getting the middle over inertia – sillysocksonfriday

Rectitude

I suppose it’s the first 4 letters which generate in my mind a sort of carrot up the arse, stiff upper lip, holier than thou image .

I think maybe it was a desirable trait in the days of Queen Victoria, when it denoted a moral, conservative stance. Nowadays, it is a trait of the progressives who are awake to any opportunity to denounce.

It is also the armour of the petty bureaucrat, who will follow the letter of the law despite great injustice being the consequence. e.g.:your visa renewal is refused because you paid the wrong fee; you must quit your job and leave the country.

These thoughts have been kindled by a recent article on Celebrity Slavery*:

The fashionable pursuit of reparations from celebrities, who might shell out rather than run the risk of ‘cancellation’ and humiliation, smacks of extortion.

Certainly the latter suggests a commercial morality: a skeleton of a rich man’s ancestors is far more valuable and attracts greater media attention.

Much easier to apply leverage to an individual than governments of former colonies where there are many of the estimated 40 million people still in slavery.

Researching rectitude, I came across this graphic of virtues:

They seem pretty wet to me, grounded as I am in the more traditional cardinal virtues of prudence, fortitude , justice and temperance.

Be careful, be brave, be fair and moderate in all that you do.

If you practise those virtues you don’t need to be woke, righteous, progressive or vociferous.

*Article by Peter Kurti, The Spectator, 21 January 2023,

A patsy or a grifter?

“Patsy” – American slang for somebody who has been set up to take the risk and the blame.

“Grifter” – con artist,scammer

There are a number of ways to attack a government other than in open Parliament and through the ballot box.

What better than a sex scandal ?

‘A sex scandal the party can be proud of. Another Barnaby but without the baby haha,’

Maybe somebody thought about that and made a plan.

So, around 4 a.m. one Saturday morning in March 2019, about a fortnight before a federal election is called, the female parliamentary aide who texted about a sex scandal, is found by security, lying naked on a couch in a minister’s office. Woohoo! Imagine the media potential – an Australian Watergate!!

She says she is okay, turns over and goes back to sleep, eventually leaving at about 10 am that morning.

Cleaners are sent in to clean the office, but find nothing suggestive of inappropriate conduct. (Seems a somewhat routine response for a serious place like a Minister’s office?)

The following Tuesday, explanations are sought from the woman and the man with whom she had entered the buiding as to the propriety of their entry so late at night. The woman raises sexual impropriety and reports to Police at Parliament. She hadn’t reported this before.

The man is dismissed for inapproriate entry to (not at) Parliament and another unrelated matter. I wonder why she wasn’t fired too? Passing out drunk and naked in a Minister’s office?

Some 2 weeks later an election is called by the Prime Minister. Two days after that, the complainant withdraws her complaint to the Police.

In October 2020, the media and a union raise questions about workplace culture in Parliament. A review ensues as there are other shaggy stories about after hours Parliamentary hijinks. The plot thickens…

In January 2021, the woman resigns after a meeting with a prominent journalist. Hmmm!

Two days after an interview is recorded for publication, the woman re-ignites her complaint first made 22 months before with the Police.

Former MP’s, Ministers and a Prime Minister are all tarnished by allegations about their parts in the piece.

A minister is obliged to apologise for calling the complainant “a lying cow” – talk about power!

A book deal for $325000 is offered.

Notwithstanding Police advice that the case is weak and the complainant unreliable, the Director Of Public Presecution decides to proceed. Did he jump or was he pushed?

The trial commences in October 2022. The complainant is not a good witness with inconsistent and improbable evidence. She takes a mid-trial break for mental health reasons and repeatedly weeps in public … something she said she could do again on tv, if required.

The jury is undecided and a protracted deliberation ensues. Fortuitously or unfortunately, a juror is found to have considered material extraneous to the trial and a mistrial is declared.

The plot gets thicker… The complainant goes to work for a former Labor Prime Minister!

But wait there’s more – both parties are now suing for damages, the complainant apparently while still under treatment for a mental condition.

No one has yet openly raised the possibility that the complainant is lying.

Other than her word, which is not convincing, there is no corroboratory evidence indicating sex occured.

Maybe her fragile nerves are a consequence of lies and the temptation of feminist fame and big bucks?!

Maybe she is a patsy, being manipulated by others?

There is big money and acres of potential scandal. Maybe she is a grifter…?

My money is on the former. I reckon she’s been inflated by others who see benefit in prolonging the chaos that has ensued.

It is important that you think about this matter which has extremely wide repercussions:

It probably contributed to the LNP election loss and downfall of a Prime Minister
Parliamentary security was demonstrated as culpably lax; there is a strong suggestion that late night shenanigans are not unusual.
The DPP’s initial decision to prosecute was improper, at worst by political direction, which indicates gross intereference and dereliction of duty
The attempts to amend the Evidence Act suggest further political involvement
The civil damages suits are likely sponsored by wealthier parties than the man and woman. Cui bono?
There has been clear evidence of manipulation by the media

From a wider perspective, it is clear that our judicial system needs serious review.

Victims of sexual violence need to be better protected but not at expense of the presumption of innocence.
The Jury system is no longer fit for purpose.
The right to silence should be suspended by warrant based on substantial implicatory evidence. In other words, if a magistrate is satisfied that sufficient evidence exists to require explanation, he shall issue a directive requiring the person implicated to answer questions, perhaps in a closed court session.
Lie detector tests should be required for all witnesses.

My new windmill

Remember Don Quixote who charged a windmill as he believed it was an evil giant?

I identify with the old gentleman. I too am a bit bewildered by the modern world: hasty but easily confused, I take umbrage swiftly when faced with blind zealots cloaked in do-good deeds.

The new windmill we all must face is an evil giant, so big, we cannot see all of it – I beg you to believe this.

You will need great courage to defeat it because it is well entrenched and has many powerful and erudite supporters who believe that they are right.

I feel like someone in Nazi Germany in the 1930’s when the politcal system was perverted and Storm troopers set the moral tone, burning books and bullying, looting, then eventually exterminating Jews, Gypsies, Communists, the insane and mentally handicapped en masse: their own people. The silent majority let it happen then – will you let it happen now?

We have a greater threat than Storm troopers facing us now. We have a culture of do-gooders, armoured in virtue so as to be apparently unassailable. They are taking our values and history and perverting them, persuading us to join the lynch mobs to do the job.

No Church nor brave politician has yet been strong enough to withstand these insidious forces who quell dissent with floods of populist rage, causing timid buraucrats to act according to the mob’s demands to suppress, notwithstanding their own codes and commitments to freedoms and fairness.

Their rationale is that all must enjoy equal freedoms in today’s society and recompense for their struggles of the past. Redress must be instantaneous on mere request. Only victims’ views and claims are considered. It is disrepectful to oppose these views.

This You Tube video on the transgender phenomenon clearly manifests one of the workings of this evil modern day windmill – it horrified and enraged me. If you are not similarly affected, go away and revel in your ostrich ways!

Teachers and doctors and administrators and politicians permit practices because they cannot stand up to unsubstantiated claims, they go with the flow. The media who trumpet the virtue signals which mask the atrocious demands are the agitators who see profit in the flames of chaos in society.

We have a moral obligation to “stay woke,” take a stand and be active; challenging threats in our communities, protecting freedoms from erosion by allegation and mob support.

Ask your MP, school principal, class teacher, doctor the following questions:

do you believe that gender is a choice and has nothing to do with biology
are kids who haven’t even gone through puberty capable of making the decision to change their sex
should children under 18 be permitted abortions, puberty blockers and hormonal treatments without court order or parental permission

If the answer is yes, make sure everyone knows that fact.

Now is the time for them to nail their colours to the mast and take sides. Post the questions on websites, ask their associations what their positions are and publish their answers, silence or evasions.

Get the answers now before they are passed into law because there is no opposition. We are fighting for our values and our children.

Speak now or forever hold your peace!

The debate over the referendum to grant a “Voice” to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in Australia sparks many thoughts in my mind, most of them cynical.

Now I don’t have a vote in Australia, but I have paid taxes here for nigh on 10 years so should have one; thus I figured I am entitled to speak my mind.

My first thought is that these people do have a voice and representation by their own elected representatives. (Does this mean that democracy has failed them?)

My second thought is that the concept of a “Voice” for this poor benighted sector of the population is quite a funky meme-ish idea, likely to appeal to the shortspanofattention current generation. It is a crisp, simple virtuous PR vehicle, ideal for politicians.

My third thought is that the referendum is likely to be quite divisive, because of the modern propensity to factionise and label for easy meme-ing. The ‘aye-sayers‘ are inclusive, woke progressives and the ‘nay- sayers‘ are racist Tories.

Wait, it gets even more … rough-edged?

There are about 500 different Aboriginal tribes in Australia, each with their own language and territory and usually made up of a large number of separate clans. more than 250 languages and about 800 dialectal varieties

Which language will be used by the Voice? And will all agree on the words that are spoken? In New Zealand, there are still big money debates going on about the meaning of the Te Reo Maori version of the Treaty of Waitangi, thought to be clearly written in English.

The Indigenous population in Australia declined to a low of 74,000 in 1933 from an estimated 314 000 when the First Fleet arrived. About 12 000 were killed by colonists, the rest likely succumbed to the ravages of disease and by products of western civilization such as alcohol and despair.

A Voice will give 3.2% of the population additional power in Parliament – a 25% increase in that population since last census! It seems that aboriginal heritage is gaining flavour.

This portion of the population is the most poorly educated, unhealthy, socially destitute and criminal of all Australians. It is also diverse and disparate. It has a history of subjugation and some abuse, some of which may have been well meaning by the perpetrators but devastating for the victims.

Can we expect clarity, foresight and community interest from the speakers of the Voice? Will they be united and informed and representative of their electorate? Is that likely? Or will there be Boards and Committees and advisors and bureaucrats to give the Voice a neck and a head…? Lots and lots of money…!

It’s not a new political trick. In 1967 a referendum relating to Indigenous Australians, was called by the Liberal-Country Party Holt Government. Voters were asked whether to give the Federal Government the power to make special laws for Indigenous Australians.

Acts of Parliament have appointed Protectors of Aborigines and Aboriginal Protection Boards in the past, with little apparent success.

The persuasion for this campaign is founded on the wave of Woke thinking which is sweeping the old, democratic Western societies, which recently saw off ScoMo and the LNP.

The fact that the Aboriginal population suffers significantly less advantage in society is regarded as a consequence of a racist hegemony, enriched by its historical suppression and racism: massacres, dispossessions and stolen generations.

The guilty must now pay a penance which will (maybe) absolve them of this horrible taint of the past and make everything okay …. yeah, right!

My last thought is related to my antipathy to Woke-ism, which you may have detected.

Once the benighted Aboriginals have a Voice, will we not be bound by precedent to enshrine more power for the exclusive use of women, then the homosexuals, lesbians, transexuals, pansexuals, one knee cappers and sheep lovers, etcetera?

I will leave the allocation of body parts to a new age biologist!

While I am here I was wondering why there is no rainbow flag in Parliament and why no-one took a knee at the opening of that august body, soon to be given a new voice.

Carbon credits

Recently I asked friends what they knew about carbon credit systems. They knew almost nothing, save that it was designed to combat carbon emissions into the atmosphere, intrinsic to the battle against undesirable climate change. We are talking about tertiary educated people in early middle age in a first world country. Their knowledge reflected my own: almost zilch.

So I made an appointment with Dr Google and started reading. AaargH!! It soon became too much for my little brain: convoluted, confusing and, at least to me, a system wide open to manipulation and fraud.

It appears that governments have devised a system to assess the carbon footprint of countries, businesses, industries, services et al, engine exhaust, cow farts, factory smoke etc. They are required to maintain this below set levels, which in many cases is difficult or too expensive. I mean, how do you stop a cow fart?

So, in order to avoid these activities being driven out of business, the government established a cap and trade level of carbon credits.

Companies that pollute are awarded credits that allow them to continue to pollute up to a certain limit. That limit is reduced over time. Meanwhile, the company may sell any unneeded credits to another company that needs them.

This has become nationalised and countries and businesses with excess credits can sell them to those that pollute excessively.

Extra credits can be earned by minimising pollution or growing trees (they convert CO₂ to oxygen). The market for compliance credits is estimated to rangeas high as $272 billion for the year 2020.

You can imagine how many bureaucrats would be needed to administer and monitor these matters …. and how creative accountants would be able to milk the system…

How easy would it be to claim an extra few thousand trees in a forest ?

Seems the limits set by the Kyoto Protocol were too hard for the US (the biggest polluter) and China (the second biggest), so they declined to play..

I wonder how many of you read this far?

This is an extreme simplification of the system.

My questions are : Who is going to administer the sytem in the future if only a few understand it?

How are our children and their children supposed to see through the smog of these bureaucratic jungles?

Who will save the world in the future?

I guess it is up to you and me to spread the word.

So do your bit: learn about the sytems so you can call out pollies when they try to confound you with greenwash!

The spectre of Spring 2021

Foreboding lurks at the back of my mind, almost continuously. It’s not so much the plague, but how people are behaving. Society is being strained at its seams and frayed edges begin to appear.

As you may recall, my world context retains strong ties to Southern Africa and I am a child raised during the Cold War, when the spectre of the time was Communism driven by totalitarians. Then, as now, simple maxims were used to sway the masses. Freedom and equality for all!

Isn’t it ironic that these are the underpinnings of the woke movement, demanding representation and retribution for any cadre with some identifiable characteristic, practice or habit.

The process of promotion of the interests of minority groups has attacked current institutions, individuals and laws on the premise that their existence has been achieved to the disadvantage of minorities who were discriminated against in history.

At the same time, the prevalence of conspiracies and their adherents is challenging democracies’ability to govern and is widely being used as a political tool to fuel fire in followers. The old name for conspiracies was propaganda. Its purpose was to galvanise popular belief, without challenge.

An alarming feature of recent campaigns of identity movements like #metoo and Black Lives Matter is that mere allegations are accepted as facts. Now that’s okay when allegations are admitted, but when they are disputed, there has always been a process to ascertain the most accurate version of the truth.

Corroboration is essential. But nowadays, every accused person is deemed a liar unless they admit their guilt.

Capitalism has created a huge disparity in earnings with the super rich becoming the aristocracy of old.

Marketing and Kardocumentatries, scripted reality shows and social media exaggerate and glorify lifestyles impossible for all but the rich. Tension, envy and outrage brew amongst those who can never indulge in champagne cruises, drive Porsches, wear silk shirts and eat caviar.

Attributions for the London rioters’ behaviour in 2011 included social factors such as racial tension, class tension, economic decline, and the unemployment that decline had brought. Well that is also an accurate picture of what happened in South Africa and eSwatini. Put a lid on a boiling pot and eruptions are certain!

I am trying to say that world wide we are at a stage that reasonable judgment has been suspended and gut feeling is carrying the day. This means that democracy is dead, it cannot be sustained in the face of ever-increasing individual demands for unique treatment. Capitalism in its present form has also failed. The poor are increasing and want more.

The task is to find new inviolate principles by which all agree they can be governed.

Tragically, all we need to do is look at organised religion to see that so many prophets arise to lead that there is continuous alienation and conflict.

I hoped that the plague would give rise to strong, credible leadership but fear there are too many critics, not enough followers.

So, sadly it seems that fragmentation will continue until another global catastrophe arises to force us together, maybe a world war – any bets on how soon and who will oppose the Chicomms?

Having an opinion in this politically correct world.

Title suggested by Michelle Craik Friday 26 March

My mother was very “proper” and her sternest reprimand was “that is not done (in good society)!” My father was big on chivalry and respect.

Their ethos was maintaining the status quo. They would have been aghast by today’s cancel culture, the bastard child of political correctness.

Social media has weaponised the assault against anyone right of centre. Freedom of speech is drowned by the floods of woke activists; intolerant of differing opinions, they publicly shame and punish dissenters.

Sadly politicians have all submitted to the tyranny that political correctness now promotes.

When a faceless mob starts dictating what can be said and what cannot be said, then democracy is at death’s door.

Thus the woke mob has enabled conviction upon mere allegation, the disregard of due process and the immediate destruction of reputations without allowing defence. Debates are reduced to memes and emojis, dissent is dissed.

The fear of being pillored makes us inhibited and afraid to address even the most banal issues directly. We have taken a knee and will be obliged to do so until we get brave enough to challenge the mob.

We have ourselves to blame. Our society has forgotten that freedom must be cherished and enjoyed responsibly. We have forgotten that freedom extends to everyone and we have become prisoners of populism.

The mob has grown and has immense power and influence. So much so that governments tailor their policies and actions to conform.

And in the naked light, I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

“Fools”, said I, “You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls”
And whispered in the sound of silence

Paul Simon, 1964

Newsflash! Neckties are dead

“Our current campaign is a global war against that yoke of uniformity, the neck tie. There can be no logical explanation why people continue to tightly tie strips of cloth round their throats and then dangle them on their chests.”

This was blogged on 16 October 2005, but the real campaign against the necktie started in practice in the 90’s with the wearing of silly socks on Fridays. The more radical followers of the movement also began wearing outrageous and unseemly ties to draw attention to the folly of the fashion convention.

The recent (2017) neck-naked appearances of those prisoners of convention and foremost icons of the stiff upper lip Society, HRH Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, KG, KT, PC, ADC(P), HRH Prince Henry of Wales, KCVO and the Obamas indicates their clear support for the campaign and clearly demonstrates that the campaign is all but won. (The speculation that they read this blog can not be confirmed.)

New Zealand’s Parliament has now ruled that ties are no longer requires as part of men’s appropriate attire in Parliament – presumably a standard which could be applied nation-wide.

At last we are unshackling the yoke of obsolete convention!

Sieg HEIL – The Trump Fanfare

I must point out that we are indebted to Trump for at least one huge lesson about humanity. He has shown us that most of us will follow anyone who strikes a chord that resonates … and keeps repeating that message. Someone who shows that it’s NOT our fault – that they (clearly identifiable others) are the ones who have caused our pain.

It helps if they live amongst us and appear to be richer, stronger or more effective than us.

Inevitably, the media are liars and on their side (which is not to say some of them aren’t …)

Conspiracies explain everything … even though we are not quite sure what they are.

I say us because it includes friends and family members

Not long ago – in our parents and grandparents day, Hitler was believed, admired and followed blindly by millions of Germans and European nations even the Duke of York, once King of England!

It doesn’t seem to matter that the demagogue is not consistent, sounds deranged and makes outrageous claims. At that last “March to save America” rally, Trump looked and sounded deranged; frantic, repetitive, unrestrained. Just appearing at that rally smacked of civil mischief, but no-one stopped the President. He was unstoppable, despite increasing incoherence and blatant lying, ranting and raving … in between a few rounds of golf.

On the other side of the political spectrum lemming like behaviour is also prevalent. Democrats in Congress all took the knee recently – a blatantly populist obeisance to the political movement condemning Police, condoning the eradication of historical and cultural icons and accepting the blame for slavery.

One can only see this type of populist endorsement inflaming conservatives who are also suffering under the economic malaise of the midWest and Deep South US.

All of these people on both sides proclaim the virtue of their beliefs and decry the baselessness and immorality of the others cause.

It is no good pointing out misconduct and precedents. We have to find ways to do things better.

Impeachment will not help – it will merely reinforce the conspiracy and turn a maniac into a martyr.

Biden has it right – extending the hand of friendship to all. Somehow he needs to find a way to distract the Right and Unite.

Somehow faith must be restored in the electoral system. Blockchain may be the answer. Certainly technology exists that could do this.

Maybe China policy will do it – revive manufacturing lost to Asia, promote fossil free fuel technology, make hemp production an agricultural priority, ban neckties ….

Oh Come On!! Its not often I get the chance to advise a new head of state!

The Social Dilemma

Be afraid, be very afraid!

I suspect some of you think I am a bit of a drama queen or a wolf-crier. Maybe both – but I urge you to watch The Social Dilemma, it is currently on Netflix.

Especially if you have children.

This documentary presents the views of a number of people who were intricately involved in designing Facebook, Twitter, Google, Pinterest and other mainstream social media.

Reviewers have said this film is the “single most lucid, succinct, and profoundly terrifying analysis of social media ever created”

“(it) carefully details the skyrocketing levels of depression among children and teenagers; the flat-earthers and white supremacists; the genocide in Myanmar; the Covid misinformation; [and] the imperilling of objective truth and social disintegration”.

Harvard University professor Shoshana Zuboff speaks quite clearly about the profit -making orientation of digital companies like Google and Amazon (which) represent a new form of capitalist accumulation that she calls “surveillance capitalism“

Surveillance Capitalism “unilaterally claims human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioural data [which] are declared as a proprietary behavioural surplus, fed into advanced manufacturing processes known as ‘machine intelligence’, and fabricated into prediction products that anticipate what you will do now, soon, and later.”

These new capitalist products “are traded in a new kind of marketplace – behavioural futures markets.

Through the lens of surveillance capitalism’s economic and social imperatives, she lists many issues that plague contemporary society including:

the assault on privacy and the so-called ‘privacy paradox’,
behavioral targeting
fake news
ubiquitous tracking
legislative and regulatory failure
algorithmic governance
social media addiction
abrogation of human rights
democratic destabilization, and more are reinterpreted and explained

As I said: be afraid….