Not Even One Term Tony: October, November & December 2013

September 2013

January, February & March 2014

Superannuation Seminar for Women: "Oh, guess what ladies? You will actually be unable to save equal amounts of money in your Superannuation as men because of institutionalised sexism."
Trust me, I'm thrilled. Please, do go on …

It was really strange being told that I had to start now to mitigate the discrimination because the system simply wasn't going to be changed. I think the major task of the women of my generation is to make sure the excuse 'The system is not going to change, so just work with the institutionalised discrimination you experience' is not said to our daughters and sons, because it is simply never accepted as a valid excuse for inaction.

The elected officials of the Australian Government are now revealed as comedy villains in the style of GW Bush.

Oh dear. The last time I encountered opinions on history like Christopher Pyne's I was reading them, because the writer was dead fifty years. Fighting for the Magna Carta in Australian History? Really?


I mean, I am a qualified historian in English History, so I bloody LOVE the Magna Carta, but that is ENGLISH history, not Australian history. Sigh.

Guise, guise, to go with Our Very Own (TM) George W Bush, Australia also has Our Very Own (TM) Rand Paul. Now all we need is Our Very Own (TM) Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher and we may have a chance of a few laughs in the grim years ahead. And please, god, Our Very Own (TM) Rachel Maddow ...

I signed this petition because I think that the energy and science security of the future is more important than the over-protection of antiquated use of resources.

Oh Prime Minister Abbott, you are forcing me to have 'I Didn't Vote For Him' made into a badge so I can wear it for the next three years

So, a fire fighter, a pastor and a scientist speak in a park. And no, the punchline is NOT that it is Tony Abbott, George Pell and a figment of Australia's imagination ... it's the people who believe that climate change needs action now!

There is something about the Australian Government at the moment that reminds me of all the governments of history that are held up as the worst of the worst. Except with this Government, people I actually know voted for them, and still support them to my face.

This action, and many other actions of this Goverment, is regressive. But this is the reality of being politically progressive and not having the guts to talk to the Coalition Supporters and Voters about their support of the Government and their fear of admitting they supported and voted for a Government that has turned out to be evil.

The people who support this Government are alive, still supporting them and they are people you know. They are the people that need to be talked to, over and over and over again by progressives until they understand that they must not support evil because they are scared of admitting they were taken in by Coalition Policy.

Talk to the Coalition Supports and Voters you know, without fear, for three years, or this madness continues.

Anglican Parish of Gosford
We may not be able to stop Morrison's evil, but we can bring it into the light. please read and share.

A young 22yr old Tamil man currently being held in the Brisbane detention centre has been told by Immigration that he is being flown back to Sri Lanka today 19th November.

Last week another young Tamil man (19yrs) was sent back to Sri Lanka from the Brisbane detention centre, thrown in prison and severely beaten. When he was handed back to his family, they did not recognize him. All refugees sent back are automatically put into prison, their families have to pay $3,000 and a court date is set for trial. The 19yr old who was beaten, spoke with a Brisbane refugee advocate by telephone last night. He said “My life is in danger”, “I have no life….I be dead”, “My family harassed now I return – no life for them…” His family who cannot return to their home are living in hiding separately with different friends. He may not be alive by his scheduled court date. He may also be killed because he does not have $3,000 to pay the authorities.

Recently two unaccompanied minors, a 12yr old and a 14yr old were put on a plane to Sri Lanka screaming and crying. Canberra was contacted and the Department's response was 'they are going'. We do not know what happened to them.

Human rights abuses continue in Sri Lanka. Seeking urgent action to save this 22yr old man from being returned on Tuesday. His father was killed and if he returns, he will be targeted and his mother and siblings will not be safe.

But of course the Sri Lankan Government is our friend. We give them war ships to help them kill their people.

I am ashamed of my government.

Fr Rod

Three years of talking to Coalition Supporters and Voters to help them work through their shame that they were taken in by Coalition Policies is going to be hard but necessary work to ensure this Government gets kicked out at the next election.

If you had told me two weeks ago what he would do last week, I would have told you to re-write your script, because no one, not even him, could be so very, very awful.

But we know what we have to do - we have to talk to the people that support the Government and change their minds. My parents are not going to like being around me for the next three years ... but I can't stand silent and put myself on the wrong side of history.


Going to dinner with two Coalition Voters and Supporters who are related to me this week. The topics of conversation I will raise will be Asylum Seekers and Climate Change. It will probably be horrific.

Combating Coalition Hatred with Carly Rae Jepsen ... Desperate Times ...

Who put Monty Python in charge of the Australian Government and the Australian Mainstream Media? Who?

I just can't get over how most things Tony Abbott says now are read out in my head in Monty Python and/or A Little Bit of Fry and Laurie tones. Actually …

ACTUALLY, who put Monty Python AND A Little Bit of Fry and Laurie in charge of the Australian Government and the Australian Mainstream Media? And is Tony Abbott channeling Douglas Adams and Alan Coren from the grave? Really? The Tory Colonial Member's Club Surrealism of his mind is completely making me into a modern day Dennis:

"Oh, king eh? Very nice. And how'd you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers. By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society."

Tony Abbott is also trying to be Blackadder. Actually, of all the comical but dangerously incompetent British characters he resembles, I like the Blackadder comparison the best. Or maybe I should just say Rowan Atkinson, because Abbott has more than a little Mr Bean about him too. Decisions ...

Tony Abbott believes that what made him comfortable in the past is what the rest of the country, and indeed the world, wishes for themselves and should accept under his Leadership.

I believe that looking to the future and considering the world we create for the next generation on the whole earth, not just the continent I was born on, is more important than fleeting political or economic comfort in my own life.

This is why I do not support the policies of the current Government.

I think that is what I want to put in a letter and send to Lizzie and Quentin. Imagine if he was taken out of power by two women? The irony ...

Guise! Our Government is broken. Does anyone know if there is a 90 day return policy?

It's raining on my beach weekend; I think it is God crying because Tony Abbott said he knew how Aung San Suu Kyi felt as Opposition Leader. God is crying for joy because this means he will not have to put up with Tony in Heaven for eternity :)

And what is worse in this instance is that as voters in a democracy, Australians have voted for three different governments of two different political persausions and allowed them to continue operating these camps. We cannot blame those in power, we can only blame ourselves.

And a toast to me then: that is how you fall in love with your Honours Thesis six years after you wrote it.

Sovereignty in The Book of the New Sun
The sovereignty personified by Severian in The Book of the New Sun is of Wolfe’s own creation, but it can be placed in direct comparison to political theory in the world outside of the text, particularly aspects of Carl Schmitt’s critique of liberal democracy. The historical record influences and is influenced by political theory, and Schmitt is acknowledged in the western political tradition as the twentieth century’s foremost critic of liberal democratic thought, despite a high-profile collaboration with the Third Reich that resulted in long repudiation of his writing in political circles. This lack of engagement with Schmitt was only overcome in the last three decades with growing numbers of authors translating and discussing his work. One of the most prevalent justifications for rehabilitating Schmitt is best summed up by David Dyzenhaus who asserts that 'echoes of the main themes of Schmitt's work, and in particular of his critiques of liberalism, can be found today in political philosophy and, to an increasing extent, in popular thought.’ This thesis proposes that one such example of Schmittian presence in popular thought is the critique of liberal democracy embedded deep within The Book of the New Sun.

Self-medicating out of history-based horror to happiness via the soundtrack from Empire Records; Not On Rex Manning Day!

Re-reading my Honours thesis and feeling slightly ill: the point of a classical education is to move forward free of, but informed by, the mistakes of the past, not to recognise the worst philosophies of the historical record in your own elected government.

Tony Abbott on YouTube promising the Carbon Tax repeal will give people $550 now so they can buy presents for their grandchildren at Christmas. Don't worry about working with the rest of the world to use Emissions Trading and Carbon Tax schemes to alleviate the effect Climate Change will have on the lives of aforementioned grandchildren in the future. Because that would be stupid and selfish!

La la la, joining the dots, la la la, turns out a classical education and Catholicism can be useful, la la la, so glad I am such a nerd, la la laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ...

So Liberation Theology is finally in charge of the Throne of Saint Peter; it's about time the Catholics got their act together. I recommend the recording of the talk linked here for further discussion. Abbott isn't such a good Catholic after all ...

"Francis I is the first Jesuit pope in the history of the Catholic Church. Sometimes called the "Pope’s marines," the Jesuits – formally known as the Society of Jesus – take a special vow of obedience to the Pope. The Superior General of the Jesuits, clad in a black cassock, has been named "the Black Pope." Yet the Jesuits promise to refrain from aspiring to hierarchical positions of authority. With the election of Pope Francis many are asking, "What is a Jesuit?" and "What may we expect from a Jesuit pope?"

RECORDING HERE

Thanks to the actions of Tony, Chris and Scott, I now have a Bachelors Degree in Being Cassandra, majoring in Time Travel to the 1930's. What I used to have was a Bachelors Degree in History, majoring and with an Honors year in Modern European Politics. So watch out Australia, Chris Pyne may not want your children to learn ANY useful history, but he and his overlords know THEIR history, and they are going to use it until it makes you all scream.
Right, so, I'm off to set fire to my hair, don't mind me.

So it turns out leading your country with human decency and global citizenship is totally optional when you are Tony Abbott.

Very Soon: Harsher penalties for parole violators Stan. Oh. And world peace!

Listen up Australian Voters: since the Tampa Crisis in 2001 our politicians learnt that they could get votes by torturing other children, women and men for our vicarious xenophobic pleasure. They do nothing if not to please us, so this our fault, and our human rights violations to clean up.

The Tampa: Defining the threat of the other
This essay was written for a UWA History Unit in September 2001, so soon after September 11 that I referred to those events in their long format. I actually haven't had to change a word to publish it twelve years later in 2013, which is a sad state of affairs for Australian narrative on refugees.

I feel we are being governed by some second-string Disney Villains, not by Australians.

Hehehehe, the commentators are beginning to draw VERY clear lines between Abbott's Catholicism and his policies and style of communication. Sometime soon they are going to stumble across another element of his ideology in the annuals of history and then they are going to be screaming, not just talking.

I don't know why I added the 'hehehehe', I think I must be feeling smug and ill at the same time ...

September 2013

January, February & March 2014

September 2015 - Prime Minister AUST#28 removed from Liberal Party Leadership