The pond just wanted to start with the real Dame Groan as a way of acknowledging that Enid Blyton had walked this way earlier ...
Indeed, a knowledge of Enid Blyton is essential in dealing with the reptiles, and that harrowing story of bad eggs is as good a way as any into the delusional world of Dame Groan.
This day the rest of the reptiles are off on a union and Bill Shorten bashing picnic, but the pond just wanted to grieve, in a quiet way, in a secluded space, with Dame Groan, as she sees a vision splendid disappear over the horizon ...
It's hard to resist a Donald-ism ... so sad, so sad ...
But what transfixed the pond was the way that the good Dame saw the world as binary, 1 and 0, black and white, greenies bad, Dame Groan good ...
Now speaking of irony, there are many splendid bits in that very short piece, but the pond's favourite line was that the TPP wasn't dead, it was just on ice ...
Exactly so, it's just resting until some time in an unspecified future ... "some time" ...
As usual the pond felt a song coming on: "somewhere there's a place for us, peace and quiet and open trade wait for us somewhere, there's a post-Donald time for us, time together and trade to spare, time to learn, time to share, some day, somewhere, we'll find a new way of trading, we'll find a new way of forgiving the reptiles somewhere ... hold Dame Groan's hand and you're half way there, hold her hand and she'll take you there, somehow, some day, somewhere ..."
Put it another way, sow the seeds and reap the wind ...
Yes the barking mad delusionals are in the house and Dame Groan is grieving ... but who knows, the Donald has performed so many herculean backflips in just a short time that he might manage many, many more ...
Meanwhile, a Denton is groaning along with the Dame ...
It's going to take the reptiles some time to come to terms with what they helped create ...
The pond was incredibly moved by all the insights and especially the graph.
The pond can never get enough graphs, and after a hit from ABC News, it's always ready for more ...
But perhaps Denton should talk to the hand, or to the Donald ...
Sow the seeds and reap the wind ... and the rest of that story at Vox, here ... as the conga line of Republicans turns up to do the new dance craze, the Donald ...
Of course the planet will also be reaping the wind, and lots of hot air and dying oceans too ...
But Dame Groan will keep on keeping on, and to hell with all that greenie talk ... while clutching at dead parrots ...
And speaking of dead parrots, there's a relevant Pope cartoon, as there always is, and more infallible papist japery here ...
And now, for no particular reason, except diligent pond research, here's a nursery rhyme from long ago ...
Unity? What, make the groaning Dame great again?
And as a onetime academic, anyone can google it up, and here's the source ...
Everything must change, so it can stay the same ... and now, for anyone who has yet to discover the captivating power of the logarithms ...
Sayeth the Groan: "And don't forget we have a trade agreement with the US."
ReplyDeleteSayeth Shiro Armstrong of the ANU Australia-Japan Research Centre: "The Australia United States free trade agreement (AUSFTA) came into effect in 2005. ... The evidence reveals AUSFTA resulted in a fall in Australian and US trade with the rest of the world — that the agreement led to trade diversion. Estimates also show that AUSFTA is associated with a reduction in trade between Australia and the United States."
That's the ticket - reduce our dependency on trade and thus Bring Back Australia !
Though you may depend on it that at least Bomber and now Smokin' Joe have received an increased remuneration because of AUSFTA.
Delete161123 -
ReplyDeletehttp://www.globalresearch.ca/trump-and-the-collapse-of-capitalism-coc-foibles-fables-and-failures-the-financial-press-and-its-keepers/5558610
"...These financial scribes are very selective in their critique of economic exploitation: They denounce political adversaries while churning out vapid cultural stories and reports on the ‘eclectic tastes’ of the elite. Their weekend cultural pages may occasionally contain a critique of some predatory financiers next to a special feature on an unusual sculptor or successful upwardly mobile immigrant writer. Day after day, the same financial media publishes predictable ‘bootlickeries’ masquerading as reports on vulture capitalists, warmongers and imperial warlords.
The Presidential elections made millions of American voters starkly aware of the mendacity of the mass media and the corruption of the Clinton political elite..."
What, no mention by Groan nor Denton of neoliberalism globalising the growth of the now huge US corporate monopolies?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/trump-antitrust-barry-lynn/507917/
"White: How does concentration in these sectors play out at the individual or personal level, in day-to-day life?
Lynn: Monopoly means—very simply put—that we pay more for things and we get paid less for our work. And so over the course of a year, maybe that's not going to have a really big effect on us, our communities, our families. But if you run that out for 30 years, then it's going to have a really huge effect on our society...
White: During the campaign, Trump criticized lots of companies for outsourcing and lots of politicians for trade deals that he said hurt the U.S. Did you agree with his sentiments?
Lynn: I think Trump is coming at this in a very different way than I would look at it. I have a lot of friends who have opposed the radical globalization that we've seen over the last 20 years. A lot of them are somewhat old-fashioned protectionists—what they want is to make things here either because they want to protect the capitalists who don't want to go to China, or because they want to protect certain kinds of jobs. Both groups were involved on the Trump side during this last campaign.
I look at it as more a matter of how power is wielded across international industrial systems."
I'm not very literate in things economical but Dame Groan's 'woeful' Japanese service sector intrigues me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't Japan for decades deliberately chosen 'inefficiency' as a way of maintaining high levels of full-time employment? Is Japan not more or less fully-employed? Compare that with just about any other country, anywhere. And a nation of savers, too. According to the failed neo-liberal models we've had crammed down our throats, yes, it probably looks like a basket case, but somehow I don't believe it is. Anyway, my little rule is, whatever Dame G says, I believe the opposite. It's been working a treat so far.
ReplyDelete