Passing The Point Of No Return
This day is amazing and so are you. "Another day in paradise" was a common saying around Shellharbour, south of Sydney. Often said with more pride than irony. Nobody wanted to return to the "big smoke". Nobody wanted to return to the chaotic wilderness of Sydney, the crowded traffic, the clientele pouring over each other to struggle into the light; that was, wealth. A standard encounter with a stranger in Sydney, that city of sycophants, and they had pinned your status, your wealth, your asset class.
Down here, well it was another day in "fools paradise"; the city, the country, the consciousness, the politics, the scratch my back and I'll scratch yours emphasis, the derelict notion of national unity sacrificed on an alter of diversity and multiculturalism, five million Australians in receipt of welfare benefits about to receive a gob smacking increase of something like $8 a fortnight, enough to buy a beer. Wow.
There wasn't any unity. There wasn't any esprit de corp, there wasn't any kindness dished out between competing rivals, there was sunshine on rooftops and a profound disinterest in almost everything.
"Alas, almost no politicians have suffered electorally for their Branch Covidian policies that have crushed the freedoms, rights and economic prospects of so many.
"They seem to have cottoned on to the fact that most voters are low-information types who appear not to value freedom highly."
Perhaps that was what astonished an old freedom fighter such as himself; the sheer bloody minded stupidity of it all, the embrace of totalitarianism, or authoritarianism, the rogue ambassadors who might as well have been shouting in the wind, for all it influenced the general public.
Nobody cared what ordinary people thought. Until election time. The less they thought, the better the governors of the day liked it, for nothing could be questioned and they got away with blue murder, or at the very least outrageously destructive social policies which any even half sane person could grasp as being extremely, extremely stupid.
All was well.
At least within himself.
As he cleared the debris of another person's life from the house; as he and the house and those involved, tangentially or otherwise, took on a whole new clean break. A distance that was formed. A hostility that came with due cause. An instant desire never to surrender. An abiding lack of trust.
Victory belongs to those who are right with heaven and with earth.
We have been sent. Our warnings ignored.
We have all now passed the point of no return.
The country will suffer for the stupidity of its leaders.
Millions will struggle to survive, in a cataclysm their leaders so arrogantly brought upon them.
HEADLINES:
NSW and the ACT rolling out the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine today
COVID-19 has done something strange to Australian politics.
The WA Premier Mark McGowan is facing this weekend's election with a 90% approval rating, and the opposition has conceded defeat before polls have opened.
Campaigning to win an election from the top job has always been a big advantage, but this is new territory.
So does the same rule apply to Scott Morrison, and will he test it out before the end of the year?
Scott Morrison and Christian Porter have been accused of ignoring the disability royal commission’s “urgent” request for an extension to the inquiry, after failing to reply to the commissioner for more than four months.
In its interim report in October, the commission said it needed a 17-month extension, acknowledging the scope of the $527m inquiry may have been underestimated and noting the impact of the pandemic on the hearings.
Guardian Australia can reveal the government is yet to respond to two letters from the commission chair Ronald Sackville requesting the extension, despite him stressing the “urgency” of an early response.
A far-right proposal to ban face coverings in Switzerland has been narrowly passed by voters in a binding referendum.
The measure to amend the Swiss constitution passed by with a margin of 51.2 per cent of the vote on Monday morning (Australian time), provisional official results showed.
The proposal under the Swiss system of direct democracy does not mention Islam directly and also aims to stop violent street protesters from wearing masks.
But local politicians, media and campaigners have dubbed it the burqa ban and a test of attitudes towards Muslims.
“In Switzerland, our tradition is that you show your face. That is a sign of our basic freedoms,” Walter Wobmann, chairman of the referendum committee and a Swiss People’s Party MP, had said before the vote.
He called facial covering “a symbol for this extreme, political Islam which has become increasingly prominent in Europe and which has no place in Switzerland”.
The Central Council of Muslims in Switzerland called the vote a dark day for the community.
New South Wales and the ACT will today begin the rollout of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine. Frontline workers will be the first to receive the jabs at St George and Hornsby hospitals in Sydney. The vaccine will also be administered at the Garran Surge Centre in Canberra. Thousands of Australians have already received the jab in South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia, and Queensland.