Chapter Two: Staggering Deceit
It was the staggering deceit of those who set out to destroy him that truly did his head in. It was an unhelpful trait for a journalist, that he was surprised when people lied to him. But lied, and lied, and lied they did. He switched off; hid from the roving machines, delved deep into the ordinary, just as he had been forced to do before. The spirits abandoned him; or went silent. "A field is just a field," as Nick Cave had put it.
And so they went on. The bastards destroyed any possible link, their craven greed, their absolute dishonesty."I did whats I had to do," one of the most dishonest of them had said, dragging him through a court system he had no desire to go near. There was no non publication order. They were easy to expose. Yet he remained silent, masqueraded as a tired old drunk, told them to leave him on this mortal coil, not the beginning, not the end, just there in the flux beyond time or the edge of time, a civilisational collapse, a moment in their history.
Churned, dark, pissed off, destroyed, running like some black terrifying leach on churned fields of mud, here before the flowering, there before the end.
Albo, aka Anthony Albanese, in full contention for the Worst Prime Minister in Australian history, had destroyed what little, if any, faith Australians had in their ruling class.
Years of grasping conservatives, the worst they had to offer, in the shape of the truly atrocious Malcolm Turnbull and the even slimier and more unpleasant Scott Morrison, had destroyed the Conservative brand; in the upside down world of the Land Down Under known as the Liberals. Cravenly beholden to the bureaucrats who ran the country without regard to the peasantry they were meant to serve.
Albo had recently lost the "Yes" Referendum for an indigenous Voice to Parliament, another of his many left wing wet dreams. Now they were busy flooding the country with foreigners with record high immigration rates, without a single nod to the concerns of a population facing flat wages, rising costs of living and a housing crisis.
What was interesting, where he found himself, in Queensland, up beyond the New South Wales border, was how, after the blighted years of the so-called pandemic how much everything had returned to normal.
Visits to the local shopping malls revealed the truth of that line from How Civilisations Die: obesity ravaged the underclass as assuredly as typhoid had ravaged their forebears.
A bustle, a busy car park, prospering businesses, hard work.
The political travesty of the country, well people just got on with their own lives. They had no faith in their polity, no faith in the country at large, the same distance, the same unfriendliness and lack of curiosity, the same curled inside their own lives disaster, the same lack of sophistication.
And it all came back to haunt them. They would not survive, no matter how armoured their deceit.
The perpetrators. A curse on the liars. A curse on the thieves.
The absolute travesty of people who lied, or tried to disrupt, the history of the nation, the narrative that was true; and lies have unnecessary, unfortunate consequences. They destroy the people who utter them, like javelins driving straight back through their skulls, and all was here, and all would be destroyed, and we make our way like savages through a quagmire of the past, unable to tell truth from falsehood, light from dark,
Be Gone From This Place. And so, he hit the road again. And the world swirled into place.
MAINSTREAM MEDIA
THE NEW DAILY
The United Nations says the world economy is in for another tough year, with Australia and other developed economies in Asia facing strong headwinds.
Rising rental prices are likely to limit progress on inflation in Australia based on the intergovernmental organisation’s projections.
It expects inflation to fall fairly gradually in Australia and New Zealand over the next twelve months, with competitive rental markets largely responsible for the sluggish progress.
“In Australia and New Zealand, inflation is projected to remain relatively high in 2024 due to the acceleration in rental prices driven by housing supply shortages,” read the UN’s 2024 World Economic Situation and Prospects report.
Australia’s consumer price inflation is tipped to ease to 3.3 per cent in 2024, according to the UN’s forecasts, before sinking to three per cent in 2025.
Annually, Australia’s inflation grew 5.4 per cent through to the September quarter.
GUARDIAN AUSTRALIA
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for two explosions at a ceremony in Iran to commemorate commander Qassem Suleimani. More than 95 Iranians were killed and scores more injured in the attack on Wednesday, which came at a memorial ceremony marking the fourth anniversary of the killing of Suleimani, the head of Iran’s al-Quds force. The US is “in no position to doubt” the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility, the White House has said.
More than 22,438 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began, the majority of them women and children, according to the latest figures from Gaza’s health ministry on Thursday. The figures include 125 Palestinians killed in the past 24 hours. At least 12 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on a home in al-Mawasi evacuation zone, Palestinian hospital officials said. The blast reportedly killed a man and his wife, seven of their children and three other children ranging in age from five to 14.
CANBERRA TIMES
Former grand mufti of Australia Sheikh Taj El-Din Hilali has been described as a beacon of light at a time of division after his death aged 82.
A controversial figure during the mid-2000s when he publicly sparred with then-prime minister John Howard over the "War on Terror", the dual citizen died in Egypt on Thursday, Australian time.
The Lebanese Muslim Association (LMA) said Sheikh Hilali carried the weight of the Australian Muslim community on his "very broad shoulders and his even bigger heart" as he took up the fight to protect Islamic rights locally.
"Although residing in Egypt at the time of his passing, Sheikh Taj maintained close links with the Muslim community in Australia who loved and admired him so much and he remained a frequent and welcome visitor to Sydney," the association said in a statement.