A Rococo Miasma of Whimsy

G'day Possums,

Art imitates life and what better at imitating the flatness of current Oz life than photography; so Mrs Wombat and I toddled off up the road t'other day to the eighth Ballarat International Foto Biennale.

Art also reflects the mores and practices that manifest societally as culture and the contemporary parallels exhibited are ominous in the extreme.

We parked opposite the Mining Exchange and given that that venue usually displays a cornucopia of imagery, headed there...oops, there was only Fiona Foley's "Who are these strangers and where are they going?"  A lack of labels made one look harder for context and deciding that we were looking at an installation utilising objects, video and photographs, proceeded.

Fiona Foley: "Who are these strangers and where are they going?"

Reality #1. Although Network Noine will not admit it paid The Red Terror from the Deep north to disrespect the indigenous custodians of Uluru by climbing their sacred site.....particularly after her insult turned to farce when, A/ she didn't have the bottle to go up much further than 40 metres , B/ couldn't walk down and had to, more aptly and toddler-like, slide down on her derriere, it still provided this repulsive woman all the publicity she craved.

 Reality#2 Defending their traditional Gomeroi country from mining, a family is suing Faux Environment Minister, Real Estate Ley after she rejected their heritage protection bid in favour of a controversial Chinese coal project. Acknowledging the project could cause "mental health impacts … a sense of dislocation, displacement and dispossession," but said by way of digital salute, the social and economic value of the project took priority.

So, invasion, dispossession, manipulation, slavery, despoliation and arrogant acceptance are the theme but installation is theatrical and apart from the ominously flattened midden "runway" of oyster shells leading to the empty tent this exhibit was too far spread in this huge space to be effective; and for my taste the staged photo's too prosaic and really, pretty ordinary and in some cases "cute," (Black KKK ???) to be much other than presenting a "very worthy" exhibit.

And then popping into the Central Highlands Waterworks historical exhibit next was a trifle surreal .....viewing all those Victorian workers and worthies digging up Wadawurrong country with such gusto.....

....and followed in turn by sublime Israeli arrogance with "Soldiers" where Adi Nes makes banal cartoonish pastiches of old master works and themes like "The Pieta" and "The Last Supper".....Haw, Haw, nudge, nudge.. wink, wink...you xtians...

but he provides at least some reality by showing four soldiers pissing on what I assume is most likely,  "occupied territory."

 

Adi Nes: Soldiers

Reality# 3. Coming into the open and phoning the Ruling Rabble's private militia Deputy Plod Gaughan, Obersturmfuhrer  Pezzi Pezzullo congratulated his AFP bovver-boys for their teamwork in raiding Annika Smethurst's undies drawer and said "Well done, tomorrow is another day." By which, he obviously meant that the successful rehearsal at A.S's meant "go-go-go" for invading the ABC the next day!

Obersturmfuhrer Pezzi thought negative commentary about his congratulatory epistle to fellow professionals was not meant to indicate "a supposed attitude to press freedom" ....whatever that is!

Reality #4 Its been a very quiet anniversary for Scummo, The Happy-Clapper, Liar from the Shire, Hypocrite and Pentacostal Prime Miniature ... as he has done nothing in 12 months worthy of  celebration.

Visiting Timor-Leste, Scummo assiduously avoided the demonstrations against the secret star chamber proceeding against the whistle blower and his lawyer who "blew" Oz's perfidy in bugging the Timor Gap oil treaty talks.

Also playing down this episode from his taxpayer funded retreat in London was Bookshelves Brandis, who knew that by proceeding when Plastic Attorney General he was dragging Little-Johnny, Fishnets-that-Batter and himself through the mire of their own corruption and obviously sees the Unxtian Porter's stupidity in not understanding even that in his slavish roll-over to Potato-Head's fascist vanity and fantasies as even poorer judgment than the event itself.

The New York times allegedly called these works "shrewd send-ups of the pervasive macho, military presence in Israeli life...".... now, who says the American's don't understand irony?

There were the Watchtowers dotted down Sturt St, the Missiles in Police Lane, Boy-o Xmas cards at The Forge and the Blind Radius series Part2, Dolls in the Trade Union and photographs of dioramas downstairs there too... Gosh, If I had have known I was making art by photographing these for a children's book I would have entered, too!

http://shanewombat.blogspot.com/2019/03/legacys-and-how-cat-got-belled.html

Portraits in The Town Hall were lacklustre in the main... and Petals, neither Mrs Wombat nor I were moved enough to even vote in the public choice. 

Consuelo Cavaniglia: I came Back, Toward Myself

The Bauhaus was interesting although it was a pity Ruff hadn't given a nod to the influence of  Kandinsky and in  the overall curation, acknowledgment at least to  Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, particularly his work "Vision in Motion."

Zoe Croggon

 In talking earlier about the nature of the works, they're ominous for the very reason that they hold no "bite", they're almost all "throw-away-lines," disinterestedly whimsical in only noting an event or action without serious passion or involvement and seemingly produced for an audience of jaded over-sophisticated tastes and of the lightest touch. "Rococo"?

The curation similarly seemed haphazard and uneven, aesthetically unsure whether it was exhibiting sculpture, installation art or photography and I'll not be seeing the "show-stopper" because I thought conceptual art's "process over form and content" died in the last century's early seventies and besides, "Where's Wally?"  holds little interest after the first time.

But for the rest ....there's always tomorrow.... to coin a phrase....

Hoo-roo Petals,

Shane.

The Ship of Fools or All at Sea on the Foundering Rustbucket, SS Ruling Rabble

G'day Lorikeets,

We've been to and seen a few performances this week, two spirit lifting, the others seen only from afar, wholly dispiriting as you witness how completely bereft of moral and ethical behaviour the Ruling Rabble have become and how any concept of ministerial responsibility is utterly foreign to them and just how parlous our democracy has become.

Squawking like a demented Sulphur Crested Cockatoo aloft the crows nest at sunset, The Harpy Cash demanded that Labor apologise for questioning her honesty because she withheld knowledge from the police about the staffers who admitted they criminally leaked the AWU raid to the press. Then incongruously denied that it was in order to get Willy Shortstuff into trouble ("...who's this Shorten bloke..?" she was alleged to have muttered) as she and the Retiring Keenan flapped away from the tender ministrations of Senator Penny Wong who also wanted to discuss the failure of the Unfair Work Commission in cutting penalty rates to hospitality workers which hasn't meant, as they promised, an increase in working hours.

And if ever a Knight was errantly named it was this new Paladin. Born in a shack on Kangaroo Island with shonky partners, with no experience and with Home Affairs Minister, Potato-Head Dutton's sister on staff, the Ruling Rabble have said privately, much like they did to the Barrier Reef Syndicate, "Here ya go, mate... have a measly $423,000,000.00 go and run the concentration camp on Manus.... and don't forget "good practice" .... sack the workers, re-hire them on lower wages and make a bigger profit!"

In what seemed an audition for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival the alleged Attorney General, The Un-xtian Porter when queried by Barrie Cassidy on Insiders that Paladin's accommodation bill for a concentration camp bed was costing at $1600.00 per week sans food, a lot more than a top Sydney hotel, The Unxtian strait facedly replied with something like, "....we try to do the best for our concentration camp inmates.!"  Later, in a Tsunami of appearances inaccurately blaming Labor, he announced that there were loopholes in legislation big enough for a whale to jump through (I know, I know, whales broach...but it's not me speaking) It was the legislation parliament enacted to provide a semblance of kindness to the Manus and Nauru detainees but like Joe McCarthy in the 50's, The Un-xtian declined to offer the evidence.

Then just when you thought the weather couldn't get worse, Double Dipping Joe Hockey sails in from his taxpayer funded double-dip holiday camp in Washington to not offer advice to the godfather of his children and WA Ruling Rabble treasurer and Helloworld travel business owner on how to facilitate a billion dollars in government travel contracts. "Nor Sir, not me, grinned the ever ebullient Joe the Double Dip..... and I didn't advise him to about the Fisherman's Bend redevelopment either, that was probably Matty Thug, The Lobster Guy.... we're all mates here, we (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) share  everything."

Mates-rates also caught his other friend, Horse-Shite Cormann out when he decided to go-to-the-top instead of the sales desk, to the same Helloworld travel boss and book a family holiday flight... which seven months later still wasn't paid until a journo asked... and even then, amid the flurry of salty excuses, $2700.00 for a family of four for return flights to Singapore and unlikely to be "cattle-class" is very cheap. But then, cheaply treating the public suits Cormann: he billed the taxpayer $37,000.00 for an RAAF flight to Adelaide to unsuccessfully woo some Centre Alliance opposition rather than take a very cheap commercial flight for say $1200.

But as Primed Miniature de Jour Scummo says..."Nothing to see here.. "Ooooh, look Boats , boats and more boats, terrorists, rapists, naughty brown people on the horizon, batten down the hatches, man the cannon!"

And then the polls turned ...well they did if you believe The Ugly American's comics. But if you believe them you also probably think "John and Betty" is classic high literature.

It is interesting to note how consistent all the media have become in their word placement, the tenor and projections of what they are saying... it's not actually news, it's propaganda designed to obscure the truth of just how corrupt and incompetent this Ruling Rabble is, was, and shall always be. Amen.

Now the nice stuff ... I commissioned a ring for Mrs Wombat, a replica of one from the C12th-C13th  from jeweller friend Paul (APS Jewellery) and it made us all very happy.

Then later, at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl we all attended a wonderful concert featuring the incredibly talented 11 yo Christian Li playing Saint-Saen's Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, 

Max Bruch's Scottish Fantasy with the superb playing of Veriko Tchumburidze  and a really good band, The Melbourne Symphony beautifully conducted by Benjamin Northey......

which makes all the political stuff more evil, more wastefully negative, pointless and culturally debilitating than it has ever been in Australia.

May we soon be rid of these irrelevant but costly pricks.

Hoo-roo, Kookaburra's

Shane. 

Democracy's Demise in Oz

Shane in the Slammer

G'day possums,

Remember when Australia was a "larrikin" nation, celebrated as a "Fair Dinkum" breed-apart from its colonial masters, thumbing its nose at overweening authority and mythicized as the "workers paradise of the South" where "a fair go" and a "fair day's pay for a fair day's work" were part of an egalitarian social contract, and "mate-ship" was real?

Well Petals,  the "thumbing your nose at authority" bit was finally put to rest last week when Labor supported the Ruling Rabble's Foreign Influence and Transparency Bill through the Senate.

Now, thumbing your nose at the Government of the day ( may we get one soon), by writing a researched  article critical of it, planning or participating in a demonstration against its programs or intentions, will land you with a minimum of seven up to 25 years in jail.

Fair dinks!

For now, it is a criminal act to plan or to demonstrate en masse and you will be deemed a threat to security and the army can now be called in to disperse you. 

Imagine, if you will, Potato-Head Dutton taking umbrage at being criticized for lacking compassion, empathy and understanding the rights of humanity and that his concentration camps full of refugees, are illegal and an abomination? Can you imagine his pleasure in sooling the dogs of war onto his own people out of sheer venal spite because he was being held accountable for his malicious cruelty?

No?  Why are we so different to the humanity he has incarcerated illegally for so long?

Fair dinks, we are now the authoritarian state we used smugly to point at overseas.

But wait there's more... the legislation will also support the so-called "free trade deals" where multi-national business can sue a country who use legislation to protect its own or where legislation interferes with their profit. In other words your government becomes an agent for the multi-national and will use its draconian powers to suppress any dissent from the local populace being affected by the multi-national.

But wait.. it goes further...concurrent with this gross diminution of free speech and congruent to it, alleged Attorney General, the Un-Christian Porter has sent for trial (in secret) Witness K and his lawyer who blew-the-whistle on Australia's illegal bugging of the Timor-Leste government offices under the aegis of Little Johnny Howard and his cross-dressing Foreign minister Fishnets-that-Batter, Downer eleven years ago.  Then, Australia diddled the Timorese out of their fair share of the oil riches beneath the sea near their coast.

Interestingly, included in the arraigned are four ABC journalists who reported on the nefarious actions of Howard, Downer and ASIO at the time including one, Emma Alberici, who currently is no pin-up gel for the Ruling Rabble.

More interesting is the fact that the Newscorp journo who broke the story in The Ugly American's "Australian" in the first place, has not been called.  Vindictive and petty? 

Bloody oath!

Annabel Crabb was hosting “Insiders,” attempting to replicate Barrie Cassidy who is on leave. Having obviously been fed not only food on her lunch date with Truffles earlier in the week but Ruling Rabble talking points as well, Crabb was outplayed by Wayne Swann who was direct and clear in his answers, something the Ruling Rabble never are and although attempting to find division, she never followed up on a reply to tease out more content, often cutting off the end of Swann’s answer to limit him cementing a case different to the one she was pursuing.

Did we mention that Hissy-Fits Sales was at the lunch with Truffles as well?

It was like reading out a recipe of one star difficulty as the program degenerated with hosting the politically lopsided panel of Saava, Coory and Crowe all sitting and smugly agreeing with each other’s “talking-points” on just what a disaster (in their Murdoched minds) Willie Shortstuff’s tax policy adjustment was and trying to beat up a leadership challenge in the best of the Ugly American’s tradition while ignoring the fact that it was July 1^st and worker's penalty rates were being cut again but with the Prime Miniature and all other pollies simultaneously getting a 2% pay rise: Truffles raking in a $7,000.00 yearly increase …. 

A fair Go?

What started as a pie ended up bland right-wing blancmange.

I have to admit it did bring back memories of the last election night and the right-wing bias of the ABC panellists which included Crabb…

https://shanewombat.blogspot.com/2016/07/not-with-bang-but-whimper.html

The demise of "the Larrikin" was hastened, too when Senate clown and IPA fellow- traveller, Loopy Leyonhjelm in debate about  "respecting the safety of women" (but really wanting them all to be able to buy 7-15 shot Adler 's for their handbags) confused his own more important thoughts to the words spoken by Senator Hanson-Young and in high dudgeon retaliation, told her to "...stop shagging men"....and when she confronted him over this, then told her to "F**K Off!"  Confusing his "libertarian" cover with being an honest larrikin, and being roundly castigated in the press and at interview on this matter Loopy showed all the recalcitrance and indignant outrage of a 14 yo schoolboy pretending not to know what had gone wrong... Nahh, youse dunno anyfing.... ya pussys!  ...and it seems he is obviously garnering favour with the alt-right (he likes his Milo), Patriot Fascists and Tru-blu's for the next senate election.... if they can locate a polling booth, that is ....and read the voting form.

For those wanting to jump on the Ruling Rabble's Fascist, IPA bandwagon I have spare copies of the Horst Wessel in sheet music form ....

Hoo-roo Possums,

Shane.

Return to Khaos

Shane listening to ABC while it still exists.

G,day Possums,

The ancient Greeks maintained that before the world was formed there was the void, which they termed, Khaos.

As Australia as a civil society is unravelled by the Ruling Rabble, as it is tainted, soiled, besmirched, bowdlerised and made feeble in the face of the world are we witnessing our return to chaos?

I have included with my rant, quotes from two journalist’s articles and an artist-photographer/poet, which to me encapsulate a similar mood concerning the direction in which this country is heading.

Photo’s are from France to leaven the gloom of this post....

Alleged environment minister Fiction’s Frydenberg, wags his finger at the electricity company's for ripping off their customers, conveniently avoiding the fact that it was his state Ruling Rabble colleagues who were the ones who privatised what the public once owned and that this ongoing and glaring practice of malevolent capitalism is what the Ruling Rabble actually aspire to in their so-called, “free-market”.

He descended further into farce when, with Dan van Holst Pellekaan, (SA energy and Mining minister with training wheels) they claimed that falling electricity prices are the Ruling Rabble’s doing and not the previous Labor government who had invested heavily in renewables.

This nonsense is probably of no help to The Gorgon, Downer in her pallid bid to reclaim the family sinecure of Mayo from the upstart, Sharkie: happily, polls are not looking good for the IPA’s dull one from Victoria.

IPA colleague, Alan Meerkat, Tudge has backpedalled on draconian English tests for citizenship… obviously, Alan, Alan..has been whacked by polls suggesting that “dog-whistling” about immigrants is still poor policy in what’s left of our civil society.

Etretat

The newly minted plastic Attorney General (and latterly suspect state treasurer of WA) the un- Christian Porter looked uncomfortable in interview when spouting that new security measures are meant to protect us from foreign terrorist elements disrupting or undermining our society and body politic. Obviously, he realised he had just defined the last five years of the Ruling Rabble regime and the continued support offered by The Ugly American, Murdoch and his papers.

Part of his package seeks to allow multi-national and other big business’ a right to instigate defamation action when criticised, for example, polluting a river, poisoning their clientele or other grotesqueries and it offers more belligerent police action should demonstrators take their concerns to the street and block traffic.

Without a hint of irony this paragon of the law said that, “I don’t have a concluded view. I would wait to see the legal research and see the types of options that might be available.”

Now doesn’t that put your minds at rest eh, Petals?

Ruling Rabble, Gang-Bang Conference at the Hilton Hotel in Sydney unanimously votes to sell off the ABC….. to a media type, a collection of staff or whichever Chinese pops up first. …. except for rural and regional broadcasting……….sigh……...!

Why do these mongrels always, always want to return to the beginning of the last century?

Why do these IPA controlled non-entity's fear diversity and balance so much? Is it because they know that diversity is essentially democratic and that their view of the world is untenable?

Well at least, “Vote Liberal: Lose the ABC” can’t be construed as a lie during the next election campaign.

Etretat

Prime Miniature,Truffles announced that Australian taxpayers were to foot 2/3 of the bill for the Solomon Islands to have a State-of-the-Art internet system. Playing catch-up after this incompetent Ruling Rabble de-funded aid into the Pacific and idly watched while the Chinese happily filled the vacuum, Truffles saw no irony in that the Solomon’s will get a better system than us, earlier, faster and not copper like the atrocious one he’s foisted on his own country.

Quisling?

Normandy

And now for some voices more eloquent than mine expressing similar thoughts….

“The AWU raid may look like student politics, but it has a nastier edge: banana-republic stuff, power wielded without consideration of civil society. It is a small part of the wider decomposition of Australian politics, and of the Western right more generally. The Liberals are, and always have been about the assertion of power. In the postwar era, against the rise of the productive state and working class movements, they championed free-market liberalism as an answer to the growing problems of social democracy. Now, they prefer racis – sorry, “national security”, and vast subsidies for the fossil fuel sector. Whether it’s attacks on unions, or the spruiking of the Ramsey Centre, the kitsch piles up, to the point where the right’s true character is revealed: a party of state order and repression, for whom the openness of markets and social life are a secondary consideration.

These are the people who rule us, and who, in 95% of seats you must choose between if your vote is to count. This is bathysphere politics, the mutual race to a deep bottom.” Guy Rundle: The Saturday Paper, June 9-15 2018.

Ouistreham

“…. Alan Jones in a fawning interview with Howard on 2GB…. were both oblivious to the irony of their complaint: that the very process of interrogating our society, its institutions and values, is the essence of the civilisation they purport to defend.

The dogmatic insistence of the Ramsey Centre – that its curriculum should be immune from such interrogation – is evidence of a failure to embody the values it seeks to teach.” Mike Secombe: The Saturday Paper, June 18-22, 2018.

Seine

“I've got to say that I'm done with priests and prophets. They're all men and they all work in the service of hierarchical and usually patriarchal systems - no better than bankers. And believe me I have met the lot of them - 30 years of spiritual musical chairs. Then it occurred to me that if I removed from my mind everything a male authority had ever told me about how I should see the world - I had no idea how I would see the world. Because there is one thing that priests and prophets do really well and that's convince you to surrender your autonomous eye. I'll never do that again. Maybe religion is dying out now because we've got social media to tell us what to think so we don't need god now. It is so hard to decide to look, really look, with your own invalidated and not very famous eyes.” Judith Nangala Crispin. Poet / Photographer-Artist.

Hoo-roo Possums,

Shane

The Calm Before The Storm...?

Shane...among the gums

G'day possums,

Xmas has come and quietly gone with a side tour to Trentham Falls and a photo-op just up the road from the burrow at O' Brien's Crossing... to replicate the Wombat's Gels sitting together on the same rock they had sat on and  photographed many, many years ago.

At the Falls there were many people ignoring warning signs and climbing barriers attempting the 32 metre descent to the bottom of the falls down a rough, narrow path... and many others proving their place in existence with "selfies." 

Self was also central at O'Brien's with people camping along the pebbled fringes of the barely running and narrow Lederderg River: the most notable being the palatial white marquee whose occupants had thoughtfully placed their chugging generator closer to campsites other than their own so they could enjoy watching the televised test cricket in the relative quiet of their tent.

Mrs Wombat and I also came across some other campers cooking up an aromatic storm of b-b-q'd Lamb who told us they were Persian and kindly offered us a delicious sample of their fare.... I hope that they have nothing to worry about with the current ructions in their homeland.

The Wombat gels were late arriving back have spent time trying to douse a campfire that had been left smouldering (a day before a day of total fire ban) and out of mobile range for a  call in the CFA to deal with it.

Some postulate that the selfish actions seen here are a result of the "Age of Anxiety". The age where for the young, everything is so controlled and intervention so complete that real success or failure is never experienced, limits are never broached and experiential development is stalled until "adulthood" is reached and self absorption, ignorance of collectivism and societal common purpose has decayed and corrupted till only a nihilistic individual hedonism  is recognisable. 

 

O'Brien's Crossing

VicPol  have, after another nutter used his vehicle as a weapon on city crowds placed a malfunctioning tannoy warning system around the city: "Whoop, whoop, whoop... there is an emergency taking place, please don't panic in the vicinity of Swanston and Latrobe!" ...... and also spent considerable time telling the population how many heavily armed officers will be patrolling on N Y E and that "...wherever you are, we are here to look after you and keep you safe... from whatever disaster or riot might eventuate."

It was hard not to get a sense that they were actually salivating at the prospect of a riot so that they could justify their existence and bang someone on the head or let off a few celebratory 40 Cal Smith and Wesson rounds.

The word "riot," was used, too!  Be fearful, fear everything, Big Brother will look after (control) you!

Trentham Falls

On the federal front: Fishnets-That-Batter, Downer, (soon to be replaced by Bookshelves Brandarse  as our  High Ponce in London) prior to last years election in the Un-United States, had, not only  a very boozy chat with one of Pussy-Grabber Trump' s apparatchiks who apparently revealed "the Russian Connection" to the pussy Grabber's campaign but then Fishnets  belched this info to Oz security who dutifully informed the FBI which will, in turn, make the Pussy Grabber and his bestie Putin, a trifle annoyed with Oz.

And why was Fishnets-That-Batter having excessive drinky-poo's with Tea Party trolls on the taxpayer's purse in the first place?

Fresh from the mongrels who can't competently fill our their citizenship declarations comes the story of a Tamil detainee who struggled to fill out 41-page application form in English – and was not able to access legal assistance in time and so, was placed in handcuffs at Villawood detention centre and slated for deportation that evening.

Barnyard tells us he has a big pool of talent to trawl from.

Like 20 !!!!!

Who is this philandering and corrupt alcoholic trying to convince with hyperbole filched from mining propaganda brochures in justifying more unknown Deep Northerners in cabinet ?

As more detail emerges as to who said what to whom, The Harpy, Cash has been rebuffed in the Federal Court and  been directed to hand over the documents relevant to her leaked / botched raid on the AWU …… and then Scummo Morrison: one hypocrite whose alleged "faith"  I was never aware of having any impact for good ever on Australian society,  in fact quite the opposite;  and I'm sure the refugees he set adrift in lifeboats and those he turned back or incarcerated would think similarly of his  "standing up" for Xtian values by promising to play a leading role next year in the debate about enshrining further "protections" for religious freedom in law!

..a rubbish xmas tree...

Roaming Quisling, Border Farce Gruppenfuehrer, it has been revealed by "Benito" Pezzullo  is STILL (since May 2017) under investigation for abuse of power (and allegedly being naughty with younger staff, other than his spouse) on full pay of $618,000.00 pa. 
His Reich fuehrer, DoDo Dutton is being commendably loyal to his ex Deep North plod mate who just might have to "goods" on Dodo, though it is interesting to note how tardy the nature and progress of such investigations of corruption are  when it comes to the ruling rabble's henchmen as compared to the alacrity with which the AFP act on the Labor party or the Unions!

Which is perhaps why latter-day Noe Notion aficionado, Dickie Smith is sensing that this sort of hypocrisy, allied with the yawning and increasing gap in wealth distribution is the reason he feels a real revolution is around the corner…..and why the nobbled ABC in concert with other Ugly American, Murdoch propaganda sheets is peddling the  mis-information that Labor is cracking.... or am I really hearing another tsunami of wishful thinking to divert a nation in a parlous economic and psychological space? 
The Harpy Cash is being hoist on her own petard, Scummo is still talking fiscal and religious fairy tales, Fictions Frydenberg is permanently off with the Hungarian pixies on energy, Jobsongroth, unable to find a renewable contract with decent penalty rates and Barnyard's bullying all and sundry in an effort to prove his virility whilst the Un-xtian Porter (a shallow boy seeking validation of his existence by punching people) unpacks the IPA agenda on Human Rights to lead us back to serfdom. 
Yep, 2018 will see Truffles still playing Canute without a life jacket and will continue to demonstrate his awesome facility of the reverse Midas touch as the world mocks and feeds off us

Around this Wombat's burrow , NYE was unusually quiet, the roads and city further west apparently deserted and fireworks seen on TV from Sydney, overlong and boring ..there was no mention of riots either…is this the calm before the inevitable storm?

Hoo-roo Petals,

Shane

Being hung out to dry.

Shane: Hung out to Dry

G'day Petals,

We are in 2017 entering the fulfilment of the dystopian ideology of the The-Coots-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe, the  IPA. 

A new medievalism and  economic replication of the dark ages is happening where serfdom, bondage and even slavery will be the order of the day. 

Governments, military and police forces will just be the control agents of the populace for the various multi-national oligarchs of Energy, Finance, Agriculture, Propaganda/ Entertainment and Health.

Not a new idea  being expressed but I never thought I would see the day when this putrid dystopian future is staring us in the face.

 

Glass

Just like the now late and under-performing  NBN that Truffles has made such a mess of Xtian (?) Porter, Minister for Cruelty,  excitedly babbles that Centrelink's new automated debt recovery methods are working "incredibly well" and lies that it is only attracting a tiny number of complaints (only estimated at 20%), while purportedly recovering about $300,000,000.00 of taxpayer money.      

Low-income Australians have not only received letters of demand for thousands of dollars in recalculated welfare debts in the Christmas and New Year period as the agency's new compliance system data matches income information with other government records, including at the Australian Taxation Office but also advice to seek assistance if they feel suicidal.

Centrelink managers being in the firing line have discretely hung up on the public, hiding their office phone numbers and email addresses after one customer of the welfare agency went public with how he bypassed Centrelink's notorious customer service system and contacted a senior public servant directly.

The Dept. of In-Human Services, says it is "not practical" for senior bureaucrats to take phone calls from members of the public as it probably distresses them and distracts from rooting out evil-doers and finding the funds for the $50 Billions in tax breaks for those who pay no tax.

Criminalizing people is only one of the things that this ruling rabble excels at, the other being its excessive rorting of parliamentary entitlements. 

Recently, Minister for Dismantling Medicare, Sussan "Biggles" Ley and her husband jumped from Sydney to the Gold Coast to "visit some patients" on a RAAF flight that cost the taxpayer $12,000 because "commercial flights (at around $200.00 PP ) are unsuitable."  And notwithstanding the minister's $1,790,000.00 of expenses claimed during the past 24 months she also managed on the same day to "not plan " on buying an $800,000.00 apartment at auction from a Liarbril party donor who also happens to work in the health business.

Attempting to show that "There's-Nothing-To-See-Here," Barnyard Joyce, Deputy Prime Miniature and Land Clearing Assistant came to Biggle's succour by providing the distraction that imported prawns are being banned to assist in stopping the decimating spread of "White-Spot" amongst Prawn farms: that this move was asked for fully two years ago by the industry when the disease was first noted and not such a problem only goes to prove, "There's-Nothing-To-See-Here," also applies to what's-between-the-ears as well! 

 Unfortunately, the very people deserving of criminalization; tax avoiding multi-nationals, time and again go free, as it is  far easier to target the already vulnerable who cannot afford expensive lawyers and who don't fund the LIarbril Party.

And from "The Independent Australia" comes these little gems that we should all recognize and expect more of in the coming months.... 

The quest to restore falling profit rates has seen a certain uniformity of policy responses worldwide, often called neoliberalism.

These policies include:

cutting government spending, especially to the poor and less well off;

doing little or nothing to address existential threats like climate change or immediate threats such as domestic violence;

undermining and hamstringing unions;

cutting workers’ living standards, either directly through reducing real wages or indirectly through cutting back on the social wage (health, education, transport and so on);

extending the working day so that more and more unpaid labour is extracted from workers;

cutting company taxes;

subsidising big business operations to the tune of tens of billions of dollars;

spending billions on infrastructure for big business (but not for the benefit of workers);

cracking down on welfare recipients;

going easy on big business tax avoidance;

winding back the eligibility for various government payments, including the aged pension; and privatising government instrumentalities.

 Unless there is a mass upsurge of demonstrations and strikes, and a consequent revitalisation of the working class and socialist movements, the long slow death agonies of capitalism could throw up "solutions" that hark back to the dark days of the 1930s. 

It is time to organise. It is time to fight back.

Hoo-roo Possums,

Shane.