To the extent the government is exercising compassion now, it is compassion driven by the bad publicity it is suffering...
Category: neoliberalism
Bad government 3
Good governments often provide things for people to help them live better lives, like education, health services, affordable houses, roads and public transport, stuff called infrastructure (which includes those roads and also electricity and such). The government does not charge a lot for people to have these things. Sometimes (and for some people) these services are free. Pizza, unfortunately, is not free to anyone...
A modest proposal for the preservation of the plutocracy via the maintenance of a selected body of the fossil fooled
A smaller population also means there is less opportunity for agitators to fulminate against us; revolutions never really topple US but they can be very disagreeable. Just ask Rasputin.
Bad government 2
Viral government Here is a definition of good government from a book for kids (The big fat NO debates โ Government) by yours truly. If kids can get this, so should most adults. Allโฆ people want pretty much the same things as you and me. โข Love โข To feel safe/secure โข A bit (or … Continue reading Bad government 2
Welcome to our mediaeval times
Iโll argue that in this early 21st century venality and appalling inequity is again (still) on general display, that institutions are both revered and detested, that pandemics dominate and fundamentally change our world, and that reason seems lost amid a sea of conspiracy theories, despite the best efforts of some authorities. As Julia Hurst and Zoe Laidlaw observed recently, โโฆidentity is rooted in history, and so history cannot be escaped.โ
An alternative truth
The opening of a novella about this pandemic; just set somewhere else entirely.In a world with alternative truths what we would perhaps prefer is an alternative world on which to trial them. Part 1 - Beginnings December 13 Nahuw, Anihc Moon is about to place an Uggo piece into what he hopes will be a … Continue reading An alternative truth
Foreword from a draft non fiction text
The fossil fooled I began to write this book on the first of January 2020, hoping this will be a year and decade of better vision than we have shown so far (forgive the pun). As I write, much of Australia burns. This fire season began in August 2019, some say July. The fires are … Continue reading Foreword from a draft non fiction text
Greta and the trolls
Isn't it fitting that Greta should hail from a nordic region, more-or-less the homeplace, I think, of trolls and other things nasty, like Ragnarok. What is it that brings them out whenever she gets a post or mention on social media.
Are we locked in a dance to the death (economically anyway) with fossil fuels
factors other than the purely economic must be taken into account. The problem with our purely economic thinking is that it is tainted with neoliberalist assumptions about worth. Humans, certainly all the ones in the first world, have been programmed to accept the notion that economic growth, most particularly at the personal level, is essential. To challenge this paradigm is to adopt the denialist annoying Greta Thunberg โhow dare youโ stance. But in fact what we do need to do - if you factor anything other than pure Homo economicus thinking - is to do away with stuff. Perhaps take a significant dip in our GDP rich life. Give up some goods, some cargo, some economic cudos. Will we be poorer for it? Will our health go into decline? Will our world become much smaller? Perhaps weโll travel less, the carbon load of flying is prohibitive. But will we be poorer? Will our air and waterways be cleaner? Will some of the wilderness be restored? Will we rediscover community? I donโt know, but I donโt think we can continue with business as usual. Because business isnโt (despite what they tell us) everything. We can choose to remain fossil fooled or we can choose not to be.
Letter to our first grandchild…
Corporations run governments. That seems to be a truth pretty much universal. Corporations determine policies; the chief democratic will of most nations at present is one which does not want to divest itself of the making of profits and greenhouse gases. Our economies are well oiled. Coal seamed. Denial of our climate emergency is a well-funded industry.




