Australian federal election 2022

[David]

You thought I might be serious? That's almost scary. Franchise of 1 and all that.

I did suspect your tongue might have been somewhere in the vicinity of your cheek.

[Pies4shaw]

Well who are we to question the elites? The fact that they're in control probably indicates that they're much more qualified than the rest of us to decide what's best everyone.

I feel obliged to clarify that I'm not questioning the role of all of the elites - just the others.

[stui magpie]

Probably off track here but the reference to idiots reminded me of Hillary's Deplorables and made me reflect on growing up in a small country town in the 70s.

Walking around Toc last weekend I was looking at some of the old houses which were little more than shacks. Cement sheet and corrugated iron. 1 that has recently sold you could blow over with a sneeze. The bloke I remember who lived there, like several locals born in the 30s and 40s wasn't that bright, certainly wasn't educated, but he had respect because he had a go.

Married, couple of kids (one of his sons was a few years younger than me but I got on well with him and helped him out with stuff), never relied on Centrelink, just hard physical work of all types.

Young people today wouldn't use his house as a squat but it was a home. 2 small bedrooms (kids shared) 1 small loungeroom, tiny kitchen, shower, dunny and a washing machine.

This was the kind of bloke that the modern "elite" look scornfully down their noses at these days. True working class battlers.

I look at the old houses up in Toc where him and people like him lived and remember them. Good people who had hard lives but never asked for a handout or sympathy. They had respect then, now they're looked at with contempt by the educated cretins.

I know who I'd rather have a beer and a chat with.

[Pies4shaw]

That was back in the good old days when, of course, working class battlers actually ran the country, held all the positions of power and influence and no-one ever took advantage of them.

[stui magpie]

Elective surgery is back, you can get that tongue removed from your cheek.

Back then, in the bush, the "elite" were the farmers and the white collar government workers.

[Pies4shaw]

Ah, yes Malcolm Fraser, Ian Sinclair, Ruzz Hinze, Jo Bjelke-Petersen Always good to have a farmer or three about the traps - don't you worry about that. Those sure were the good old days.

[Jezza]

This was the kind of bloke that the modern "elite" look scornfully down their noses at these days. True working class battlers.

I look at the old houses up in Toc where him and people like him lived and remember them. Good people who had hard lives but never asked for a handout or sympathy. They had respect then, now they're looked at with contempt by the educated cretins.

I know who I'd rather have a beer and a chat with.

Well said, Stui.

[pietillidie]

I see two groups that are like peas in a pod. One is a group of economic parasites who refuse to pay their dues, take disproportionate leverage for themselves, and justify this through delusions of greatness. This group works in concert with a class of drooling fist wavers with delusions of special moral standing who desire to control and punish others. One provides the funds, the other provides the mob and pretence of democracy.

Both think they are special and more deserving than others. Both seek to suppress and eliminate competition, violently if need be. Both hold delusional and dangerous quasi-religious views about their wondrous superiority. The extent to which they don't successfully unite to wreck stuff (see: trickle-down economics of the 80s; global warming denial; Afghanistan and Iraq; the Berlusconis and Putins of the world; Brexit; Trump; pandemic denial; etc.) is the extent to which we make better decisions, manage risk more sensibly and live better lives.

Every time these groups excitedly come together they wreck shit and make negligent decisions with costly implications. Anything that comes in between inevitably has the function of first halting the carnage. Limiting the wreckage of this unholy alliance and creating space for people to compete and go about their business without being bullied by them is about as good an outcome as we can hope for in politics.

[#26]

Election 2022, me old China plate. I noticed Scomo's red baiting about China is working. Even the ABC can't stop talking about it, which is exactly what the Libs want. Controling the narrative in an election campaign is crucial. Albo is already on the back foot with Scomo asking the question with a bit short pitched stuff. Early days though.

[roar]

Walking around Toc last weekend I was looking at some of the old houses which were little more than shacks. Cement sheet and corrugated iron. 1 that has recently sold you could blow over with a sneeze. The bloke I remember who lived there, like several locals born in the 30s and 40s wasn't that bright, certainly wasn't educated, but he had respect because he had a go.

Married, couple of kids (one of his sons was a few years younger than me but I got on well with him and helped him out with stuff), never relied on Centrelink, just hard physical work of all types.

Young people today wouldn't use his house as a squat but it was a home. 2 small bedrooms (kids shared) 1 small loungeroom, tiny kitchen, shower, dunny and a washing machine.

This was the kind of bloke that the modern "elite" look scornfully down their noses at these days. True working class battlers.

I look at the old houses up in Toc where him and people like him lived and remember them. Good people who had hard lives but never asked for a handout or sympathy. They had respect then, now they're looked at with contempt by the educated cretins.

I know who I'd rather have a beer and a chat with.

I get what you're saying, stui, but what was that blokes opinion of immigrants, or aboriginals or homosexuals or climate change?

[stui magpie]

^

Likely similar to most people at that time, very different to today.

I wasn't trying to say it was better back then, it was far simpler and different but we've come such a long way in so many things yet seemingly regressed in others.

[Pies4shaw]

In which have "we" regressed, apart - of course - from the appalling changes to social welfare over recent decades that now mean that if you grew up in a rural hovel in the 30s or 40s and are unlucky enough to still be alive, you've probably got almost nothing and no visible means of support?

Healthcare?
Education?
Economic opportunity for people who grew up in rural hovels?

It wasn't "simpler", then - people were just ground into the dirt, face-first, by the right a little more directly than they are today.

[roar]

Agree with your point p4s but in some respects I'd say education and healthcare were better forty or fifty years ago. Greed and economic rationalism had to have it's way, though.

[Pies4shaw]

Agree with your point p4s but in some respects I'd say education and healthcare were better forty or fifty years ago. Greed and economic rationalism had to have it's way, though.

I think education certainly was. We have Dawkins to thank for the present state of things, I'm afraid.

I was, though, comparing these things now with the 1930s and 1940s, rather than with 1972-1982, since I thought Stui's example harked back to the "noble savage" born in those years.

Healthcare? The system is less adequately resourced than it was before slugs like Paterson brought their nasty little "managerialist" notions to bear on health services here and elsewhere - but the care that is able to be provided through technological advances and the skills of the professionals who work in the field is, I think, undoubtedly much advanced from the position in 1972-1982.

[pietillidie]

The wealth gap drives a lot of this and is the original sin here. But elites are not the only ones driving the wealth gap. Certain religions, ideologies and psychiatries also make people poorer, working in tandem with bad economics and policy.

Once the wealth and culture gap gets too wide whole groups become unemployable. A lot of the left has always been unemployable; now, much of the right is also unemployable. As the gap widens for the far left, it knows less and less about business and the economy, and how to engage commerce and competition, which contra its fantasies are mainstream behaviours that drive progress by generating solutions and enabling adaptation.

As the gap widens for the far right, it becomes less aware of science, engineering, culture and learning, which again contra its fantasies are mainstream creative instincts that once again drive progress by generating solutions and enabling adaptation.

Combine extreme anger and the increasing compulsiveness of poverty and substance abuse with this social detachment, and the deal is sealed. Social media and ongoing wealth disparity then expands the franchise, sustaining the delusion. Both far left and right then excite each other endlessly, becoming the definition of evil in their respective cults, and accuse sane people stuck in between of consorting with the other cult, when in fact the average person is by definition just muddling through the scope of human behaviour around them.

If you find yourself increasingly angry and imprisoned in the loser religion of the far left or far right, get out before it's too late. That means taking on board commerce, competition, science, engineering, culture and learning as good things in their own right. Or, just double-down and stay an angry, compulsive, isolated, ignorant, conflict-locked, unemployable loser, blaming everyone else as you cling to your cult.