A pre-dawn reflection on the ordinary state of things right now.

 

I sent this little essay to John Menadue for possible publication early this morning:

I wake very early this Thursday morning and creature of folly I check the mail and read then listen to Caitlin read a poem she has written to mark two weeks to the American mid-terms, a poem of ordinary-woman-despair. And then unexpectedly Soundcloud follows up, after brief Swedish language introduction, offering a calm but also despair-generating interview about the prospects for international depression with no mention of the U-word but calm expectation of the great swings facing smaller businesses and their minimal chances of securing finance.

This is a reality away from the mainstream media coverage crowing for Ukraine, hammering China, being smarter than Chalmers, wanting a future also for their paypackets.

We are in these weeks at a hinge point in history. Too much to say that the future of the United States will be decided but as significant for life in the US as is the arrival at a small asteroid of an extraordinary, accurate, American projectile for organisms that may be there, an unknowing whack of history. And tiny compared with the slow motion collision of two galaxies, something new seen by the Webb Telescope. This latter exemplifying the reality that reality only consists in what we know happened according to the news, no matter how gargantuan. So gargantuan but so far away it’s not real.

We are, neurologically, psychologically, pants-down perplexed in the night, able only to jiggle in our heads a modest number of variables, let alone the normal more-than-modest number of variables with the whiff of disaster. And then down the front page of the ABC news is a report from the Medical Journal of Australia that

"Australia's greatest threat, including to the health of its people, is not from beyond its borders — it is from within," states the report, which was written by 20 researchers in Australia, New Zealand and the UK…”

Here’s the source. 

But otherwise the news is weighty with Putin, Putin, Ukraine, Ukraine, and um gosh, Bushmaster. We are sending them more of these unsafe bruising blind defence troop transports, getting them off the army’s inventory. No questions asked, no report by the ABC about how many of those already sent are still in operation, how many broken down, how many destroyed in combat, how many gone to the black market.In new news,  advisors will be sent to assist in a training program in the UK for the Ukraine army after Christmas… though it seems inconceivable that no advisors accompanied the M777 artillery pieces we have supplied, though British and American advisors on the ground may know them better. The M777 compared to the Bushmaster, more significant to the war, also the UK economy. Though the New York Times thinks it’s American.

Just days now till the closing date, 31 October, for submissions to the defence strategic review to be submitted …  apparently then days before an interim report will be released, no doubt already written. My submission is in, copy here. I urge funding for a socially and economically future-proofed nation before money for pointy toys. But I’m out of touch, with an opinion survey apparently suggesting that 80% of Australians would go to war for Taiwan…  more than the percentage of people in Taiwan who expect war or want war. 

The fought-over fare charging devices of Sydney Trains (for the sake of national security) should be replaced by a pin-tail-on-donkey map quiz, called ‘Where’s Taiwan”. I failed one of those in 1964, there’s no shame involved. It goes with the quiz question: “Which is wider, Bass Strait or Taiwan Strait”. 

So we have the beginning now of a decisive period in history: inflexion point in the Ukraine war: the US mid-term elections on 8 November: the heads of government conference of the G-20 on 15-16 November. So many supplementary questions arise for commuters to address!

1. What is the G20?
2. Where is the G20 heads of government meeting being held 15-16 November?
3. Will Australia be represented by the governor-general or the prime minister?
4. What country is it being held in?
5. Name five of the participating countries.
6. Is Indonesia among the members? 
7. How far is Indonesia from Australia?
8. Is the head of the Indonesian government elected?  
9. How many people are registered to vote in Indonesia? [190 million, total population 270 million]
10. Population of the USA [330 million], registered voters [168 million]
11. Percentage of registered voters voting last presidential election [USA 66%, Indonesia 75%] 
12. If the USA, Russia and China attend the G20, will there be discussion of [i] war, [ii] peace. If not, why not?
13. [supplementary question] Australia signed a security cooperation agreement with which country a few days ago. Which country and why?