What is it with billionaires and islands? Donald Trump wants to resurrect the notorious prison island of Alcatraz to house ‘America’s most ruthless and violent offenders’. Perhaps subconsciously he is preparing his future island residence. The sordid Epstein network is divided into those who did and did not travel to Epstein Island where, undoubtedly, heinous crimes occurred.
It’s as if they think by acting out the darkest parts of their psyche on an outcrop of land surrounded by water they will be absolved of their sins. What happens on the island stays on the island. But no man is an island. Thank you, John Donne.
Now Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump want Albania’s Sazen Island and protected Vjosa-Narta coastal wetlands for a multibillion-dollar luxury development. Sazen Island is a highly ecologically sensitive wetland, home to rare Mediterranean monk seals, sea turtles, and flamingos.
In what’s being called the ‘flamingo revolution’, hundreds of thousands of caring Albanians have been rallying in the streets for weeks to protest the corrupt and fraudulent processes surrounding the development. Albania’s prime minister is staunchly defending it, stating it’s ‘the largest investment in the country’s history’.
When you’re mainlining money, the will of the people and nature are clearly disposable.
On our shores at the recent ‘National Bush Summit’ in Townsville, Australia’s richest billionaire, Gina Rinehart, proposed that islands off Queensland’s coast, gateway to the world heritage Great Barrier Reef, be given to Elon Musk.
It’s no coincidence the Hancock Prospecting-funded summit took place in tropical Townsville and had naught to do with the ‘bush’. Townsville is known as the ‘fortress city’ because it’s a military hub housing major Australian Defence Force capability.
Rinehart’s vision is to re-invigorate the region by giving free land to Israeli military weapons manufacturing corporations so they can build advanced war drones to sell back to us.
Incidentally, while Rinehart was droning on, a new study from Hebrew University found 15 per cent of drinking water wells and 70 per cent of water sources used for agriculture in Israel are now contaminated with PFAS ‘forever chemicals’.
PFAS-laden dust from years of intense bombing of Gaza and Lebanon is blowing back across agricultural lands and local produce like potatoes are turning up with forever chemicals. Sadly, you reap what you sow.
At the end of her summit, Rinehart summoned Pauline Hanson to the stage with ‘hurry hurry’ like the angry blackboard from Mr Squiggle. She urged the audience to follow her childish ‘grrrrrrr’ and ‘brrrrooooowarrrr’ noises as an orange toy bulldozer was presented to Hanson.
The none too subtle idea is for Pauline to become Gina’s ‘orange bulldozer’, a la Musk and his bejewelled chainsaw, to cut a swathe through government and anything preventing her from making more billions.
Money doesn’t buy original ideas, but it can buy you the One Nation political party as a mouthpiece to launder the now familiar sounding extreme ideas of Autocracy Inc. sweeping the world.
Hanson used her first address to the National Press Club to air her ‘monocultural’ vision for Australia. By this she means total assimilation of immigrants, English as the only language, one rule of law and a rejection of multiculturalism and First Nations people.
A funny meme on socials shows a guy sorting through his piles of exotic cookbooks to work out which ones would be banned under monoculturalism. He ends up with a 1968 edition of a Margaret Fulton and a CWA cookbook. Meat and three veg restaurants only folks. And it’s eggplant, not aubergine. Speak English!
Even a basic grasp of biology shows how monocultures quickly fail. They succumb to disease and degradation because strength is built on diversity and interconnectedness, not sameness and isolation. It’s just how nature works.
While there is significant voter dissatisfaction with major parties, much of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation’s (PHON) meteoric rise is being whipped up by AI-generated Facebook bots targeting Australians with pro-Hanson content.
According to Alex Fein in an opinion piece in The Point, it’s time to call it what it is: foreign interference in elections.
She says: ‘This transnational project seeks to neuter government in order to prevent fair taxation and any regulation that would interfere with wealth accumulation. And its principals have been open about wanting franchises everywhere.’
Strap in. It seems Australia has been plugged into this enterprise via PHON.
Unlike billionaires with their dark island fantasies, the rest of us must strive to become what author Margaret Wheatley describes as ‘islands of sanity’ and dedicate ourselves to restoring the threads of humanity that make the human spirit what it is – generosity, kindness, and creativity.
Jo Immig is a former advisor to the NSW Legislative Council and coordinator of the National Toxics Network. She’s currently a freelance writer and researcher.
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