I've always enjoyed your Fantasy writing. If it were possible to create such a conservative party it might be a Very Good Thing but Gina and Clive and the other members of the Insatiable Greed and Short Term Benefit party would kill it stone dead. Any socially responsible party has to recognise long term risks and those suckers don't. They want it all, they want it now and in Gina's case it would be nice if we bowed and threw flowers as she passed.
Nice fantasy you got going on there JB. I must say that the liberal Liberal Party you're describing is what they used to be in the 50s. Ironic that if you think about it...returning to the 50s has been LNP fantasy most of my lifetime.
Frankly tho, I don't think they have the capacity to recognise or to make the changes that are needed, and I expect we'll see them splinter into any number of cooked nuts parties, effectively splintering the RWNJ vote and consigning them to the outer darkness for a long time to come. (Gosh it's hard to type with your fingers crossed 🤣)
I think they need to keep goose stepping to the right until they go full circle and emerge as an extreme left wing party, at which point the Bolter will have a simultaneous meltdown and supernova as his head explodes.
Ms Price has had a taste of the good life now and will culture war the crap out of us to keep it. She is a darling of sky news because she says all the things that the dominant culture hold dear. She has, in the past, been coherent and sensible but all that fascist fawning is bound to turn a bush girls head. She only got around 30 K votes in the NT. Hardly deputy leader material especially after her appalling campaign performance. Meanwhile a true leader and educator, Mr Yunupingu died yesterday. He was 70 years of age and a founding member of Yothu Yindi. He was bashed to death for a 6 pack. Play Tribal Voice and One Blood loud for him. His family have lost one of the best fathers and grandfathers I've ever known
Couldn't agree more. Less sweaty and less screamy over there on the Right, please.
And obesa cantavit, as the Romans might have observed, had they been aware of the existence of Gina Rinehart and her mahning empire. Let's hear nothing more from her.
Applies equally to the squalling whinging crybabies here in Alberta and especially to the Canadian Federal Conservatives as they too have utterly lost the plot up here in exactly the ways you've laid out in your essay.
Thanks - now where would I get Victory sausages stuffed with schadenfreude? Sounds delish!
I don’t want to blame everything on Trump, but there are very few modern conservatives anymore. There is plenty of right wing fuck heads, but they’re reactionary at best and the very dregs of society at worst. I’ve always thought that I could understand conservatives - I didn’t agree with them, but it was a matter of disagreeing with the way in which we make society better, not, for instance, whether we should unleash robodebt on some of the most marginalised in the country. Modern right wing thought is just punching down on everyone who isn’t white or cis. Pretty fucked way to live your life, just trying to make people who are more marginalised than you miserable. Anyway, I feel we are stuck with this for a while. Trump gave the very worst of society permission to behave in ways that would have, until 15 years ago, gotten you taken behind the woodshed and having the shit kicked out of you seven ways from Sunday. I fear that stuffing that genie back into its bottle will be a long, hard battle. Great piece again JB
How true. Gone are the days when I can bear to have a close friend who holds different political views - the culture wars have led me to actively avoid people who I once thought were sane, but are now angry and willing to be cruel. They've only hurt themselves, really
I just laugh at them. Enough so that they avoid me lol. Also I laugh at anyone who thinks that god or the devil put every thought that they have into their stupid fkn heads.
This sounds like my fantasy dream for Albanese's second term. That he stops preferencing multinationals and fossil fuels, gives up on the already moribund Aukus and forgets to read the Murdoch press opinion pieces. He might then show some guts and behave as a Labor government rather than Liberal lite.
All of the Liberals who may have been inclined to wander a little back to the centre-right, have um... left. Now we've got Angus or Dan or the numerically challenged Sussan left to steer the Liberals (has there ever been a more misnamed party?) off of the edge of their flat earth. Exit stage (far) right.
As someone that is inside the aged care system, I would love for you to take a closer look at it.
Decades of government dedicated to slashing social programs, only to find that the cohort voting for them is now entering a drastically underfunded, underplanned, underresourced sector that will not be able to handle the influx of older Australians that presume their previously capitalist government will now expend socialist dollars to look after them until they die.
This cohort decries socialist programs but demands their pension.
The whole thing is a shitfight and it's going to get worse.
Good luck. It's going to be an ever increasing nightmare, where some of our most vulnerable are left to the mercy of market forces at the time they need social support.
The recruitment of Price shows that they’re still at the low end of getting the message last weekend delivered. Very few people aged 18-45 voted for them. Not many women in any age group did either. That’s the perception that will be proven out soon enough. If I was in a position to advise them (I’m not) the first thing they should have is a national conference to propose some of what you have as future policy goals closely followed by an all out effort to recruit one or more of Stegall, Chaney or Spender to lead the Opposition. The Teals will soon discover that Parliamentary irrelevance ain’t much fun. They might be gettable. Otherwise I think the Teals will go the way of the Democrats, the DLP and yes, the Greens. Sidelined by a total lack of effective power. They should tell whichever of the nongs in contention to lead that they’re a placeholder only. Just there to sit opposite Albo in Reps until they recruit a better option. While young Anthony is no PK on the floor he’ll make mincemeat of either of them in short order.
I do rather wish I'd written that. Couldn't have put it better. Unfortunately that side of politics dances to the tune of that very small but excruciatingly loud group of right wing-nuts. One only needs to read the social media cesspit that was Twitter. They'll not learn; they don't want to. They'll double down and be irrelevant for near a generation.
Any news on Cruel Stars III? I hope to still be upside of the dirt when it publishes!!
I've always enjoyed your Fantasy writing. If it were possible to create such a conservative party it might be a Very Good Thing but Gina and Clive and the other members of the Insatiable Greed and Short Term Benefit party would kill it stone dead. Any socially responsible party has to recognise long term risks and those suckers don't. They want it all, they want it now and in Gina's case it would be nice if we bowed and threw flowers as she passed.
Nice fantasy you got going on there JB. I must say that the liberal Liberal Party you're describing is what they used to be in the 50s. Ironic that if you think about it...returning to the 50s has been LNP fantasy most of my lifetime.
Frankly tho, I don't think they have the capacity to recognise or to make the changes that are needed, and I expect we'll see them splinter into any number of cooked nuts parties, effectively splintering the RWNJ vote and consigning them to the outer darkness for a long time to come. (Gosh it's hard to type with your fingers crossed 🤣)
Sounds like the modern Labor Party, right here in Australia...lol
I think they need to keep goose stepping to the right until they go full circle and emerge as an extreme left wing party, at which point the Bolter will have a simultaneous meltdown and supernova as his head explodes.
Ms Price has had a taste of the good life now and will culture war the crap out of us to keep it. She is a darling of sky news because she says all the things that the dominant culture hold dear. She has, in the past, been coherent and sensible but all that fascist fawning is bound to turn a bush girls head. She only got around 30 K votes in the NT. Hardly deputy leader material especially after her appalling campaign performance. Meanwhile a true leader and educator, Mr Yunupingu died yesterday. He was 70 years of age and a founding member of Yothu Yindi. He was bashed to death for a 6 pack. Play Tribal Voice and One Blood loud for him. His family have lost one of the best fathers and grandfathers I've ever known
Very sorry to hear of the death of Mr Yunupingu - desperately sad 😔
Couldn't agree more. Less sweaty and less screamy over there on the Right, please.
And obesa cantavit, as the Romans might have observed, had they been aware of the existence of Gina Rinehart and her mahning empire. Let's hear nothing more from her.
"Climate change without the all caps screaming"
Their inability to do this is effectively what created the Teal independents.
Man!
Applies equally to the squalling whinging crybabies here in Alberta and especially to the Canadian Federal Conservatives as they too have utterly lost the plot up here in exactly the ways you've laid out in your essay.
Thanks - now where would I get Victory sausages stuffed with schadenfreude? Sounds delish!
I don’t want to blame everything on Trump, but there are very few modern conservatives anymore. There is plenty of right wing fuck heads, but they’re reactionary at best and the very dregs of society at worst. I’ve always thought that I could understand conservatives - I didn’t agree with them, but it was a matter of disagreeing with the way in which we make society better, not, for instance, whether we should unleash robodebt on some of the most marginalised in the country. Modern right wing thought is just punching down on everyone who isn’t white or cis. Pretty fucked way to live your life, just trying to make people who are more marginalised than you miserable. Anyway, I feel we are stuck with this for a while. Trump gave the very worst of society permission to behave in ways that would have, until 15 years ago, gotten you taken behind the woodshed and having the shit kicked out of you seven ways from Sunday. I fear that stuffing that genie back into its bottle will be a long, hard battle. Great piece again JB
How true. Gone are the days when I can bear to have a close friend who holds different political views - the culture wars have led me to actively avoid people who I once thought were sane, but are now angry and willing to be cruel. They've only hurt themselves, really
I just laugh at them. Enough so that they avoid me lol. Also I laugh at anyone who thinks that god or the devil put every thought that they have into their stupid fkn heads.
This sounds like my fantasy dream for Albanese's second term. That he stops preferencing multinationals and fossil fuels, gives up on the already moribund Aukus and forgets to read the Murdoch press opinion pieces. He might then show some guts and behave as a Labor government rather than Liberal lite.
Fingers crossed but . . .
All of the Liberals who may have been inclined to wander a little back to the centre-right, have um... left. Now we've got Angus or Dan or the numerically challenged Sussan left to steer the Liberals (has there ever been a more misnamed party?) off of the edge of their flat earth. Exit stage (far) right.
Dear JB,
As someone that is inside the aged care system, I would love for you to take a closer look at it.
Decades of government dedicated to slashing social programs, only to find that the cohort voting for them is now entering a drastically underfunded, underplanned, underresourced sector that will not be able to handle the influx of older Australians that presume their previously capitalist government will now expend socialist dollars to look after them until they die.
This cohort decries socialist programs but demands their pension.
The whole thing is a shitfight and it's going to get worse.
Good luck. It's going to be an ever increasing nightmare, where some of our most vulnerable are left to the mercy of market forces at the time they need social support.
Sung to the tune of John Lennon's "Imagine"
The recruitment of Price shows that they’re still at the low end of getting the message last weekend delivered. Very few people aged 18-45 voted for them. Not many women in any age group did either. That’s the perception that will be proven out soon enough. If I was in a position to advise them (I’m not) the first thing they should have is a national conference to propose some of what you have as future policy goals closely followed by an all out effort to recruit one or more of Stegall, Chaney or Spender to lead the Opposition. The Teals will soon discover that Parliamentary irrelevance ain’t much fun. They might be gettable. Otherwise I think the Teals will go the way of the Democrats, the DLP and yes, the Greens. Sidelined by a total lack of effective power. They should tell whichever of the nongs in contention to lead that they’re a placeholder only. Just there to sit opposite Albo in Reps until they recruit a better option. While young Anthony is no PK on the floor he’ll make mincemeat of either of them in short order.
I do rather wish I'd written that. Couldn't have put it better. Unfortunately that side of politics dances to the tune of that very small but excruciatingly loud group of right wing-nuts. One only needs to read the social media cesspit that was Twitter. They'll not learn; they don't want to. They'll double down and be irrelevant for near a generation.
Any news on Cruel Stars III? I hope to still be upside of the dirt when it publishes!!
Cruel Stars 3 was finished nearly 18months ago. And submitted. My publishers are a bit slow.
Bit?!