Is China Working At All?

Let's Talk China For A (Minsky) Moment

For over a decade now, there's been this talk about China being too indebted, and how its economy was built around real estate speculation, and how the property bubble was going to burst, and once that happened the entire Chinese economy was going to come down like a house of cards. For over ten years, I've been writing about how the wealth disparity, the education disparity, the income disparity, opaque and misleading government datas on its economy, and so on would eventually bring about a crisis. If the solution was evermore debt, there had to be a moment when China, with all its misapplied industrial might and ghost cities and multi-generational mortgages for unbuilt housing, and all the excess of their developers, would have to have its Minsky moment. 

I blogged about it a lot. And then some. In 2016 the share market bubble in China burst. Somehow the CCP government managed to stave off the inevitable once again and quarantined the fallout from bursting the property bubble. Nobody talks about it, but that's what they did. Otherwise world markets would have felt it. It worked so well and smoothly it made us all look like idiots for calling the China Bubble as having burst. And for over ten years, that Minsky moment that collapses debt-fuelled bubbles never seemed to arrive. Until earlier this year when over 300 regional banks faced bank runs. 

Now that it has, we've all got to be wondering the same thing: will Xi Jinping reverse course and let the free money flow? Because that's what they had done for most of the last decade; and after all, that's what they always do. It is possible they won't do so, and they let the whole shebang go? But then the social turmoil that would follow would become revolutionary. So if they want to stave off a revolution, they need to going back to delivering economic growth for everybody. 

Will they or won't they? Does anybody care? The weird thing is they look to be in policy paralysis when it comes to the economy. 

Not Your Daddy's China Now

The world needs a massive readjustment to China. Some parts of the world are re-orienting their stance faster than others. Certainly any time that Paul Keating pops his head up to tell us Asia is our future and China is our friend, he looks well and truly out of date. He was right between 1978 and 2012. Even with the Tiananmen Massacre of 1989, we all collectively held our noses at the the Chinese Communist Party's predilection for violent control and did business with the Chinese because it was so clearly the greater good (if by 'greater good' you mean globalised greater profits). Somehow China went from a nation where everybody was wearing heir strange national uniforms to a country where designer goods and luxury items are consumed by a fully modernised populace. We languidly thought if everybody in China became consumers, democracy would follow. I don't know why we chose to tell ourselves that, but that's exactly what we did and we couldn't have been more wrong. 

All the same, China could be counted on to be a good participant in the global trade stakes, and it behaved like an economy-first developing nation. You could charge China as having been an economic animal under  Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, forever seeking export markets and flooding the world with cheap goods. Across that time they exported so much deflation, it allowed Central Banks around the world to run low interest rate regimes. China plugged itself into global markets for the first time in history - I don't say this lightly - and reaped the tremendous benefits of globalisation like no other nation. 

And having succeeded in doing so, Xi's China has decided it wants to be a political animal instead. In the last decade under Xi Jinping, Chinese labour has gone up. It has started to prosecute territorial claims aggressively. It has devised a strange policy of 'wolf warrior diplomacy" where their diplomats say undiplomatic things. It has left a lot of people wondering if they are even friendly. The most you could say about Xi's China is perhaps John Lennon's refrain about revolutions, "but when you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow". Xi Jinping's China is a very different animal to the China that existed before his leadership. 

Back To The Future?

The world is taking stock right now in the wake of Xi Jinping being made the lifetime dictator of China. Arguably, this was not supposed to happen. The rising living standards of China were supposed to bring about a gradual change where China would transition from a military Junta of communists towards a democracy. Of course this kind of transition happened in Taiwan, but Taiwan is not shackled with the curse of considering itself a great power. Just as Russia failed in its transition from the Politburo to democracy and ended up with Vladimir Putin, China too has utterly failed to make a transition out of its Politburo system. Laughably the CCP even argued the Politburo was democratic and therefor China had its own version of democracy - which just goes to show how little they understand of democracy. 

The strangeness of our times is such that we now have a leader of Russia with a view to turn back borders to 1955, paired with a Chinese leader who wants to go back to the leadership style of 1955. With both countries using their resources as bargaining chips, it's strange to watch these leaders try to bargain their way back to an imaginary glory in the past. The uneasy alliance between Russia and China certainly looks like a re-run of the uneasy alliance between Stalin and Mao. I imagine there are a lot of people waking up to a world with a cold war and belligerent Maoists, and feeling a bit of deja vu.  

The future of China led by Xi is distinctly unappealing. You wouldn't want to invest more capital there, and you wouldn't want to hire the labour there with its rapidly rising cost. The sovereign risk is no joke. The demographics are aligned in the direction of an ageing population with shrinking economy so it's not like there's much scope for the domestic demand to take over. The country is sliding towards an awkward 20th Century style of nationalism that may well get them into armed conflict with its neighbours and it's still a country with over a billion people with 37% food security. Now is not the time to ignore economics for their leadership, but here we are witnessing how they ditch economics in favour of nationalist ideology. 

It does make you wonder.

Justice For Lewis II

Democracy, When Everybody Suffers

I'm still bummed about just how many animals lost their lives in the Black Summer bushfires. 

I've tried a few times to come at it here but I end up writing ever more of the same kind of denunciation of the current government. It's hard to denounce tis government in new ways given that the way in which they are profoundly so fucked is so singular. At a certain point we have to swallow our discontent and reservations and say it is what it is. 

Still, I can't help but wonder if I had any control over the events; and about the only control I had was to vote against this government who had basically jettisoned any idea of proper emissions control back in 2014. I've voted against theme every time, and still they kept winning the hearts and minds of arseholes who think emissions control shouldn't happen or should cost them nothing. A lot of them claim to be patriots which is laughable because how could you claim to love this land if you're willing to let whole ecosystems go up in smoke? Those people have no credibility. We should be incredulous. 

And still they are in power, letting bad shit happen and claiming not to "hold the hose". It's that kind of hands-off-the-wheel impression this government gives off about anything to do with Global Warming that gets my goat. If they had listened to the professional advice, they would have acted accordingly and put some money aside for the necessary equipment and labour for the fire season ahead. Instead they cut those budgets and spent it on pork barrelling sports rorts instead. After they won their 'miraculous' election (pardon me while I go vomit), they were bewildered to find they still held office and had pressing responsibilities. 

It's not that the fires came from nowhere - the government was warned by experts. For them to pretend that things were out of control because this was all 'acts fo God' was ridiculous to the extreme. On some level we can say we brought this on ourselves for having voted in this mendacious government. Except the animals that perished in the fires didn't get a vote - They for one didn't vote for this shitty government. They didn't ask for this mess. What happened to them was totally tragic.  

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This Is The Shit You Voted For II

The Shit For Which You Voted, Part 2

If you've been a long time reader of this blog, you know I'm staunchly in favour of liberal democracy over fascism or communism or abject anarchy. So what I'm about to write next needs that stated before proceeding because I don't want this to be interpreted as a fascist screed railing against populism. 

One of the vexing things about democracy is that the majority gets their way even if it's a bad idea. That's kind of it. It's a natural derivative of the decision making chain, but the way it works out for big policy items is terrible. Global Warming has been on the agenda since the late 1980s. Since then I've watched as successive Australian governments mostly tried to put off doing anything about Global Warming. The early list of recalcitrants include Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, and John Howard. John Howard was particularly bad in that he kept pushing off the discussion, striking the pose of a reasonable sceptic. Maybe the scientists were wrong, he argued. Like, all of them? Really? 

Kevin Rudd was the only Prime Minister who went to election claiming Global Warming was indeed a priority issue, and thanks to a drought at the time he was able to drive that point home and win. He went to Copenhagen to negotiate something tangible and as Copenhagen talks failed, he expended his political capital. Then, of course Rudd was undone by Julia Gillard who promptly went to election promising not to do anything about Global Warming (and was forced to the table to negotiate with the Greens who made her do something-not-nothing). Tony Abbott used that back-up to get into government with the promise to undo what the Gillard/ALP-Green government had done. He had no intention of doing anything about Global Warming. Malcolm Turnbull who replaced him ostensibly did want to do something about it, but his denialist party hamstring him enough that he could not do anything - but that is of course like a dog eating his homework. He was then unseated by our current imbecile Prime Minister Scomo who is aspirational about zero emissions by 2050. Will he do anything about it? Not if his new deputy PM and erstwhile denialist nut job Barnaby Joyce has anything to say - and of course Joyce has a lot of dumb things to say about climate. 

The personally alarming thing about that sequence of bad-for-the-environment Australian Governments is that it covers 30 years and only the 3 years with Kevin Rudd marked a moment of leadership on Global Warming. 90% of the time, our governments put other things as their priority. Now, I'm not crazy, I understand things like Mabo, tighter gun laws, Post-9/11-war-on-terror, disability insurance, and budget deficits are kind of important. Be that as it may, we all live on this planet and if we fuck it all up, there's no point having surpluses on budgets or Aboriginal Native Titles on a scorched Earth. I'm sorry but that's just the pragmatic reality. I was about to include the GFC on that list but amazingly Kevin Rudd's government was dealing with that while still putting Global Warming front and centre. He had his faults but his priorities were not one of them. In fact, with hindsight his time in government looks much better than the press of the time described. 

The really disappointing thing is that through that 30 years - and more before even then - I have been voting for people who put Global Warming as something that needs to be addressed; and what that has amounted to is a lot of lost elections for my votes. Understand this: my conscience on the issue of Global Warming is clear. I might have had the dubious moment where I voted for Mark Latham's ALP when he was in charge, but to be fair, he had a better policy platform on Global Warming than John Howard who poo-poo-ed the notion at that election. For all my time voting on the issue, I've got bupkis for it. Nada. The debate has remained fixed along idiotic lines with nary a policy worth shit.  

It's enough to make you wonder if Democracy has failed itself. Consider the extent to which China with its authoritarian Communism with paranoid characteristics, has managed to swing towards renewables. It's a little like how Fascist governments were able to massively industrialise at the drop of the hat back in the early 1930s. It's enough to draw in some kind of approval from the rest of the world. Here we are in Australia with one of he most robust democracies in the world, and somehow we can't get our shit together to deal with Global Warming. Meanwhile there's paranoid authoritarian China doing its part to stave off the calamity. It makes you wonder about democracy itself, no? Just why is it that we somehow can't deal with the Big Picture ticket item when we put things to a vote? 

The answer is of course the strident Murdoch media outlets with their hectoring, bulling, irrational hostility towards anybody who wants to do anything about it, but the big bill will be coming their way just as it will come to you and I. Murdoch with his money and influence, kept winning while I kept losing out. The way I see it, they have more houses that can't be insured ready to be burnt down by firestorms or washed away by mega-storms or just generally more crap to lose in Global Warming. So we'll see who's laughing when their part of the world goes up in smoke is or is washed away in storm waters. Me? I don't have kids who will inherit this sorry Earth ruined by rapacious capitalism and industrialisation. I don't have a house, I don't have any serious assets vulnerable to Global Warming. I might lose my car in flash floods, that's about it. 

I think there should be a clause in democracy that says if you keep getting out-voted and your interests just aren't met over a prolonged period, you should be able to withhold paying taxes. I mean let's face it, I didn't vote for this shit. They did. Why the hell should I be lumped with the costs of their bad decisions? 

This is exactly the shit they voted for.

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Annastacia's Coal Mine II

Speaking Of Coal Mines... Who's Going To Pay For The Damages?

There's a fellow over at Extinction Rebellion who has an important post that I want to quote from. No, I didn't get his permission, but I'm sure he'd like his thoughts spread far and wide so, I imagine he'd be okay with it. Besides which I make no money here on this blog. If he wants a percentage, he can ask for whatever percentage of nothing. I'm sorry  - but we're all in this together so, let's unpack this...

One of key reasons why XR is being unsuccessful is because it refuses to communicate accurately and concretely in everyday language what is going to happen in the next two decades. This can be summed up in six words: the fiscal crisis of the state. Forget dolphins, whales and icesheets – there is only one reality here and it is what the state does when it runs out of money. This has very little to do with politics or values – it’s much deeper than that. The first principle of the state is to maintain itself. And when it experiences extreme economic stress it raids society to get cash. This means it takes money from unproductive parts of the society to pay for the parts that are productive. So, for instance, in World War Two the UK government raided the assets of the rich to pay for the war. This was done by Tory MPs – it was not a matter of politics but national survival. So you know what is going happen in a decade or so when western countries are having to pay for the massive cost of electrifying their economies, retro fitting their entire housing stock, and dealing with “defence” costs of social breakdown in the sub tropics: it’s going to raid the pensions of my generation. The brutal reality is that the interests of the retired won’t matter.

And that right there should be grabbing the attention of politicians right now. If they leave Global Warming off the priority to-do list, the bill is going to come in sooner than you think, and it's going to be bigger than you think, and society is going to suffer greatly to pay that bill. So who will governments raid to pay for that bill? 

Well just consider that our children and their children will have no motivation to act any differently than us. Payback time is coming. It could be merely structural. The younger generation will come to power and the logic of the state, as mentioned, will lead to the rapid impoverishment of my generation, presently in our 40’s and 50’s as we get into our 60’s and 70’s. But more likely there will be a visceral contempt: you created this shit and so you can pay for it. Polluters pay and all that. We are not heading into some ecological steady state circular economy new civilisation. Much more likely we are heading into a time when people over 60 will be spat at as they walk down the street, and be literally left to die in urine stinking death homes.

It gets very frank:

If you want to speak with some effectiveness about the actual reality of the climate crisis to the public, this is what you have to start talking about. <edit> In 2021 our governments are locking in this horrendous social stress because my generation of adults are refusing to go into civil resistance to stop it. It’s as simple as that. This is our war, but we are refusing to fight it.

Unsurprisingly this part of the talk along with the other “tell the truth” sections were taken out by the middle class liberal “let’s not upset people” regime that soon took over XR. But taking things out of talks which upset you does not stop then from happening: that is the post modernist conceit.

That much I can agree with wholeheartedly. The mere substitution of 'Climate Change' for 'Global Warming' was one of the most dishonest swicheroos pulled exactly because governments didn't want people to panic. Truth be known, Greta Thunberg is right: we all need to panic like our houses are on fire, because, they are. 

If you're into scary truths - and you ought to be - you can find his lecture here:

O what joy that was. 

Consider too that video was from 2018. 3 years on, I'd say we're even firmly deeper into the shit than we were then, and still the Australian Government is in denial mode. Last I checked, the Carmichael Mine is celebrating for striking first load in June this year. 

I mean, seriously, how fucked are we? 

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Where Things Turned South For Hong Kong

How Hong Kong Protesters Screwed The Pooch 

The following is a comment from R.S. who wanted to tell me a few things about the subsequent developments since the handover. I will put it here without editorialising it. It's well worth the read because it comes from the heartland of HK politics, if HK could said to have a heartland in its polity.  

There are links at the bottom which are well worth a check.

---->

Gday mate. I tried to post a comment in your blog but it only allows me 4000 characters! Where to start?

Interesting post but like all things in life, things are usually a bit more complicated than what you normally see and there are many shades of grey in between.

I guess since the ‘97 Handover, Hong Kongers, particularly its youth, have had a hard time accepting that they were in fact now under the guise of the Chinese motherland. It’s still pretty weird to me now, more than 20 years later, that they play the Chinese national anthem every night after the News on TV and on the radio. I cannot imagine what it is like for a child born after 1997 to hear this Communist patriotic anthem and try and relate this to life in HK. In the last few years at sporting events in HK, where the HK national team were competing against another team, they would play the Chinese national anthem and spectators would stand up and turn their backs to the sporting arena and hold up their middle finger! What patriots! Go team! 

What really pushed HK to where we are now, were the “pro-Democracy” demonstrations of 2019 where the city descended into sheer utter madness for months on end as hordes of black clad boys and girls in hard hats, goggles and umbrellas, would wander particular areas of HK and cause unbelievable chaos under the banner of “democracy”. This was totally different to the Occupy Central Student protests in 2014 which was mainly non-violent and had a totally different vibe. The 2019 protests had no “leaders” and caused utter destruction to public property, trash businesses that they “believed” were pro-government, mainland banking offices and any business that had the slightest leaning towards being Pro-Government. They would stop traffic and blockade public roads. Anyone that dared to confront them were quickly backed up by other angry hordes of protesters. When the police finally arrived after 30mins, they’d all disappear within minutes. And since they were all wearing black, you weren’t able to tell who were the troublemakers and who were there just standing by.

There were 3 things that really pissed off a lot of people that were initially sympathetic to the Democratic cause.

1. The storming and defacing of the Hong Kong Legislative building - This would be the equivalent to storming of Parliament House in Canberra or the Capitol Building in Washington. The HK Riot police eventually gave up trying to defend the building from the inside as it was inevitable from the number of protesters outside that they would eventually break through. The police eventually fully retreated, hoping that the angry mob would just leave after they broke in. It eventually turnout out to be a PR disaster for the pro democracy movement as nothing was achieved except for the filming and documentation of those that did the violent storming (who were later arrested or who were afraid of being arrested, eventually fled HK). Government offices and equipment were mindlessly trashed and the legislative chamber was occupied and defaced and graffitied. Even that didn’t happen in The Capitol Building! Millions of taxpayers dollars were spent afterwards on the damaged property. The Proud Boys would have been….well “Proud”.  

2. The shutdown of the Hong Kong International Airport for 2days by anti-government protesters - This was sad sad day for the symbol of the free wheeling economy of HK. Named the busiest Airport in the world since 1996, it handled around 70million passengers in 2019. For it to be completely shut down for two days in the name of “democracy” was just outrageous. Protesters blocked departing non HK passengers that were leaving to go home or to other destinations and argued that it was to draw attention to their cause. ie cause as much chaos to Hong Kong and to the image of Hong Kong so that the government will back down and accede to their demands. Yeah right. What they did do was cause economic pain and inconvenience to everyone including international travellers. You could tell in the days before the standoff that things were going to descend into something ugly, when they occupied the Arrivals Hall for several days and handed out fliers and took to beating up anyone (mainly mainlanders coming back to HK) that disagreed with their demands to the Government.

3. The siege and standoff of PolyTechnic University  - This is the equivalent to UTS in Sydney, where students and high schoolers literally took to the grounds surrounding the university campus and occupied it for a week while battling riot police. Not only did they trash the University completely, but they trashed the surrounding areas to the university by digging up bricks and laying them around the outside so that the Riot police would not be able to approach them in armoured vehicles. They lobbed Molotov cocktails off the roof of the campus and used giant catapaults to attack the police on the ground. Sporting equipment from the university were used as weapons and real bow and arrows were fired into the the police. It was completely insane and scenes were like something out of Beirut. The police eventually starved the students out as they had no food or water, as one by one they walked out of the only entrance that was not blocked. Some protesters tried to escape by going into the underground sewerage system. (Not a good idea in HK!) When the police eventually moved in, they found thousands of unused Molotov cocktails that were piled up in the student courtyard and the Chemistry Department has been completely raided of its most toxic chemicals. After the siege, the university was boarded up and sealed off for 6months as they cleaned up the defaced halls and damaged rooms. Again all paid for by the taxpayer. 

So after much social upheaval and constant rioting that became increasing violent (on both sides), the CCP introduced the National Security Law to quell and prevent crimes of secession, subversion, sedition and collusion with foreign forces, carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. After this law was passed, all political demonstrations and any rioting immediately stopped. It was like switching on a light.

So yeah, here we are now. Yes they are putting people in jail now using the National Security Law and yes you can’t say shit about the Government now. But at least its back to business (or work from home) and there are no nightly reports of Molotov cocktails being tossed into the MTR stations and MTR station entrances being lit on fire. No mass acts of violence or major disruptions. Trying to impose a democratic system on HK now is further away than ever. Those students really did stuff things up for themselves. And hence that’s why most of them will leave eventually.

Some clips from those times:

https://youtu.be/QtsR5JpF5aU

https://youtu.be/m_0-x_2l3XE

https://youtu.be/YHCArqqE9rE

Cheers mate. Keep up with the posts!

Justice For Lewis

A Year Later I'm Still Upset

Some things are just too awful to let pass. That's how I feel about the mega-fires that visited our land in the summer of 2019-2020. Combined with the unpreparedness, the wilful ignorance of the Federal Government, runaway heatwaves, under-investment in infrastructure for dealing with mega-fires, and you had a catastrophic failure of leadership that manifested as a total, unmitigated disaster. 

And it's one thing if idiot Queenslanders voted for Clive Palmer's mob as a 'hedge' and found themselves with this terrifyingly incompetent government were the ones getting burned out of their houses. Instead it was innocent wildlife was getting hurt and killed in these fires. You can blame the idiot humans who voted for the idiot government, but the wildlife is blame-free - and yet they bore the burnt of the consequence.

I'm not some Animal Liberationist nut job - but even I can see how disproportionately the piling up of bad decisions and their horrible consequences are falling upon those without the power to withstand it, or change it, move away from it, or voice their concerns. 

When you see footage of people rescuing wildlife amid the chaos and turmoil of the fires, you have to ask yourself, how exactly did we get to this point? When will the comeuppance visit themselves upon those who are ostensibly responsible for this land, the idiot politicians? Why do the animals have to lose their dwellings for the idiot politicians' bad decisions? Why can't the idiot politicians lose their houses and family and habitat? 

There's really no justice on that account. There ought to be. I'll leave it at that. 

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Screams of Burning Koalas

 Can't Express Fully How Angry I Still Am

Suffice to say the accounts of what happened last summer in Australia were harrowing as they were bewildering. Harrowing because so many lives were lost, not just humans but much wildlife as well. Some put th e figures at 1 billion. It might have been conservative. It was also bewildering because the Australian government's preparation and response to the Firesign general were all too slow, inadequate and mostly laughable if the tragedy unfolding weren't so dire. 

Mallacoota on New Years Eve sounded like Hell had landed and started dancing on everybody's heads. 

People spent the night in the waters off the pier, up to their necks in the waves as they watched the sky glow red and black embers fell and they could hear screams of burning koalas from the burning tree tops. It's not way to bring in the new year. People talk about how bad 2020 was in relation to the COVID-19 but make no mistake, from Day 1, it was a crap year. 

So yeah, I guess I had to write a song about that. One year on, I'm still livid at the Global Warming Denialism of this Federal Government. I mean yes if we changed out of fossil fuels, it would be a hit the GDP and the wallet of people like Gina and Twiggy Forrest. But honestly, they can wear that pay cut - and they won't exactly starve or lose their houses. Seriously, what price our planet? 

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Gladys The Koala Killer

Amongst Other Terrible Things She Does

Our Premier, the Hon. Premier Gladys Berejiklian is an odd duck, even in the ranks of female politicians who toil in the ranks of conservatives. She must be good at whatever it is politicians do to get ahead of the pack because let's face it, she's got the weird woggy surname, and a visage that is most unlike that of say a TV breakfast host intros country. She seems to be nice on some level, compassionate, even. You wouldn't want to be the guy wagging a finger at her telling her her policies stink, lest people think you're the bully. 

And yet her policies make you want to turn to eco-terrorism. She would countenance the building of these terrible tollways, and chopping down native forests, or putting a coal mine in the middle of a water catchment. Above all, she would name a policy that seems friendly towards the preservation of Koalas but is in fact incentivises for more environmental destruction, not less. It's crazy stuff. And somehow the voting public does not bat a mascara-ed eyelash. We keep going with this insane party in charge, with Gladys at the helm. 

Because of all that, she has earned the moniker, Gladys the Koala Killer. Is it fair? More than plenty! We live in terrible times. She is contributing her part to that terror. 

Thus it seemed appropriate to at least discuss this by writing a song about her being Gladys, the Koala Killer, destroyer of trees, water tables, and the pristine environment of our bushland, amongst other horrible deeds.  

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Lucky Country

Also, The Dumb-Luck Country

I don't want to badmouth my own country but a year on from the massive bushfires, there are days where you just draw a deep sigh.  

When one reflects on everything that happened in Australian politics in the last decade, you're left with a profound sense of lost time. It's all time that could have been spent on doing things better - certainly better than the internecine party-politic-infighting that was a feature of the decade. If the ALP burnt itself out on the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd imbroglio, the Liberal Party regaled with no less than a Turnbull-Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison turn of leadership spills. 6 Prime Minsters in the decade shows the country was in political strife, most over the issue of Climate Change. 

Needless to say the decade was punctuated by an exclamation mark in the massive bushfires last summer and still there is no indication the culture wars over Global Warming has come to an end. There were many villains in the story, but if there was one traitor to this country that deserves special mention, it must be Andrew Robb who sold out this country from his position in government and now receives a fat salary from our burgeoning enemy China. 

All that said, our country lurches on without a policy or apology. just bumbling around trying to find a fig leaf to put over the glaringly obvious absence of a credible climate policy. Again, I won't go into the idiocy of the situation we find ourselves, but it has to beside that making the future precarious through the misapplication of partisan politics is the height of stupidity. As such, it is inescapable to understand that the government we have is a execrable mess. 

So, what exactly is this luckiness we credit ourselves when we must live with such stupidity that undercuts that luck? 

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This Is The Shit You Voted For

I Hope You're Pleased As Punch

It's weird that this comes out the week after the US elections but, it wasn't planned that way. It's a happy coincidence - and honestly, I'm okay with Biden winning. If anything the shit referred to in the song is more in line with the 4 year misrule of the Trump Administration which ignored all the warnings about Climate Change. Indeed, I'm really talking about the 2019 Australian election where the Morrison Government was returned, only to promptly ignore expert warnings about the drought and the catastrophic summer weather that led to the massive fires up and down the east coast. 

I mean, what were people thinking really? In the olden days I would've come on tooth's blog and vented but of course nobody is persuaded by some blog telling them they are fuckheads for voting in a conservative government that doesn't believe in Global Warming. Instead, they pretty much need to lose their farms and houses to 40m tall walls of fire roaming the landscape, burning everything to the ground. 

As such the only thing left for me is to write a song about it and stick it out there, commemorating the abject stupidity of the electorate that opted to return this miserable, intellectually stunted, execrable government to office. For indeed they are shit and this is what they voted for. It's a sobering feeling every election to find that at least 48% of your fellow countrymen are willing to burn the planet to make a buck and think that is the most important thing, followed by cutting deficits (or some other piece of economic nonsense). It's amazing how they win more often than not and give us the shit we need not ought to have had.

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View From The Couch - 10/Feb/2017

When Satire Lands A Punch

Donald Trump has rightfully earned himself a lot of satirical blows. What's funny about President Trump is that he's no different to the Donald Trump on 'the Apprentice', which is to say he's just carried his reality TV persona into the White House, and leaks suggest he is fuming that people are able tome fun of him so mercilessly. His hapless advisor Kellyanne Conway has been a faux-pas machine blessing the world with such notions as 'alternative facts' and a totally imaginary 'Bowling Green Massacre'. Then there is his Press Secretary Sean Spicer who just can't land on the truth.

The novelty news of he week has been just how good Melissa McCarthy's take down of Spicer has been (and it really was spot on as well as hilarious) and Spicer meekly offered that perhaps the Saturday night Live crew were being mean. This is was sort of funny coming form the administration that went out of its way to be mean to women and muslims in the first ten days, so it was a bit rich.

All of this got me thinking a bit because I've been watching 'Designated Survivor' on Netflix and truth be told, they who plays the Press Secretary in that show looks ten times more competent than Sean Spicer. Actually, Kiefer Sutherland's accidental President looks to be ten times more competent than the Donald, and both men are having problems filling positions in their administration, even if it is for totally different reasons (I won't spoil it).

What's interesting about the real life chaos in the White House is that after watching 'West Wing', 'House of Cards' and 'Designated Survivor', most people would have a better idea of how to go about presenting for an administration. Clearly that's not the case with these people, Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway. To the extent that politics is a kind of theatre, then what we are seeing is a long-running Broadway show in the Obama Administration giving way to an underground variety theatre troupe, sort of trying things out as they go along. As State Actors go, they're terrible talent. Even with Donald Trump's experience with all the camera hogging he's done in all his life, he's actually not really anywhere near a good a talent as Alec Baldwin who is crucifying him. Melissa McCarthy is far more talented than Sean Spicer, and as for Conway, well...

A picture tells a thousand words. She shot her own credibility and all she has as comparison is Beavis.

The last time the SNL crew got it so well was when Tina Fey did her Sarah Palin back in 2008, and again, what was at play was just what an amateur talent Palin was, next to a consummate professional camera talent as Fey. This doesn't mean politicians ought to go to acting school or that - god forbid - more actors should be drafted into politics. It's just that the capacity for well-executed satire to demolish the pretensions of a politician resides in the gap of camera talent. It also explains the fact that the reason Reagan can be revered by so many Republicans is that at the end of the day, Reagan too was a great camera talent despite his track record as a B-Movie actor. The phrase 'B-Movie Actor' probably disparaged and undersold his genuine strengths as camera talent.

It's a peculiar problem of American Democracy because Americans value public speaking so much and so many of their good orators put across dodgy arguments with great presence and presentation. The very nature of charismatic leadership lends it self to image-over-substance and so it is understandable that a reality TV star beats out a field of bad camera talent, as Donald Trump did. It also means the whole system is susceptible to a talent like Donald Trump to short circuit proper discourse and shoehorn himself in to the White House - which is the big irony in all of this stuff. Therefore, as hard as it is to believe, Trump's still okay talent, but he needs to straighten out his act a lot if he wants be taken seriously.

If one casts one's mind back to recent Australian politics, we can see a parallel in the rise of Kevin Rudd, who basically built a demographic support out of a TV audience which over-rode the political considerations. The fact that he was reasonably equipped to tackle the job of leader and then Prime Minister might have been a tangential aspect to his leadership. What really fuelled his rise to theta was in fact his stint as pundit on a morning breakfast show. Similarly, the rise of WTE Joe Hockey to Worst Treasure EVER was facilitated by the very same show appearing opposite Rudd.

That being said, the leader Trump resembles most in the Australian landscape is of course Tony Abbott. Both men stand firm on the side of denying climate change is real, and both men entered their office as the most unpopular incoming leader. It took two years before the Liberal Party felt compelled to remove their leader in TonyAbbott, so we'll see just how long the US Republicans can tolerate the irrational, temperamental, unstable leadership style of Donald Trump.

All this is to say, it's really interesting to find out what an Administration is made of when a satirical punch lands as hard as Melissa McCarthy's turn as Sean Spicer.

There's Something About Donald

On The Eve of Trumpageddon

Nothing about a world given over to billionaires is all that comforting or comfortable. We underestimate just much the 0.1% enrol the wealth of the world and by extension the media and information flow. In most instances we choose not to look into it because in most cases a misguided sense of modesty forbids us to compare ourselves to the stupendously wealthy. but then of course Donald Trump comes along an pecan't but help compare our commons sense against the man and find him wanting. And so it is with his choices for education secretary and chief of EPA and so on. The amazing thing is that the trump Presidency hasn't yet begun as of this writing and already it is feeling like a tired, failed administration.

In that spirit, I'd like to show you a small paper trail on the internet that's been bothering me for the last fortnight.

Here's the first link, sent to me by somebody who reads Russian. I know it's all in Russian, but one can resort to Google Translate and thesis what we get:

Взятка на 10,5 млрд. евро? Путин и Сечин подарили Трампу 19,5% акций «Роснефти»? 

Google Translate: Bribe to 10.5 billion. Euro? Putin and Sechin gave Trump 19.5% of shares of "Rosneft"?

The other entries go:

Доклад отдела разведки, 2016/134, 18 октября 2016, с. 30:
2. Что касается содержания разговоров, то помощник СЕЧИНа сообщил, что президент «Роснефти» настолько заинтересован в снятии западных личных и корпоративных санкций, наложенных на компанию, что он предложил помощникам ПЕЙДЖа/ТРАМПа в обмен брокеридж на 19 процентов (приватизированного) пакета акций в Роснефти. ПЕЙДЖ выразил интерес и подтвердил, что если ТРАМП будет избран президентом США, то тогда антироссийские санкции будут сняты.

Google Translate: The report of the Intelligence Department, 2016/134, 18 October 2016, p. thirty:
2. With regard to the content of conversations, the assistant Sechin said that the president of "Rosneft" is so interested in the removal of personal and corporate Western sanctions imposed on the company, he suggested assistants Paige / Trump exchange brokerage by 19 percent (privatized) stake in Rosneft. PAGE expressed interest and confirmed that if TRUMP will be elected president of the United States, then the anti-Russian sanctions are lifted.

Company Intelligence Report 2016/134, 18 October 2016, p.30:
2. In terms of the substance of their discussions, SECHIN’s associate said that the Rosneft president was so keen to lift personal and corporate western sanctions imposed on the company, that he offered PAGE/TRUMP’s associates the brokerage of up to a 19 per cent (privatised) stake in Rosneft in return. PAGE has expressed interest and confirmed that were TRUMP elected US president, then sanctions on Russia would be lifted.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984-Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.html

If that's not interesting, here's another block:

Москва, Кремль, 7 декабря 2016 г., 22:00:
В.Путин: Игорь Иванович, хочу Вас поздравить с завершением приватизационной сделки по реализации крупного пакета нашей ведущей нефтегазовой компании «Роснефть» – 19,5 процента. Сделка совершена на восходящем тренде стоимости нефти, соответственно, это отражается на стоимости самой компании.
В этом смысле время очень удачное, да и общий объём сделки значительный – 10,5 миллиарда евро. ...это крупнейшая приватизационная сделка, крупнейшая продажа и приобретение в нефтегазовом секторе в мире за уходящий, 2016 год.
Очень рассчитываю на то, что приход новых инвесторов... приход в органы управления будет улучшать корпоративные процедуры, прозрачность компании и, соответственно, в конечном итоге будет приводить к росту капитализации.
В целом это очень хороший результат. Хочу вас всех, ваших коллег, которые работали по этому направлению, поздравить с этим результатом…
Мы с Вами знаем, что у компании «Роснефтегаз», которая в конечном итоге и должна перечислять деньги в бюджет, есть значительные ресурсы в рублях.
В.Путин: И наших инвесторов, новых участников и акционеров компании «Роснефть», пригласите в Россию, мы их примем на высоком правительственном уровне.
<…>
http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/53431

Google Translate: The Kremlin, Moscow, December 7, 2016 22:00:
Vladimir Putin: Mr Sechin, I want to congratulate you on the completion of the privatization process for the implementation of a large block of our leading oil and gas company "Rosneft" - 19.5 percent. The transaction was executed on the upward trend in oil prices, respectively, is reflected in the value of the company.
In this sense, time is very good, and the total amount of the transaction significantly - to 10.5 billion euros. ... It is the largest privatization deal, the largest sale and purchase of oil and gas sector in the world in the outgoing year 2016.
I very much hope that the arrival of new investors in the coming ... controls will improve corporate procedures, transparency of the company and, accordingly, will ultimately lead to an increase in capitalization.
In general this is a very good result. I want all of you, your colleagues, who have worked in this area, congratulations with this result ...
We both know that the company "Rosneftegas", which ultimately must transfer the money to the budget, there are significant resources in rubles.
Vladimir Putin: And our investors, new members and shareholders of the company "Rosneft", was invited to Russia, we will take them to the highest levels of government.
<...>
http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/53431

Anyway, the fragments are leaks from inside the Kremlin according to this journalist Andrey Illarionov:

On 3 January 2005 Illarionov resigned from his position as presidential representative to the G8.[2] On 21 December 2005, Illarionov declared "This year Russia has become a different country. It is no longer a democratic country. It is no longer a free country". The Washington Post reported that he had cited a recent report by the U.S.-based and government sponsored Freedom House.[3] On 27 December 2005, Illarionov offered his resignation in protest against the government course, saying that Russia was no longer politically free, but ran by an authoritarian elite. "It is one thing to work in a country that is partly free. It is another thing when the political system has changed, and the country has stopped being free and democratic," he said.[4] He also claimed that he had no more ability to influence the government's course and that Kremlin put limits on him expressing his point of view. Illarionov was openly critical to such elements of the Russian economic policy as the Yukosaffair, increasing influence of government officials on large companies such as Gazprom and Rosneft, and at last the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute and the energy policy of Russia in general.[1] Illarionov has also been a proponent of secession of Chechnya.[5]

You get the feeling he's trying to get all this stuff out. According to the original person who sent me the Russian link, Illarionov's contention is that based on the leaks, the Kremlin has had Donald Trump as an asset going back 5 years. It may not have been purely Donald Trump's sea to run for President, and that the 19.5% stake in Rosneft is ear-marked for the Trump family business should he succeed in lifting sanctions on Russia - a sanction designed to hit Putin and his cronies.

Since the new year, this business Trump's dossier has grown, but what seems to have gathered the most traction is not that Trump might be in the control of the Kremlin but that he is being blackmailed by a bit of video showing him participating in Golden showers with Russian prostitutes. Vladimir Putin himself has dismissed the dossier (and also told us that Russian prostitutes are undoubtedly the best in the world) which further muddies the already murky puddle.

All the same, there's a carrot (10.5billion euros from the 19.5% sale of Rosneft); there's stick (the KGB have something on Donald Trump); and the likely cui bono of Putin getting his sanctions lifted. In other words, this is serious boys and girls. Now, maybe Trump was coerced into running, but didn't want to win -which would explain the bizarre flip flops on all the things that would have killed other candidates' chances like the support of the KKK or denigrating a disabled journalist on nationwide TV. They're not things a candidate wants to win goes about doing. but the purpose was not to win, then it makes more sense.

I ran all of the above past somebody else who has Russian links, and they came back with this link which is a compendium of various links that seems to point at shady dealings surrounding Rosneft.

Even with all the conflict of interests going on and the likelihood of early impeachment (what an amazing phrase to be typing I tell you!) Donald Trump may go full steam ahead with lifting sanctions on Putin and his mates in order to collect that 10.5billion euros, just waiting to be paid into Trump Corporation's Swiss bank accounts or wherever he has a tax haven bank account.

I'm telling you, we've never seen anything like this. The world will not end with a bang but amidst laughter from all the gallows humour this man will beget.

From The Pleiades Mailbag - 06/Jan/2017

Standing Rock

Here's a little essay about Standing Rock. The writer likens the stand off to a moment from an imagined Zombie Apocalypse. You can just see that analogy right? Of course, how could those officers lined up to intimidate the Native Americans be so impervious to their own inhumanity? They must be some kind of cultural zombie, right?

At the head of the gathering army of the dead will be a man who brags about his lack of compassion and is so hollowed out by his punishing narcissism that he must compulsively eat our minds with tweets and outrageous behavior so as to fill his emptiness with our attention. His appetite for selfish self-regard seems immense enough to swallow the planet. It’s the appetite the Native-Americans witnessed as the European invasion crossed the continent. Hoisting the false flag of energy independence, our new zombie-in-chief promises a nationwide effort to extract coal, oil and gas offshore and in every natural environment. More pipelines, more strip mines, more deadly warming, more sacrifice zones. 

With Donald Trump a zombie apocalypse arrives, and the Indians at Standing Rock are on the front lines. 

The true origin of this zombie pandemic is of course us, we and the darker angels of our American culture. We are the culture that inspired the world with the ideal of human equality and self-governance. But we are also a culture motivated by fear. It is at work everywhere: in workplace competition, in our paranoia about immigrants, terrorists, ‘liberals,’ the ‘alt-right,’ even and perhaps especially in the pop up ads and blaring commercials that compel us to buy products by making us afraid that we’re lacking something, missing out, not part of the ‘winners.’ Our culture extols the supreme value of the self and is spellbound by narcissists and celebrities, justifies greed as good. Our consumerism, our sense of entitlement and exceptionalism have become part and parcel of the American dream, which in its grossest but most popular form is the dream of a better life filled with ever more comforts, conveniences, frivolous distractions, ersatz privilege (extra legroom on the airplane) and mountainous material possessions, most of them headed for the nearest landfill, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or entangled in a sea bird’s stomach.

Like it or not, American culture in its current form destines our spirits to a disconnection from the Earth. Nature has become something we work to own a piece of in the middle class suburbs, or enjoy on our vacations. Many of us, possibly even most of us, feel helpless pangs when we see evidence of the ecological devastation our ravenous culture is wreaking, but even at our most pained we don’t feel wounds inflicted on the Earth as the Indigenous peoples do. During the three presidential debates no question was asked the candidates about environmental issues, and we Americans accepted that as okay. We have become deadened, zombie-fied. Now, as a country, we have chosen to elect a president pledged to perpetrate a conspiracy theory, a grand delusion reality show denying that any environmental crisis even exists. Whisked from their busy human bodies, more spirits will go missing, “lost.” The zombie apocalypse will spread.

Standing Rock, together with the Adani mine in Australia are the two big fossil fuel projects that need to be stopped.

Venezuela Is About To Blow

Venezuela is a troubling nation. Under Hugo Chavez, it was one part populist bullshit as politics, one part military junta-ism, and one part incoherent cult of personality around Hugo Chavez. And while Hugo Chavez himself was kind funky in some small, personal ways - he played a Stratocaster, - as head of government of Venzuela, he sort of ran the country right at financial ruin, a bit like driving the Titanic right at the ice berg. Now, it's looking like crunch time is upon them.

There are, I might add, shades of Gough Whitlam too in what Chavez was able to join his lifetime:

Chavez was intent on utilizing Venezuela’s oil wealth to transform the lives of the masses of the people, instead of allowing it to remain in the hands of the nation’s oligarchs, who used it to fund exorbitant lifestyles redolent of Miami Beach, Monaco, and Beverly Hills. The Venezuelan president undoubtedly kept his word, as over the next decade a social transformation took place in the country, measured in vast improvements in literacy, healthcare, housing, and the overall share of the nation’s wealth redistributed to the poor. Social spending doubled under Chavez from 11.3 percent of GDP in 1998 to 22.8 percent of GDP in 2011. The Gini coefficient, measuring income inequality, improved from one of the highest to one of the lowest in the region.

These achievements should be considered in the context of a relentless attempt by the forces of the right in Venezuela – the oligarchs in control of the private media, big business, and other economic interests – to block, derail, and even overturn the country’s democracy with an attempted coup in 2002, followed by a politically orchestrated strike within the oil industry in 2002-03.

Of course, this was all well and good when oil was fetching US$100 a barrel. What has made Venezuela come unstuck was how the oil prices plunged in the last 18months - pretty much because the Saudi Arabians wanted to kill off the shale oil industry in America.

And that brings us sort of to today.

For good or bad, oil was the economic foundations of the Bolivarian Revolution inspired and led by Hugo Chavez. It is a commodity whose price is so volatile that it can only leave economies dependent on it vulnerable to global factors outwith their control. But this oil dependency cannot be laid at the door of either Chavez or his successor Nicolas Maduro. The country’s underdevelopment had taken root long before they arrived on the scene, a consequence of generations of Venezuela’s unofficial status as US neo colony controlled by a small clique of oligarchs who benefited from this state of affairs. 

Those oligarchs and vested interests never went away. On the contrary, exploiting Chavez’s determination to uphold the most advanced example of mass participatory democracy Latin America has seen, the right in Venezuela has been hyperactive over many years in its efforts to undermine, oppose, and ultimately end everything to do with Chavez and Chavism. In this they have enjoyed Washington’s unflinching support.

It is capitalism not socialism that has failed the people of Venezuela. However it is socialism that is carrying the can. Consequently, as things now stand, the Bolivarian Revolution is teetering on the brink.

It reminds us of Australia and its economic fortunes being tied so closely to coal. The rest of the world is moving on to renewable energy and here we are peddling our fossil fuels to keep our housing bubble going (and really, that's what it's come down to). We might go on about the integrity of our democracy, but structurally speaking, we're not that different to Venezuela. One of these days we might even vote in a hard left leader akin to Gough and you watch how quickly the vested interests and the 1% will manoeuvre to rid us of such a leader. You really can't discount the dynamics of the people who want to keep our country on a losing wicket.

Still, keep thatVenezuela thing in mind...

The Veil Of Niceties Fails Big

How awful were the 2016 US elections? Here's the explanation of the double-bind by which many sensible voters found themselves trapped:

Bernie Sanders put his 12 million primary voters and other supporters in a double-bind. For Sanders supporters, Hillary Clinton epitomized what they despised. Clinton has been: heavily supported by Wall Street and arms dealers; repeatedly pro-war from Iraq to Libya; a friend and admirer of Henry Kissinger, who for Sanders supporters is one of the greatest war criminals in world history; a former board member of the anti-labor union Wal-Mart Board of Directors; a co-sponsor of the Flag-Protection Act of 2005, which included prison terms for those who destroy the flag; and has had an otherwise despicable and untrustworthy history for progressives. 

Bernie Sanders’ choice was to either support someone that his supporters despise and distrust or don’t support Clinton and Trump wins, and the Democratic Party and its media operatives politically assassinate Sanders as was done with Ralph Nader post-2000 election. Sanders’ public reaction was to choose what he had many reasons to believe was a false reality—that Clinton was not going to betray her new-found progressivism. Given Clinton’s history, Sanders had good reason to believe that Clinton as president would likely betray campaign progressive promises and simply blame failure on the Republicans. But rather than choosing Nader’s path, Sanders suppressed the reality of Clinton, and asked his supporters to do the same. 

Many Sanders supporters could not shed the reality of Hillary Clinton’s anti-progressive history and that the Democratic Party establishment had sabotaged Sanders (who the polls had shown had a much better chance than Clinton of beating Trump); and these supporters lost faith in both Sanders and the electoral process and did not vote—a political-self psychotic break of sorts for people who had ardently believed in voting.

Other Sanders supporters followed Sanders’ direction and voted for Clinton, only to find themselves now assaulted by the reality that Sanders had instructed them to support a corrupt political process that resulted in Trump winning anyway.

If you thought the Sanders supporters got it bad, well, maybe you should spare a thought for the Basket of Deplorables after all.

How about Trump supporters? Millions of Trump supporters, even before his inauguration, began having their political-self psychotic break, recognizing that they had been “played,” that Trump had no intention of keeping his campaign promises, and used them to gain power and attention. 

A major issue for Trump supporters was “crony capitalism,” but even before Trump was inaugurated, he orchestrated the Carrier deal of tax breaks for jobs, which was so obviously a betrayal that even Sara Palin decried it calling it “crony capitalism.”
That has not been Trump’s only pre-inauguration betrayal. 

Trump repeatedly promised to “drain the swamp.” The epitome of the “swamp” is the revolving door between the U.S. government and Goldman Sachs, yet Trump’s nominees for his administration include former Goldman Sachs employees Steve Mnuchin for Treasury Secretary and Gary Cohn for National Economic Council. It’s now become increasingly clear that Trump appears to be well on his way to creating the most putrid swamp ever, as he nominated for cabinet positions six of his top donors, as well as several establishment politicians (for example, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s wife Elain Chao as Transportation Secretary; 20-year U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions for Attorney General, and others).

Trump promised his supporters an “anti-politician,” and they received a caricature of a politician who didn’t even wait until he was inaugurated to betray his promises.

It could be worse. It's hard to fathom how, but it well may could be worse. But the important thing is that the message is out for once - "average Americans have no fucking influence on government policy". That's probably true of our own democracy down under in Australia as well. You could easily argue the veil-falling-off moment was when Julia Gillard ousted Kevin Rudd and called an early election to face Tony Abbott who had replaced Malcolm Turnbull as leader of the opposition. Now, it is easily argued that Ms. Gillard was trying to save us from the iniquities of the rule by the Deplorables, after all Tony Abbott represents the absolute naked nadir of intellectual ambition amongst leaders in this country. Even so, she was not successful, and by extension we can see how little control the citizens had over the outcomes.

The Thing That Could Go Wrong Yet

...and there are plenty of things that could go wrong for the Australian economy.

Here's the quick list of the various risks:

1. Car Industry shutdown.
2. Mining investment bust continues
3. Commodity prices snap back down
4. Property Bubble pops
5. Construction boom peaks
6. AAA credit rating is lost
7. Banking crisis in Australia
8. China slowdown 
9. Donald Trump being Donald Trump
10. European disintegration

Some of it reads like fairly reasonable bets. Try the China one for instance:
An ever-present risk for Australia is the economic health of its dominant trading partner.

China's private debt is up there with Australia's as one of the world's highest, with its loosely regulated "shadow banking" sector seen as a key risk for financial crises. 

Beyond a full-scale financial meltdown, there are indications the Chinese Government is planning to renew its economic shift away from heavy industry and construction towards services. 

Last year, China boosted commodity prices through increasing infrastructure spending and relaxing restrictions on real estate investment, as well as cutting its own coal production. 

Even moderate moves to limit growth in those sectors, plus a return to higher Chinese coal output, could see much of last year's commodity price gains unwind and, along with them, the boost to Australia's national income.

I mean, well, yeah. None of those on their own are likely, but there's an element where some of these risks are stacked like dominos. Plus, who knows what happens to Venezuela, and the fallout that would follow that one.

Quick Shots - 27/Nov/2016

Fidel Castro Passes Away

Fidel Castro is dead.

Fidel Castro, the Cuban revolutionary leader who built a communist state on the doorstep of the United States and for five decades defied U.S. efforts to topple him, died on Friday, his younger brother announced to the nation. 

He was 90. 

A towering figure of the second half of the 20th Century,
Castro stayed true to his ideology beyond the collapse of Soviet communism, and retained an aura in parts of the world that had struggled against colonial rule and exploitation.

He had been in poor health since an intestinal ailment nearly killed him in 2006. He formally ceded power to his younger brother two years later. 

Wearing a green military uniform, Cuba's President Raul Castro appeared on state television to announce his brother's death. 

"At 10.29 at night, the chief commander of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, died," he said, without giving a cause of death. 

"Ever onward, to victory," he said, using the slogan of the Cuban revolution.

Tributes poured in from world leaders including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Venezuela's socialist President Nicolas Maduro, who said "revolutionaries of the world must follow his legacy."

It wasn't exactly unexpected, the man was 90.

Somewhat In Defence Of Populism

The whole Trump winning the election situation has the world-knickers in a giant knot. It is as if the western world's left-leaning thinkers have been given a gigantic wedgie by the Bully-in-Chief. As a consequence, there's really not a whole lot of rational coherence going around, but it has to be said the charges that Trump is a populist and this is bad flies in the face of democracy.

Populism, by its very nature only works if the population get up behind the said candidate. A quick Google gives you this definition on 'popuist':

populistˈpɒpjʊlɪst/
nounnoun: populist; plural noun: populists1.
a member or adherent of a political party seeking to represent the interests of ordinary people.
a person who supports or seeks to appeal to the concerns of ordinary people.
"she is something of a populist—her views on immigration resemble those of the right-wing tabloid press"
adjectiveadjective: populist1.
relating to or characteristic of a populist or populists.
"populist tabloid newspapers"

First off, if you're in a democracy, it's really hard to mount an argument that says it is good for the democracy for the polity to represent the interests of ordinary people. Think about that for a moment. If you want to run a policy counter to the interests of the ordinary people, you are likely an elitist or a revolutionary. Either way, those impulses are anti-democratic.

There seems to be a double-think going on whereby democracy, which is rule by people of the polity is good, but populism which is representing the very same ordinary people is somehow bad. It seems to be an oddity of etymology. Democracy comes from Ancient Greece and especially Athens where they fought to end tyranny. The word Populism derives from Latin, that is to say ancient Rome where the Roman Senate sought to rule over the masses until the Triumvirate came along and neutered the Senate. Julius Caesar, Pompeii and Crassus were all populists - and so in the context of Roman history, populism led to the Imperium, and carries the historic connotation of being against the interests of a proper democracy because it overrode the Senate.

If we do carry with us the Roman legacy of the word populism, then we're effectively standing with the elite who deem themselves to know better than the ordinary man what is good for the state and polity. That is to say, us charging the other as populist underscores their argument that there is a "liberal elite". In a sense our use of the word 'populist' to describe the leader of the 'Deplorables' is the very essence of what gives strength to their accusations of elitism; that somehow we think we know better than they do, and so we look down upon them when they are not just the people, they are the demos that forms the democracy.

It's a bit like saying "we are the courageous, but they are the foolhardy" or "we are flexible, they are without moral fortitude". What is good in our modus operandi shouldn't really be painted as bad in the opponent. It's a bit tricky, but this tension between the words democracy and populism sums up the problematic of a Trump Presidency whereby a silver-spooned rich guy played up to the crowd of 'Deplorables' and won an election. We as the pinko liberals need to get a grip on this lurking vocabulary problem whereby one person's democracy (good) is another persons populism (bad).

Winning The Votes, Losing The Election

The last time this happened was bacon 2000 when Al Gore failed to beat George W. Bush. It was - as it turned out - a crucial election to have lost for the Democrats and by extension, pinko liberals and environmentalists and technocrats everywhere; this was because 'Dubya' led the  world into a series of wars with no discernible goalposts for victory. When you combine that event with Hillary Clinton losing this election even though she has 2 million more popular votes, you can understand why some people want to dismantle the electoral college system.

What's striking about the model of having electoral colleges is that it ends up weighing votes from different states differently. If you are from California, Texas, Florida or New York, your vote is vastly underweight next to a vote from North or South Dakota or for that matter Kentucky or Mississippi. One wonders if this is actually constitutional. This is partly how Hillary Clinton ends up with more votes and still fewer electoral colleges, but also discourages people from actually voting. There probably should be a class action to sue the United Staes of America for not allocating enough weight to votes in those four states.

The degree to which people opted not to vote is quite staggering. 46.9% of the electorate did not vote. This number dwarfs the 25% and 26% respectively of the sport Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton garnered.

For Australia, the other relevant problem is that the Australian Republican Movement wanted to go with this model of Republicanism to select a President. Back when John Howard allowed a referendum took take place, he successfully split the vote of the Republicans between the ARM's position and those who wanted a direct vote, thus stopping the move to a republic dead in its track. It was classic obfuscation whereby people not only had to vote for Republic, but had to overwhelmingly vote for one of two models, and so the entire republican cause suffered. You could say John Howard was  a wiley bastard, but equally it could be said the ARM were indeed the elitists of the variety that had anti-democratic notions which contributed to the ad result. At the time, they blamed the people who wanted a direct election, but really, they only had themselves to blame for being so inflexible.

All of that, is also on Malcolm Turnbull's head.

Quick Shots - 14/Nov/2016

Don't Blame The People Who Voted, Ethan

Ethan Coen of the Coen brothers fame penned a letter lambasting the people who voted for third party candidates.

1. Jill Stein voters: You helped elect a man who pledges that he will, in his first hundred days, cancel contributions to United Nations programs to fight climate change. If your vote for Ms. Stein did not end up advancing your green agenda, it did allow you to feel morally superior to all the compromising schmoes who voted for Hillary Clinton. And your feelings about your vote are more important than the consequences of your vote. So — thank you! 

2. Gary Johnson voters: Thank you, for similar reasons. You, too, may now reward yourselves with feelings of warm self-approval, and your libertarian agenda will now be advanced (or not) by someone who admires the governance of Vladimir Putin. And to Mr. Johnson himself: Not only can no one blame you for this outcome — we’re all free agents, man! — but you can stop looking for Aleppo.

Democracy's a funny thing. You can't really be getting angry at the people who voted for somebody else when they're actually participating in democracy just like you. The people who didn't bother are the people you ought to be angry at.

I know this whole Trump thing sucks, but only a tiny portion of people voted for these candidates. The problem is 46.9% of the registered electorate didn't bother to turn up. Really, if you're going to lambast anybody, they're the people who deserve a swift pen to the eyeball.

'The Expanse' - Season 1

I guess this is as hard a Science FictionTV series you could make without it costing the earth. It's a pretty cool series set in the near future where humanity is colonising the solar system and planetary governments are somewhat in conflict. None of it is unimaginable, and in most part things look nice and gritty,ratherthan white, plastic and NASA. It's long way from '2001: A Space Odyssey' or its stunted cousin 'Space: 1999'.

Without spoiling anything, it's kind of interesting how the interplanetary trips are portrayed, as well as what a space battle might look like. I'm inclined to think they set up a lot here that could be interesting to explore but it never even gets through half of its problem. I'm kind of glad there's another season coming, because Season 1 really only scratches the surface of the problem.

'Ascension'

This mini-series goes 6 episodes and literally goes nowhere. And then some important characters die and there isn't a cathartic moment. It ends like it's meant to continue on, but apparently this one didn't get renewed, so there will be no more.

The idea of a generation ship as a setting is good; combining it with the irony that they never left and they're sitting in a huge silo on earth is better. Yet, it never reaches the cathartic moment when the crew find out they've been living in this phoney environment for 50years.
It'a bit of  shame it won't continue to that logical conclusion. As it is leaves way too many loose ends which were obviously set up for a longer run.

Also, I know this came earlier than 'Stranger Things', but this business of an esper girl feels really tired. Right down to the bit where the supernatural powers are unleashed when she gets angry.

'ARQ'

Surprising cool little 'Groundhog Day' ripoff. Very suspenseful and well contained in a very small location. Very tight writing, except they wrote themselves into a corner. Some will enjoy, some will complain, that's the nature with these kinds stories. '22.11.63' comets mind as the more recent iteration apart from this one. Considering '22.11.63' was such an elaborate, grand 'Groundhog Day' derived concept, this one looks positively punchy by comparison.

Not A Circus, A Dumpster Fire

Can It End Now Please?

Well, the second debate came and went and it was divisive and crazy. I can't believe that there are people who thought Trump was a good idea when he was labelling Mexicans rapists, denigrating the disabled, accepting support from Ku Klux Klan members, and all the other crazy antics like the 3am tweets, abusing a Miss Universe contestant (a woman he once defended no less) - and then turning around to abandon Trump because he talks incredibly disrespectful-dirty shit when he thinks nobody's recording. It's actually hard to tell if that's worse than continuing to support the man in spite of all the crazy plus the leaked audio. At least sticking with the man shows loyalty. If they're abandoning him now after this recent scandal, then it's really hard to understand what exactly they stand for but that they draw the line at white women. Which is fine, but it's no endorsement of these people's character, because if one was willing to line up with the lunatic extremist and populist that is Trump while ignoring all the signs that he was a contemptuous human being full of bile, resentment, class entitlement, race entitlement and gender entitlement, it doesn't say much for one's judgement or character, does it?

That's all on the one side which is hellaciously awful.

But giving the Clintons a pass because Hillary isn't Bill is disingenuous; the Clinton Foundation and its inner workings would be problematic tif Bill and Chelsea were to remain part of it, and you'd think the American public would wonder out loud if having Bill back in the White House as a househusband on the loose was really what America wants. Is Bill a reformed philanderer or a better philanderer at covering his tracks? Not that it really matters where he sticks his genitals but last time he was in the White House he made a spectacular job of making it the world's business. If Hillary is in the White House, it stands to reason she brings with her the baggage of the first Clinton presidency.   Will the more serious questions like the dismantling of the Glass-Steagle Act be revisited? Can Hillary reinstate it without damaging Bill's legacy? Highly unlikely; and if not, then is this a decent candidate to be having? What about all those leaked memos over at Wikileaks confirming she' a hawk and wants to go boots and all into war over Syria? Is that even safe?

The only reason she looks reasonable is because her opponent is Donald Trump, Man of Abject Intellectual Misery. A pile of hot steaming shit on a plate next to a poisoned pizza can make the poisoned pizza look like the palatable option.

It is an utter failure on the part of the Republicans that they couldn't come up with single credible candidate to face Clinton this year. The irony is that her toughest opponent was Bernie Sanders in the primaries. All this speaks volumes to the credibility loss trickle-down economics and globalisation and all these other Reaganomic claptrap economics has suffered. It also underlines the intellectual failure of the neo-con framework for government and the fact that the Republicans could not repel the insurrection from the right bodes ill for its future. I guess the problem now is what is going to replace it. If the Tea Party was an early harbinger of the shitstorm to come, then maybe we shouldn't be hoping for the demise of the Republican Party.

I do pity the American electorate. Neither candidate is exactly enticing. One is a disaster, while the other proves the failure of American politics through her victory - which is pyrrhic to say the least. Yet by extension of her powers, American politics affects us all, and so it is that this tragedy belongs to us all.

Is It An Election Or A Circus?

One Of The Most Disturbing Things

By this time all of you with a connection to the internet should know that Donald Trump took a big hit last week, when a 2005 recording was released wherein he displayed the most misogynistic frat-boy sensibility we all suspected he had. In fact if you didn't suspect it or felt compelled to defend it, it probably meant you had it as well. Since then his polls have plummeted, and it's been such a meltdown in the media about it. Republicans who once offered their support to the Donald are now withdrawing it; some are even calling for him to pull out. It's all looking a bit untenable for the Donald.

President Obama has said:

"One of the most disturbing things about this election is just the unbelievable rhetoric coming at the top of the Republican ticket,"

"I don't need to repeat it. There are children in the room."

... which pretty much sums it up. If you thought Mitt Romney giving a speech about the 47% of Americans being freeloaders was damning, this bit of audio consigns Trump to the ranks of those who truly did not deserve to run.

The more interesting thing this week is that Donald Trump's 2005 leaked audio has become something of an enabling cipher for our politicians to discus the American election - something that politicians rightfully avoid doing.

A handful of Australian politicians have now expressed their opinions on the Trump scandal ahead of the second presidential debate. 

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull labelled Trump's comments "loathsome" and said they deserved the "absolutely universal condemnation that they have received". 

Minister for Women Michaelia Cash said Mr Trump's comments were "demeaning, they were disappointing and they were wrong, full stop". 

Deputy Prime Minister Barnarby Joyce, while labelling Mr Trump's comments as unacceptable, criticised both the Democrats and Republicans for digging up rubbish from each other's past. 

"I just think this whole debate in the United States is turning into a dirty, filthy concoction which belies the respect the American people deserve," he told ABC radio.
"They're all digging up rubbish from each other's past and I just think the whole thing is pretty unsavoury."

It's not just a bunch of nobodies saying this stuff in the press, and that's a little surprising.

Regular sparring partners Pauline Hanson and Derryn Hinch, two of the most outspoken crossbench senators, have exchanged heated words in the hallways of Parliament House about Trump's attitudes to women. 

Fairfax Media's political reporter Fergus Hunter reports that the spat, caught on camera, followed a television interview where the pair were asked about whether Trump should quit the race for the White House. 

As the pair left the television studio and walked on to their next Parliament House engagements, Senator Hinch pursued his Senate colleague over her attitude.
"That you, as a woman, could even make any justification for what he has said and what he has done is just ...," he said. 

"Well, I didn't condone what he said," responded Senator Hanson. 

"No, you said the people of America will decide. If you are even slightly right, then God help the country and God help the world. The man is a sexual predator and he is a disgrace," the former broadcaster said, before getting a lift.

Great Googly-moogly. One can only imagine the rest of that conversation. On the one hand you have the crank Pauline Hanson tacitly trying to continue support for the unsupportable Trump, and on the other side you have a shock-jock-turned-pollie looking for some moral high ground; The two of them arguing over a candidate whose approach to elections was to turn it into a reality show. You can't come up with this stuff.

Australian Labor senator Doug Cameron doubts there will be a Trump presidency.
"Why would any woman in America vote for Trump?" he asked. 

"The sooner he's defeated, or the sooner he gives in the better." 

New Labor MP Emma Husar said Australia would work with whoever was elected, but called Trump a "pig". 

"He's an absolute repugnant animal who deserves to have every single Republican who is well-respected over there walk away from him," she told reporters.

You know, in the days not so long ago, our politicians would have refrained from saying stuff like this. What the hell is Senator Hussar going to do should the Donald pull out an unlikely win and visit Australia? Hide? Apologise? Yes the Donald is a terrible human being, but is it that necessary for a Senator in Australia to be hammering in nails of his political coffin when others inches own country are doing a perfectly good job? It actually doesn't say anything good about our polity. If lack of restraint is Donald Trump's problem, then our politicians could have done better showing that very same restraint.

A World With POTUS Trump

Peter Hartcher has this article:

The US under a President Trump would withdraw Australia's security guarantee and become a "rogue superpower", according to a scholarly analysis commissioned by Australia's Lowy Institute. 

The results would be so dire that the US election is the most consequential for world order since World War II, and the most consequential for the US since the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, the report says. 

"For the first time one of the two major party nominees for the presidency, Donald Trump, is campaigning on a platform of weakening the core elements of the international order, including the US alliance system and an open global economy," concludes Thomas Wright from the Brookings Institution in Washington. 

He says Australia's alliance with the US would suffer directly as a result. 

The Republican candidate has said he'd be prepared to re-negotiate or abandon US alliances with Japan, South Korea and NATO, but has not specifically mentioned Australia. 

"Honestly, I think you are probably in the same category" as those US allies, Dr Wright told Fairfax Media. "He just hasn't been asked.

It's a genuinely scary world where Trump's in charge. There's not a lot of conversation about it in Australia, but there's quite a bit of it in Japan where they've budgeted the possibility of a complete US Withdrawal, and just how much money would have to be spent by Japan to fill that vacuum. In short, Japan would have to re-arm in a way that would bring back a proper military. A Trump-led US pull out to from Japan and Okinawa will necessitate Japan return to being a military power.  Presumably the same would apply for Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia. Not only would that be a more dangerous world, it would be more expensive in a time when governments don't have money.

Peter Hartcher is so disturbed by this, he wrote a further comment piece on the same topic:

In trying to make believe that Donald Trump is not as dangerous as he promises to be, millions of people have resorted to denialism.
On three levels. 

First, that he could not possibly win. This remains in the hands of events, of course. But even after he was exposed boasting of sexually assaulting women, US betting odds on Sunday gave him one chance in five of taking the presidency. 

Two, that he could not possibly be serious about the things he's said. He does enjoy being outrageous. And on many issues he has had more positions than a yoga instructor. 

(edit) 

The third and final level of denialism is that even if he's elected and even if he tried to press ahead with his policies, the American system would stop him.
Wright agrees that Trump would be frustrated on domestic initiatives by the Congress or Supreme Court. 

But on his foreign policy ideas? Wright's analysis paper, to be published by the Lowy Institute on Monday, says: "He will have a freer hand internationally. There is no body or law that can prevent him from aligning himself with Putin, ignoring an ally, or shaking things up with a far-reaching foreign policy statement. And, as we have seen, grievance against the rest of the world is not just a part of Trump's ideology, it is at its very core."
Denialism is no defence. Trump, even now, is possible. He's serious, and some of his most dangerous ideas could become real.

Well that's all well and good, but our country has very little sway over the electoral outcome in the USA. So denialism or not, there's solid chance that Donald Trump might still survive this round of scandals and end up POTUS and unleash fresh hell. Should that happen, those Australian politicians who slammed him are going to look really dumb for having done so.

Yeah, it's a problem.

Populism And The Politics Of Blame-Throwing

As with Australia, you do wonder how in the hell America got to where they are now. After all, if Pauline Hanson is back, and she's sort of okay with Donald Trump, you know he's appealing to the demographic of wilful ignorance and cranks. That there are so many of them attests to the 'success' of conservative governments who tried to create a populace more prone to populist arguments by degrading the quality of public education.

In ever way possible, the Donald Trump candidacy is a symptom of the anti-intellectual malaise thetas endemic amongst the conservatives. What the Republicans didn't count on was for the election to be hijacked by a reality show host who understood the schema of democracy's prime election as nothing but a popularity contest; And this, was essentially made possible by the very education-deprive populace the conservatives helped neglect - not nurture - who decided to choose the person who made the show more interesting.

The impact of Reality TV in the last 15years has been devastating. It's no coincidence that Pauline Hanson herself was a contestant on dancing with the stars. If one thing these shows have taught the populace, it is the entertainment to be had by having fractious, conflict-generating individuals on the show to stay longer. Donald Trump himself understands this very well, and so went about the primaries behaving more like a boor than a candidate, and still managed to win because he drew upon the votes who understood this dynamic the most. If the Republicans didn't see this coming, that would be because they were complaining about a black man being in the White House a little too much. It would appear their neurosis was entirely misplaced.