Comment
For North Coast news online visit
Politically scorched PM beyond redemption The Byron Shire Echo Volume 34 #35 • February 5, 2020
Who listens to smart peeps anymore? Arab mathematician, astronomer and physicist of the Islamic Golden Age, Ibn al-Haytham (965-1040 CE), said, ‘The duty of man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads and… attack it from every side. Ibn al-Haytham paved the ‘He should also suspect way for the modern science of himself as he performs his physical optics way back when critical examination of it, so that the English didn’t understand he may avoid falling into either basic hygiene. prejudice or leniency.’ If only critical and disciplinary thinking underpinned political and mainstream media discourse – like it does within the scientific community. In 1620 – 400 years ago – Francis Bacon first formalised the scientific method. The English philosopher and scientist argued against relying on syllogistic logic alone for scientific synthesis. A syllogism is not the latest awkward twerk-like craze – it’s one of the most used ways to establish reason and fact and still pretty useful. Aristotle, or the Stoics before him, were thought to have come up with the syllogism, which is a conclusion drawn from two given, or assumed propositions (premises). A syllogism has a major and minor premise followed by the conclusion. The all-time famous syllogism is: All men are mortal (major premise), Socrates is a man (minor premise), therefore Socrates is mortal (conclusion). Here’s one that is not a syllogism: God is Love. Love is blind. Steve Wonder is blind. Conclusion: Steve Wonder is God! Or this – Elephants live in Africa. Africa is hot. Carmen Electra is hot. Therefore, Carmen Electra is an elephant. Syllogisms are deductive reasoning, as distinct from inductive reasoning. Induction concludes with probability, while deduction concludes with necessity. So deduction can be a basis of a scientific method, while induction is not. Apart from expanding and refining deductive reasoning, Bacon also tackled the babble that passes in modern day political rhetoric and analysis – cognitive bias! Subjective reality has been normalised to the point where politicians argue with confidence on anything. It allows them to support positions they once railed against. Cognitive bias includes believing it is appropriate to influence elections by using taxpayer money to boost marginal seats with sports and infrastructure bribes. Likewise, US Republican senators last week have effectively provided the 45th president with dictator status by supporting his brazen bribery and not allowing witnesses in his impeachment trial. So, in these perilous times, it’s up to an informed public. There is little hope of being adequately informed by mainstream media – they are part of the elite cabal. Viva la revolution 2020! Hans Lovejoy, editor
S
cott Morrison is nothing if not a marketeer. Or, to put it more precisely, he is nothing except a marketeer. His sole area of expertise consists of convincing the gullible to buy stuff they don’t need, and generally don’t want, and his success can be measured by the extent that he can persuade them that they can’t do without it. His triumph, of course, was the 2019 election, in which a relentless campaign of spin, revolving around the two great motivators of greed and fear, overwhelmed any serious debate over policy. And for this he became something of a demigod to his troops, who had been resigned to the idea that their manifest divisions and incompetence were finally ready to catch up with them. If substance could be abandoned, and bluster enshrined, it would save them a lot of trouble – when problems multiply and the situation becomes hopeless, just unleash the master marketeer. He will have a quick word to the powers above and produce another miracle. It all sounds very convenient, but there is a catch: Morrison is not actually invincible, even within the narrow parameters he prefers. His marketing record is, to say the least, patchy. He was ignominiously tossed out of the prize gig of Tourism Australia, and while he has rehabilitated himself within the less demanding environment of the Liberal Party, this has led to instances of hubris and impulsiveness. In particular, he has a tendency to over-egg expectations – or if he doesn’t, those around him are always keen to do it for him. His immediate staff seem to have taken up ideas way above their station – it sometimes appears that they see him more of a puppet than a prime minister, a useful logo to be deployed as a sort of ersatz messiah to neutralise crises, in the belief that what worked two years ago can be repeated at will. Fine if it works. But if it doesn’t – if the expectations cannot be matched – there is a risk not only of disillusionment among the electorate, but a mounting anger and resentment that they have been conned. And if it happened once, perhaps it also happened in the past, and can be anticipated in the future. Which brings us to last week’s National Press Club address. In the days preceding it, the battalion of boosters
belched forth a barrage of ballyhoo. This was to be the prime minister’s first major speech of the year, the one that fixed the agenda for 2020 and beyond. It would be a complete reset, the prelude for initiative, innovation and action on a scale seldom envisaged in Australian politics.
Will the PM’s emergency powers include conscription, rationing, censorship, and night-time blackouts? Mungo MacCallum Why, there was a rumour (clearly deliberately leaked) that climate change was in the recipe, that our woefully inadequate Paris accord targets were to be ramped up to more credible levels. There was even a suggestion that some form of carbon tax could be on the table. That one had to be hosed down quickly and decisively, before the compost in the party room burst into spontaneous combustion. But still, the optimists hoped that at last something might be offered other than bluff and bluster. However, the hope was, as so often, extinguished by the pitiful reality. The first half of Morrison’s lecture was pure self-congratulation, a list of his government’s so-called achievements over the last twelve months. Then we indeed moved on to dealing with climate change – but not really. The key words were adaptation and resilience – we just needed to adapt and resile like buggery, and all would be well. As for emissions reductions – the usual evasions, denials and procrastinations. We are only 1.3 percent, we are doing our bit, will meet and beat our pathetic promises, we won’t destroy our economy, if we don’t flog fossil fuels some other bastard will, it’s our coal and we will bloody well do what we like with it so those interfering foreigners can shut up and piss off. But there had to be, what is delicately described as, an ‘announceable’ – so Generalissimo ScoMo was going to ring in legislation allowing him to declare a state of emergency, not the kind the British did to actually confront
climate change, but to pretend that he is doing something when the continuing and worsening disasters stemming from it emerge in the near future. He wants to be able to send in the troops. Okay, that sounds like action: but when and how – and also why and what? Will his emergency include conscription, rationing, censorship, night-time blackouts with the populace sent to the shelters? Presumably not; in almost the next breath Morrison averred that he was a federalist, meaning that the states would be consulted (which they have not always been during the present disaster) and that in spite of the emergency, it would be essentially business as usual, his constantly reassuring slogan as things go to hell in a hand basket. But this will not work, because Morrison, unwillingly and reluctantly, has been forced to assume a leadership role: having talked up an emergency, and involved the armed forces on a continuing stand-by basis, he has effectively abandoned his old line about the states being the ones with the responsibility. The public never bought it; as the catastrophe mounted across borders and the news dragged on, worse every day, even the quietest Australians could recognise a national issue when they saw one. They expect, demand, that their prime minister will do the same and will take charge. So Morrison has to try, even though his immediate response has been, to put it mildly, underwhelming. But even the long-winded and half-arsed speech last week has raised expectations; don’t you worry, the government has your back, we will get things back under control. But what if we can’t? What if the nostrums offered so far prove to be too little and too late? This fire season is far from over, and there are two more to confront before the next election. We can all hope that they will not be as frightful as the current one, but they are unlikely to be totally innocuous. And next time, there will be nowhere to hide: Morrison, having been dragged to a leadership role which he did not want, now owns it. He has already been politically charred; and it will be much harder for him to market his way out of the next crisis. But given that he has no other skills, marketing is his only hope.
Lauren Archer + Caring for your pets + Keeping your livestock healthy and productive + Mobile service
One-of-a-kind, handmade jewellery
CLINIC: 233 Gulgan Rd
Be original Available at Jewellery by
cristina_art_silver cristina www.cristina.com.au
12 The Byron Shire Echo DĕćſƖëſƷ Ǭǽ ǩǧǩǧ
HAMMER & HAND Jewellery & Metal Collective (Byron Bay) 4 Ti Tree Place, Arts & Industry Estate HammerAndHandByronBay
Between Mullum and Bruns just down the road from Uncle Toms
info@northcoastvetservices.com.au
www.northcoastvetservices.com.au + 02 6684 0735 North Coast news daily in Echonetdaily www.echo.net.au