The Brown Note

John Barilaro: Caligula Would Have Blushed

Five weeks ago I posted about how ex-NSW political leader, John Barilaro, had just taken down the Dominic Perrottet led NSW state government, in the time since we've witnessed the unfurling of a seemingly endless web of corruption and self reward from the most bare-faced grifters ever to grace Australian politics. This saga has already accounted for the deputy leader of the state but the focus must be on ALL politically appointed positions - Barilaro, with one of the most brazen uses of the victim card in modern history, has already had to field questions about his own girlfriend being forwarded for another role to his own ex-member of staff, who for some reason is on SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR. Have you heard these people speak? Competence and intelligence do not radiate from them, so how are they all worth so much money? I've said before, the Liberal party is the only place you are guaranteed a pay rise on losing your job. Every trade appointment, department head and ambassadorship appointed by this disgusting gravy train needs investigation - Barilaro is just the start.

Climate Change: It’s Too Late - We’re All Gonna Die

It's time we admitted the ball we keep punting down the road, long since went off a cliff. We have left it too late, acted too little and it's already happening worse than we predicted. Decades of a cabal of the fossil fuel industry, shonky scientists for hire and the right wing media combining to attack action on climate change - which may go down as the worst crime by impact in human history, these people should be in jail - real science always erred on the side of caution to appease them. Turns out the cautious modelling was way off and what's already happening is much closer to the extreme end and getting worse quicker than even those models predicted. Those 30 year off predictions that may happen if we don't take action are definitely going to happen in the next few years whatever we now do. We must still act but have already changed the world beyond recognition - to quote the poet bard Sufjan Stevens - we're all gonna die.

Ukraine: Was This Putin’s Plan All Along

I've always ignored the ridiculous attempts by the Western media to paint Putin as some comic book villain, it serves no purpose and is in fact dangerous to misrepresent one of the cleverest and savviest political animals of the modern era. You don't stay in charge of Russia this long by being an idiot. So I've been perplexed, why then did he get the invasion of Ukraine so wrong? Why did he not time a likely two month conflict closer to the US midterms to sow chaos in their economy and likely return a more favorable Republican house? Did he really underestimate the volume of international condemnation, crippling sanctions, pariah status and Western backing for Ukraine? Even the further bolstering of NATO and the EU - the thing that led to the war in the first place. Now several months in and Putin is looking far more stable, the Western worlds economies are in unsustainable free-fall as a result of the war, Putin has a much stronger hand and most telling of all, is opening up Ukrainian grain shipments to the third world, containing as much as possible the fallout of the war to the West. I thought the West's decision to start a proxy war with Russia by fueling the conflict in Ukraine was insanity - now I'm starting to wonder if it was Putin who started a proxy war with the West by invading in the first place, and knew exactly where we would be now. We willfully underestimate this man at our peril.

Working From Home: The Battle Begins

We all knew the billionaire CBD property owners were never going to give up that easy and now everyone is trying to pretend working from home was only ever a temporary symptom of COVID, not the complete and irreversable paradigm shift it is. Almost every argument against remote work can be countered by a far better one for it, so lets fight. We also have an unexpected enemy in the midst - the war between the introvert and extrovert. VIVA WORKING FROM HOME FOREVER!

Boris, Trump And Scomo: The Three Amigos Of Apocalypse

Now that UK PM Boris Johnson has been vanquished, the last of Rupert Murdoch's trifecta of terror, the worst leaders in the Anglo-sphere's history, a look back at how they were never messianic profits of doom, but a reflection of a populist right wing voter base that has got ever more aggressive, unified, insane and destructive and isn't going anywhere. And why any false equivalence that the Left are just as bad is garbage. These people who look like us and live among us are our biggest war and our only hope is to continually outnumber them.

The Democrats Are Doing Nothing

Even in the face of actual fascism, the USA's Democrats are doing nothing. Even with the highest number of progressives in government ever, the Democrats are doing do nothing. Even with the greatest threat to democracy of the modern era, the Democrats are content to whittle around the edges and offer the same politics as usual that got Trump elected in the first place. Whilst the Trump era extremist Republican party are all on the same page and fighting for the same thing, the Democrats aren't fighting and don't even have a page. They united for one brief spark around ending Trump and now that's gone, they believe the awfulness of their opposition is reason enough for people to vote for them, even when the unelected Republicans are still passing major policies via the Supreme Court. This is how fascism wins. WAKE TF UP!

Ukraine: Where Is China?

And where are progressives? As this disaster rolls on, with the West only intent on fanning the flames and doubling down on the reasons that led to the conflict in the first place, where are all those progressive voices that normally oppose wars? Especially with a record number in the US government - still everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet. And now is the time for China to step up and call for peace - they are uniquely suited to do so, given a very different relationship with Russia, unencumbered by the Cold War ideologues. China also cannot have a failed, damaged Russia on its border, with the security of many Islamic majority nations close to China thrown into chaos.

Roe V. Wade: The Republican Take Over Of Democracy

Once only pandering to the rich and paying lip service to ideological battles to generate votes, since the early 2000's the Republican party of the USA has morphed into a Tea Party/Fox News fueled ideological war machine, which Trump is only a symptom of. With a declining proportion of conservative white males to actually make them win elections, they've sought ever more dramatic and disgusting ways to usurp democracy. The latest is to simply ignore election defeats and use the hopelessly compromised Supreme Court to pass legislation for them. Perhaps even worse than the repeal of Roe V. Wade is yesterday's less focused on decision to support an ex football coache's after match prayer sessions. This isn't attacking some vague amendment but one of the founding cornerstones of the constitution itself - the separation of church and state. They will stop and nothing, which is currently what the Democrats are doing to stop them.

John Barilaro - The Man Who Took Down The Government

Even for the unrelenting gravy train of corruption that is Australian conservative politics, John Barilaro has set a new gold standard. Creating a $500k a year job whilst a politician, then promptly quitting and having his ex-staff member appoint him to the role. COOL AND NORMAL. His ex boss had even appointed someone else to the role already, who has since been paid compensation. In a country thoroughly sick of the corruption and nest feathering of the Liberal and National parties, it will take down the New South Wales state government in the coming election. Cheers!

Roe V. Wade - Woman Know Your Place

Even two months back when I posted on Roe V. Wade, I never thought the crazy SOB's would actually do it, but they have, likely losing the midterm elections with it. We should be impeaching at least three supreme court judges for lying to congress and the American people, when they specifically stated they would not do this and the supreme court itself has been destroyed as just another political tool, where a minority of extremists gets to usurp the democratic will of the majority. I have a feeling this will be the most Pyrrhic political victory in American history.