17.6 C
Byron Shire
April 23, 2024

Satan’s good points?

Latest News

Mullumbimby railway station burns down

At around midnight last night, a fire started which engulfed the old Mullumbimby railway station. It's been twenty years since the last train came through, but the building has been an important community hub, providing office space for a number of organisations, including COREM, Mullum Music Festival and Social Futures.

Other News

School holidays at the market

Victoria Cosford School holidays shouldn’t only be holidays for children. Parents too are entitled to a break in routine, the...

Infrastructure for east end of Mullum

Mullumbimby was founded 135 years ago. In the 1960s sewerage was introduced, as was I suppose drainage infrastructure. Are...

D-day for Bruns pod village pesticide treatment

After two delays, the NSW Reconstruction Authority (RA) will be treating Bruns emergency pods with a pesticide treatment, despite some strong opposition from flood-affected residents.

Wallum

It is, at best, amusing, but mostly disappointing, to see The Echo reporting on the mayoral minute to Council...

Editorial – What are the people doing in your neighbourhood?

If you are stuck for something to do this Thursday, why not take part in local democracy?

Bruns Holistic Dental Centre closed

Longterm employee and senior dentist, Dr Roy Gamma, has described the closure of Brunswick Holistic Dental Centre (BHDC) as devastating.

While there’s plenty to be alarmed about with Drumpf (which is his German ancestors’ name), let’s examine some of the positives.

There must be something good, right?

  • The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is dead, for now. For Australia, it was a ‘dumb’ deal, as explained by the Productivity Commission (www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/trade-agreements/report) and others.
  • While Drumpf’s vocabulary is limited to incoherent monosyllabic babble of fear and ego, larger words are now being used across the planet to help understand and describe him. Narcissistic, pathological, sociopathic, misogynist and megalomaniac come to mind.
  • Public knowledge of geopolitics will also continue to increase owing to his lack of geopolitical knowledge.
  • Drumpf’s head-on collision with fact and his denial of it (alt fact) will hopefully be thoroughly exhausted in his term making it harder for others to follow. Russian journalist Masha Gessen describes him as a five-year-old holding up another child’s pencil case while the kid jumps up and down saying, ’give me back my pencil case!’ Drumpf’s reply is: ‘This is not a pencil case.’
  • There were actually a few reasonable policy ideas on his website pre-election. Number one of his 100-point plan was imposing term limits ‘on all members of Congress.’
  • Another was that for every new federal regulation, ‘two existing regulations must be eliminated.’ Others included a ‘five-year ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service; a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government; a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections.’
  • Drumpf appears to owe the presidency to no-one, which is unique except he stacked his cabinet with corporate financial raiders who seem to want to dismantle the departments they will lead.
  • Those across the planet not aligned to racism and who want the earth’s biodiversity and fragile atmosphere to remain intact have been activated. The illusion that Hillary Clinton would have been a better choice has all but vanished and the unfolding reality of a horrendously inept child-man trust-fund baby leading the world has seen town halls across the US packed.

But a strategy is yet to emerge that will challenge him because he acts like this is reality TV and that’s what he’s good at. Once that strategy is achieved, entertainment-driven clowns like this will be prevented from holding power in the future. During the campaign, he treated the campaign like (fake) pro wrestling TV, whereas his opponents thought traditional boxing – with rules – would prevail.

While they and most of the media were wrong, it’s apparent his vanity, hubris, lack of discipline, lack of sanity, lack of knowledge of anything but thuggery and autocratic proclivities will be his downfall.

If not that, it’s likely he will just get bored with the job.

It’s a remarkable story of how one man’s self-delusion and inherited wealth can threaten the planet.

In the meantime, there’s a new practical guide for resisting the Trump agenda (which is a useful tool to fight fascism in all its forms).

It’s available at www.indivisibleguide.com/web and claims to be authored by former congressional staffers, who ‘reveal best practices for making Congress listen.’

– Hans Lovejoy


Support The Echo

Keeping the community together and the community voice loud and clear is what The Echo is about. More than ever we need your help to keep this voice alive and thriving in the community.

Like all businesses we are struggling to keep food on the table of all our local and hard working journalists, artists, sales, delivery and drudges who keep the news coming out to you both in the newspaper and online. If you can spare a few dollars a week – or maybe more – we would appreciate all the support you are able to give to keep the voice of independent, local journalism alive.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Flood insurance inquiry’s North Coast hearings 

A public hearing into insurers’ responses to the 2022 flood was held in Lismore last Thursday, with one local insurance brokerage business owner describing the compact that exists between insurers and society as ‘broken’. 

Getting ready for the 24/25 bush fire season

This year’s official NSW Bush Fire Danger Period closed on March 21. Essential Energy says its thoughts are now turned toward to the 2024-25 season, and it has begun surveying its powerlines in and around the North Coast region.

Keeping watch on Tyalgum Road

Residents keen to stay up to date on the status of the temporary track at Tyalgum Road – particularly during significant rain events – are urged to sign up to a new SMS alert system launched by Tweed Shire Council.

Blaming Queensland again

I was astounded to read Mandy Nolan’s article ‘Why The Nude Beach Is A Wicked Problem’, in which she implied that it may largely...