![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 25 of 61. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by sigismund on February 4, 2019, at 21:11:21
Posted by sigismund on February 4, 2019, at 21:51:38
In reply to Richard Flanagan, posted by sigismund on February 4, 2019, at 21:11:21
Posted by beckett2 on February 9, 2019, at 22:08:03
In reply to Richard Flanagan, posted by sigismund on February 4, 2019, at 21:11:21
I read about the fires, but I didn't know Tasmania was changing significantly faster. This breaks my heart. I remember Morrison waving that coal around-- he is a trumper, isn't he? In the pocket of hydrocarbon oligarchs.
I dread summers now, too. This winter we're having a good soak, but--.
We're gonna be stuck with trump for another four years. He gives a speech and doesn't drool, and his ratings go up. I get so angry at people. We're going off the cliff.
Posted by sigismund on February 9, 2019, at 22:48:33
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan » sigismund, posted by beckett2 on February 9, 2019, at 22:08:03
>he is a trumper, isn't he? In the pocket of hydrocarbon oligarchs.
He is a pentecostalist, but there are various sorts and I dunno anything really. He is divisive like Trump. At Christmas politicians used to say, 'As Australians we have our disagreements, but at this time of the year I wish everyone a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year'. This year he said something like 'Australia will give a go to those who have a go.'
I was reading about the position of the devil in his brand of pentecostalism, and it is lying around the house somewhere. Anyway, the devil is active and served by many.
That red faced man with the fake grin is Barnaby Joyce, ex-leader of the National Party, responsible for the massive fish kill in the Murray Darling. You can see how they look like private school boys. And that they remain. Maybe 2 or 3 have grown up? There are more women deserving of the name. The party system encourages extremists to join the branches who preselect the candidates. There will be a record number of independent female candidates this time asking for.......an economy that works, a sense of fairness, action on climate change, refusal to use refugees as a wedge issue.
That was lab-tested here by Murdoch before being used in the US. I am amazed that a third of the US electorate wants the wall presumably knowing that there is no emergency along the southern border. Can you explain that?
Posted by sigismund on February 9, 2019, at 22:52:25
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan, posted by sigismund on February 9, 2019, at 22:48:33
Morrison did say that many of the remaining refugees on Manus (and Nauru?) may well contain pedophiles.
Posted by beckett2 on February 9, 2019, at 23:36:52
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan, posted by sigismund on February 9, 2019, at 22:48:33
>I am amazed that a third of the US electorate wants the wall presumably knowing that there is no emergency along the southern border. Can you explain that?
Racism? Stupidity? Ignorance?
He'll call a state of emergency. That'll be fun.
Posted by beckett2 on February 10, 2019, at 0:04:05
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan, posted by sigismund on February 9, 2019, at 22:52:25
> Morrison did say that many of the remaining refugees on Manus (and Nauru?) may well contain pedophiles.
About ten seconds in, a rumor circulating atm. The rest of the clip is about something else.
Posted by sigismund on February 10, 2019, at 21:05:11
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan » sigismund, posted by beckett2 on February 9, 2019, at 23:36:52
I had an idea. It's nothing to do with anything on the border. It is some kind of mark of identity.........probably something to do with the (O God!, words!) liberal elites so called and the rejection of that kind of politics.
Posted by sigismund on February 10, 2019, at 21:12:26
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan » sigismund, posted by beckett2 on February 10, 2019, at 0:04:05
Oh, that thing about women being duck taped (duck?) .......that is either too many bad movies or some kind of terrible porn. Michael Brooks wondered if Sicario 2 was influential.
Well, we are under attack, and for our values, for which they hate us, but undeterred we will etc etc.
Posted by sigismund on February 12, 2019, at 18:18:34
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan, posted by sigismund on February 10, 2019, at 21:12:26
Our ridiculous anglo Murdoch inspired politics will go the way of the debates under the Hapsburgs or in Wilhelmine Germany.
Half a billion cattle is quite a slice.
Posted by beckett2 on February 14, 2019, at 16:43:41
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan, posted by sigismund on February 12, 2019, at 18:18:34
> Our ridiculous anglo Murdoch inspired politics will go the way of the debates under the Hapsburgs or in Wilhelmine Germany.
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/13/we-have-death-and-devastation-at-every-turn-the-flood-massacre-of-queensland-cattle
>
> Half a billion cattle is quite a slice.
>
>
>sigi, this is terrible. The loss of all those animals, the wildlife on top of the cattle, is sickening. I really don't know what else to say :(
What will your government do? I imagine there will be major support for the farmers-- but the overall GDP will be effected.
Posted by sigismund on February 14, 2019, at 21:01:56
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan » sigismund, posted by beckett2 on February 14, 2019, at 16:43:41
>What will your government do?
You know....thoughts and prayers, this is not the time to be talking politics.
>I imagine there will be major support for the farmers-- but the overall GDP will be effected.
Yes, there will be some support. But Australia was settled in a way not suiting its ecology. And that is what we we will be dealing with.
This is how climate change (or whatever the euphemism is) will be....and we will see then.
Posted by beckett2 on February 18, 2019, at 20:46:41
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan » beckett2, posted by sigismund on February 14, 2019, at 21:01:56
Have you seen the book The Uninhabitable Earth? David Wallace Wells. Not that I'll read it. Reportedly, the book is the bleakest, which seems appropriate.
--really, I cannot imagine what will come.
Posted by sigismund on February 19, 2019, at 13:23:47
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan » sigismund, posted by beckett2 on February 18, 2019, at 20:46:41
Fortunately we will both be dead.
Given how politics has gone with minimal population movements I don't think it will cope with what is to come.
We need not be detained by the rapists and drug dealers in the caravan on the border, or the pedophiles waiting to enter Australia from Manus..........what will it be like when there are real problems?
Unfortunately elections can be won like this, but I wonder if it is passing its use-by date for now.
We were watching a biopic about an outfit at a place called Buddhafield. What was interesting was how the belief fell away rather quickly once credibility was lost.
Posted by beckett2 on February 19, 2019, at 16:38:59
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan » beckett2, posted by sigismund on February 19, 2019, at 13:23:47
Yes, but our kids will be here.
Posted by sigismund on February 19, 2019, at 21:23:32
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan » sigismund, posted by beckett2 on February 19, 2019, at 16:38:59
You see this?
Posted by sigismund on February 19, 2019, at 21:56:23
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan » sigismund, posted by beckett2 on February 19, 2019, at 16:38:59
I gave up hoping that there was sufficient concern for future generations or the web of life. There seemed to be a cynical, hidden belief that, although it did not exist and wasn't happening, it was already too late, along with a perverse pleasure in seeing the poor and coloured suffer first and most.
We have the same thing. From the alternative media today........
There is now something more than anger attached to this government. Theres a sort of disgust around. Disgust with them, at the sheer volume of waste, shonk and grift, disgust with ourselves for having let it go for so long, for being the mugs who let it happen. It is once again of the paradox of Australian self-conception. Weve imagined ourselves to be relatively uncorrupt and competently governed for so long, that a keener sense that government had entirely collapsed into cronyism, clientelism and dirty tricks was lacking. The capacity for trust in Australia is being rotted from the top down. Its rational to think of a Coalition government the way Italians tend to think of their government, something that has absolutely nothing to do with representation at all: simply a self-contained predatory element, feeding off the body social.
This is part of the intent of right-wing parties of course, to increase cynicism and distrust of government altogether, and enrich themselves at the same time. All the same, they may well have overshot the mark in the last year or so. Am I alone in feeling sick to my stomach, literally nauseous, at reading the national news these days, wondering what the next story of corrupt, corrosive, destructive rorts is going to be? Is disgust now a live political factor? I think it might be. We now have a fundamental asymmetry in Australian politics. One major political party, Labor, capable of government; one minor, the Greens, with some internal strife, but no accusations of rorting. And on the other side something that is neither a Coalition, nor parties at all. Its simply a random, rhizomatic piss cloud of sleaze, grift, incompetence, reactionary obsessiveness, glued together by nothing other than hatred not merely of the left, but of good government itself, and an eye for the skim off the top.
The disgust is something more than political contestation or the belief that the political right, in our era, is a sham. Its a real pain that this has happened to our country. There was, as Ive noted before, until about a decade ago, some sort of implicit agreement about limits, some sense of being pointed forward, whatever political differences there might have been about what form progress would take. The effect of living in such a continental Rortopolis is to make you feel like a mug for doing anything other than making millions from transfers of state money for no product. Why bother? While youre putting your energy into art, science, honest commerce, the very fact that you thereby entrust other people with governance is taken by them as a chance to shonk it.
Posted by beckett2 on February 20, 2019, at 15:09:54
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan » beckett2, posted by sigismund on February 19, 2019, at 21:23:32
> You see this?
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLSjypKJQaQNo I didn't. Thank you. I'm relieved he emphasized climate-- geez, I don't think it's been mentioned yet. I've been keeping my head down as the election ballyhoo is tuning up.
There is some talk Biden might run. I hope not.
Right now I have a cold and feel miserable, so my normal enthusiasm is low.
Posted by beckett2 on February 20, 2019, at 15:25:35
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan » beckett2, posted by sigismund on February 19, 2019, at 21:56:23
Shonk? I needed to look that up. I love Australian English. I assume shonk is used in your country and NZ.
>I gave up hoping that there was sufficient concern for future generations or the web of life. There seemed to be a cynical, hidden belief that, although it did not exist and wasn't happening, it was already too late, along with a perverse pleasure in seeing the poor and coloured suffer first and most.
Yeah. Idk sigi. I don't really understand. Our security and military agencies report global warming as a security risk-- but I don't know what anyone in gov or business does with that information. Maybe there's an idea that there will be winners in this scenario?
Here's something nice:
Posted by sigismund on February 20, 2019, at 19:09:15
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan, posted by beckett2 on February 20, 2019, at 15:25:35
Goodness me! How beautiful!
There's some park in the US, somewhere dry where it snows, with wonderful rock formations. It's not called cathedral national park. Maybe it is in Utah or Arizona? I can't think of the name, but when the sun catches the snow it is magic.
I wish I could be this calm.......
Posted by sigismund on February 20, 2019, at 20:22:42
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan » beckett2, posted by sigismund on February 20, 2019, at 19:09:15
This is it......I have no sense the scale.
Posted by beckett2 on February 21, 2019, at 17:00:52
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan » beckett2, posted by sigismund on February 20, 2019, at 19:09:15
> Goodness me! How beautiful!
>
> There's some park in the US, somewhere dry where it snows, with wonderful rock formations. It's not called cathedral national park. Maybe it is in Utah or Arizona? I can't think of the name, but when the sun catches the snow it is magic.
>
> I wish I could be this calm.......
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_nFI2Zb7qEThank you! That was fantastic. Oddly, it was calming. His comments at Davos had the same effect. A little giddy, then calm, as though, "yes, it really is that simple, isn't it?"
Posted by sigismund on February 22, 2019, at 14:48:21
In reply to Re: Richard Flanagan, posted by beckett2 on February 21, 2019, at 17:00:52
I didn't know I could find this. One of my heroes, very smart and funny too. I'd never heard his voice. Oddly enough he was a military historian who, IIRC, estimated the current value (5 years ago) of a slave at $300,000.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/06/the-kingdom-of-survival-joe-bageant/
Posted by sigismund on February 23, 2019, at 15:25:45
In reply to Joe Bageant, posted by sigismund on February 22, 2019, at 14:48:21
Posted by beckett2 on February 24, 2019, at 18:38:15
In reply to Joe Bageant, posted by sigismund on February 22, 2019, at 14:48:21
I didn't know he was a military historian. Was he raised in a christian household? My father firmly believed we are our brother's keeper. How that gets tripped up with corporate US (which I'm afraid has globalized).
I understand going to Belize, just to be away from cultural suffocation.
We're in Venezuela again. Jeremy Scahill says the bridge that is blocked was never a functioning bridge-- and a google shows there are other bridges into Venezuela. I don't understand it-- but Bageant would be able to speak about it. Certainly, ordinary citizens pay for the political theater.
The thing he said about Obama, that at least the rhetoric is good. He didn't have a single investigation into his administration. We're drowning in scandal right now. And cruelty.
I'm reading a book by a conservative, and what I find refreshing is his interest in facts. Obama said recently that with facts, you can at least begin to have a discussion.
Go forward in thread:
Psycho-Babble Politics | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.