Category Archives: society
An opponent is someone with whom you have a shared understanding and agreement about the rules, and system. Regardless of who wins, the system survives. An enemy, by contrast, wants to destroy your system, and they’ll do it by pretending to honor the rules, and breaking them whenever convenient. Lying, cheating, rigging, propaganda, bribery, imprisonment of competitors, whatever it takes.
Once upon a time the tabloids would fat-shame women in the public eye, but apparently the latest fad is muscle-shaming. The victim is still women, though, not the industries that they work in.
How the Right’s relentless, selfish focus on “rights” is destroying our democracy from the inside.
A Facebook acquaintance recently posted the meme above, and I was surprised at both the variety and vehemence of the responses. Some agreed, and others absolutely disagreed. What interested me in particular was the remarkable illogic of those disagreeing, and it so irritated me I decided to write this rebuttal of their counter-claims and arguments. […]
Perhaps now, far too late, it’s finally obvious that Morrison never intended to use or follow the Doherty modelling in any meaningful fashion. At the very beginning of the pandemic he made his political and ideological preferences clear—go to the footy, let it rip—but such was the overwhelming pressure for a medical, scientifically sound path […]
This is a long-form version of complaint C26280-21 submitted to the ABC today, relating to an article about Anti-vaxxers and vaccine mandate impacts also published today. The URL is at the end of the article. I was sufficiently distressed by this article to write and submit a complaint, which had to be a shorter version […]
How The Right Refined “Us vs. Them” Into “Me vs. Us”, And Democracy Is The Enemy The greatest resource a despot, dictator or politician can have is an enemy. An enemy is worth far more than a vision, a promise, a policy or even an outcome, and certainly worth more than an ally, because only […]
To say that vaccine supply and distribution in Australia is opaque is putting it mildly. [2021-09-13] Since I first published this article in late July there have been a number of revelations regarding disproportionate distribution of vaccines. Some have been made, we’re told, with the agreement of State premiers, however others have only emerged as […]
CW: sexual assault and violence My argument is simple: right now we have an unprecedented opportunity to effect social change, most specifically to redress large gender inequities in Australian society, and we risk squandering this opportunity if we concentrate on the symptoms and not the disease. What are the symptoms? “Mansplaining” is a symptom. Gender-unequal […]
Against health advice, again, I have parsed another Morrison speech; this time his address as an honorary woman on the occasion of International Women’s Day 2021. Excerpts from Morrison’s speech are in italics, and the speech is reproduced in full below if you really want to check that he said these things. Buckle up. Trigger […]
$3.57 a day? Don’t Spend It All At Once! Or, buy a weekday copy of The Australian for $3.50 to find out how much of a dole bludger you are. Morrison’s cruel, unnecessary drop in benefits.
Translating Morrison’s Presser: what do ‘situation’, ‘issue’ and ‘event’ all mean?
Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault*
Translation: they all mean ‘being raped by a man’
Morrison’s train-wreck press conference.
There’s less than three weeks to go before Australia’s largest, most complex and most crucial public health initiative, and all we’ve got for answers is four PowerPoint slides8. Where are all the details? We don’t know.
How can five different statements about the efficacy of the same vaccine all be technically correct, while at least four of them are misleading, probably intentionally? Easy.
infinite8horizon - peter d barnes 