People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right. The sensitivity of the poor to injustice is a trivial thing compared with that of the rich.
John Kenneth Galbraith
June 12, 2023
The difference between Canberra lobbyists and the Voice is that one operates in the dark, with few rules and plenty of space for sneaky deals, the occasional back scratch or pocket filler. The other will be a constitutionally enshrined body operating according to legislation, transparent and legal and representative, offering little chance for backroom deals and post-retirement sinecures. No wonder the opposition dislikes the latter.
[https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/at-last-a-pm-who-leads-a-government-with-purpose-20230525-p5db3k.html]
Richard Abram
May 27, 2023
Within my own lifetime, the last 50 years, nearly 80% of the CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels, and close to 60 percent of all GHG emissions have been released. There's been a near 70% decline in populations of existing wildlife species; and across the 8 million animal and plant species on earth, the human-induced extinction rate is now estimated at tens to hundreds of times greater than natural rates. Biodiversity Day reminds us that the profound crises we confront are just different sides of the same coin, and that our future is truly in our hands. The planet doesn't need us: we are the ones who rely on it for all the air we breathe, the water we drink, the resources we need. That's why our choices matter more today than ever: the path to a better future lies through these crises.
Katharine Hayhoe
May 25, 2023
I'm the father of a 21 year old daughter. There are lots of things I worry about. I worry about her being sexually assaulted, because that happens a lot. I worry about her being the victim of a drunk driver, because that happens a lot. I worry about her being the victim of gun violence, because lots of people die from gun-related injuries. Here's what I do not worry about: I don't worry about her being attacked in a restroom by a trans woman because (a) it has never happened; and (b) trans women are the most victimized group of people I've ever met, and the least likely to commit a crime of indecency in a restroom, because they are afraid of getting beat up when all they want to do is pee. And here is something else I don't worry about: I don't worry about my daughter being cruel and inhumane to trans men, women or kids, because my wife and I have raised her to have values and because she is a kind person. There are things to worry about, and then there are things people want you to worry about to conceal their agenda of discrimination and hate. Wake up.
Steve Rudner
May 3, 2023
The Coalition needs to be broken up. Not unhitching the Libs and the Nats – but untethering both parties from the political agenda of the Murdoch media. It has dragged the parties further and further to the right, even to the extent of directly campaigning against those Liberal leaders, such as Matt Kean, who understood the priorities of modern, younger Australians.
Malcolm Turnbull
May 1, 2023
Throughout American culture and politics, billionaire cash often works in a crudely transactional way, but it much more commonly operates more subtly. This, more than anything else, is what undergirds the machinery of American conservatism: a relatively small number of rich donors fund right-wing organizations and think tanks; those organizations and think tanks cultivate voices and personalities who serve as spokespeople, Republican-aligned operatives and public intellectuals; they, in turn, get to enjoy the favor and flattery of the wealthy people whose interests they protect and whose money fuels it all. The end result is a vast and powerful network of organizations and individuals whose ideological bonds are constantly lubricated by injections of cash from a tiny pool of plutocratic patrons.
Luke Savage
April 28, 2023
[On Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price] She needs to stop pretending we are her people. We are tired of her playing politics with the grass roots organisations our old people have built to advocate for our rights and interests. Her people are the non-Aboriginal conservatives and the Canberra elite to which she wants to belong.
Warren Williams
April 20, 2023
Trump isn’t the cause of America’s problems, he’s the symptom. He is the embodiment of everything the world loathes about the ugly side of the USA; excessively loud, devoid of intelligent thought, unable to see the world beyond its own blinkered backyard, with far too many people who think shitting on gold covered toilets is the embodiment of class.
https://theshot.net.au/general-news/trump-americas-most-wanted/
Ronni Salt
April 14, 2023
We leave our mark everywhere we go, sticking flags on the moon, pouring concrete across the earth, scattering plastics in every crevice, and claiming ownership of land that doesn’t belong to humanity. Our species foolishly believed it could conquer its maker, and as reality hurriedly descends upon us, we’ll learn our place in the animal kingdom.
[https://cjanemone.medium.com/our-meaningless-existence-killed-the-planet-but-were-already-dead-7db30bc6a534]
Corinne Nita
April 2, 2023
[On Trump] Talented and well-practiced in every vice, a stranger to compassion or empathy, a liar and a cheat so complete in perfidy that he has elevated his dishonesty to hold it up as an ersatz moral principle, violent, so long as he can order someone else to do the dirty work, grotesque in body, graceless in action, in possession of a wounded self-regard so colossal as to smother any spark of grace, treasonous, not only to country, but to every ally he has ever had, the poisoned fruit and rankest flower of racism and contempt for women, and utterly devoid of shame for his moral and spiritual bankruptcy.
That is your leader. That is to whom you give your money. That is who you follow and laud. That is whose banner you willingly carry. Why? Because he is a mirror, not a lighthouse. You see yourselves in him. He is what you would be, if you had inherited money and could shed the last vestiges of conscience and shame.
No, I do not “respect your choices,” nor do I admire your loyalty and dedication to this miserific, demoniac vision. You have demonstrated not only a lack of civic virtue, loyalty to the Republic and to the rule of law, but a willingness to engage in violence and sedition at his slightest expressed wish. And you will never, ever admit you were wrong.
Because you see your dark, twisted, resentful dreams in him. And to renounce him is to renounce yourselves.”
https://similarworlds.com/public-figures/4229795-Stable-Genius-Talented-and-well-practiced-in-every
