We see politicians, religious leaders and the most powerful, and the wealthiest people on the planet try to wind the clock back, trying to restore the power lost or gain more than has ever been achieved.
It seems in the long view of history, history is repeating itself as no lessons are learned.
Any progressive change in the history of this country began with protests, civil unrest, and generally from the bottom up, not the top down. It comes from the belief that the systems we inherited were man-made and can be changed, need to be changed, and that there is an alternative.
But this is all predicated upon a rejection of the hegemony of neo-liberal ‘Centrism’ and the realisation that radicalisation is not always such a bad thing. We can change the world, but it all starts with a rejection of the ‘Common Sense’ that ‘There Is No Alternative’.
They are meant to be a bargain between the inventor and the public: tell us how your invention works, and we’ll give you a fixed time – a patent protection period – in which you’re the only person who can make use of it.
The small country of Scotland, with a population of about 4.5 million, has forged ahead with renewable energy at a much faster pace and to greater effect than most other industrialized countries. Virtually all of its electricity consumption can now be met from wind, solar, or hydro, though because it exports some of that electricity to England, the grid mix in Scotland itself is not actually 100% renewables.
However it’s no longer good enough when BP is the biggest controler of solar energy in the country.
“Personally, as the new Labor Government backed by the Greens and Teal Independents proceeds with the 43% climate target laws and invests heavily in renewables. I hold out hope that the new Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek who has just rejected a new mega coal mine proposal for Clive Palmer in North Qld that horrendous developments like the Toondah Harbour PDA will also be rejected as well. I for see a better horizon forward on environmental policy making.”
Critics of Marx have accused him of imposing a European model of historical development on the rest of the world. But the real Marx rejected Eurocentric thinking and developed a sophisticated view of world history in all its diversity and complexity.
Have you heard the one about how the Liberal leopard changed his spots? He moved from the Government spot to a spot in the shadows to pounce on progress at a future date. (Michelle Pini)
THE MORE the Liberal and National parties talk of change, the more things stay the same.
Apart from the front men (for they are usually men) who are quite regularly replaced or recycled, this is true no matter which Coalition yardstick you care to examine: health, gender equality, education, climate change, Indigenous affairs, the economy, cost of living pressures or corruption.
While the regression in these areas certainly fluctuates in terms of severity, the fact that they remain largely unaddressed by the previous Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison Government is testament to the degree to which the Coalition entrenches inequity across most social parameters.
The problem is that darkness has spread across progressive discourse, sucking light and color and fun out of everything. Liberalism has focused so long on subtraction that we forgot that our main appeal is additive. Equality and justice aren’t just about bodies surviving, but granting all people the opportunity to feel good, to feel fulfilled, to have a chance to use their precious years on earth actually living. We don’t just want people to survive. We want them to thrive. Well, 2022 is the year to get our groove back. The right has opened the door, by inviting us to debate whether sex should be fun and reading should be pleasurable. That’s a fight that the left can win, easily. We just have to remember that fun matters, beauty matters, and people are drawn more to the light than the dark. We used to be people who knew this. We can get back to who we once were.
, neoliberal globalisation gave rise to the political and cultural blowback called Trumpism in the US and its ethnonationalist cousins across the world. Making a fetish of normalcy is a form of American exceptionalism. “America is back” may prove as myopic and delusional as “Make America Great Again”.
If the Coalition was serious about helping those who have a go, they would be giving larger tax cuts to those who would value the extra $20 or thereabouts a week and spend it on fixing the car, paying the outstanding bills or going away for the weekend for the first time in years, rather than those who really won’t even notice the extra $20 a week in their bank accounts. Morrison and Frydenberg had the perfect opportunity to make a real change for the better. Did they take it? – nope, of course they didn’t.
Joe Biden is no Progressive, but that doesn’t mean progress under a Biden administration would be impossible or even unlikely. Democratic resistance to Progressive policies is due in large part to the interests of the donors. That’s a matter of economic convenience.
What I have listed above just touches on a few lowlights we have discovered about our Government this week. Feel free to add your particular lowlights below.
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olddogthoughts 
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