If there's one thing the current pandemic shows us is that we're in some kind of weird hiatus from civilisation as we struggle to find a way back to business-as-usual. The very pandemic and its murky origins tells us that we've reached some limit to our economic growth, but there are the usual insane Murdoch-media-influence denials of this very simple fact.
The Coronavirus has been around for many a millennia. It has been living in the part of the ecosystem involving either bats or pangolins, which is distant to the part of the ecosystem involving homo sapiens. It is only through our unnecessary intrusion into the bat/pangolin inhabited parts of the ecosystem that has brought about this massive invasion from this virus.
The virus for its part has been involved with whatever host animal for a long time, as it seems to have evolved interesting mechanisms to bypass the immune system mammals. This is in turn limiting the effectiveness of our vaccine as the virus evolves further means to evade our immune systems. We may never know from which group this virus emerged because the communist party leadership in China will continue to resist any probe to determine its origins, but one thing is certain - we wouldn't have come across this thing if we didn't push into places we didn't need to go. We just can't be eating bat soup and pangolin pies.
And that in a nutshell of our modern global economy hitting a physical limit. Global Warming is another. If we keep on digging up fossil fuels to be burnt for energy, we will fuck up the atmosphere so much it will be like we moved to Venus. Heck, maybe there used to be Venusians. And the Venusians had their own civilisation and culture and industries and entertainment and diversions, only for it to produce too much greenhouse gasses. Maybe they even had a Venusian Murdoch Press that tried to deny it all. In any case the way Venus is today is exactly where we're headed if we don't change how we go about things with our civilisation. You can stick that into your objectivity pipe and smoke it.
It's daft to be opening up a coal mine in this part of world history.
Last week saw reports that Twiggy forrest turn over 4 billion dollars in the last financial year. I mean success is nice but what the hell is he going to do with all that money? The man's net worth is $27.2 billion. You have to wonder what the bloody hell he could spend it all on before he dies. I normally don't begrudge successful people their money. If you're Elon Musk and you somehow managed to get to the top of the heap, I doff my cap to you. Having your own space programme? Starting up an electric vehicle company? These are things I might do too if I sat on billions. But Twiggy? I really don't know what on earth he does with his time and money. In fact even his Order of Australia seems to be a product of political donations more than anything else.
A quick look at his Wikipedia page has a section on his alleged philanthropy:
"We hope to help empower individuals and families currently suffering the despair of poverty, slavery and the lack of opportunity for themselves and their children. We feel that if we all do whatever we can with whatever we have, large or small, then each of us will help make our world a more equitable and positive environment for others to thrive in."
— Andrew and Nicola Forrest, February 2013
Well that's a joke. If he's making 4 billion a year and farts around doing unspecified stuff while 'empowering' people - what does that mean anyway? - how exactly is that making the world more equitable? If you're selling coal, how the fuck are you making a positive environment in any way shape or form?
Through the influence of Scotty Black, Forrest started the GenerationOne project,[84][18] with assistance from James Packer and Kerry Stokes, who each donated A$2 million, along with the support of their respective media stations, Channel 9 and Channel 7.[85] GenerationOne and the Australian Children's Trust help to create sustainable solutions on addressing social disadvantage.[86] With Kevin Rudd, Forrest launched the Australian Employment Covenant,[86] that campaigned for businesses to hire Indigenous Australians, as they could "add value" to Australian businesses because they were "professional and reliable and wonderful" and that there is no reason for Indigenous disparity.[18][87] GenerationOne ran a series of television advertisements privately funded by Forrest, Packer and Stokes.[88] Between 2008 and 2011, Forrest obtained 253 business signatories to his covenant.[87] With Rudd, Forrest planned to employ 50,000 Aboriginal people.[89][90] As the two-year deadline approached, estimates put the number of Indigenous job placements under the scheme at around 2,800, well short of the original goal.[91]
That's pretty laughable. Maybe there aren't 50,000 Aboriginal people who want to work for people who condescend to employ them? That is sort of reached 5.6% of the target is like a damnation of the very paradigm he's waving around.
Forrest is opposed to welfare dependency for Indigenous Australians.[92] He has recounted stories of young Aboriginal girls in the Pilbara offering men sex for cigarettes. Five Indigenous women from the region to collectively lodged a complaint with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission that Forrest's comment was racist and vilified the community.[93] Forrest has been publicly accused of engaging in questionable methods of land acquisition,[94][95] and has had accusations levelled at his company for failing Indigenous trainees at FMG's vocational training centre in Port Hedland.[96]
In 2013, Forrest was chosen to lead an Australian Government review into Indigenous employment and training programs.[97] Delivered on 1 August 2014 with 27 recommendations,[98] the review proposed the creation of the Cashless Welfare Card.[99]
Well of course he's against welfare dependency - it means more taxes have to be spent on welfare if people are 'welfare dependent' and that could only mean one thing, more taxes for high earners like him. What a self-serving joke that he thinks welfare dependency is the problem.
Forrest's daughter, Grace volunteered at an orphanage in Nepal and discovered the children she had looked after had been trafficked to be sex slaves in the Middle East. This distressed Grace and motivated her father to act.[100][101] Grace, aged 21 years, said at a 2014 interfaith meeting held at the Vatican, "I feel like a puppet for hundreds of thousands of girls who are voiceless – if I can stand for them, that is what I'm here to do."[102]
Forrest established the Walk Free Foundation in 2010 to fight modern slavery.[103] In 2013 the organisation launched the Global Slavery Index ranking 162 countries "based on a combined measure of three factors: estimated prevalence of modern slavery by population, a measure of child marriage, and a measure of human trafficking in and out of a country".[104] The Index estimates there are 29 million slaves worldwide, roughly half in India and Pakistan.[101] In January 2014, Forrest announced a deal with Pakistan to do away with more than two million slaves in return for cheap coal.[105]
He traded coal for 2 million slaves! What a hero. With any luck that coal will raise the sea level and sink Pakistan... maybe? All because his daughter told him to grow a conscience. Pretty sad.
When I heard the news [that all parties had agreed to the venture] I have to admit I became emotional. This is going to change everything. This is set up like a high-achieving, measurement-driven, totally target-oriented company, it's like a hard-edged business. We are out to defeat slavery, we are not out to feel good. This is our mission. You see the complete hopelessness in the eyes [of enslaved people]. It’s like I’m stuck, I will never get help, I am dirt. Then you know that you can’t rest until you free them.
h went around meeting people with big job titles up to and including the Pope. They got together and made a declaration that slavery is bad. Jesus wept, you think the world doesn't know? How exactly is this philanthropic?
As of September 2007, Forrest had injected A$90 million into his children's charity.[83] Philanthropic activity has included gifts to his alma mater, Hale School;[107] participation in the St Vincent de Paul Society CEO sleepouts;[108] and a gift from the proceeds of the sale of 5,000 tonnes (5,500 short tons) of iron ore to the Chinese earthquake relief effort.[51] In October 2013 it was announced that Forrest was to donate A$65 million towards higher education in Western Australia. At the time the sum was believed to be the highest philanthropic donation in Australia, with most going toward funding scholarships.[109]
The Minderoo Foundation, Forrest's private foundation, was renamed as the Minderoo Group is to be expanded to include higher education contributions. The foundation has given A$270 million through the foundation since 2001.[110] In 2014, Andrew and Nicola Forrest pledged A$65 million over ten years through the Minderoo Foundation, establishing the Forrest Research Foundation to offer scholarships to students pursuing a PhD at a Western Australian university.[111][112] In 2017 Forrest donated A$400 million to medical research and social causes,[113] and in 2019 donated a further A$655 million to expand the existing work of the Minderoo Foundation in areas including cancer research, early childhood development, ocean health, and eliminating modern slavery, the largest ever living donation by any Australian philanthropist.[114]
What can I say? That's all kinds of laughable.
So my point is this: he's not doing anything useful, sensible, or valuable with his charitable works. He's just wasting his time. It would be better to just tax him and give that money to government services that need it and can do a better job. I'm not saying take his whole 4 billion. But if you took 50% and left him with 2 billion for this year, is it really going to impact his life adversely? I mean, this is the same arsehole who campaigned against the Mining Tax. He should be the one to be paying more.
