Despite the initially positive responses of the two senators to my inquiries, including senator Antic’s indication that he may be able to pursue the proposed line of questing at the Estimates, my follow-up emails to the senators (just before the relevant Senate Estimates session) were neither answered nor actioned. It is regrettable that the senators decided not to use the most clear-cut argument against the vaccine mandates. I suspect that the senators do not oppose vaccine mandates in principle and their only objection is that the relevant vaccines are not beneficial enough to the majority to ‘justify’ killing some innocent people. If they would change their mind, I will be happy to work with them.

https://t.iss.one/NormalParty/2119
https://t.iss.one/NormalParty/2141
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Covid vaccine mandates were mostly withdrawn (they still apply to healthcare workers and medical students in Australia) but they were not yet defeated in principle. In fact, very few (if any) of the anti-covid-vaccine-mandate politicians voiced their oppositions to vaccine mandates in general, but only disputed whether the benefits of these particular vaccines are sufficient to justify the mandated killing of an unlucky minority in the interest of the majority. The majority of people would still force vaccinate anyone, human rights be damned, if the circumstances were more dire and they believed that vaccines work. The ‘freedom movement’ activists, ‘rebel’ doctors and ‘maverick’ politicians threw their hands in the air, lamented the (never precisely articulated) “injustice”, vowed to fight ‘on your behalf’, yelled into the bullhorn, appealed to God at every opportunity, but avoided any serious arguments to settle the question of vaccine mandates as a matter of principle. This omission will come back to bite, perhaps sooner than most people think. https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/why-vaccine-mandates-are-unethical

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Sticker Project #2

The empty vessels of the ‘freedom movement’ make the most noise.

A modern dictator’s guide to counterinsurgency

The most secure way of neutralising the commoners’ resistance to progressive state policies is to create a reality-TV series called “the freedom movement” (or something positive sounding and empowering like that). A cast of charismatic organisers/rebels/mavericks from different walks of life are the main protagonists. They gain prominence in the pilot episode, each performing a simple act of resistance captured on video. Speaking the language of the people they deliver a daily dose of “the Revolution” right to your sofa, each with a high energy vlog of platitudes to motivate you to stay on it and “just trust me, we are making a huge difference”. From time to time the organisers will stage a festive meetup in a public place to give you the sense of full, realistic immersion in the series (this is a crucial element of reality-TV and what the audience loves the most). These meetups should be realistically called “protests” and contain surprise, hyper-real performances by affiliated artists. Some suggestions for the embedded performances: a thrilling visit from the “riot squad” in full gear, an occasional violent “arrest” of one of the protagonists, a discovery and capture of a “real” firearm on one of the “protesters”, an accidental run-in with ANTIFA, and the all time favourite: “the burning of the Parliament House”.

It was once understood, correctly, that “the [real] revolution will not be televised”. The task of the dictator is therefore to ensure that “the Revolution” is televised, vlogged, delivered right to your door, the information channels saturated with everything “revolutionary”, the drama and bloodshed of “true resistance” fed directly to your screen. The polarity of Good and Evil must be absolute, and the audience made to oscillate between hopeless terror and “nothing can stop us now”, driven to daily catharsis. Live-out the real revolution in reality-TV. “Oh! What a Difference.” ✊

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The Earth is not a mother; it is collective memory, the complete record of the past.

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This is top of the list of my fave Australian groups - actually, world-wide.

This is where I go to get grounded and for some cool, sane information.

Knowing the difference between 'right' and 'wrong' isn't always as easy as it seems. This channel owner knows much more than most, and explains it in a way that will get you really thinking - whether you're in agreement or not.

The channel owner is Michael Kowalik. Michael is a philosopher https://philpeople.org/profiles/michael-kowalik ethicist, based in Victoria Australia.

Telegram channel link here :https://t.iss.one/NormalParty

If you need a dose of sanity, I encourage you to enjoy the salve of 'The Normal Party' Telegram channel and chat group.

For more from Michael Kowalik click here :https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/

from Mitch
at Aussie News + Digital ID
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A human male is a ‘he/his’; a human female is a ‘she/her’. It is a grammatical (and logical) error to use a female pronoun for a male. For example, ‘The male in the white suit kept scratching her nose’ does not make sense if used in reference to that male’s nose. The sentence implies that the male is scratching someone else’s nose, who happens to be a female. The pronouns used by proponents of transgender ideology are linguistic nonsense, a category mistake. The objection that a male can be a ‘she’ just in case of a ‘transgender male’ does not work either because it involves circular reasoning (‘begging the question’ fallacy); the premise ‘transgender male’ presupposes rather than supports the conclusion that a male can be a ‘she’. For more fallacies of transgender ideology see here: https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/gender-identity-on-trial

What will you grow when food becomes money?

Beware of those who claim to ‘fight for your freedom’ or ‘defend your rights’ but have not touched on the core reasons why vaccine mandates are wrong. https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/email-to-australian-human-rights

The alleged conflict between “selfish” and “altruistic” motivations is a fallacy. There can be no such conflict because “altruistic” motivation is logically impossible; everything we intend to do is necessarily motivated by self-interest, otherwise it would not be motivating and we would not do it. The only relevant distinction that makes self-interested action either morally right or wrong is whether we are rational in its implementation. Rationality dictates that self-interest can be reliably served only by taking into account the interests of others and seeing oneself as a moral being among beings of the same kind, which may at times have the ‘appearance’ of altruism.

Those who assert that ethical behaviour can be improved by conditioning people to abandon self-interest imply that ethical behaviour is contrary to self-interest, therefore harmful to self, which raises the question why would anyone want to inflict harm on every individual? Morality must be reducible to self-interest or it would not be rational to be moral, therefore wrong to be moral, therefore immoral to be moral, therefore nonsense.

The above statement did not age well:) Take a deep look at those “best and brightest”; emptiness cannot see itself. https://www.behaviourworksaustralia.org/blog/this-is-massive-open-online-and-about-change

Stalinist Ethics: If you do not want to die for the benefit of the collective, you lack ‘solidarity’, you are ‘unethical’, so we have the moral duty to make you do it.

How did they know in the Middle Ages that there was a pandemic if nobody tested? Would we know that there was a Covid pandemic if nobody tested? Is then testing (for a pandemic) a form of disinformation?

Those who change themselves to match a particular identity prove thereby that they do not possess an intrinsic identity, that there is no integrated Self to action the change in the first place. The organism does not become ‘itself’ through this change, but only changes the mask of the metaphysical fragmentation that is nominally associated with it in lieu of the Self.

From W.R. Bion “Experiences in Groups” 1967. Bion is regarded as one of the 4 greatest psychologists of all time (Freud, Jung, Bion, Klein) I will venture to make an even stronger claim than Bion’s: All people who are attracted to power have mental illness and ought to be treated accordingly.