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Old Left Vs New Left
Hundreds of hours of political analysis boiled down to one easy to remember meme.
George Orwell from the grave
George Orwell (Eric Blair) gave this interview while dying of TB on the isle of Jura. He had just published his final classic ‘1984’. In the 1930’s Orwell had gone to Spain to fight for the Spanish anarchist revolution, he was badly wounded by shrapnel and spent significant amount of time in hospital there. It is believe during his time in Spain he learned of the political agenda explained in the work ‘1984’. Orwell likely wrote 1984 once he knew he was dying of TB as he believed that publishing such a work would make its author a target for assassination. He likely felt he had nothing to lose as he was dying anyway. In the footage you can see him breathing quite quickly after the interviewers first question. He did claim the world was heading towards the dystopian future he predicted. The book 1984 is peculiar for its inclusion of vast tracts of the party’s secret manifesto, as though he wrote a book to encapsulate the publication of such a document.
Chillingly he turns to the camera and says:
Don’t let it happen, it depends on you.
-George Orwell
If you haven’t read ‘1984’, you should. ‘1984’ predicts so many things it is uncanny, webcams, the surveillance state, SJWs, endless wars and switching allegiances, a dumbed down population either complaint or ruthlessly oppressed, the narrowing of human emotion to just a few base states.
But is is all around you, so much so you just don’t notice it. Even when writing this article I noticed this:
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So more than an excuse to make you read again the article it shows that slowly and steadily the progressive march toward total tyranny continues.
And yes that’s exactly what progressive means, progress to tyranny, and anyone who thinks differently is just a useful idiot.
Electoral wedgie hung parliament
So quite a few people are probably wondering what is going on following Australia’s federal election. Well the democratic process just got turned on its head. Just imagine you have a group of 10 friends who want to go and have a fun activity. 4 people want to go to the beach, 4 people want to go to the pool the last 2 people are a bit undecided. The last 2 people realize that despite being in the minority compared to either the beach or pool factions their decision becomes the deciding vote. This situation is called king maker or wedge politics. But it get even more complex, the last 2 people will get all kinds of additional offers to secure their votes to either the pool or beach factions, free ice-creams at the beach, umbrella seats at the pool. Sometimes even after all the inducements the undecided faction can get split and the beach and pool factions end up split 5-5 meaning complete deadlock. Even weirder is the result when the undecideds want something completely different, like ice skating or ballroom dancing which can lead to another deadlock. Making matters worse for the Australian government is that this deadlock seems to now exist in the lower and upper houses.
So this becomes hellishly complicated when you consider that some of our kingmakers might have been to the pool/beach before and hated it. Some kingmakers have connections in both houses so they can wedge in two places at the same time.
In talking about people we will mark their name with the number and type of seat they hold influence over (1R) for 1 in the house of representatives, (1S) for 1 in the senate, (1S +1R) for one of each.
The back story.
Tony Abbott (1R) NSW was the opposition leader the last time there was a hung parliament in 2010 and failed to get the coalition over the line. In this parliament he goes in as a recently deposed prime minister who was toppled internally by a margin of only 6 votes. The usurper was Malcom Turnbull(1R) NSW and several of his key supporters have lost their seats and right now Malcolm may not have the numbers to remain leader. Worst of all Turnbull campaigned on ‘stability’ and the double dissolution he deliberately triggered has resulted in one of the most unstable parliaments possible. The liberal party may be secretly planning to bring back Tony Abbott as being a more popular figure despite knowing he failed to clinch a deal the last time a hung parliament resulted.
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The wedge kingmakers:
Bob Katter (1R) QLD, was one of the ‘3 amigos’ in the 2010 hung parliament, the block was split and one of the other amigos Oakeshott went with Gillard and Labor. The 3rd amigo was Tony Windsor who this time around unsuccessfully challenged Barnaby Joyce (the deputy leader) for his seat. Katter seems less likely to support Labor being a former National and seeing what they did last time. Katter is also a Queenslander with strong connections to the rural sector. Will he team up with Hanson who may have as many as 3 senate seats? It’s worth pointing out Katters family ancestry is from Lebanon way back when it was a Christian country.
Pauline Hanson, (3S) QLD, anti- establishment, anti -immigration, anti- muslim, and completely on the pulse with a lot of disenfranchised right- of -center voters. Prior to the election Malcolm Turnbull famously stated Pauline Hanson is not welcome in parliament, now she has 3 (maybe 4) senate seats. Now that is going to be an interesting negotiation.
Nick Xenophon (3S+2R) SA with the NXT party he formed will be the biggest power broker in the wedge, commanding both upper and lower house seats, which he seems to have gained at the expense of the liberal party. His power base is largely in South Australia and being the son of Greek and Cypriot migrants seems unlikely to get on the anti immigration bandwagon. He will likely try to drive manufacturing back to south Australia, such as the troubled Whyalla steel and possibly naval ship building. The Federal Government will suddenly realize that South Australia exists.
Jacqui Lambie (1S) TAS got into the senate on the now all but defunct Palmer United Party, she has survived the implosion and now created the JLN which at this stage seems to be a one woman army. She seems to have a lot in common politically with Pauline Hanson, being a nationalist, anti islam and showing strong streaks of anti -establishment.
Derryn Hinch (1S) VIC. The” human headline” becomes the senate wrecking ball? Hinch famously went to jail for 50 days for releasing the details of paedophiles. Hinch survived liver cancer, seemingly at the last minute via a transplant. Strongly anti -establishment with a massive media following from decades of work on radio and TV. Hinch may be looking to shake up the justice system , he has already talked about removing compulsory voting. Hinch will be formidable in any wedge faction.
Cathy McGowan (1R) VIC. McGowan was the result of a grassroots campaign in 2013 to replace a liberal safe seat with someone who actually listened to their electorate; the campaign approached several people to run against Mirabella and McGowan took the offer and has run as an independent since. Get ready for a big pork barrel to be rolled out to Indi in rural Victoria. It seems dumping the duopoly really has great perks.
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The fools:
Adam Bandt (1R) VIC will be rusted onto the Labor Party.
Andrew Wilkie (1R) TAS will be rusted onto the Coalition.
That means they cancel each other out, so as usual they are both politically irrelevant.
So finally, the wedge!
As we can see, a lean to the Right seems assured in both houses as all Seats are to the political right of the NXT bloc. Even if Katter and McGowan can be lured to the left in the lower house, the senate seems overwhelmingly leaning to the right.Votes are still being counted so things could change, it’s going to be interesting!
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Additional:
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party surge in popularity may be been from the vacuum caused by The implosion of the Palmer United Party, both parties being right of center, Senate focused and based primarily in Queensland.
Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull were both listed as have one house of representatives seat each as their level of influence. They both have far more influence than that, though its impossible to determine how much influence they have right now. The level of influence Abbott/Turnbull have is potentially zero sum game, as one gains influence as the other loses influence within their own party and coalition.
Speaker Bronwyn Bishop sacked
Following multiple suspected rorts of travel expense involving helicopter, the speaker in Australian house of representatives has; after significant bipartisan pressure; resigned. 
Having become a divisive character due to her propensity to eject opposition questions on the flippant grounds of house standing orders 94a, its a surprise that she was finally undone by her travel expenses rather than outrageous bias in subverting democracy and deflecting criticism of the government. Philip Ruddock is touted to be her replacement, and many wonder why he was not the speaker from the beginning of this government.
George Carlin on education and politics
*Contains some offensive language.
We would hope that you have all seen this, some of you will be saying ” already have seen this” , good, what are you doing about it then?
This video was made many years ago featuring a man who had been saying these things for years, is the penny beginning to drop for you all?
Socialism, Aeroplanes and Economics
A cargo cult gathering and their constructed idol.
What are these primitive villagers up to you may ask?
Actually they are anarcho-primitivists, but that’s not the point.
A cargo cult aeroplane.
This is a cargo cult. These people actually believe that somehow the construction of this model aeroplane will cause cargo ( wondrous goods) to appear. This belief system started when US and allied forces arrived in South East Asia and Melanesia to form army bases and airstrips to fight the Japanese imperial army and navy. In setting up bases they did hand out a few trinkets along the way to keep the locals happy. The locals were quite amazed at the wondrous, magical and apparently godlike powers of the cargo and its owners. Eventually the planes and ships stopped coming and with that, the cargo stopped coming also. Seeing the obvious linkage between the vehicles ( aeroplanes, jeeps, and airstrips) and the cargo they formed the belief that if they could make their own airstrips, aeroplanes and jeeps from local materials the cargo would return.
So year after year they would create such effigies in hope the cargo would return. It sounds quite silly if you know the fallacy of their thinking. But you must admire their skill and determination. Among cargo cult fetishes that are built are, Aeroplanes, Airstrips, Airport control towers and even Jeeps and machine guns.
Unfortunately none of these effigies are functional, because the builders lack the actual knowledge behind how they actually work. If they did know for example how heavier than air, powered, controlled flight worked, their considerable efforts might have different results.
They have allowed unqualified belief determine they actions, rather than logic and simple experiments.
A modern replica of one of the first aeroplanes, Richard Pearce’s invention
Richard Pearce’s aeroplane, showing struts made from bamboo.
The first true aeroplanes were developed about 110 years ago, only 40 years before cargo cults developed. There are many competing claims as to who actually did it first. But According to some it was not the wright brothers, they give credit to an obscure New Zealander, Richard Pearce and his flying machine, which looks strangely similar to a modern micro-lite. Adding to the kudos of first powered, heavier than air, controlled flight , Pearce created many innovations, aerolons, variable pitch propeller, triangular under carriage with 3 wheels, a joystick for control and an air cooled reciprocating engine.
Amusingly the wing struts of his aeroplane were made from bamboo, just like some cargo cult planes today. Unlike the cargo cult aeroplanes his one actually flew, and with a degree of control also.
Strangely Pearce didn’t use the one really important innovation, aerodynamic lift, his aeroplane simply dragged itself into the air with lots of horsepower and the wings stopped it falling back to the earth. Pearce used approximately twice the horse power as the Wright brothers used in their flyer. Pearce kept few records and didn’t promote his invention, lived in an isolated corner of the world, so others who worked at the same time and a little later, got the credit. The Wright brothers do deserve credit for a very structured and documented approach to they way they developed the aeroplane, even determining the viscosity of air to put in their calculations and using aerodynamic lift.
All of this was a progression from hot air balloons, parachutes, gliders and uncontrolled flight to the final goal the modern aeroplane. People learned the phenomenon of flight and the properties of air to accomplish their goal of flight. The men who jumped off cliff flapping their arms were not successful.
Had the cargo cult members been successful in getting plane flying, they might fly to the US in their bamboo aeroplane and land hoping for cargo to magically load itself on their aeroplane. Once again they would be thwarted because there must be surplus or extremely low cost cargo and fuel for this to happen.
This of course brings us to Economics, another poorly understood cargo cult for many people, particularly Socialists and Neo conservatives.
As different as they both seem socialists and neo conservatives either don’t know or don’t want to talk (or think) about where money comes from.
Marx; How can the state provide everything to everyone when the state cannot cannot produce value? Marx argued that only human labour is of value, and therefore the state ( not having its own body) simply cannot create value, and must rob from Peter to pay Paul. Good if you are Paul, bad if you are Peter. Eventually everyone becomes Peter in socialism, apart from a few Pauls’ at the top.
Economics: Read about Zero sum game and tragedy of the commons.
Neo-Cons; How can the market provide, if all the means of exchange are privately controlled debt notes, counterfeited into existence, whose supply and value are arbitrarily manipulated by a self interested third party? In theory Neo-Cons should be screaming for 100% backed, hard money, but seem to think, too big to fail, bail out the incompetent fraud peddling banksters is the way to go.
Economics: Read about properties of money (particularly about how fiat is not real money)
The worst thing about economics is that it seems so abstract, and involves some maths, and that is a really big hurdle to most people.
The majority of economics can be explained with axioms, short stories, and situations to consider.
A list some basic economic axioms here, trickier ones with a *. Honestly it’s not that hard.
Zero Sum game.
Prisoners dilemma.
Adverse selection.
Tragedy of the commons.
Battle of the sexes game.
Game of chicken.
External costs.
properties of money.
Infinite regret*
chain store paradox.
Principal – agent problem.
Irrationality of price wars*
Moral hazard.
Pareto optimum.
Gresham’s law.
Barriers to growth.
Sensitivity to initial conditions*
Credit paradox.
Nash Equilibrium.
Supply and demand*
If you don’t understand Economics, you might as well build a rough copy of a space ship out of plastic bottles in your back lawn and hope ET will save you.
For captain obvious:
If you don’t understand how something works, there is no point idolizing some aspect of it, thinking it will be a substitute for knowledge.
For all the George Orwell fans, you will remember than in the book 1984 the state claimed to have invented the aeroplane, but Winston Smith remembered from this childhood that this was not true.
Grand theft Cyprus
Cyprus government planning to steal money from bank deposits as part of bail out deal.
Cyprus president Nicos Anastasiades
όχι hayır
A last minute flip flop?
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