example—and a blueprint for would-be strongmen. Hungary is a member state of the European Union and a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights. It has elections and uncensored internet. Yet Hungary is ceasing to be a free country.

He then looks at Trump’s relationship with the congressional Republicans.

Trump has scant interest in congressional Republicans’ ideas, does not share their ideology, and cares little for their fate. He can—and would—break faith with them in an instant to further his own interests. Yet here they are, on the verge of achieving everything they have hoped to achieve for years, if not decades. They owe this chance solely to Trump’s ability to deliver a crucial margin of votes in a handful of states—Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—which has provided a party that cannot win the national popular vote a fleeting opportunity to act as a decisive national majority. The greatest risk to all their projects and plans is the very same X factor that gave them their opportunity: Donald Trump, and his famously erratic personality. What excites Trump is his approval rating, his wealth, his power. The day could come when those ends would be better served by jettisoning the institutional Republican Party in favor of an ad hoc populist coalition, joining nationalism to generous social spending—a mix that’s worked well for authoritarians in places like Poland. Who doubts Trump would do it? Not Paul Ryan. Not Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader. For the first time since the administration of John Tyler in the 1840s, a majority in Congress must worry about their president defecting from them rather than the other way around.

It is a long article, but well worth reading in full.

Jane Caro has written The Virtual Reformation. Caro looks at why we are where we are.

Social researcher Hugh Mackay has dubbed our times an ‘Age of Anxiety’. All the old certainties have been turned upside down and the only thing that we are told we can rely on is an ever-increasing pace of change.

To a jittery population that is cold comfort. In our existential dread we thrash about for people to blame: the left, the right, Muslims, refugees, feminists, believers, unbelievers, terrorists and that reliable old omnibus – political correctness. The one thing we all agree on is that the future looks alarming and unpredictable. We are, we believe, in uncharted waters.

But perhaps that is not so. Perhaps human beings have been through something like this before.

Final words of warning from Andrés Miguel Rondón, In Venezuela, we couldn’t stop Chávez. Don’t make the same mistakes we did.

The recipe for populism is universal. Find a wound common to many, find someone to blame for it, and make up a good story to tell. Mix it all together. Tell the wounded you know how they feel. That you found the bad guys. Label them: the minorities, the politicians, the businessmen. Caricature them. As vermin, evil masterminds, haters and losers, you name it. Then paint yourself as the savior. Capture the people’s imagination. Forget about policies and plans, just enrapture them with a tale. One that starts with anger and ends in vengeance. A vengeance they can participate in.

That’s how it becomes a movement. There’s something soothing in all that anger. Populism is built on the irresistible allure of simplicity. The narcotic of the simple answer to an intractable question. The problem is now made simple.

If we look at all those threads, we can see the interweaving. For days I had been thinking of Mugabe and seeing Trump as the Western version. Then I read about Chávez.

As Frum highlights in his article, it is not now we need to worry about – it is in four, five, six years time. Unless we stop it now. Unless the American people stop it NOW.

There is a another article which is the match that will light the flames: in these days of fake news, however, I am wary. While the article is reported in many places, I can’t find it on a mainstream website such as Washington Post – but then, does that mean anything these days?

John D. Gartner, a practicing psychotherapist who taught psychiatric residents at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, minces as few words as the president in his professional assessment of Trump.

“Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being president,” says Gartner, author of “In Search of Bill Clinton: A Psychological Biography.” Trump, Gartner says, has “malignant narcissism,” which is different from narcissistic personality disorder and which is incurable.

Source: usnews.com

The diagnosis is particularly worrying due to the behaviours of the patient. Behaviours that benefit only themselves – at any cost. Yes, Gartner broke his professional code to speak out, because he believes people need to know.

Robert Kuttner writes in The Huffington Post of The Inevitability Of Impeachment.

Only with his lunatic effort to selectively ban refugees (but not from terrorist-sending countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt where Trump has business interests) has Trump discovered that the American system has courts. It has courts. Imagine that.

The more unhinged he becomes, the less will conservative judges be the toadies to ordinary Republican policies that they too often have been. Anybody want to wager that the Supreme Court will be Trump’s whore?

In the past week, Republicans from Mitch McConnell on down have tripped over each other rejecting his view of Putin. They have ridiculed his screwball claim of massive voter fraud.

I believe this was written BEFORE the President fired his acting attorney general. I’m waiting for him to try to fire a judge, which he is not empowered to do.

We have every reason to be concerned. We also need to heed the lessons available to us and ensure this doesn’t happen in Australia.

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The Truth – Where Did It Go?

Do you consider yourself a truthful person? I do. Over the last decade I have come to wonder if truth is something from a bygone era. In business and in our personal lives, truth is something society either glosses over or flat out ignores.

A business example to start with. At a project review meeting an item (a functional requirement of a system) was flagged by the Programme Manager as “Needs Improvement”. It didn’t need improvement, a state which implies some work has been done, hours spent already – and hours equates to investment dollars.The item in question had not been started, it did not exist. No hours, no dollars invested. Zip,

Imagine for a moment you are a senior executive scanning the project status report. You see all items have been started, therefore understand from the report that the project is on time, on budget, in scope. However, if you scanned a report with items flagged as “not commenced”, it is reasonable to think your understanding of the status of the project might be rather different.

The picture painted by the language is a lie. The truth is at best glossed over, at worst ignored. If widespread within an organisation, such practices can have catastrophic affects. A family member recently described a situation where middle management were “fudging figures”: based on those reported figures a decision was made to cut the staff of a particular department. After the resultant loss of customers and the flow-on from those losses, the organisation is now trying to repair the damage. In the meant time it has lost customers that likely won’t return, suffered a hit to the bottom line, lost staff who likely will not return, therefore face recruitment and training costs to restaff appropriately. Costly exercise.

There is a web site I’ve always found rather amusing, MBA Jargon Watch. Australians used to joke about how Americans took 25 words to say something we Aussies would say in ten (or less). MBA Jargon Watch always reassured me we had escaped such obfuscation in our straight-to-the-point world.

One of my favourites:

best of breed (n. and adj.)
The finest specimen or example to be found in a particular industry or market. Like Papillons preening for the judges, companies position themselves as best-of-breed. In truth, however, few ever make it through the qualifiers.

Yet it seems we have indeed adopted the convoluted way of ensuring we don’t say anything directly. Sometimes I read business reports and have to read some parts of it two or three times before I come to the conclusion absolutely nothing is being said at all, let alone anything remotely truthful.

Many years ago a friend expressed the concern to me that “the truth is brutal”. Yes, I agree, it most certainly can be. Telling someone a loved one has been killed in a car accident or telling a spouse the marriage is over: both of these truths are indeed unpleasant and harsh to the recipient. They are also unavoidable truths.

In the worlds of politics and business the unavoidable is often avoided until the very last minute when it is often too late. In business, depending on how senior the perpetrator is, he or she may be pushed out quietly encouraged to leave and later pop up in another senior position somewhere else, ready to repeat the crime.

In politics it seems to be open slather, as the Trump campaign has so clearly shown us. There are a multitude of reputable articles providing evidence of his blatant lies throughout the campaign. Here’s one from The Washington Post. Not only has he lied, voters believe him.

Closer to home, we have politicians refusing to be truthful. To quote John Lord

”In the concoction, the recipe that is called leadership there are many ingredients. None more important than integrity, positiveness and the ability to trust and delegate. But it is truth that glues it altogether to create character.”

Yes, truth. That seemingly elusive, indefinable mode of communication that requires nothing more than, well, a little integrity. Politicians cherry pick facts to sell a policy, often ignoring brutal other aspects of the situation. Manus Island and Nauru spring to mind. Oh such a wonderful solution, we’ve stopped the boats. We also are inflicting incredible torture on the people we have incarcerated. That little fact is conveniently ignored.

I was always a tough mother. I refused to write “the dog ate his homework/the computer crashed/Daddy had a flat tyre” notes (unless any of those events actually happened) to excuse incomplete homework. Why? Two reasons: first, I wanted my children to learn to take responsibility for their actions and secondly, I didn’t want them learning to lie. Oh, yes, I took flak for that: “All the other mothers do it for their kids!” Not this mother, sorry. Kids start lying to avoid punishment. We need to reward truth. At home and in the workplace.

What has happened to the truth? Are adults actually too afraid of “getting into trouble”? They’d rather see other people get into trouble by losing jobs as a result of their “misdemeanor” adjusting of management reports? Do politicians think that lying for no other reason that to garner votes, then subsequently back peddle is OK? Rhetorical question alert there, obviously.

This isn’t the whole story. It isn’t just about telling the truth, but also about accepting the truth. I read an interesting article which I found quite concerning. The dark rigidity of fundamentalist rural America: a view from the inside. It is a long article, but well worth the time.

Gays being allowed to marry are a threat. Blacks protesting the killing of their unarmed friends and family are a threat. Hispanics doing the cheap labor on their farms are somehow viewed a threat. The black president is a threat. Two billion Muslims are a threat. The Chinese are a threat. Women wanting to be autonomous are a threat. The college educated are a threat. Godless scientists are a threat. Everyone who isn’t just like them has been sold to them as a threat and they’ve bought it hook, line, and grifting sinker. Since there are no self-regulating mechanisms in their belief systems, these threats only grow over time. Since facts and reality don’t matter, nothing you say to them will alter their beliefs. “President Obama was born in Kenya, is a secret member of the Muslim Brotherhood who hates white Americans and is going to take away their guns.” I feel ridiculous even writing this, it is so absurd, but it is gospel across large swaths of rural America. Are rural, Christian, white Americans scared? You’re damn right they are. Are their fears rational and justified? Hell no. The problem isn’t understanding their fears. The problem is how to assuage fears based on lies in closed-off fundamentalist belief systems that don’t have the necessary tools for properly evaluating the fears.

A column in the New York Times also caught my eye. You can’t always back peddle out of stuff you said, I’m afraid, even if you are the President-elect.

No, Mr. Trump, we will not all just get along. For as long as a threat to the state is the head of state, all citizens of good faith and national fidelity — and certainly this columnist — have an absolute obligation to meet you and your agenda with resistance at every turn.

The world would be a better place if we were all truthful. The figures aren’t good this month, we didn’t reach the project milestone, I didn’t do my homework because I spent too much time playing video games, I’m only standing for President to make a lot of money, I think Dutton‘s a cretin (well, OK, maybe that last is a stretch, but at least demote the man). I will say this about Pauling Hanson – at least we know where she stands, even if we don’t like it.

Without the truth we all live in a fantasy land. That fantasy land is getting crazier by the day.

 

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Men, women … and Trump

The media, social, mainstream and everything in between, have been flooded with justifications, discussions, jibes, insults and everything in between over the proven (by his own words and voice) predatory behaviour of Trump towards women. There are a string of labels attached and debate over the legal definition. I’ve no idea what “skeezing” means, but I can guess: the latest release is a video of Trump “skeezing” on a 10 year-old-girl.

The NSW parliament have labelled Trump “a revolting slug” unfit for public office. I almost agree, although I think slugs are being insulted by the comparison. I won’t insult the many fine men I have known in my life by calling Trump a man – he isn’t a man. Of the male gender he may be, a man he is not.

My concern is not actually with Trump himself – he will get taken care of in due course, I hope. My concern is the fact Trump is not alone.

As unscientific as the numbers may be, a Trump supporter issued forecasts that allege if women did not have the vote, Trump would win the election. Within a very short space of time Twitter was awash with #repealthe19th. The Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote.

The Nineteenth Amendment is identical to the Fifteenth Amendment, except that the Nineteenth prohibits the denial of suffrage because of sex and the Fifteenth because of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”

Then we have the right-wing pastor Dave Daubenmire terrified of a woman becoming the President because according to him the “immorality of a sinful man” is not as bad as breaking the biblical principle that “when a woman rules over a man … it’s a sign of the judgement of the Lord”. May I suggest to Dear Dave that perhaps that’s precisely what IS going to happen, because his Lord has judged men like Trump are not fit to rule and when the Lord sees other men supporting Trump, the Lord has decided enough is enough.

More than 3,000 sexual assault survivors have taken out an ad pleading with the Republicans to dump Trump. Author Kelly Oxford took to Twitter encouraging women to share their sexual assault stories. Over a million women answered her call. I read some of those tweets. Girls being groped on public transport at ages as young as nine and ten. For a million women to have been sexually assaulted, there have to have been a fair number of perpetrators. One man alone does not manage that many assaults.

I’ve been pleased to see athletes come out saying the sort of talk Trump claims is “locker room banter” is actually not what constitutes locker room banter in their experience. We need more men to stand up and be counted. To denounce Trump’s behaviour.

When I was young, forty years ago, I believed the genders were equal. It never occurred to me there were men like Trump or the pastor in existence. Then again, I am still stunned over Abbott and his “when they are doing the ironing” nonsense. My initial awakening came during my first management tenure. My female staff asked if they could wear tailored trousers to work. I saw absolutely no reason why not, yet the human resources department ruled only if the women wore a trouser SUIT. Back then, trouser suits were inordinately expensive. It was economically unrealistic to expect my staff to buy trouser suits. I saw nothing wrong with tailored trousers and a nice shirt or (as it was winter) a nice jumper. At the time male staff DID NOT have to wear suits unless they were management. Yes, I won the battle, but the fact the battle even had to be fought opened my eyes a little.

Some time later, at a business women’s networking lunch, a speaker outlined how not so many years before, women had been required to give up work once they married. How had I got to adulthood without knowing any of this stuff, I wondered.

Here we are forty years later and we have a predator running for the most powerful position in the world (some other world leaders might of course dispute the most powerful bit). We have people spouting the Bible and others (or many of the same) wanting women to lose the vote.

This is 2016 – or did I get caught in a time warp?

There is absolutely NO justification in 2016 for Trump’s behaviour. The is absolutely NO justification in 2016 for gender inequality.

In case it has escaped the notice of some members of the male gender, you are only on this planet because a FEMALE gave birth to you. Carried you and protected you in her body for nine months. Fed you from her breasts. How DARE you, those of you who are so inclined, demand that women be second class citizens? How dare you support Trump’s (and those like him) treatment of women? The women who support such nonsense: I have no words at all for you.

Having read as much as I have read over the past few days, I consider myself lucky. I have never been subjected to sexual abuse or assault. The closest I ever came was when I was propositioned by the CEO of the company I worked for many years ago. He assured me he and his wife had an open marriage. I told him I’d believe that when his wife told me, but the answer would still be thanks, but no thanks, I wasn’t interested. I did advise him I did not expect to be fired on Monday for refusing. I wasn’t. End of story. Not all female members of my extended family have been so lucky. While I have seen their pain and know it is real, while I have witnessed the health and psychological aftermath, I can’t feel it myself.

All I can do is say Trump is not a man. A real man doesn’t need to grab women’s parts uninvited. What, I wonder, is the underlying inadequacy of this individual that fuels his behaviour? What then leads him to try to incriminate all other men? His son got in on the act saying it was typical of alpha males. He thinks his father is an alpha male? Heaven forbid! Even his suits fit badly.

New York Magazine has a very informative and detailed article about this, but the take-home message is that before the 1960s there were barely any examples of humans being described as alpha males, the term was restricted to fields like primatology research. Species like chimps and gorillas do have social structures and hierarchies with a dominant individual at the top, typically a male who has achieved that positon via displays of strength and physical prowess. The fact that alpha males exist isn’t disputed, it’s whether humans can actually be such a thing.

Source: The Guardian

An alpha male in the primate world is the pack leader – and pack leaders don’t get that position easily, they have to prove their worth. As leaders and protectors.

Trump refuses to protect 50% of the population, believing that 50% are there for his personal gratification and pleasure.

There are many wonderful men in this world: men who treat women with respect and as equals. May those men flourish and prosper and raise their sons in their image and raise their daughters to have no qualms about placing a knee strategically and forcefully when required.

Don’t anyone come bleating to me about how Islam treats women while the western world even considers making Trump POTUS.

A final word to Dear Pastor Dave. Dave, in all of my life there has been only one man that I ever felt like submitting to and I still have no explanation for that. However, don’t confuse the often inexplicable dynamics of personal relationships on the one hand and how a healthy society should function on the other hand. Oh, and if Hillary wins? Well, I guess your Lord passed judgement.

Edited to Add: I have recalled another incident when I was 15. After my parents passed, I was in a foster home. I asked my foster father to cash a cheque for me. It was a Saturday, before ATMs. He suggested if I sat on the bed with him, he’d give me the money and I didn’t need to give him the cheque. I declined and moved out about a week later. The executor of my father’s will sent me to a psychologist as he didn’t believe me. I still consider myself fortunate – neither incidents involved physical contact of any sort.

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