Dear reader, breathlessly we ask you to read this latest missive from our respected correspondent from the near north, Mr Lew Skannen, who asks the reason why?
The reason why ? Pratt Industries. 2 billion plus profit. Paid no tax. Big donor to Liberal and labor parties. .
Following WW2 and the horrors of the Depression, Keynes and Roosevelt et al. set about ensuring that a repeat performance of the ’29 crash and the appalling poverty that followed would not happen again.
Exxon Mobil. Ditto
Adani. Ditto
As a consequence we, as war babies or thereabouts, our whole generation, grew up in that protective cocoon. Society cared about us and looked after our health and welfare.We felt we lived in a safe and caring society.Nowadays, in 2017 there is much less of this warmth about, particularly in Britain and the US. Instead of a feeling of warmth and caring there is undoubtedly now a feeling of alienation and betrayal.
Transurban. Ditto
There’s an interesting parallel in this between society and the family. We here at Sog.Bot.( Institute of Strategic Planning) through fostering, spent years dealing with the fallout when a family disintegrates. Drugs, alcohol and simple neglect utterly deprive children of that warmth and love so essential to their early development. Irrational behaviour, neuroses, psychosis and all sorts of other horrors are plain to see in these kids and the truly terrible thing to observe is the fact that those kids, no matter how hard you try, will literally never get over that early trauma..Their personalities are so warped by this simple lack of compassion that they can’t even begin to grasp how society works. Society, however unfashionable it may be to admit it, is held together by warmth, compassion and love. In a violent, booze or drug-ridden family, where these qualities are not on offer, a neglected child must devote every second of its time to survival. The child sadly carries that survival instinct, that ‘me versus the world’ warped instinct, into adulthood.
Lowly politician turned lobbyist, practises salute for his country.
Our children,the children of our post-war generation grew up in a society that was being remade, Socialism became a dirty word, John Maynard Keynes safeguards were, we were told, entirely unsuited to today’s economics. Capitalism was king, From Edward Heath onwards, through Reagan, Thatcher, Clinton and Bush, all of Keynes’ protective measures were slowly stripped away.Obsessive greed, that most powerful drug, promptly betrayed the populace and bankrupted the nation. Young adults in the 80s and 90s, were left at first bewildered and then betrayed.
I talked about parallels earlier. In the dysfunctional family, neglected, unloved children behave oddly, irrationally and in extreme cases, psychotically. Extrapolating from that, it does not seem at all unreasonable to suggest that post- Keynes populations, feeling either neglected, uncared for, or indeed even abandoned by their governments, might behave precisely as the unloved child does. So, if the argument holds, then a whole generation of people, rendered psychologically incapable of making a rational decision, might begins to make wholly irrational decisions instead.
Inspirational leader, make benefit glorious Julie Bishop Foundation.
This form of unloved dementia has, I feel, produced the re-emergence of Fascism, mass bombings and shootings, given power to Breitbart and the so-called ‘alt right’, created Brexit and put a fascist in the White House. This is not the fault of the people. It is directly attributable to successive governments, seduced by the glamour of money, failing in their responsibility to those who have elected them. This is contemptible behaviour. of the most egregious kind.
Yet there is light. We’ve had forty years of laissez faire capitalism which has ended predictably in disaster. Yet there is Bernie Sanders in the US and Jeremy Corbin in England who are attracting thousands of young people with their ‘return to Keynes’ socialist ideas. Young people are demanding, ever more strongly, that government get back to the job of taking their responsibilities to their people seriously.
Andrew Robb, esteemed former Minister for Trade and Investment indicates depth of loyalty to the Australian body politic.
It is nearly ninety years since the ’29 Crash. That means that we may not have another ninety years before the next mega- disaster arrives. I don’t know about the rest of you but I am heartily sick of listening to ‘experts’ from the Chicago School of Economics, the Institute of Public Affairs, the Murdoch Press and a million other ill informed robber barons who know as much about economics as my arse knows about pocket billiards.These people do not care about us. Their only interest is profit. Yet these people, these carpetbaggers have the ear of governments and they will, if it helps, bring down that government in the name of profit. It is time for a government with courage enough to sling these leeches out when next they roll up with their larceny plans disguised as economic policy.
I look forward to that day with unalloyed pleasure.
Hallellujah, brother! Let it be!