“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. /2
"We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. /3
"The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. /4
"They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. /5
"We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. /6
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
― Scott Morrison, 2020 /7
Sorry, I mean, Eric Arthur Blair,
or George Orwell, 1984. <end>

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More from @AlanBixter

7 Feb
@emmadegotardi When I lived in the US, it was explained to me that the country ran on the backs of an underclass that was paid poorly, had no health care and no pension. Essentially these people replaced the black slaves following emancipation. /2
@emmadegotardi An example of how close this equivalence is, is the US custom of tipping wait staff, whose salaries are so low that they they are unliveable. Remarkably, the custom of tipping wait staff originated during slavery; wait staff were unpaid and survived on tips. /3
@emmadegotardi When emancipation arrived, many southern states were so opposed to it that the only result acceptable to them was to maintain the custom of tipping emancipated slaves for their labour. Even now, the majority of America's underclass are the descendants of those freed slaves. /4
Read 6 tweets
6 Feb
Why Boris Johnson is not the new Churchill:
Churchill had a brilliant mastery of the English language, excelling in writing and delivering speeches; Johnson is a poor-to-mediocre writer, and a weak speaker. /2
Churchill, while ambitious, was at heart insecure and modest; Johnson is an egotist.
Churchill served in the army extensively; Johnson served himself.
Churchill’s policies were liberal/left although conservative; Johnson’s are extreme right. /3
Churchill largely educated himself; Johnson was educated at Eton and Oxford.
Churchill preferred to work, and did his best work, in coalitions. Johnson hasn’t done any good work; /4
Read 4 tweets
30 Sep 20
So: What is Wrong with COVID-19 Hotel Quarantine in Australia? A thread.

After difficulties with compliance to COVID-19 stay-at-home orders for returning travellers, Hotel Quarantine became the mainstay of infection management for these people in Australia. /2
But the efficacy of this program has varied enormously between states. Here I argue that the key difference lies in ventilation. /3
Think, for a moment, about the hotel rooms you have stayed in: Most would be serviced by one of two types of air handling: a) Natural ventilation modified by a split system air conditioner; or b) A mechanical (ducted) ventilation system. /4
Read 19 tweets
27 Sep 20
Victoria COVID-19 28/09/2020
A least squares fit of the latest case data trend line generated by the sum of two Lorentizian curves, fitting the curve ALL the way down to FIVE!!!. Image
TEN...
NINE...
Read 8 tweets
9 Sep 20
#COVID19VicPressBriefing That Jerome guy speaks very well.
& Great press questions.
"It starts principally in the bathroom. Right up there with, "I hope I don't need to go into any more details about what 'intimate' needs."
Read 5 tweets
5 Sep 20
A story about Kennett's Melbourne. In 1993, I was working at Cambridge Uni, but my father was sick, so I flew back into Tullamarine Airport, catching the airbus to the top end of Elizabeth St, where I waited for a tram to take me & my baggage down to Flinders Street Station. /2
I waited for over 30 minutes and a single tram passed me. I looked around for a time table, but there wasn't one at the tram stop. And them I had a moment on panic: Had I arrived on a Sunday morning? Not only no trams, but virtually no cars either. /3
I pulled out my itinerary and checked the arrival date. I standing in the middle of the CBD on a Monday morning at a little after 9am, and the city was as dead as if hit by a pandemic. That was what Kennett did to Melbourne.
Read 4 tweets

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