This week

I'm going to start this post with wrote I wrote elsewhere:

The extent and savagery of the fires in NSW and Qld. are appalling - and we're now getting fires in other states, including my home state. The informed  commentary explaining why we should be taking climate action - and other actions - has been common sense and obvious - and I like the suggestion that we refer to these as "the climate fires".

Our (neoliberal) leaders have failed us; our fire experts, with respect, should probably have listened more to indigenous fire custodians; and we all should have been paying attention, caring, listening and prodding the hell out of whoever wasn't (including ourselves).

The smoke in parts of NSW is staggering. I'm asthmatic, and suffer from high pollen days. If I was living in NSW, I think I would have to get out (although not through airports).

There have been a number of gravely concerning events here, and elsewhere.

In the latter category, the possibility of Scotland leaving the UK if Brexit proceeds is being raised again. I have no firm view whether it will or not, but the anger of many Scottish people over the economic harm that is likely from Brexit is palpable. How strongly that would flow over into a vote for independence is not clear to me - someone has probably covered the overlap in a survey, but I haven't read a report on that - although I haven't gone looking, either. If Brexit proceeds, there will be considerable dislocation and pain; if Brexit doesn't proceed, there will be considerable resentment and anger - probably to be point of rage. No option looks good, at the moment.

In Australia, there have also been problems - some mentioned above. Today's imminent storm may be over Minister Dutton's fascist/authoritarian view that Parliament is a "disadvantage for the government of the day".

Such views are undemocratic - they are appalling, and I have to wonder how those who voted for the neoliberals are feeling. (They could be OK: a Boston Globe video on a POTUS45 supporter found he is so alienated he still supports POTUS45.)

We are sliding into authoritarianism, an authoritarianism that is looking disturbingly like fascism, and the openness of our democracy has been downgraded.

(This has been written about by Timothy  Snyder [see here and here] and Madeleine Albright [here].) 

On top of that, we have ongoing, severe economic problems, which the neoliberals seem to be meeting with old, hackneyed, discredited approaches from the mid-late 20th Century.

As I wrote recently on Twitter:

Einstein: We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Neoliberals (esp. re economy, climate denial, and today & yesterday in APH): You just keep going on repeat.

There are other areas we need new thinking, in my opinion, and public funding of elections is one. If that could be implemented effectively (and I haven't had the energy to go chasing any evidence/analyses on this yet), I consider it might neutralise the financial clout of the neoliberals business backers.

If we don't go that path, either as states or a nation, then I would like to see more widespread use of bans on key groups who may unreasonably bias or influence elections - not just developers, as is done in NSW, but also the gambling, alcohol, and tobacco industries.

Unions are, in my opinion, exempt from this, as they are acting in the public interest (for workers), much as charities are acting in the public interest of groups that they represent.

And on workers, this article explains some of my recent health problems to me. Given the widespread nature of stress, I wonder how long it will be before our life expectancy starts going backwards.

Final point from this week: activist groups have been targetting tech companies in the USA over the companies' links with the USA's notorious ICE department. Those connections, if they are there, sound like a failure of business ethics to me - and a demonstration of why being ethical in business is so important.