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? 

Come Join The Fun! 

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.

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.

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.