The Waiting Man

Where do we stand on the separation of Church & State? Personally I firmly believe that religion has no place in politics. Public policy should not be written with anyone's god as some kind of co-author

So what about countries where the 2 seem inseparable, like Iran - where the nation's top cleric wields even more power & influence than its President, the USA - where, increasingly, policy is being drafted straight out of the Old Testament. Or... deep breath... Israel - where being Jewish is so tied up in the nation's recent & ancient history, that it seems impossible to disagree with anything they do without automatically being labelled anti-semitic

Personally, I subscribe to no religion & have major doubts about the existence of any kind of supreme deity. But the rest of you are free & welcome to practise whatever doctrine takes your fancy, as long as it doesn't encroach on my way of life. Which is obviously why I firmly believe in absolute separation of Church & State. If your religion says you shouldn't do something, then don't do it. But you have no right to stop me... whether I'm eating bacon, taking some lord's name in vain, supporting a woman's right to abortion or LGBTQI+ people's human rights, or being repulsed by the practice of female genital mutilation on religious grounds &/or marrying off pre-pubescent girls to (much) older men. And I'm 110% opposed to killing people just because their imaginary deity is different to yours

I don't really want to wade into the murky history of Israel, its dissolution in the early CE centuries & scattering of its people, its subsequent occupation by various Islamic & Christian states for over 1500 years... you can Google all that & read at your leisure. Suffice to say that the creation of modern Israel in 1948 was not very well planned, or implemented & it displaced countless people whose roots in that land went back many generations & hundreds of years. But because they were Muslims, none of the Western governments gave a sh!t. Right from its start, modern Israel has had to fight to exist, against various Islamic countries who at the very least wanted the land back & at worst, wanted to eradicate its people because... well, because they're Jews & Allah apparently doesn't like them & that's good enough reason. At least, that's what the cleric/mullah/ayatollah etc... said

It hasn't even been 80 years since then, but it's been an unholy mess for most of that time. We've had ceasefires, various peace treaties & accords... but sooner or later religion rears its head & it all kicks off again, with Iran threatening to wipe Israel off the map & the world superpowers posturing & positioning according to their interest

And here's the contentious bit - there have been some Israeli leaders who seem to take delight in poking the bear. Heavy -handed annexations of territories they want to 'reclaim' like the West Bank, Southern Lebanon, Golan Heights... & Gaza, have inevitably led to clashes with Islamic forces & if it was a European nation doing that... well, we had 2 world wars over that kind of behaviour, plus a couple of serious ones in Asia... yet somehow, Israel is held to a different standard, even when it has cast the first stone. Somehow, it makes me think we're in the middle of the latest Crusade, where the Christian forces are still trying to take back the Holy Land from the Infidel, so they arm the Israeli army to its teeth while simultaneously decrying its unsurprising use of those weapons

Don't get me wrong - what Hamas did recently was horrific & unforgiveable, but at the same time, Israel had been poking that bear for a while - it was going to lash out eventually. And now, Hezbollah is getting fractious about Israeli rocket attacks on the Israel/Lebanon border. It appears Israeli PM Netanyahu is hell-bent on starting a new war, whatever the cost is to his own citizens, let alone anyone else. As if the cost isn't way too high already, with Jewish people in countries far from Israel being threatened & targeted by Muslims whose parents fled the Middle East to get the hell away from all that fighting a generation ago

In summary. I'm not anti-Semitic, I'm not pro-Muslim... I'm just not a fan of using religion as a coverall for aggressive nationalism

Well, it's 7pm on the 12th of March, here in Australia & I can still read & post on LJ...

I'm in 2 minds about the boycott of Russian products. On one hand, the only way we can 'hurt' Putin is financially, so whatever little you can do, you should - so that businesses in Russia can bring pressure on Putin's junta in turn, to force a change of... well regime would be ideal, but a retreat back behind their not-inconsiderable borders would do just as well for now

On the other, is it fair to hurt the ordinary citizens of Russia because of their leader's behaviour? It's not like many of them were advocating the reclamation of Ukraine... or Georgia a few years ago (remember that?!?) for that matter...

But once you start taking the ordinary people's situation into account, you have to ask how the ordinary people of Ukraine feel about this too

And please - let's not forget, or lose sight of the Kurds, the Afghanis, the Rohingya, the Uighurs, the West Papuans... & potentially the Taiwanese - all of whom are the victims of political & physical brutality for no justifiable reasons other than the base human lust for power, greed & aggression

It's a new dawn, a new day, a new life... not so much for me, but for Afghanistan in particular... & I'm not feeling good

Chief among the multiple failures of the last 20 years (failure to 'win' the war on terror, as if you could wage 'war' on such a thing, the failure to establish a stable, reliable & accountable government, the failure to train an army/police force, the failure to win the hearts, minds & trust of a nation & the failure of the very reason you supposedly turned up for in the first place - to find Osama Bin Laden, who was laughing into his sleeve in neighbouring Pakistan for years) is the failure to learn from history, thus, as the old saying goes, dooming yourself to repeat it. You only have to go back a little over 200 years to see how 'modern' warfare in Afghanistan is a fast-track to defeat. The British tried a few times, the Soviets likewise, both ultimately failing, until the USA-led 'Coalition of the Willing' tried again in 2001, riding on the aggressive, yet misguided hubris sparked by 9/11. Ultimately, the only people who can call the last 20 years anything remotely like a 'success' are the arms manufacturers

And now... with the Taliban resurgent & in control of most of the country, including the capital, with the latest President fleeing the country, with all the freedoms the population briefly enjoyed & dared to build a future on in tatters, the scenes at the various airstrips, as thousands try to board planes evacuating the lucky few are devastating to see... especially the footage & reports of people falling to their deaths from planes as they take off. Despite the Taliban's assurances of minimal retribution, those who died trying to flee may yet be the 2nd-luckiest ones

Just ask any Afghani woman who received an education & tried to build a career. Just ask the interpreters who worked with the foreign military & will now be targeted for their collusion, who have largely been left behind by the military to their fate. Australia, late to the party as always, has sent a couple of planes over, to 'rescue' some of these people, but have already conceded that not all of them will be saved. Certainly not if we follow Germany's lead - one of their planes was carrying just 7 people when it left. It makes this photo look like an absolute godsend, rather than the blind panic & chaos it really is...

There are those who would ask us to pray for the people of Afghanistan. Myself, I see this whole sorry debacle as further proof, if it were ever needed, that there is no god... or at the very least, not one worth praying to

It may take a while to increase the average IQ of the US Senate, after 4 years of alternative facts, fake news, conspiracy theories & policy-by-Twitter

Example A: Sen. Ted Cruz tweeting about the USA re-joining the Paris Agreement Your man is either blissfully, or wilfully ignorant, or that's what he thinks his supporters are... & should continue to be

Cruz, R-Texas, said in a tweet late Wednesday that by returning America to the multinational climate accord, Biden has indicated that he is more interested "in the views of the citizens of Paris than in the jobs of the citizens of Pittsburgh."

So... is he a genuine idiot? Or is he deliberately misrepresenting a global initiative to save the planet as just the moanings of the citizens of Montmartre?

I'm still holding off on my own, personal, year-in-review, as I won't believe it's over until the clock hits 12.01am just under 2 weeks from now. But the Sydney Morning Herald's Peter Hartcher has chanced his arm & opts for praising, with faint damns...

( 5 Australian Lessons From 2020 )

I haven't been posting about politics for a while, but that doesn't mean I haven't been watching... & watching is about all I can do

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade has issued a warning about not visiting the USA, due to potential violence around the election. I note from the article that many Walmart stores are removing guns & ammunition from the shop floor, to discourage looters, but it may be too late, as people have been stocking up on weapons and military-style tactical gear as fearful Americans prepare to hunker down. Many gun shops have sold out of ammunition, and firearm stocks are running low.

I think I also mentioned the potential for Civil War version 2.0 a few months back... My name, apparently, is Nostradamus II. I know it's mostly scare-mongering, but it's being mongered by both sides of the yawning political divide in the USA & with the amount of civil unrest already going on, that's separate to the actual election, it's only going to take one Proud Boy draped in a rebel flag & a MAGA cap to light the blue touch paper... Meanwhile, also as I mentioned a while back, it's looking increasingly likely that the election will be decided, ultimately, in the Supreme Court, where... well, you know what happened last week - a new judge was installed after 60 million people had already voted in a Federal Election... Please explain how that's democratic, or even truly republican?!?!

Meanwhile, it looks like I'll have to postpone my long-desired European trip for a while, as Covid19 has decided to go back for a 3rd time this year - especially to the United Kingdom. I honestly don't know what's worse - denying the existence & severity of the virus & causing thousands of people to die... or knowing full well how serious the disease is, but then stuffing up its control & suppression, due to a lack of backbone, or intestinal fortitude, or... let's just say 'cojones' to get the job done - & causing thousands of people to die. Again, as I've previously ranted, the human race has faced these things before & has always come through, after drastic measures & consequences. Yet here we are today, complaining that this virus either has, or will, ruin civilisation (& it hasn't even been a year!!!), just because the economy is having a hiccup. The fucking Great Depression went for nearly a decade & you know who caused that? Greedy economists... the same guys who are demanding everyone & everything go back to work - public health be damned

Q. When did Bankers become more important than Doctors?

The Great Pumpkin has laid out his election strategy... Don't give the Post Office essential funding, because of mail-voting "Fraud". For "Fraud" read - votes for Democrat candidates

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, this is what he'll pursue once the November polls go against him - all the way to the Supreme Court which, let's not forget, is full of judges he appointed

Joe Biden will die of old age before he ever gets to sit in the Oval Office...

Twitter has started putting fact-check links on The Great Pumpkin's tweets &, predictably, he's not happy about it... threatening to shut social media companies down, which of course, he can't do

It all stems from his rants about postal votes, which, somehow, in his fried cranial organ, he thinks will be abused by the Democrats & used for voter fraud, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. But that's never stopped him spreading bullshit propaganda before, so Twitter have stepped in

And I love the hypocrisy... Well - I don't, but seeing this in print just makes me smile, albeit somewhat ruefully

"Further stoking the fire on the postal voting issue, Florida newspaper the Tampa Bay Times has now revealed that Trump’s press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who has been defending her boss’s attacks on postal voting, has voted by mail in every single Florida election she’s voted in.

Ms McEnany defended her and the President’s right to vote by mail when asked why everyone else shouldn’t be allowed to as well.

“Absentee voting has the word absent in it for a reason,” she told the Tampa Bay Times.

“It means you’re absent from the jurisdiction or unable to vote in person. President Trump is against the Democrat plan to politicise the coronavirus and expand mass mail-in voting without a reason, which has a high propensity for voter fraud. This is a simple distinction that the media fails to grasp,” she told the newspaper.

Florida does not have absentee voting: you can vote by post prior to election day for any reason you like, a simple distinction some in politics fail to grasp."

Anything Don can do, Bolsonaro can do better much, much worse...

"It's just a little 'flu..."

"So what? I'm sorry, what do you want me to do?"

Not all of Bolsonaro’s ministers have fallen into lock-step behind him, but those who don't do so risk losing their jobs. Luiz Henrique Mandetta, his former health minister, strongly supported the restrictions imposed by state governors and his handling of the crisis was widely praised. But earlier this month, Bolsonaro fired him and appointed Nelson Teich, who has said he sees eye-to-eye with the president.

Does any of this sound familiar... Where have we heard this sort of thing before??

Strictly speaking, we're not completely locked down - the Australian Prime Minister can't decide what businesses should stay open & which should take an enforced break. So while this uncertainty rules, we remain open to service the scant, hardy souls who are wandering the streets of this ghost town & the more who are either phoning or e-mailing. Which, for me, is certainly better than the alternative - indefinite unemployment, with no recourse to the 'improved' benefit package, as L-SP earns too much... Sure, she earns enough, when you combine our salaries, to keep our aspirations & necessities going, but take half of it away & that's pretty much what will happen...

So much for our PM's election pitch of "If you have a go, you'll get a go..." or something. Trouble is, now that some of us - soon to be most of us? - can't have a go, we won't get a go... other than being told where to go by the Department of Social Services

Still, we're luckier than most - at least we're only staring down the barrel of a looming threat, instead of the axe having already fallen - to mix a couple of metaphors...

... Shit! Maybe it is the end of the world as we know it. And if it removes a couple of the key players, that may not be a bad thing. I think I still feel fine...

From today's Guardian

"COVID-19 is exposing the frailty in autocrats and democrats alike

Confronted by the coronavirus menace, politicians and governments around the world are thrashing about wildly, trying to decide what to do for the best. “Politics isn’t working” is a common refrain among disaffected citizens in the modern era. But at this uniquely stressful moment, it really does appear to be true. While they mean well, most leaders haven’t got a clue.

The dawning realisation that national politicians cannot be relied upon to do the right or sensible thing, whatever that may turn out to be, has serious long-term implications for democracy and the principle of democratic consent. If the crisis is protracted, a catastrophic loss of confidence in the way the pandemic is managed could lead to unpredictable social disruption across many countries.

As is the case with victims of the disease, underlying conditions and vulnerabilities in politics too are being painfully exposed.

It’s becoming clear, for example, that healthcare systems, even in wealthy countries such as the US, are chronically under-resourced and unprepared. Confusion reigns widely, fuelled by conflicting official advice in different countries about public gatherings, travel, and self-isolation.

Some leaders may emerge with their reputations enhanced. For others, the opposite holds true. The virus has already made fools of the world’s two most powerful men. Xi Jinping, China’s president, has faced unprecedented criticism over his handling of the first recorded outbreak in Wuhan. He initially steered well clear of the problem – an early example of social distancing.

But Xi has struggled since to contain the political and human fallout. The death from Covid-19 of Li Wenliang, a young doctor who sounded the alarm in Wuhan in December but was gagged by Communist party officials, sparked an online revolt. Xi finally ventured to the city last week, lavishing praise on its beleaguered residents in what almost sounded like an apology.

Predictably, Donald Trump’s reaction has been all about him. Among other inanities, he suggested the pandemic was a fake Democrat plot to harm his re-election chances. Ignoring the science and minimising the threat, he claimed his Mexican border wall had somehow immunised Americans, and likened the “foreign virus” to an alien invasion. It’s embarrassingly obvious Trump is not up to the job.

Both Trump and Xi could pay a heavy price. The US leader may have survived impeachment, but come November many voters will not forget or forgive this failure of leadership in a crisis. Xi’s aura of paternal infallibility has shattered. Trust has gone. To restore his grip, it is suggested, he may resort to more intrusive social controls, surveillance and censorship. Yet increased repression could prompt a career-ending backlash.

Trump’s knee-jerk reaction in pulling up the drawbridge and blaming others is not unique. Fear not facts has led European leaders such as Austria’s Sebastian Kurz to act alone, hastily closing borders and barring people from specific countries. These divisions recall Europe’s chaotic response to the 2015 migrant crisis when governments failed to agree a collective approach.

For the European Union, the pandemic is turning into a political nightmare. The commission in Brussels is struggling to keep up, relaxing rules on deficit spending that have already been broken. Piecemeal, national-level policy-making is a gift to Eurosceptics, not least rightwing populists keen to exploit splits, and could have lasting consequences for European cohesion. Public confidence may take a big hit.

There’s no doubt politicians face genuine dilemmas. In Italy, Europe’s worst-affected state, the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, was initially attacked for doing too much, by ordering widespread testing in Lombardy, and subsequently for doing too little. What is certain is that Italy has received little help from the rest of Europe – the subject of a bitter complaint last week.

Now that Italy is in total lockdown, it is being studied like a laboratory guinea pig. Boris Johnson, aware, like other leaders, that his reputation is at stake, treads a fine line between similarly drastic measures and “keep calm and carry on” stoicism. If it all goes wrong, his defence will be that he followed medical advice. Suddenly, experts are back on top in Britain – if only as potential fall guys.

Many look for leadership to Angela Merkel, Germany’s unflappable chancellor and Europe’s most respected politician. Yet her assessment last week, that Covid-19 would infect two out of three Germans and there was not a lot governments could do about it, was less than reassuring.

Merkel called for “solidarity, common sense and open-heartedness”. But her emphasis on Europe-wide cooperation carried a whiff of hypocrisy. Germany and France have limited exports of protective masks and equipment to safeguard domestic supply – hardly an act of solidarity with the neighbours. Nor is Berlin rushing to bail out floundering eurozone partners.

The parallel absence of an effective, joined-up global strategy is also casting multilateral institutions in an unflattering light. The World Health Organization, the lead UN agency that might be expected to wield decisive influence, appears strangely diffident at times – fearful, perhaps, of provoking a political backlash from heavy-hitters such as China.

Global financial institutions are not doing any better. The IMF has thrown $50bn at the problem. Interest rates have been randomly cut and emergency budgets announced. But compared with the 2008 financial crisis, when governments and central banks collaborated to stave off a banking collapse, international coordination to calm markets and reduce risk is lacking. Virus-related economic damage may thus be worse, and longer lasting, than might have been the case.

Despite all the angst, the WHO’s chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, complained about “alarming levels of inaction” by politicians – and it seems many governments remain in denial. That may be due to vanity (in the case of North Korea’s defiantly face-mask-free Kim Jong-un) or incapacity (in the case of poorer countries). Iran repeatedly denied it had a problem, until its leaders started dying. Now it is reportedly digging mass graves.

Unscrupulous politicians stand accused of using the pandemic as cover for furtive power-grabs. The timing of last week’s high-level purge by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and a constitutional coup by Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, may be coincidental. Or maybe not.

In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu is manoeuvring to stay on as prime minister, despite his corruption trial and his lack of a parliamentary majority, in the face of what he now deems an exceptional national threat. It’s conceivable Trump could use new clashes with militia in Iraq to revive his Iran vendetta – and distract attention from his viral incompetence.

The crisis also raises the danger of governments taking so-called temporary emergency powers and imposing sweeping, illiberal constraints on citizens, journalists and social media that subsequently become permanent. That’s what happened after the 9/11 convulsion, when the US and allies decided to largely ignore international human rights protections in the name of fighting terrorism.

Looked at globally, the politicians’ performance to date has been mostly unimpressive. Yet the fundamental question raised by the pandemic is not one solely for them. It concerns each individual, community, and nation. Will the challenges posed by the virus be allowed to drive us further apart – or used to help bring us closer together? The answer hangs in the balance. It could go either way."

These are the kind of supporters Trump is getting... & somehow seems okay with it

Right wing, racist nutjobs who believe John F. Kennedy Jr. faked his own death to support their cause & their new leader...

The trouble with this is - being the USA, there's enough of them to be a real force. And, being the USA, they're likely well-armed. I'm not saying Australia doesn't have its share of disaffected FITH Syndrome outpatients, but with our smaller population (and better gun laws!!), they're much more invisible & manageable... & their votes wouldn't count for much at election time. That's at least one good thing about the Westminster system

There are political analysts who are very worried about what will happen if Trump is returned for another term later this year. There are political & social analysts who are more worried about what will happen if he loses... I'm with them...

Anti-discrimination... Australian style

In a nutshell, our bible-waving Prime Minister wants to pass legislation ostensibly to protect 'religious freedom', that will, as a by-product, basically allow anyone to spout bigotry & hate speech, without fear of prosecution

Provided you're a white Christian, of course... Guaranteed if you're a Muslim or Aboriginal who speaks your mind, they'll lock you up & deport you. Yes, even if you were born here. I'm certain they'll find a way to send our indigenous people back to Asia "where they came from"... sure it was 60,000+ years ago, but there must be a way...

And it comes, as no surprise, from the Murdoch global media 'empire'...

Global warming is fake, climate change is fake, 'Greenies' are communists, coal is good, greed is better...

Proof that, as Terry Pratchett often wrote in his books, 'A lie can get halfway around the world, before the Truth has got its boots on...'

... on the current fire emergency down here. I left a comment on somebody's Journal that was so long, apparently it got marked as spam, so may not get posted. In that case - here it is, in response to a post & many comments about the loss of our wildlife & the dismal state of our politicians - mostly the Federal ones, I must add... the State leaders have been doing a pretty good job with what they have

Greetings from a burning continent... davesmusictank reposted your entry, which brought me here - thanks Dave!

And yes - it's as bad as they say... Across 3 states, we've lost more livestock & wildlife than you can physically count. The worst affected is Kangaroo Island, off South Australia, where, due to its geographic isolation, unique species evolved & were always endangered, due to low numbers, but the fire which has wiped out 1/3 of the island's habitat, may have wiped out a few species as well. Until the fire is out, we can't even guess...

Koalas are the hardest hit, nationally. Again, their numbers have never been huge, so to lose what is conservatively estimated as half the national population, is a blow that will take generations to repair. The poor little guys aren't exactly built for speed at the best of times, so fires that have raced through at more than 60km/h meant they were doomed

I can't/won't defend our inept Federal Government full of coal-enriched climate change deniers, but the problem is certainly political as well as environmental. The Greens voted down a carbon emissions tax almost 10 years ago, that would have changed the way Australia managed its pollution & they did it for no good reason other than spite, because of in-fighting within the party & a beef with the then Labor Government. They also put pressure on State Governments every time a back-burning, or hazard reduction burn was scheduled, saying it was bad for the environment, which is one reason there's been so much material to burn in these fires. The fact there's been a Liberal Government in power since 2013, full of those aforementioned deniers, has only made both the political & natural landscapes even worse - their blinkered focus on the economy has alienated many other parties & has divided the country down a strict left vs right battle line, with the supposed 'left' being in favour of refugee rights, climate change action & better social policy & the 'right' being supporters of an ever-more intolerant & intransigent status quo that excludes migrants & thinks coal is the only power source on the planet. I'd like to say it's a generational thing & it's just the older people spouting that kind of bile, but there's a bunch of younger people listening... & believing them

The other reason nowhere near enough hazard clearance burning has been done, is the nation-wide drought we've had for years now. Plants & soil have become drier & therefore infinitely more combustible, so it's quite dangerous to even do small reduction burns, because of the risk it could become something much worse. This is actually how at least one of the fires recently started, when a back-burning operation was hit with a strong wind change & rapidly got out of control

If you want to blame anything, blame the Indian Ocean Dipole, a weather system that is causing flooding in Eastern Africa & drought in Australia - all the water is going to the wrong places! You can also blame the El Nino/La Nina weather systems in the South Pacific. These have both been causing problems for Australia for decades, but, it must be said, global warming has exacerbated their effects & there's no indication it's going to get any better...

Welcome to the new 'normal'. The world has changed & will keep changing. WE need to keep up!!

Again, I'd like to think I've now ranted enough, but I somehow doubt it. This crisis isn't over...