Now We Enter Troubled Times
Vincent. St Remy. 1890.
"Perpetrators always seek to obfuscate reality, to discredit the information that points to their culpability and those who provide it, routinely demanding further proof. They stall or deflect action. Buying time and spreading misinformation is, after all, in the perpetrator's own self-interest."
Louise Arbour, international jurist, speaking about societies that seek to control information as they commit crimes.
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The thing that struck him the most was the apparent lack of anger; at least in the immediate vicinity, at least in the narrow circles he encountered, at least among the prosperous.
He couldn't understand it.
The mirror that was the mainstream media did nothing but coat the truth and find, in itself, a parallel world where the voices of the devastated were unheard.
This parallel, manufactured world, the end result of decades of media manipulation by governments and intelligence agencies, made it appear as if nothing was going on; that the routine rituals of the government, the eternally woke criticisms or parrying over racism or sexism or climate change, were in fact the real world.
Which it most definitely was not.
Much of the country had lost faith in their political leaders, but at the same time none of this was reflected back in the consumption of news.
We were born and were here and withered on the vine and were born again; we jumped species and races and times; we lived forever and were born again; we loved you and cared not one jot for your multiple insanities.
What angered us the most was the destruction of beauty; and as they flew high over myriad circumstances; as the dire wolves circled the encampment, as the of light of disembodied wings, or spirits, settled in the valley, as the machines, those secrets beyond secrets, once more moved into view, as parallel, as complex, as extraordinary as anything on this complex globe.
They would move into alignment, if and when it suited them. If and when they found the right portal in which to dock.
As if much of all of this was not already happening; here at this crucial time.
This population, protest extinguished or ignored, was being paralleled or propelled into an entirely uncertain future; the destruction of the country, the destruction of good will, of communality, of thirst and camaraderie and laughter, nesting with their families large and small.
"The feudal lords would have been better off left in their valleys."
And so it was. And so it would become.
MAINSTREAM MEDIA
The Liberal party crisis is not a dysfunctional family soap opera – democracy is at stake
All three major Australian parties are struggling to maintain their membership. In NSW, the most populous state, the NSW Liberal party claims 11,000 members but some say it is lower – below 10,000. NSW Labor has perhaps a few thousand more thanks to its affiliation with the unions.
In a state with a population of 8.2 million people it’s hardly a ringing endorsement of participatory democracy.
It’s easy to understand why the courts would not wish to wade into the murky pool of internal party politics. But it is certainly one for the major political parties.
Just ask the independents, who have benefited from perception that our major political parties are moving further away from local communities and their real concerns.
The crisis that has wracked the Liberal party is really a deeper crisis of democracy.
Long delays for elective surgery take their toll ahead of winter ‘disaster’
Tuesday’s planned tongue surgery was supposed to leave three-year-old Madoc breathing a little easier.
Instead, he returned home after the procedure was postponed for the second time in 10 months. A surgeon at the Westmead children’s hospital told his distraught mother, Kelsey Boivin, that it could not go ahead as there were no ICU beds left.
Madoc has Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome – a condition that has caused him to develop an oversized tongue and has resulted in health issues including sleep apnea, which leads to him waking up about 20 times an hour.
“The surgery was to try and help open up his airway because he doesn’t breathe well,” Boivin said.
Madoc is one of tens of thousands of people across New South Wales waiting for elective surgeries due to compounding impacts of the pandemic, including the mass furloughing of staff and the summer pause on surgery when Omicron cases surged.
In December, there were 94,807 people on the elective surgery waitlist.
Experts predict that number would have increased since then and want to see state and federal governments act now to speed up the return to normal functioning.
Madoc’s surgery was first planned for last June, after spending time on the waiting list. A new date was set when elective surgeries resumed this year.
Boivin pulled Madoc’s older brother, six-year-old Beau, out of school so that no one contracted Covid before the long-awaited procedure. Boivin organised help and took time off work.
“You plan your whole life around that – you do the PCR test three days before, jump through all of the hoops and then it doesn’t happen,” Boivin said.
“It’s a massive life thing – emotionally, financially, everything, trying to get ready for it each time.”
A spokesperson for the Children’s hospital at Westmead said it had dealt with a “significant number” of trauma and emergency cases on Monday evening that affected ICU and surgical capacity – at a time when more than 200 staff were in isolation.
Lachlan Murdoch claims Australia's way of life is 'under attack' and that a woke ABC is undermining the country
Billionaire media baron Lachlan Murdoch slammed Australia's 'media elite'
Rupert Murdoch's eldest son launched Centre for the Australian Way of Life
50-year-old Lachlan flew into Sydney last Friday on his $90million private jet
Lachlan Murdoch has slammed the ABC and claimed the Australian way of life is under siege.
In a pointed speech to the Institute of Public Affairs on Tuesday night, the billionaire media baron and eldest son of Rupert Murdoch said 'our core values, our successes and even our history are under constant attack'.
'Nourishing and defending those core values is extremely important. Not to do so has real world, real bad outcomes,' he told the right-wing think tank.
He also offered some advice on Australia's response to the Covid-19 pandemic, saying the country was right to 'turn the tyranny of distance into a temporary pandemic advantage ... until vaccines were developed'.
But he claimed the country then became 'a victim of our own success, with state leaders thinking they could out-do each other with lockdowns and remain Covid-free forever'.
Mr Murdoch said the approval of these approaches by much of the public 'was fuelled by the alarmist language and fear mongering of politicians and much of the media'.