In which the pond decides to drive down the hits with a serve of many things, not least nattering "Ned" in séance with Lord Downer ...

 

The pond has seen an alarming rise in hits and is determined to do something about it. The thought that reptile news might be attracting readers is deeply disturbing and must be stopped immediately.

Was it the pond's occasional tendency to dip into the American carnival of clowns? 

There's an ongoing tendency for that in the pond because the comedy pickings are so rich ... New House speaker Mike Johnson knocks Biden's 'cognitive decline' but can't remember all the times he attacked LGBTQ relationships.

The headline says it all, and the link is there, what else to add? Well there's always the low picking fruit ... and while the pond hates to X, there's usually some XXX offering to hand ...

Speaking of speakers and huddles and crownings by Luckovich ...

... a certain David Rothkopf went on an extended rant in the Daily Beast, Here’s Why Mike Johnson Is More Dangerous Than Donald Trump

Unfortunately the pond couldn't find it outside the paywall, but the thesis is quickly stated: The former president only cares about himself. The new Speaker of the House actually wants to make America a Christian theocracy.

Rothkopf began by resorting to the runes, or as usual, the founders ...

The most dangerous movement in American politics today is not Trumpism. It is Christofascism. With the election of Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the organized effort to impose the extreme religious views of a minority of Americans on the entire country, at the expense of many of our most basic freedoms, took a disturbing step forward.

Despite Speaker Johnson’s claims of being a constitutional “originalist,” via his elevation by a unanimous vote of his Republican colleagues he has moved America closer to having precisely the kind of government America’s founders most feared.

Thomas Jefferson said he viewed with “solemn reverence that act of the whole of the American people” which established “a wall of separation between church and state.” George Washington approved a treaty that explicitly stated, “The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” The very First Amendment in America’s Bill of Rights states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The principal author of the Constitution, James Madison, in his treatise, “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” described 15 reasons why the U.S. government must avoid backing any religion.

There is a reason the word “God” does not appear a single time in the Constitution. The founders were breaking with an England and Europe that were still in the thrall of the idea that rulers derived their powers from heaven above, “the divine right of kings.” But in the Constitution it explicitly states their view that the powers of government are derived “from the consent of the governed.”

Jefferson—like Washington, Franklin, Madison, and Monroe—was a practitioner of deism, a view founded in the idea that the Supreme Being created the universe and then essentially took a step back, leaving natural laws to operate on their own. They believed religion should be a matter that was entirely between individuals and their God, and that it should play no role in governance.

Indeed, Jefferson’s views were even starker. He wrote in a letter to John Adams, “The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being in the womb of the virgin” would be seen as just another fable and described the religious views that descended from that fable as an “artificial scaffolding.”

Thomas Paine considered much of the Bible to be more “consistent” with what might be called “the word of the demon” rather than that of God. Madison said that “religion and government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together” and saw the separation of the two as essential to avoiding “the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries”—a sentiment that clearly resonates with our own times. Washington celebrated that the U.S. had at last created a form of government “that gives to bigotry no sanction.” Benjamin Franklin wrote at length about the pernicious nature of religious tests in government documents.

Yet here we are.

The Speaker of the House has radically different views. He represents a movement that is actively seeking to institutionalize the religious beliefs of evangelical Christians into law.

In fact, even as we see with chilling clarity how those with a similar motive have sought to infuse the law with their religious beliefs on the Supreme Court and in state capitals across the country, Johnson may be the most extreme example of a dangerously empowered religious fanatic in our recent history—and yes, I remember that Mike Pence was, not so long ago, the Vice President of the United States.

The term Christofascism may seem inflammatory. It is not. It is intended to provide the most accurate possible definition of what Johnson and those in his movement wish to achieve. Like other fascists they seek to impose by whatever means necessary their views on the whole of society even if that means undoing established laws and eliminating accepted freedoms. Christofascists do so in the name of advancing their Christian ideology, asserting that all in society must be guided by their views and values whether they adhere to them or not.

Although Johnson was little known outside Republican congressional circles (and not that well known within them), he made it clear from his first moments as speaker who he was and what kind of speaker he would be. In his opening remarks, he even suggested it was divine intervention that made him the second in the line of succession to the U.S. presidency. He said, “I don’t believe there are any coincidences in a matter like this. I believe that scripture, the Bible, is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority.”

He has developed close relationships including with Christian Dominionist groups like the “7 Mountains” New Apostolic Reformation effort appearing on broadcasts cited as one of their “favorites.”

As Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) commented in the wake of the speech, the religious content of Johnson’s remarks “demonstrates that there are no public policy values that unify the Republican caucus anymore. They don’t have a secular program. And so they have fallen back on theocracy as the final binding mechanism of their cause.”

And so on, and the pond would like to go on, but then the pond would also like to turn to Russia to observe Abortion restrictions in Russia spark outrage as the country takes a conservative turn ...

Sadly, the pond has to at least pretend to care about its herpetological studies ...

'Grum puckings', as they say in kiwi land ... with Dame Slap yet again dishing it out to pesky, difficult, uppity, cheeky blacks, and so earning a red card at the get go, though the pond did wish that tank could burst out of its image and do its work by crushing her ... (what would the bro say about the use of tanks?

Racing past nattering "Ned", it was on to the 'leet commentariat emanating out into the world from inner city Surry Hill, home to the finest baristas in the world ...

No dog botherer? He's got the sulks? And more Dame Slap, and at least she keeps on avoiding that Toowoomba matter. 

The pond never pays any attention to the oscillating fan, or simplistic Simon, but did note garrulous Gemma blathering about historical illiteracy ...

The pond dished out the usual red card, but speaking of history, was reminded that Israel was born thanks to terrorists doing terrorist things ... or "terrorist-thugs" as they were called back in the day ...

The pond had to cut it a little short, but thanks to the ongoing funding, you can find it at Trove here ...

If you keep on searching, you can find things like this in the Adelaide Chronicle on 26th August 1948 ...

Or this in the Daily Telegraph on 7th August 1947 ...

Or this the same day for those too lazy to head off and find that editorial in Trove  ...

Those were the days, but here we are ...

Hah, the pond couldn't resist noting the lesser member of the Kelly gang encapsulating the reptiles' deep fear of of the capital, coupled with the troubled Chris Gardiner listing troubling anti-Israel tropes that troubled him, but he left out one ... ethnic cleansing ... so the pond felt free to note the snaps of ethnic cleansing in the Graudian, Gaza before and after: satellite images show destruction following Israeli airstrikes.

And there was more war porn at the Beeb, Gaza before and after: Satellite images show destruction

Perhaps the troubled Gardiner would be just as troubled by a cartoon ...

But enough with the ethnic cleansing, and history and all that, it's time to really drive down the readership, and if war porn and Us comedy won't do it, then there can be no better way than nattering "Ned" channelling Lord Downer ... amazing, but true ...

The pond didn't really need that big headline, it was too grisly to contemplate, as was the opening, with Lord Downer sticking the shiv into the crow eaters ...

You see the reptiles immediately followed that gobbet with Lord Downer looking very lordish and magisterial and owl wise, and the pond had to downsize the contemplative bird and throw in another image just to reduce the visual shock ...

Then it was on to more "Ned" channeling the Lord ...

At this point, the pond was reduced to a billy goat butt, in the shape of "butt what about the bromancer, butt ...?"

Butt that was then and now "Ned" is in séance with Lord Downer, and the spirits are angry ...

Butt what about the bromancer? Has history swept him aside so quickly?

Oh never mind, the pond decided to adopt the dumb insolence that used to get prisoners into trouble ... keep on with the wise owl ...

But weren't those Japanese subs just common, ordinary Soryu subs. Sure they were good, but didn't the bro need to be able to nuke China by Xmas with nuclear-powered subs?

By now the pond was almost as confused as "Ned" ... as the turncoat croweater kept on with his treasonous chatter ...

Was it just Albo and his mob? Wasn't the bro wildly enthusiastic about nuking the country?

...Already, the AUKUS achievement is extraordinary. The Americans have agreed to sell us three, and perhaps five, Virginia-class nuclear attack submarines. Second only to their ballistic missile submarines and their nuclear weapons, these are the most important military technology the US possesses.

Simultaneously, the British have agreed to change the design of their new sub, successor to the Astute-class, to incorporate US combat systems, weapons, US-style reactor and US propulsion system, to co-design the boat with us and to build it, the SSN-AUKUS, jointly between Adelaide and Barrow-in-Furness.

Make no mistake. This is real history. Some Australian leaders claim ownership of events or trends in which they weren’t decisive actors. If Australia gets nuclear-powered submarines, history will credit Albanese. The basic decision to continue with AUKUS required from Albanese a rare mixture of pragmatism and courage, a combination that recalls John Howard.

That AUKUS enjoys bipartisan support increases its chance of success. But you can already see the danger of the relentless negativity that dominates Western politics, which in the US has even national security Republicans opposing aid to Ukraine because Democrat Biden dispenses that aid. The anti-AUKUS front will involve the Greens, anti-nuclear groups, the vast and well-funded China lobby, indeed the efforts of the Chinese government itself, professional anti-Americans, those who dislike robust defence capabilities, those who can’t bear any association with Morrison, those who don’t like Albanese, conspiracy theorists of all kinds and those just perennially against any big project.

Oh bro, you didn't see "Ned" and Lord Downer coming with their sidewinders, did you ...

At this point the reptiles interrupted proceedings with a snap, and so perforce in the interests of impeccable presentation, the pond noted it ...

Then it was back to the blather with Lord Downer ...

The pond found it all vastly amusing and couldn't resist a giant-sized gobbet of the bro in full flight ...

..Here are six emerging AUKUS myths: we don’t need nuclear subs; they’ll be obsolete before we get them; we shouldn’t try to build any in Adelaide; they’re too expensive; they will compromise our sovereignty and upset the region; it’s a mistake to get into such an intimate partnership with the Brits.

Let’s take them one by one. Myth one, we don’t need them. In fact, we desperately need nuclear-powered subs. The problem historically was we couldn’t get them, or couldn’t get them in a reasonable time. Chinese satellite and other surveillance technology is already so pervasive it can probably detect our conventional subs when they rise close to the surface to “snort”; that is, to take in air to run the diesel motors to charge the batteries. They snort for only a short period every few days, then submerge again. The boffins’ consensus is that by the mid-2030s Beijing will be able to hit the sub with a missile while it’s snorting.

You can lengthen a conventional sub’s time underwater with air-independent propulsion but that doesn’t last indefinitely. Conventional subs are infinitely better than nothing, but they will become increasingly vulnerable.

Nuclear-powered subs can stay underwater for months. Having trained our sailors on US boats, we’ll buy a mid-life Virginia in about 2032, just after it has completed a maintenance cycle so that we know for sure it will run perfectly and won’t need serious maintenance for years.

A nuclear-powered sub is an asymmetric weapon. It can destroy ships, mine harbours, destroy other subs, travel vast distances, attack land targets, be unknowable to a potential enemy, gather critical intelligence, insert special forces and much more. The later Virginias (and the subs we’ll build with the Brits) have big vertical launch capabilities from which they can fire almost any missile at almost any target. Australia has not had long-range strike capability since the F-111 fighter bomber. Virginia subs are much more powerful than F-111s.

Our having such subs would be a massively complicating, and deterring, factor for any adversary. Our numbers would be significant. If the US by then has 65 nuclear subs and China several dozen, then eight makes a considerable difference.

Myth two, that subs will be obsolete by the time we get them, is the type of nonsense argument some pundits go in for. 

One day subs may become obsolete. Certainly over the decades their roles may change to operate in a more stand-off fashion or as the mother ship of many unmanned underwater vehicles. By tying ourselves to the US and Britain, we will be part of such developments.

But every serious navy in the world, including the US and China, is invest­ing heavily in building sub­marines. Look not at what pundits say but what world-leading militaries do.

Myth three, that we should never make subs in Adelaide, is more complicated. If we had to wait to design a wholly new sub and build it in Adelaide before we received even our first one, this argument would be powerful.

But the genius in the Albanese government’s plan is that we de-risk this process by acquiring three to five Virginias first. There’s no way we could get nuclear boats any quicker. Why then make them in Adelaide ever? A diplomatic secret is we wouldn’t have got them at all if we hadn’t committed to increasing the overall allied submarine industrial capacity by creating a production line in Adelaide. This deal is a huge commitment for the US and Britain too. A critical part of our contribution is to enlarge total allied capability.

Not only that, it’s good for our economy. We shouldn’t run defence primarily as industry policy. But it’s unsustainable in a democracy to spend hundreds of billions of dollars and not get any benefit in your domestic economy. Aus­tralian defence industry can be capable and internationally competitive. Its chief handicaps have been two – a lack of scale and, even more important, governments that constantly change their minds and delay projects.

Once the AUKUS subs get going in Adelaide the plan is to build one every three years. We’ll ultimately build eight AUKUS subs and probably eventually retire the Virginias we get. By then, the mid or late 2050s, Australia will be much bigger. We might decide we want more than eight nuclear-powered subs. This could create a submarine culture of continuous build. We were crazy to let the car industry go. We are the least complex economy in the OECD with one of the smallest manufacturing sectors. We’ve got to pull ourselves back. This is a big part of that.

How we handle the Collins in the meantime is criticalto our mil­­itary capability over the next decade and to our technical reput­a­tion. If we don’t do the life-of-type extension of the six Collins boats successfully, the Americans will never trust us with nuclear boats.

Myth four is that the subs are too expensive. This myth is partly the government’s fault. It provided the estimate that the total, cumulative cost of the nuclear submarine program in the 32 years out to 2055 might be between $268bn and $368bn. Naturally, all the focus is on the larger figure. While it’s a lot of money, in fact it is in the fictional currency of “out-turn dollars”. That means a notional rate of inflation has been factored in for all of those 32 years. We don’t know what the rate of inflation will actually be, nor indeed how much it will finally cost to design and build AUKUS subs in Australia.

The Coalition government first started exaggerating the cost of the future submarine, even when it was a conventional sub, to convince everyone it was a big project. But then the size of the dollars scared people. Much of the so-called cost blowout for the French submarine was just converting today’s dollars into out-turn dollars. For the AUKUS subs the amount of money over 32 years includes training and paying the crew, sustaining the boats, and all manner of other expenses.

Any big program, estimated over more than 30 years, yields a scary amount of money. The NDIS costs $33bn. If it didn’t rise by a dollar, and there was no inflation, in 32 years that’s $1 trillion. Given its trend to increase markedly each year, and calculating out-turn dollars as the government has for the subs, the NDIS to 2055 is surely more than $2 trillion, perhaps closer to $3 trillion.

I presume the government wanted a great big figure out in public in advance so the Senate estimates process doesn’t have a nervous breakdown every time there’s a currency fluctuation or the like. No other country calculates submarine costs this way. Fundamental misunderstanding of the meaning of the government’s figures leads to absurd claims, like that by Paul Keating, that you could build and run 50 conventional submarines for the cost of eight nuclear subs. This is utter nonsense. All subs are expensive. We’ll get the Virginias cheap because they are not brand-new. We’re certainly wealthy enough to afford eight nuclear-powered submarines.

Myth five – the subs will upset the region and compromise our sovereignty. Southeast Asian hesitation about AUKUS has quickly dissipated. Numerous regional diplomats assure me they’re delighted there’s an alternative to Chinese power but don’t like to say so publicly. Beijing’s objections, given how rapidly it’s building its own nuclear submarines, and nuclear weapons, is the definition of hypocrisy. Why is it OK for China to have nuclear-powered submarines but not for Australia? The idea that Australia, spending barely 2 per cent of GDP on defence, is causing an arms race is ludicrous.

There is no issue regarding sovereignty. Once a boat carries an Australian flag it does whatever the Australian government tells it to, writes Greg Sheridan.

There is no issue regarding sovereignty. Once a boat carries an Australian flag it does whatever the Australian government tells it to, writes Greg Sheridan.

Similarly, there is no issue regarding sovereignty. Once a boat carries an Australian flag it does whatever the Australian government tells it to. The Americans build the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It’s entirely US technology. No Australian could replicate its eight million lines of computer code. But an RAAF F-35 is an Australian sovereign military capability.

Myth six, that there’s something wrong with getting so close to the Brits, is the silliest of all, a ridiculous return of cultural cringe. Britain is a close friend and ally of Australia, and a close friend and ally of the US. Our military and intelligence co-operation is already intimate. Our influence with the Americans, and to a lesser extent with the Brits, is part of our influence in Asia. Britain is a nuclear power, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and the sixth biggest economy. Our friendship with Britain is a national asset and doesn’t remotely diminish us as a regional power.

Nuclear-powered submarines will help us defend ourselves, assist our neighbours and contribute to a stable system of deterrence and balance in the Indo-Pacific. The project helps reinforce American involvement with us and our region, which is overwhelmingly in our national interest and has been an object of national policy since Alfred Deakin. The nuclear subs also challenge us economically and industrially. They are a superb nation-building project.

Historic as it is to get this all lined up diplomatically, the big test for our nation now is actually to deliver the project. Destiny calls.

Destiny calls, bro? Or does Kudelka?

Nah, nattering "Ned" and Lord Downer called with a final gobbet ...

Say what? All that blather was for naught, he really likes nuking the country? But the pond was enjoying "Ned's" FUD session with Lord Downer ... especially as all that must surely drive down the pond's hits. "Ned" plus Lord Downer plus ancient recycled bro?! If there's not an immediate drop in hits, the pond is off its game ...

And so to end with a Marxist thought ... the pond would never want to be a member of a club that would have the pond as a member ...