32 comments

1. Keitha GranvilleDecember 20, 2020 at 6:18 pm

   yes, yes and yes.

   Bring us an opposition, bring us someone that wants to fight. It is deplorable, it is deafeningly silent, it is depressing.

2. king1394December 20, 2020 at 6:51 pm

   The whole time Shorten, the quiet, thinking, negotiator par excellence was leading there were calls for Albanese to take over. Shorten lacked a common touch, and was unpopular within and beyond the party. So the golden (poisoned?) Chalice passed to the down to earth bloke with a bit of common sense, a bloke who could sell chook raffle tickets in the pub and who is a sweet teddy bear of a guy to boot.
   Albanese does not have the team building skills to harness his quite brilliant and experienced younger cohort, or the vision to sell a new approach to the emergencies we see now. Changing leaders is fraught with problems so I hope that the Parliamentary party will find ways to gather strength behind Albanese, and push him and the Australian people into a better future
   There is no doubt that we (the people, the media) have become over-fixated on leaders. Albanese needs to present himself as first among equals. The people need to see Labor as a large group of talented people who can work together for the greater good, not just for the party.

3. Andrew SmithDecember 20, 2020 at 9:06 pm

   We also forget that the Australian electorate, like most of the world, is ageing, conservative and hence, split between above and below median age voters on social, cultural, environmental etc. issues; especially in regions.

   While media and MPs have us focus upon ‘population growth’ through ‘immigration’ and related wedge issues, this is mostly temporary churn over in cities (not new permanent migrants) that keeps the ‘population’ median age young (37 years old?), but the electorate of citizens is actually older and round the retirement age in regions.

   Nativist conservative parties or governments (often supported by libertarians in the background) have cleverly allowed organic gerrymandering in regions through ageing and population decline with younger voters leaving for cities (or worse face forms of voter suppression), while overtly catering to pensioners and self funded retirees for votes.

   From the AEC:

   ‘Around 300,000 more voters age 70 and over are enrolled to vote now than for the 2016 election, a 13% increase in just three years. In the same period, enrolments for younger voters aged 18 to 34 have only grown by around 135,000, or 3%.’

   https://theconversation.com/more-grey-tsunami-than-youthquake-despite-record-youth-enrolments-australias-voter-base-is-ageing-115842

   The success of both Brexit and Trump could be apportioned to clever and/or tricky dog whistling to older voters in regions (reliant upon legacy media) whose benefits and rights have been preserved and promoted; unclear what the impacts will be for younger generations (in a world where older people now and will continue to outnumber young people).

4. James EllisDecember 20, 2020 at 11:43 pm

   It must be difficult to write with authority on the leadership abilities of someone like Albo when basically he isn’t in office. I mean how can we tell how effective his leadership skills are from an opposition bench in Australia’s parliament which under our present system is blatantly and demonstratively undemocratic.
   Of course inside and outside parliament, at the mercy of “fair go” media he will fare much the same and Albo has been subject to an abundance of personal attacks from both places.
   Attempting to read the electorates mind after that defeat in our last federal election may have led to some doubtful conclusions by Labor……but picking their fights more carefully and keeping their policies closer to their chest must have been two of them.
   There is a growing discontent with the direction our country is headed under this government
   but even after nearly eight damaging years, they still have no problem shifting the blame.

5. wamDecember 21, 2020 at 9:12 am

   the point, george, is odysseus didn’t block his ears just the crew and that is what shorten didn’t and albo doesn’t. They do just the opposite and the crew steers to the hypnotising music of the lnp/murdoch bands whilst the waxears just deafly soldier on, oblivious to ravages of this government.
   To use the the perpendicular pronoun of humphrey, I long advised shorten to revive his beaconsfield skills or get a mossie bite and retire with ross river or CFS but such fripperies found no support and he did a macbeth and kept wading through the mire.
   Time for Albo and shorten to talk to their electorates and go peacefully.
   Our Kennedy got it right
   ‘don’t think DO!!!!
   ps take the long armed monkey with them and free the women

6. Joe CarliDecember 21, 2020 at 9:36 am

   People as community ..or ; People as commodity?
   Community as a capital investment..or ; Community as a cultural investment?
   Politics as a social motivator..or ; Politics as a profit maker?
   Society for the benefit of all..or ; Society for the benefit of the few?
   A Question of survival.

   There will come a time..hopefully in the not so distant future..where some sort of confederacy of “The People” will have to raise a physical revolution in The West, to remove the priviledged middle-classes from ALL positions of power and economic influence…if the planet is to survive.

7. Joe CarliDecember 21, 2020 at 9:59 am

   From ..: Mommsen’s “History of Rome”…Vol 4. Ch 11.

   ” It is a terrible picture, but not one peculiar
   to Italy; wherever the government of capitalists in a slave-state
   has fully developed itself, it has desolated God’s fair world
   in the same way as rivers glisten in different colours, but a common
   sewer everywhere looks like itself, so the Italy of the Ciceronian epoch
   resembles substantially the Hellas of Polybius and still more decidedly
   the Carthage of Hannibal’s time, where in exactly similar fashion
   the all-powerful rule of capital ruined the middle class, raised trade
   and estate-farming to the highest prosperity, and ultimately led to a–
   hypocritically whitewashed–moral and political corruption of the nation.
   All the arrant sins that capital has been guilty of against nation
   and civilization in the modern world, remain as far inferior
   to the abominations of the ancient capitalist-states as the free man,
   be he ever so poor, remains superior to the slave; and not until
   the dragon-seed of North America ripens, will the world have again
   similar fruits to reap.”

8. AlDecember 21, 2020 at 10:04 am

   Well written George and a Merry Xmas to you and all. It’s a bit early for a NY resolution but I have one next week for BIG pHARMa. Labor is offside with the Govt propaganda unit, ie Murdoch and other false profits. Switzerland offers a better way of solving social and economic problems, so why not look to their system? All we need do is uninstall media and politicians from power. But how?

9. george theodoridisDecember 21, 2020 at 10:52 am

   Shit, shit, shit!
   An unforgivable bloody mistake on my part! Bloody unforgivable!
   Thank you Wam.
   I could, on a sober night, probably recite the whole of the Iliad and Odyssey without blinking or making my bladder sweat but, well, here I am, making unforgivable bloody mistakes! That’ll teach me writing while sober!
   I’ve phrased it wrongly of course and you’re absolutely right. It was Odysseus who wanted to eat it and keep it too and it’s there from where I launched that thought but ended up (after circumnavigating around Nausicaä for hours) with an Odysseus with waxed ears.

   Many thanks for the correction. The point is, the whole party, as you say, has its ears plugged and since Albo is no Odysseus… the metaphor is giving me vertigo so I’ll drop it.

   Yes. I can see Linda Burney, sniffing the wind and pricking her ears and trying to do something but I think she is probably wasting her energy trying to get all that wax off all those ears, but I see no one else doing the same.
   Perhaps in the new year.

   An ALP win, I’m afraid has been buried into a deep cave by the god WAR and it won’t emerge out of there until… “Never shall you be able to make smooth the prickly back of porcupines!” As Aristophanes put in in his “Peace.”
   We need a well-fed dung beetle.

   “the perpendicular pronoun of humphrey,” Stupendous!

10. StephengbDecember 21, 2020 at 1:00 pm

    Too many are fixated on the Left v Right dichotomy.

    This is wrong, totally wrong.

    Yes I am emphatic abpit that statement, thonk about the basics of the problems that all but the top 20% are suffering. Yes it is the problem of inequity, principle the inequity in incomes, and access to basic human rights in education Health, sustinance, security and shelter.

    It is a damnation on the leadership of this rich nation that we have 3.5 Million living below the Poverty line with 770,000 children.
    It is a damnation of the leadership of this country that we have hundreds of thousands people homeless.

    It is a damnation of the leadership of this country that we have hundreds of thousands unemployed or underemployed with the millions of dollars that this represents in terms of resources, let alone the misery, the stress and poor health that comes from this fact

    Most of us reading AIMN, recognise that this inequity has been a deliberate orchestrated plan by the Neoliberal Agenda an agenda created by Hayek, Friedman and Ludwig von Mises.

    Therefore the dichotomy is in fact the age old ‘Haves’ v the ‘Have Nots’.

11. Matters NotDecember 21, 2020 at 1:42 pm

    For those who want to get ahead of the curve become familiar with Quiggin’s latest take. Yes it’s crony capitalism that’s the new intellectual kid on the block.

    An important difference between Trumpism and neoliberalism (in both hard and soft variants) is that Trumpism is associated with crony capitalism, rather than global corporations and finance. … The core appeal of US Trumpism is a negative kind of identity politics, … As long as neoliberalism was dominant, Trumpist voters could be bought off with gestures, while policy was run in the interests of global business.

    Provided they can stay in the good graces of the strongman (not guaranteed, as various Russian oligarchs have discovered), they are well placed in the new environment. And, unlike global corporations, crony capitalists can operate with a short time horizon. Even if Trumpist policies are ultimately disastrous in economic terms, they have time to make their pile and cash out.

    Trumpism and crony capitalism

    So who are the local benefactors – in addition to Angus Taylor?

12. wamDecember 21, 2020 at 3:09 pm

    thanks george
    But my words are rarely clear, I thought I was saying:
    The labor party politicians like albo have the wax and are unaware of the situation of the seductions of slogans and continual labor bashing on us.
    Labor pollies need to excite the media morning shows of the inept lnp ministers and the foolish back bench but even more they need to equip us with the answers to the slogans and lies of the government and that requires work in every electorate especially the 4(2 nth Q and 2 NE Tas) lost last year those who switched from fear of boobby must be reassured the loonies do not run the labor party.

13. guestDecember 21, 2020 at 4:06 pm

    Yes, George, it has been a bastard of a year.

    I began to make a list of issues which could rigorous discussion both in parliament and in public. But now is not the time to expect that to happen. People are thinking of other things.

    Someone suggested that Albanese is “keeping his powder dry.” I do not blame Albanese. He would not have been heard in the noise if he spoke up now.

    Besides that, my feeling is that Morrison and his crew are lost at sea. They are failing and other people are ignoring them and taking up the challenges. There is still a way to go, but I feel positive. The Coalition is facing strong winds with torn sails and no rudder.

14. Michael TaylorDecember 21, 2020 at 4:12 pm

    This time last year I said to Carol; “I’ve got a good feeling about 2020. I reckon it’s going to be a great year.”

    Yeh. Great for bushfires. Great for a pandemic. Great for bad governments keeping on keeping on bad.

15. george theodoridisDecember 21, 2020 at 7:40 pm

    guest, I love your optimism, mate. I always welcome optimism but I’m too pessimistic to see optimism winning this time or any other time in the foreseeable future. In 200 years perhaps?

    Oh, sure, Labor might win some election or other but will the people win also? The voices of virtue are silenced, I’m afraid, either of their own accord or by the bully-o-crats who’ve been ruling this country for decades.

    I’m just too pessimistic to see a gorgeous win like that. Not any time soon anyhow.
    But perhaps I’m wrong!

16. guestDecember 21, 2020 at 11:11 pm

    George,

    Thank you for responding to my comment. I mentioned in it that I had made list of matters which need to be discussed in public and in Parliament. But these matters are suppressed and ignored by certain parts of the media, for example. I deleted the list for fear of being a preaching know-all.

    First of all, only just last Friday I came across an SBS 31 lecture (18/12/202) entitled “The Third Industrial Revolution”, also the title of a book by the speaker Jeremy Rifkin, whom I had never heard of. But he has written 20 books about society and climate. His coverage of ideas about world events and what is happening in other parts of the world and what could be done was most inspiring. It conrasted with the muddle which exists here in Oz.

    The Murdoch media muddles everything, especially as it promote Trump as someone to be taken seriously.

    Morrison has real problems with China with no support from Trump. Murdoch tells us not to believe China and its intent to gain net-zero emissions by 2060, just as it refuses to believe any country which talks of net-zero emissions by 2050.

    Morrison is making Oz a pariah of foolishness in the world. The Angus Taylor “roadmap” is a failure, an incoherent recipe of disparate ingredients hoping for some new technology to come out of the air by the end of the century.

    Meanwhile, the coal industry is in decline, one of our top exports, heading towards stranded assets status. And gas is being promoted as a transition. Adani, the great promise several years ago, is limiting coal and turning to renewables. China is a top producer of renewables and electric vehicles.

    Here in Oz private industry is developing renewables now cheaper and more accessible than the ageing coal fired power stations. Not even seeing this happening, the Coalition, not even the Nationals, are doing anything about a comprehensive package taking care of redundant coal workers.

    Meanwhile, we have corruption over water, excessive land clearing and a reckless attitude to the environment, where overseas companies destroy land and sacred sites thousands of years old, and employ fracking techniques and open mining which will require massive rehabilitation.

    In the past, the Coalition has ruined attempts at tackling climate change and has wrecked the NBN for political purposes, an infrastructure which Jeremy Rifkin would describe as an essential asset for communication, bringing people together and driving progress.

    Rifkin, mentioned above, sees a need for cooperation and sharing rather than a a squabbling competition between people and nations over wasteful consumption of finite resources. An example he gives of people using solar panels to create a shared energy grid. It is happening now.

    I believe what Rifkin talks about can happen here in Oz as it is happening in other parts of the world, but more organised and with less intent on profit but more of a goal for the common good, not just for the few.

    I see such an overview more in line with the values of the left and contrary to the values of the neo-liberals.

    The neo-liberals speak of the great achievements of the Western Enlightenment. But what is the result after a few hundred years of that Enlightenment? We are cooking the planet!

    We have to do better!

    I think we can because we must.

    The fires 2019-2020 and the huge damage done to nature and human habitat, the pandemic over this year and still not finished world wide, and the obviously increasing results of climate change are not so easily put aside and ignored.

    If the nation does not become aware of what is happening, then I fear that we are doomed. That is my pessimism. But there are more clever people than ideologically driven propagandists here in Oz.

17. Joe Carli.December 22, 2020 at 8:49 am

    The west has fallen victim to the “Just-in-Time” philosophy of the neo-liberals marketing ploy…Just-in-time was developed as a manufacturing tool to expediate / lower costs of production…: ” a management strategy that aligns raw-material orders from suppliers directly with production schedules.”….while it has use in production-line manufacturing, it has no place in human relations…but the deviousness of right-wing govt’s have transferred its use over to social services and then by infection into our everyday lives…the outsourcing of labour to casualisation, health services to private companies, security to private companies etc, etc have placed many essential services in a precarious position, all now relying upon a consistent supply-chain of casuals, and equiptment being brought in “just in time’ when things go pear-shaped…Unfortunately, it is just when things go pear-shaped that the just-in-time system fails..and fails spectacularly!….witness the bushfires preparedness….witness the flood/storms preparedness…witness the pandemic preparedness, not to mention economic chaos and aged care collapse…as a social tool, just-in-time is an absolute failure, BUT as a money saving device – screw the collateral damage consequences – it is a neo-liberal wunderkind!

18. george theodoridisDecember 22, 2020 at 9:32 am

    Joe: the preparedness to be unprepared.
    Except for war.

19. Joe CarliDecember 22, 2020 at 9:58 am

    And, George, it relates to my above post from Theodore Mommsen…where Polybius defended that “Rome had the “right to rule” because it had a moral, ethical and managerial superiority” in those times to govern correctly (or wtte)…
    Unfortunately, as Mommsen then points out…the decadence that capital inflicted uopn the people of Rome infected and corrupted the governance of the empire.. and the rest . . .

    We see such capital corruption leeching into our everyday lives with our “democracy” being torn asunder to satiate the middle-classes and I feel there is but one ending for such policy…will future historians point to this epoch and finish their condemnation of the times with the same : ” and the rest . . . ” ?

20. Andrew SmithDecember 22, 2020 at 8:33 pm

    Agree the ‘JIT just in time’ strategy and I think it comes from Japanese manufacturing sector on inventory and inputs, to cut costs.

    It appears to resonate strongly with radical right libertarian ideology (IPA), both private and public entities, on being economic, efficient and invest only when there is a need.

    From government this translates into starving public agencies of funds and further, hopefully make the same, along with incompetent management, unfit for purpose* then can be merged and/or close down; any action can potentially lead to lower budget needs and therefore tax cuts…and less government (* Thomas Franks ‘The Wrecking Crew’).

    The US Postal Service has been targetted for this treament by the White House…. but as we observe in the UK, US, Brazil etc. this approach does not work well when pandemics arrive….

21. guestDecember 23, 2020 at 1:13 pm

    Just in time, eh?
    How many seconds to midnight is it now?
    Who has the infallible foresight to know?
    Who has the brazen daring to tell us right now?
    No one.
    Just a few hints that it is not now.
    Maybe in the last half of this century (Chris Kenny? Judith Curry?)
    Or no hurry at all, it’s just an alarmist religion (Ian Plimer)
    So the Coalition won by a “miracle” (Scott Morrison)
    Years of losses in the polls and the Coalition won by less than a handful of seats.
    Someone scared the horses with tax deductions and fear about franking credits.
    And the coal miners feared for their jobs.
    The fossil fuel executives laughed at their success.
    While the majority of the populace says we have to do more about climate change.
    Talk of “tipping points”.
    And the IPA takes out its hymnbook full of “contradictions” and laughs.
    Hoping for reconciliations one day.
    And Labor supporters fall about in despair, fearing Opposition for centuries to come.
    If the planet lasts that long.
    As if there is nothing to be done.
    Just look about – the world is bigger than Oz.

22. Joe CarliDecember 23, 2020 at 4:38 pm

    How many warnings do we need to get?..how many times do we need to be told?….DRIVE OUT THE MIDDLE-CLASS FROM GOVERNANCE AND ECONOMIC CONTROL!!
    Mommsen again….

    “It is a dreadful picture–this picture of Italy under the rule
    of the oligarchy. There was nothing to bridge over or soften
    the fatal contrast between the world of the beggars and the world
    of the rich. The more clearly and painfully this contrast
    was felt on both sides–the giddier the height to which riches rose,
    the deeper the abyss of poverty yawned–the more frequently,
    amidst that changeful world of speculation and playing at hazard,
    were individuals tossed from the bottom to the top and again
    from the top to the bottom. The wider the chasm by which the two worlds
    were externally divided, the more completely they coincided
    in the like annihilation of family life–which is yet the germ
    and core of all nationality–in the like laziness and luxury,
    the like unsubstantial economy, the like unmanly dependence,
    the like corruption differing only in its tariff, the like criminal
    demoralization, the like longing to begin the war with property.
    Riches and misery in close league drove the Italians out of Italy,
    and filled the peninsula partly with swarms of slaves, partly
    with awful silence.”

    Tacitus tried to warn with the speech of Calgacus in his “Agricola” : https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/readings/agricola.html …

    How many times do we need to be told?…futile…futile…futile…Wisdom ; The voice of humanity crying in the wilderness….

23. George TheodoridisDecember 23, 2020 at 9:00 pm

    Lovely thinking Joe and we can talk about comparative politics for a long time. (Rome=Oz, really?)
    I’ll contribute to it only by answering this question of yours, “will future historians point to this epoch and finish their condemnation of the times with the same : ” and the rest . . . ”

    The future historians will look at Oz during this epoch and, holding their bellies tightly, they will say, “Ah, that Australia! Hahaha! That was when the two political leaders had a pissing competition where the laurel of victory went to him who pissed the shortest distance. That was a very funny period, that one!”

    A meager answer I know and you deserve much more than that but Oz politics is very… meager!

24. Joe CarliDecember 24, 2020 at 8:43 am

    (Rome=Oz, really?)

    Here you go, George…: Rome, Tacitus; “The Germania” ; the Venerdi / Suebi….: https://freefall852.wordpress.com/2017/06/02/on-the-rim-of-a-far-horizon/

25. Joe CarliDecember 24, 2020 at 9:00 am

    ” And so we come via a circuous route back to the Roman Empire when they fought the Venerdi / Suebi ..; The Wends and the Sorbs..back across the Danube..back into Germania, back into the future to await their next awakening here in South Australia..where once again they will become a part of a history they will not write, they will not control…for it is the victors who write the histories, we are told, and this area of the mallee, between the eastern hills and the Murray River is one fertile history that has yet to be written.”

26. George TheodoridisDecember 24, 2020 at 2:51 pm

    Joe, love the story mate and thanks for pointing your finger to it but, eh, no. A coincidence a comparison doesn’t make.

27. Joe CarliDecember 24, 2020 at 3:19 pm

    Oh George, George….you of all people must be aware of the continuety down through time of such “habitual actions” that drive humanity to repeat and repeat those tragedies and violence whenever greed, jealousy, love and hatred etc. play out their hand among ancients and moderns…while history may not repeat in exact detail, there is a pattern of “organic behaviour” that delivers humanity to the arms of Thucydides or Homer as swiftly as to the dramas of Shakespeare and even to this day to..say..the keyboard of Joe Carli…!…

    And as for the politics…when Mommsen says that all sewers look the same, the sewer that was Roman decadence or corruption would look the same as that played out in these times in Canberra or Washington..and let us not forget Athenian politics in the time of the Oligarchy…

    No, George..clever evasive acion, but you are just twisting and squirming…

    ” Earth, Air, Fire and Water…these were the elements that those Germanic pioneers used as the axiom for their lives out here in the South Australian hinterland, and we can use THEIR trials and tribulations as a metaphorical example of that ideological divide…The basic truths that they brought from their homelands in the valleys and on the river banks of the Silesian and Pomeranian soils when they migrated with entire villages to a new land , a new horizon that would allow them the freedoms to pursue their own unique life-style and culture. There was no other truth to their lives and those basic truths were shared with and abided next to their deep Godly faith… it was life and death to them. “

28. Matters NotDecember 24, 2020 at 3:29 pm

    So there is a shout that we DRIVE OUT THE MIDDLE-CLASS FROM GOVERNANCE AND ECONOMIC CONTROL. Most probably will come as a monumental surprise to those who self-identify as Middle Class (between 50 and 60%) in Australia and elsewhere in western democracies. That it’s alleged they and their peers are somehow doing the governing of the state and controlling the economy will, most likely, be met with derision because it’s common sense that such powers reside with the so-called upper class.

    The concept of middle normally implies that there’s either something either side or perhaps, in a hierarchical society, above and below. That the reins of economic and political power somehow rest in the middle are mind boggling, even in a graphical representation sense. But each to their own. Nevertheless, can’t see such a view having long-term support.

29. Vivienne Jean MendhamDecember 24, 2020 at 3:53 pm

    Hi George (Ato). Seems you’re in good form. Regards, Vivienne

30. Joe CarliDecember 24, 2020 at 3:56 pm

    MN….In case it has escaped your attention, there was a “little incident” back in Nov’ 11th 1975, here in Oz, where the representative of “The Crown” (The Aristorcratic / Upper Class) did sack the democratic gov’ of the day and delivered power into the hands of the middle class, to wit : The Grazier, Fraser…very much to the detriment right down to this day of the working classes /lower classes.

    Now we have been down this road before and if you are still in doubt of your status in the class of Oz society, then that is your problem…and I would suggest rather than demonstrate your confusion on these pages, you go consult your apparently ever boggling mind!

    And, NO..I do not expect the idea to have ANY support, given that such an idea is more a plea to pay attention to historical precedence rather than live in hope that a cruel, greedy, tyrannical middle-class will deliver the majority of humanity to greener pastures than those they have reserved for themselves and themselves alone!

31. Matters NotDecember 24, 2020 at 6:10 pm

    JC – just to be clear about your position. It was a representative of the Upper Class (as distinct from the Middle Class) who determined (exercised power) who the PM would be? Yet it’s your overall contention that such power (to decide) resides with this Middle Class. who are cruel, greedy and tyrannical – even though they (the Middle Class) can’tdecide who the PM will be.

    Please explain.

32. Joe CarliDecember 25, 2020 at 7:39 am

    Ah yes, MN..I see the misunderstanding…I thought you were on the usual cant of there being no clear definition of class that is the common delusion of the reigning cabal on the site…so yes..the Aristocratic class does have an alignment with the governing middle class…it is a delicate nuance of understanding that while the middle-class ..in the case of the Whitlam dismissal…may have the purpose, the idea and the motivation to control who should govern, they do not have the constitutional power to dismiss the incumbent…only the Crown representative had that..BUT The Crown would never be again in position to control Parliament..likewise, the middle-class would never be tolerated to hold total constitutional power…so there is a certain ; “Honour among thieves”…that comforts either class.