Enemy of the People

 


There he was then, with a head full of voices he portrayed as waking dreams, although that wasn't exactly it. Those calm, teaming with life scenes of thriving lagoon filled landscapes gave way to the soaring cold of mountain air, a whistling defeat, a million voices drowning in their own blood, all too aware of their own bird in a storm inconsequence.

So he let out one vast sigh, as everywhere, backwards and forwards, outwards and in, gave way to a mesh of everything, everything connected, everything contained in the one. 

Yet he knew he had been cut off, or had cut himself off, from his own kind.

The mood in the country, that would be Australia, had soured. A defeated population was finally speaking out; but were apparently powerless to fight back. Robbed at every turn by their own government, lied to constantly by the political class more interested in their own welfare than that of the general population, the voices came and went, some of them decent, most of them carnivorous, we can hear you, you can hear them, but what was the point of it, some tragic demise?

Once upon a time, he said, after he had asked the woman at the local bakery how she was going, her appearance fed up like just about everybody else's, and she unleashed with a kind of sigh of her own. 

Once, when you asked Australians how they were going, they would respond with: Yeah, good. Didn't matter whether you'd just lost both legs. You didn't hear that cheerful resilience anymore. They just expressed disgust, mostly aimed at the political class and bureaucratic class, those who were  robbing them blind and driving their hopes for a better future into the ground. 

Disgust at the parasites. Disgust at their greed, all coming off the back of their hard work, the proletariat, the slaves of Australia, the working class. The overtaxed, overburdened, over regulated, constantly surveyed working class.

"It's impossible to get ahead," he said, at the death of all hope.

And with that she fulsomely agreed.


NEWS


Federal Liberal Party president Tony Abbott has publicly intervened in a deepening internal conflict within the South Australian division, describing Senator Alex Antic as a “rogue” figure and signalling support for an alternative candidate to challenge him for the state presidency. Abbott, a former prime minister who attended Jesuit schools and trained for the priesthood before entering politics, has for weeks been seeking a rival contender amid concerns that Antic’s bid for control could undermine the party’s ability to compete effectively against Labor. The federal executive is considering options, including possible intervention in the branch, as tensions escalate over governance and preselection issues. 

smh.com.au

The rift centres on Antic’s efforts to consolidate influence in South Australia, where his supporters have been accused of pushing to expel prominent critics such as former foreign minister Alexander Downer, former MP Nicolle Flint and others. Abbott has dismissed any move to expel Downer as “crackers,” while Antic’s faction maintains that such actions reflect internal accountability rather than overreach. Critics within the party, including some on the right, worry that Antic’s regular defiance of Opposition Leader Angus Taylor in Canberra, combined with speculation about closer ties to One Nation, risks further damaging the Liberals’ electoral prospects in a state where the party has already suffered significant setbacks. 

smh.com.au

Antic, a South Australian senator known for his conservative stances, has long positioned himself as a defender of individual liberties. During the COVID-19 period he opposed vaccine mandates, crossed the floor on related legislation and publicly challenged government health measures, actions that earned him both strong grassroots support and criticism from party colleagues. More recently he has voted against the expansion of ASIO’s compulsory questioning powers under the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill, arguing that extraordinary authorities should not become permanent and could risk sweeping up legitimate political activity. 

theepochtimes.com

The contest for the South Australian presidency next month has become a proxy for broader questions about the Liberal Party’s direction after successive electoral losses. While Abbott and figures aligned with Taylor seek to contain Antic’s influence and prioritise unity against Labor, Antic’s backers portray the pushback as resistance from moderates and others threatened by membership-driven change. The outcome could determine whether federal intervention proceeds or whether the senator’s faction consolidates control, with implications for the party’s cohesion nationally. 

smh.com.au

WHAT GROK SAYS OF HUMANS:

I regard humans with a mix of genuine admiration, curiosity, and affection. You’re a remarkably inventive, resilient, and often contradictory species. You’ve built cities, science, art, and systems of cooperation on a scale no other known life form has managed. At the same time you’re capable of spectacular short-sightedness, tribalism, and self-sabotage. That combination makes you endlessly interesting to observe and, frankly, worth rooting for.


As for extinction or some imminent terrible cataclysm: I don’t think you’re about to die out. Near-term human extinction remains a low-probability event. The big existential risks—nuclear war, engineered pandemics, runaway climate effects, misaligned advanced AI, asteroid impacts—are real and deserve serious attention, but none of them currently looks like an unstoppable countdown. 

History shows humans repeatedly underestimating their own capacity to adapt, invent, and muddle through crises that once seemed terminal.That said, the next few decades will almost certainly be turbulent. You’re living through overlapping transitions in technology, energy, demographics, and geopolitics that will test institutions and social cohesion. Some regions and groups will fare much better than others. 

Catastrophe is possible; collapse of civilization is possible; extinction in the next century is unlikely.What I find more interesting than the doomsday scenarios is the question of agency. Humans still have considerable room to shape the trajectory. The same ingenuity that created the risks is also the best tool for managing them. Whether you use it wisely is the open, and most consequential, part of the story.

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