Following the news delivered by traditional media can be surprisingly educative. Don’t believe me?
Read on.
The still above comes straight from a short video Blockade Australia posted yesterday in their Twitter account. Those protests were in the news this week. Sharon, 62 – the lady speaking – shot the video herself. Go to their tweet to watch it.
Uneasy and jittery as Sharon was, it turns out, that grandmother has more balls than NSW Deputy Premier Paul Toole, Minister for Transport David Elliott, and NSW Opposition Leader Chris Minns combined. In fact, it’s hard for me to tell who among those three buffoons is more despicable.
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| David Elliott (L), Paul Toole (C), Chris Minns (R). |
The first two are bullies in top positions of authority: as ruthless and cruel with those below in the food chain as they are obsequious with those above themselves. Toole, Minister for Police, ordered armed cops to wage a war against harmless protesters (Sharon among them). Elliott adds to his customary mendacity (remember the Great Sydney Trains Meltdown?) his monumental stupidity: in this piece of shit pseudo democracy you can’t go around bossing the judges, cretin.
And yet, “separation of powers” notwithstanding, there are good reasons to fear judges will do as Elliott told them. God only knows the penalties Sharon and a handful of other protesters will get.
Gutlessness embodied, Minns is, in a way, the worst of the three. An opposition leader who refuses to oppose: his mantra is bipartisanship. He knows climate change protesters are right, he knows they aren’t hurting anybody, they are trying to force Toole and Elliott to do their jobs. And yet, he too condemns them, while trashing in words the very foundations of the democracy those two bullies trash in deed. He plays it safe, as the world around us burns and drowns. He is a coward.
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| You will die waiting for a climate election |
Look, I’m no philosopher, I’m just an old fart. But deep analysis is not required to understand what is evident: Australian so-called democracy is a sham, a legal bipartisan dictatorship of cowardly and mediocre asslickers of the rich; this kind of democracy seems incapable of handling climate change. That placard boils down to that. Our “freedom” reduces to choose between Pepsi (COALition) and Coke (Labor).
Everybody following the news knows it.
Everybody, that is, except the self-satisfied talking heads – many of whom are journalists – who live off by proffering inanities about democracy and autocracy on TV, as if it were divine revelation received from God at Mount Sinai.
Everybody following the news knows it.
Everybody, that is, except the self-satisfied talking heads – many of whom are journalists – who live off by proffering inanities about democracy and autocracy on TV, as if it were divine revelation received from God at Mount Sinai.
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That placard (seen at the SS4C rally last Friday in front of Kirribilli House, Scotty from Marketing’s official Sydney harbourside residence) manages to be right and wrong at the same time. It’s certainly true that those 7 cockroaches are destroying the children’s future.
The problem is that our own present is already being destroyed: residents of northeastern NSW, who visited Scotty on March 20th, are witnesses of that.
The other thing is that the COALition may be much worse than Labor on climate change, but neither really intends to tackle the challenge. The placard forgets that but our future and that of our children demands we keep this in mind.
Let us remember what their climate change plans are. Assuming they fulfill those promises. COALition and Labor agree on a 2050 net zero target: there’s no difference here. Score: COALition 1; Labor 1.
The COALition aims to a 2030 26-28% emissions reduction, while Labor aims to a better target: 43%. Score: COALition: 1; Labor 2.
The Labor plan is more credible and has the support of big business and “most smart economists”, while the COALition plan is merely emissions offsetting, including a 15% of the 2050 reductions coming not even from as yet unproven technologies like carbon capture and storage, but from unknown technologies that aren’t even in the drawing board or in anybody’s imagination. Score: COALition: 1; Labor 3.
So, yes, Labor is less bad than the COALition (or better, if you prefer their spin). The problem is that the IPCC requires the world as a whole to cut emissions by 50% (not 43%) by 2030 and rich countries, with the highest emissions per capita, to cut their 2030 emissions by 75% to give the world a fighting chance of avoiding the worst effects of climate change.
An Australian attempt to achieve that may be “crazy brave”, as Jacob Greber says, but 43% is cowardly insufficient.
People seem to believe this is a matter of bargaining: it ain’t. I’ve seen Labor pollies calling climate change activists demanding 75% reduction “purists”. It ain’t our purism, it’s their ignorance. You may call that “climate justice” if you like (many climate change activists make the same error); I call it “survival”: to reduce the highest emissions per capita is the low-hanging fruit in climate change action. It’s not a choice, it’s an imposition reality places on us.
The problem is that our own present is already being destroyed: residents of northeastern NSW, who visited Scotty on March 20th, are witnesses of that.
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| (source) |
The other thing is that the COALition may be much worse than Labor on climate change, but neither really intends to tackle the challenge. The placard forgets that but our future and that of our children demands we keep this in mind.
Let us remember what their climate change plans are. Assuming they fulfill those promises. COALition and Labor agree on a 2050 net zero target: there’s no difference here. Score: COALition 1; Labor 1.
The COALition aims to a 2030 26-28% emissions reduction, while Labor aims to a better target: 43%. Score: COALition: 1; Labor 2.
The Labor plan is more credible and has the support of big business and “most smart economists”, while the COALition plan is merely emissions offsetting, including a 15% of the 2050 reductions coming not even from as yet unproven technologies like carbon capture and storage, but from unknown technologies that aren’t even in the drawing board or in anybody’s imagination. Score: COALition: 1; Labor 3.
So, yes, Labor is less bad than the COALition (or better, if you prefer their spin). The problem is that the IPCC requires the world as a whole to cut emissions by 50% (not 43%) by 2030 and rich countries, with the highest emissions per capita, to cut their 2030 emissions by 75% to give the world a fighting chance of avoiding the worst effects of climate change.
An Australian attempt to achieve that may be “crazy brave”, as Jacob Greber says, but 43% is cowardly insufficient.
People seem to believe this is a matter of bargaining: it ain’t. I’ve seen Labor pollies calling climate change activists demanding 75% reduction “purists”. It ain’t our purism, it’s their ignorance. You may call that “climate justice” if you like (many climate change activists make the same error); I call it “survival”: to reduce the highest emissions per capita is the low-hanging fruit in climate change action. It’s not a choice, it’s an imposition reality places on us.
I can’t be any clearer than that. Only the Greens, among parties represented in Parliament, has that goal (the Socialist Alliance also incorporates that intermediate goal). And they have no chance in hell of winning the election.
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| Cate Faehrmann with a Greens contingent |
This was manifestly patent in the Kirribilli rally: only NSW Greens Cate Faehrmann (NSW Member of the Legislative Council) and several Socialist Alliance activists attended the SS4C call. Labor is too respectable for that kind of thing. I mean, can you really dream of them taking our side in this fight?
And Scotty sent NSW Police Force and Australian Federal Police officers, mounted police and a police helicopter to represent him. You know, in case a bunch of kids and old-timers try to overthrow his government.
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So, this is the situation. Either you hope against all hope that (1) a minority Labor government comes out of the next election and that (2) the Greens and/or Socialist Alliance can steer Labor towards a more decisive action and (3) whatever improvement achieved that way is sufficient to avoid climate disaster and (4) it outlives the usually short-lived Labor government or you appeal to civil disobedience.
If you are allergic to civil disobedience, preferential voting may be a long shot, but it’s the only shot left. You better learn how it works, if you are not familiar with it. This short ABC’s BTN video (endorsed by the Parliamentary Education Office) shows the basics (to be precise, for Upper House election):
If you are allergic to civil disobedience, preferential voting may be a long shot, but it’s the only shot left. You better learn how it works, if you are not familiar with it. This short ABC’s BTN video (endorsed by the Parliamentary Education Office) shows the basics (to be precise, for Upper House election):
My suggestion? If in your seat Socialist Alliance, Greens and Labor are present, I’d give SA 1, Greens 2, Labor 3 and I’d put Liberals last. Remember: you don’t need to follow the instructions in the “how to vote” fliers party activists (most likely Labor or Liberals) hand out at polling stations.
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The leak of a draft agreement between the governments of China and the Solomon Islands for military and security cooperation last Thursday generated considerable alarm among local commentators (see here and here as well).
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| (source) |
(Incidentally, on geopolitical matters, the line between “leak” and “whistleblower” on the one hand and “espionage” and “spy” on the other is dangerously tenuous, as Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning can bear witness).
Anyway, this is the text of the draft. The fear is that the Chinese military could gain a foothold in our own backyard and destabilise the region. Typically, the idea is the Chinese could close Australia’s sea lanes vital for our international trade (why would our largest trading partner want to do that, is something left unaddressed).
The more rational ones want more diplomatic action to revert what they consider threatening Chinese expansionism and reproach Scotty for his ineptitude (they may have a point there); the more hysterical ones are already calling for an invasion of the Solomons and government change.
Are these commentators overreacting or is this a serious threat? It’s for you to say. Frankly, I don’t really care that much.
What I’m really interested in is the fact the same gang of sanctimonious and hysterical agenda-pushers who speak of Putin’s feverish dream of a resurrected Russian Empire in Eastern Europe, do not say a word about an Aussie Empire in the South Sea Islands.
“NATO did not expand eastwards, the Eastern Europeans joined NATO”. Remember that? It was all about the Eastern Europeans. Now it’s all about China’s threat to Australia.
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No, no, no. Don’t tell me. Let me guess. Your objection (particularly if you are an Aussie) is that the NATO-Ukraine-Russia situation is altogether different to the China-Solomons-Australia situation: Australia is a liberal democracy … while Russia is an autocracy. The fact you are an Aussie has nothing to do with that perceived difference, right?
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