A BLOG ABOUT SOCIAL ISSUES AND POLITICS
From these small misunderstandings history is made. The 100 years war. Waterloo. Nuclear testing in the Pacific. The Wogs begin at Calais. La Perfide Albion (Albion being an old name for England). Even today many French people view the English as being perfidious and Brexit does little to change that.
Most people think of Australia as a place. But I don't. You know. "Where are you from?" Australia. But Australia is not a place, it's simply an idea. A concept. A set values. We may think of Australia as tangible. Surely it is? It's where we are from. But it's not - it's a figment... Continue Reading →
The story (How the Greens failed me over rape) in the Saturday Paper this month (December 23, 2017), sad as it is, comes as no surprise to many in the Greens. The Greens like all institutions is, sadly, just as capable of the delusion that it can do no wrong and that the party is,... Continue Reading →
Welcome to The Emperor's Clothes, a blog about politics, social issues and campaigns. Below here you can find the entire collection of posts on this blog, with the latest ones at the top. I'd love you to comment or feedback (even negative feedback, if polite. Trolls and comments that are unpleasant will be removed) If... Continue Reading →
The chair lay smashed in tiny pieces on the floor. I'm not certain how many times I had smashed it against the filing cabinet. It was the cabinet in which we kept the Pedder files (on Lake Pedder). Fortunately this was before the age of the church's descent in to child abuse infamy since, if you referred, today, to the location in which you kept your Pedder files many would look at you askance. Then no-one blinked. My memory is that I wielded the chair twice, with considerable force, but others, no doubt motivated by their concern for my welfare, say it was more - all no doubt to demonstrate my undoubted virility. Five or six times, they say. Oh, yes you were really angry. Well justified! And it was a well made chair!
THIS IS NOT A HISTORICAL RECORD. AS PER TRUMPIAN LOGIC, NO APOLOGIES MADE FOR ERRORS, EXAGGERATION, OMISSIONS, BAD TASTE OR MISREPRESENTATIONS. The call came to Bob Brown's office at the Davey St head office of the Wilderness Society (TWS). Or at least what purported to be the head office, since no part of the organisation's... Continue Reading →
THIS IS NOT A HISTORICAL RECORD. AS PER TRUMPIAN LOGIC, NO APOLOGIES MADE FOR ERRORS, EXAGGERATION, OMISSIONS, BAD TASTE OR MISREPRESENTATIONS. The call came from Canberra. I'd spent a year there as National Liaison Officer (NLO) for the Wilderness Society (TWS). A grand title but little else. I had been lobbying politicians and the media... Continue Reading →
This is not a historical record. As per Trumpian logic, no apologies made for errors, exaggeration, omissions, bad taste or misrepresentations. For those with a humour deficit it's worth pointing out that satire and sarcasm are not to be taken seriously, especially when written about individuals. I well remember the day and a few others... Continue Reading →
A well managed organisation, corporate or non-profit, is an exception rather than the rule - and political parties are worse than most. If campaigning organisations put in place just a few strategies to mitigate conflict and improve efficiency they would be much more successful
We increasingly live in an Orwellian age where speaking out can have a high cost. Historically that has also been true - we need only think of the Nazis, Stalinism, the Inquisition, Pol Pot. But Governments have never been more capable of monitoring our every move. Our employers monitor our Facebook posts. Every phone has a built in recording device. The premium on truth has never been higher. And nowhere more so than in politics and political parties. For the Greens, which claim higher standards, the challenge has never been greater. We need internal systems that promote honest discussion rather than suppressing them; that provide clear and independent complaints processes. We need to take the beam out of our own eye. Because blind loyalty is a curse for organisations, and one that leads to corruption and incompetence.
The Greens are a party of conservatism. We like to think of ourselves as progressive, innovative, different, creative. The party of compassion, of equity and equality. But we are far from that......
If you accept the basic premises of the definitions of capitalism and environmentalism, ergo you cannot be both an environmentalist and support capitalism. If you are a Green you cannot support capitalism in its current form and, I would argue, at all.
Neither Richard Di Natale nor “Left Renewal†Speak for me.... Or many people in the Greens. The media has been full these last several weeks with stories about division in the Greens following the establishment of a faction called “Left Renewal†which claims to be about defending/renewing the left soul of the party. Scribes from... Continue Reading →
Repudiating Representative Politics Replacing career politicians with citizen politicians If you start with the assumption that the worst possible person to whom one should give power is someone who is narcissistic, ambitious, arrogant and self-interested, and one would almost automatically disqualify from political office every single person who puts their hand up to be... Continue Reading →
Recently Bob Brown gave an interview in which he called for 'renewal' in the NSW Greens. In that interview he stated that, inter alia, the Greens were being "held back by the old guard", that the Greens voters "deserved better" and that Lee Rhiannon should stand down. He indicated that voters had told him that... Continue Reading →
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