The Canberra adversarial style of government isn’t working. The absence of conscience voting doesn’t help. The unwritten LibLab pact which never prosecutes ministerial wrongdoing and nest-feathering is more due to the quality of the candidates seeking high office.
Thanks for this post. In my opinion, this is the root cause for social issues like DV, increasing suicide and extremism. Additionally, our socialisation into capitalism and economics has life defined as working in a job and being focused on winning against others to achieve more wealth. In the end, even in the best of the Boomers years, wealth accrued to the rich and bribed whilst the bulk of workers could afford a reasonable retirement. Life is more difficult to find now. At least I didn't have to live with the propaganda machine the press has become nor the plethora of self-serving products called politicians.
Beyond all of that, we've broken the planet's climate which will yield wars and death. I'm amazed at how craven the world's leaders have become.
When politicians get advice from 24 yr.old graduates (who studied political science and probably driven by one party or the other ) then we can expect the true leaders ,big business,fossil industries ,to fill any gaps in what information is available to our politicians .
I’m an American and just happened upon this newsletter, which I read with dismay.
The conditions described within are the exact conditions needed to end up with your own fascist nightmare, as we now have here (though maybe without the aggravating Elon factor). I can’t remember if the piece mentioned polarizing societal divisions, but watch out for those, too.
The important thing is that as long as Australians feel the social compact has been broken, Australia will be vulnerable to a populist demagogue. For the love of koalas, organize your circle and beyond to push your parliament to restore the social contract before your orange populist demagogue clown shows up. Without the cracks in your society, the demagogue can’t easily gain a foothold.
When things are falling apart, when government is gridlocked or bought by lobbyists, even in the oldest democracy in the world, a third of the country will vote for dictatorship that they (wrongly) believe will fix things rather than work to fix their existing system.
Let America be the warning for the rest of the free world, then at least something good will come out of our disastrous current Republican administration.
The J D Vance like concern for human productivity is the odd element to this post. Since greater wealth is strongly correlated with fewer children (if not necessarily fewer long lived children) on your case there should be more children not fewer in current times. Perhaps people really are content to have few to no children?
Not to mention the population argument that fewer humans overall is a desirable outcome.
The Canberra adversarial style of government isn’t working. The absence of conscience voting doesn’t help. The unwritten LibLab pact which never prosecutes ministerial wrongdoing and nest-feathering is more due to the quality of the candidates seeking high office.
Thanks for this post. In my opinion, this is the root cause for social issues like DV, increasing suicide and extremism. Additionally, our socialisation into capitalism and economics has life defined as working in a job and being focused on winning against others to achieve more wealth. In the end, even in the best of the Boomers years, wealth accrued to the rich and bribed whilst the bulk of workers could afford a reasonable retirement. Life is more difficult to find now. At least I didn't have to live with the propaganda machine the press has become nor the plethora of self-serving products called politicians.
Beyond all of that, we've broken the planet's climate which will yield wars and death. I'm amazed at how craven the world's leaders have become.
Cheers!
When politicians get advice from 24 yr.old graduates (who studied political science and probably driven by one party or the other ) then we can expect the true leaders ,big business,fossil industries ,to fill any gaps in what information is available to our politicians .
I’m an American and just happened upon this newsletter, which I read with dismay.
The conditions described within are the exact conditions needed to end up with your own fascist nightmare, as we now have here (though maybe without the aggravating Elon factor). I can’t remember if the piece mentioned polarizing societal divisions, but watch out for those, too.
The important thing is that as long as Australians feel the social compact has been broken, Australia will be vulnerable to a populist demagogue. For the love of koalas, organize your circle and beyond to push your parliament to restore the social contract before your orange populist demagogue clown shows up. Without the cracks in your society, the demagogue can’t easily gain a foothold.
When things are falling apart, when government is gridlocked or bought by lobbyists, even in the oldest democracy in the world, a third of the country will vote for dictatorship that they (wrongly) believe will fix things rather than work to fix their existing system.
Let America be the warning for the rest of the free world, then at least something good will come out of our disastrous current Republican administration.
You could replace 'Australia' here with any number of countries, especially in the Anglosphere, and this article would remain dead-on accurate.
Right on!
We keep voting either Labor or Liberal and we keep expecting different/better results. Maybe we should try The Greens.
Incredibly true, incredibly sad, incredibly dangerous.
Brilliantly well said , and correct in every detail . Government now is FOR the Rich , BY the rich . Democracy has been tortured to a painful death.
The J D Vance like concern for human productivity is the odd element to this post. Since greater wealth is strongly correlated with fewer children (if not necessarily fewer long lived children) on your case there should be more children not fewer in current times. Perhaps people really are content to have few to no children?
Not to mention the population argument that fewer humans overall is a desirable outcome.