Post Election Thoughts

"Keep the bastards honest!"

It has been an intense three weeks here in the Snowy Mountains, where our team has put together a campaign to throw out some of the existing councillors who have overseen land tax hikes, financial mismanagement and a culture of cover-ups. Some of my kind Sons of Issachar newsletter subscribers also have subscribed to our Back to Basics substack where we have tried to bring awareness of a number of important local issues.

We intend to continue the Back to Basics substack to bring awareness to residents of significant local issues within the Snowy Monaro region.

Election day was on the 14th September 2024 but pre-election voting opened one week before. Perhaps as many as 50% of eligible residents voted prior to the election date. We were active at voting sites around the local region, handing out “How to Vote” cards and engaging with local people.

Readers may be interested to read about our day in the small town of Bombala, one of the most southern towns in our region. This visit is outlined in the post below.

“Throw the Bums Out”

The vote counting process seems very prolonged and it was announced that the final results would not be known before early October. It doesn’t give you great confidence.

Voting day itself was quite intense, with perhaps one dozen candidates vying for people’s votes, and cries from one of our opponents of “You’re all liars”! I suppose that this is all normal when you have 60 candidates trying to secure one of the 11 positions on council. Conditions turned cold on voting day and there was unseasonal snow that fell in the mid-afternoon of the 14th September.

Figure 1. The scene from outside the voting centre in Jindabyne, mid-afternoon on 14th September, 2024.

Unresponsive Bureaucracies

“A Mountain of Corruption Concealed by an Ocean of Incompetence”

There is a truism about bureaucracies: they grow and become unwieldy and less responsive to the needs of the people they serve. President Reagan recognized this with his famous quote:

“No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!” .

The growth in bureaucracy and its inability to serve the people is not because there are bad people in control (although this may sometimes be a possibility eg the “Deep State”). It happens because it is the nature of bureaucracies. They grow and eventually serve only the people working in them.

This short video from “We the Governed” has the wonderful line that bureaucracies are: “a mountain of corruption concealed by an ocean of incompetence”. Worse still, bureaucracies seem to capture the people that enter them and so as a prospective councillor, I need to take special care. It seems easy to become enmeshed in a morass of bureaucratic policies and procedures, never to emerge.

It is difficult to beat bureaucracies and make them accountable because they have many clever policies and procedures that enmesh those who seek accountability in a tangle of forms, policies and redactions of information that may be relevant.

In the case of our local councils, there were three smaller councils that were responsible to residents in very different areas of our region:

• Snowy River Shire - which included the skifields and tourist areas of the Snowy Mountains;

• Monaro Shire - which encompassed the main population centre - Cooma, which is a rural town with businesses serving the area including the big Snowy 2 Hydroelectric scheme;

• Bombala Shire - a small town of about 1,500 which has excellent agricultural farmland surrounding it.

Each of these shires had a very different demographic: tourism, local business and farming. It never made sense to amalgamate them but bureaucrats based in Sydney claimed that there would be “efficiencies” and “scales of operation” that would deliver benefits. The benefits appear only be to the large staff that work in the centralised system and there are only 2-3% of residents who are “very satisfied” with council’s performance over the last three years.

“Bad systems will beat good people 100% of the time” was our message to local residents and the bad system of an amalgamated bureaucracy needs to be de-amalgamated. This process looks difficult but leaving an unresponsive centralized bureaucracy in place will only lead to rising costs and decreasing services.

“Keep the Bastards Honest”

My team of six performed well above expectations in the local elections, given that we had no candidates standing for council previously and we up against well-organized and well-funded campaigns from existing political parties and councillors.

Figure 2. Voting percentages for various groups standing for election to the Snowy Monaro Regional Council (as of 18 September 2024). Our group is Group F - light green.

Our group of six (Group F) has received ~ 12% of the vote, as of the day of writing, with preferences still to be distributed and postal votes to be counted. We are the fourth biggest grouping and it appears that I will get a council seat. There is also a possibility that my group could get two council seats.

As the chart above shows, there is a spread of votes across the groups with Groups A, C, F and H making up the majority of votes, together with the ungrouped candidates. Our group stood on a platform of “Back to Basics” - fixing the roads, holding down the rates and getting rid of the rubbish. We want to see better financial management, transparency in council decisions and accountability to local residents. This could be hard to achieve, given that several of the current councillors seem to have been returned to council.

As I have been reflecting on the challenges and opportunities of being a councillor, the quote that came to mind was from a popular Australian politician who died almost 20 years ago. Don Chipp was a centrist politician who defected from the Australian conservatives (the Liberal Party) because he was socially liberal. He formed his own party - the Australian Democrats - and was a senator in the Australian parliament from 1978 to 1986. The slogan of the party was: “Keep the Bastards Honest”. At the time, the slogan was shocking as “the bastards” were the rest of the politicians with whom Chipp sat in the Australian Senate.

I won’t know the final results of the local council election for a few weeks but it is likely that the probable composition of the new council will be known by next week. Our group may not be able to find another four or five councillors to work with us to achieve change but we hope to “keep the bastards honest”.

ARTICLES THAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION THIS WEEK

Moderna’s Share Price Drops

Moderna’s Chief Medical Officer, Tal Zachs, famously said in a TED talk that: “We are hacking the software of life”, and “We think about it as an operating system. So if you could actually change that… if you could introduce a line of code, or change a line of code, it turns out it has profound implications for everything.”

It is always worrying when a company has the idea of “playing God” and “hacking the software of life”. There are certain to be unintended consequences.

Moderna had no commercial products and was saved by COVID-19 and their mRNA vaccine that competed with Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine. The company then had a meteoric rise in its share price but many clouds still hang over the mRNA technology and its licensure by the FDA for emergency use.

It has been reported by Barron’s this week that:

“Moderna stock tumbled Thursday after the company announced a major pullback in its research and development efforts, as the drugmaker seeks to stretch its cash to cover an extended period of losses.

The company said it plans to cut research and development spending by 20% beginning in 2025, pausing a number of drug programs and discontinuing others. It now expects to spend a total of $16 billion on R&D from 2025 through 2028, down from an earlier projection of $20 billion. Shares finished the day down 12.4% to $69.68, the lowest close since August 2020……The financial reset comes as the company’s vaccine sales continue to disappoint even modest expectations.”

It is shocking that mRNA vaccines were launched on an unsuspecting world population with inadequate safety checks because of President Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed” and the supposed COVID-19 “emergency”. Now there is a vaccine-induced “emergency” which has largely been ignored by the mainstream media. However, following share prices tells a bigger story about how investors view the likely future success of mRNA products and the cost:benefit.

The Death of Free Speech?

Western governments seem to have all been given the same memo: “Crack down on free speech”. Even in the US, where the First Amendment is sacrosanct, it has emerged that during COVID-19 social media companies were pressured by the Biden administration to block various messages that indicated anything other than the experimental “vaccines” were “safe and effective”.

The United Nations Human Rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, recently said:

“The restoration of public trust was essential, as disinformation should really be seen as a symptom of diseases such as systemic inequality, which has seen “deep-seated discrimination” flourish, along with fragile institutions, a loss of trust in effective governance, and “limited rule of law”. She said those countries impacted by inequality were now threatened with instability and frayed co-existence within society.”

Laws against “misinformation” and “disinformation” are being passed by most Western governments without any definition as to what these terms mean but one thing these laws have in common: criticism of the government or government departments (particularly health), qualifies as “misinformation’ or “disinformation”.

In Australia, freedom of speech has been under attack for a few years and recent legislation is described this way:

“The Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 (Cth) (the Bill) was introduced into the House of Representatives on 12 September 2024. The Bill is not intended to cover the dissemination of all types of false content, but rather the dissemination of content that is verifiably false, misleading or deceptive and which causes or contributes to serious harm.

The Bill has three main objectives:

• to empower the federal media regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), to require digital communications platform providers to take steps to manage the risks posed by misinformation and disinformation online;

• to increase transparency regarding the way in digital communications platform providers manage misinformation and disinformation; and

• to empower users of digital communications platforms to identify and respond to misinformation and disinformation online.”

This legislation has been implemented despite a warning from the UN’s Human Rights Chief:

“But she warned governments against trying to ‘officially ordain what is false, and what is true, and then attach legal consequences to those determinations. Our human right to access and impart information, is not limited to only what is deemed by the State as ‘accurate’ “.

Sometimes, the UN is correct! Elon Musk had a simple response to the Australian government’s legislation: “Fascists” - he wrote on X.

Now in Australia, we also have legislation just passed in one of our biggest states, Queensland, called Respect at Work and Other Matters Amendment Bill 2024. You can guess from the Bill’s title that it has nothing to do with “respect at work”.

Gabriël Moens, in an article published in the Australian Spectator has referred to it as a bill resulting in “The extinction of free speech and religious freedom”. Gabriël writes:

“The effect, if not the intention, of the legislation is to stifle the freedom of expression of Queenslanders and to effectively extinguish the religious foundations of the Sunshine State..”.

The legislation is confusing and Mr. Moens notes:

“Part 4 of the impugned legislation deals with vilification on grounds of age, gender identity, impairment, race, religion, sex, sex characteristics, or sexual orientation. Section 124(1) relevantly states:

‘A person must not, because of the age, gender identity, impairment, race, religion, sex, sex characteristics, or sexual orientation of another person or a group of persons, engage in a public act that a reasonable person would consider hateful towards, reviling, seriously contemptuous of, or seriously ridiculing the other person or members of the group.’

“Ominously, section 124B explains that ‘a public act includes any form of communication, including speaking, writing, displaying notices, playing of recorded material, broadcasting and communicating through social media and other electronic methods, to the public’ and ‘any conduct, including actions and gestures and the wearing or display of clothing, signs, flags, emblems and insignia, observable by the public’. However, according to section 124C, it is lawful to do ‘a public act, done reasonably and in good faith, for academic, artistic, scientific or research purposes or for other purposes in the public interest, including public discussion or debate about, and expositions of, any act or matter’.

Religious freedom, particularly for Christians, could be extinguished and Mr. Moens writes:

“Section 124D deals with inciting hatred, serious contempt, or severe ridicule. It states:

‘A person must not, in a public act, engage in conduct that is likely to incite hatred towards, serious contempt for, or severe ridicule of, a person or group of persons on the basis of the age, gender identity, impairment, race, religion, sex, sex characteristics, or sexual orientation of the person or members of the group.’

“Dave Pellowe, the founder of the annual Church and State conference, commenting on the legislation, has argued that it ‘made it illegal to preach Christianity in Queensland’. His argument assumes that the public expression of Christian beliefs, especially those that are incompatible with the ‘enlightened’ views of the progressive left, may inflame the sensitivities of non-believers who would then be able to seek redress in the Human Rights Commission of Queensland.”

Undoubtedly, this push against free speech is being directed from above and Mr Moens writes that:

“If it is impossible to define ‘hate speech’, any speech potentially constitutes hate speech. It merely depends on the way in which the recipient interprets the speech.”

Decisions about what is “hate speech” then fall into the hands of un-elected bureaucrats with the Queensland Human Rights Commission and it is not difficult to determine that everything that does not fit the agreed narrative is hate speech.

This issue is going to be one where governments exert increasing control over information and we may not be far away from the George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. The United Kingdom has already gone well down this road and police are diverted from solving crimes, to investigating “hate speech”. Australians and the world - watch out!

Florida Department of Health Warns Against COVID-19 Vaccines

This week, the Department of Health in Florida provided updated guidance regarding COVID-19 boosters. The guidance is notable because it warns of the inefficacy of the mRNA vaccines and also their potential dangers. After noting that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved updated versions of the mRNA injections, the guidance document:

“The most recent booster approval was granted in the absence of booster-specific clinical trial data performed in humans. Furthermore, this booster does not protect against the currently dominant strain, accounting for approximately 37% of infections in the United States. There are currently limited data to inform whether these boosters offer any substantial protection against the virus and subsequent circulating variants. Although randomized clinical trials are normally used to approve therapeutics, the federal government has not required COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers to demonstrate their boosters prevent hospitalizations or death from COVID-19 illness. 

Additionally, the federal government has failed to provide sufficient data to support the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 boosters, or acknowledge previously demonstrated safety concerns associated with COVID-19 vaccines and boosters, including: 

• prolonged circulation of mRNA and spike protein in some vaccine recipients,  

• increased risk of lower respiratory tract infections, and  

• increased risk of autoimmune disease after vaccination.”

This section of the document concludes:

“Based on the high rate of global immunity and currently available data, the State Surgeon General advises against the use of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.”

The document also highlights the many dangers of the mRNA injections:

“Safety and Efficacy Concerns  

Providers and patients should be aware of outstanding mRNA COVID-19 vaccine safety and efficacy concerns: 

• The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines present a risk of subclinical and clinical myocarditis and other cardiovascular conditions among otherwise healthy individuals. 

• The mRNA COVID-19 vaccine may be associated with an increased risk of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). 

• The mRNA COVID-19 vaccine may be associated with an increased risk of autoimmune diseases including systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), rheumatoid arthritis, and psoriasis. 

• Throughout the pandemic, studies across geographic regions found that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are associated with negative effectiveness after four to six months. As efficacy waned, studies showed that COVID-19 vaccinated individuals developed an increased risk for infection.  

• Elevated levels of mRNA and spike protein from the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine persist among some individuals for an indefinite period, which may carry health risks. 

• Potential DNA integration from the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines pose unique and elevated risk to human health and to the integrity of the human genome, including the risk that DNA integrated into sperm or egg gametes could be passed onto offspring of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine recipients. 

• There is unknown risk of potential adverse impacts with each additional dose of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine; currently individuals may have received five to seven doses (and counting) of this vaccine over a 3-year period.'“

The Florida Department of Health is one of the few government departments taking seriously the inefficacy and side effects that have stemmed from the mRNA vaccines. Hopefully other government groups will take note but don’t hold your breath!

Nations to Swear Loyalty to the UN

The United Nations, since its formation after WW2 with the support of the globalist Rockefeller family, has had an aim of implementing a world government. With the declaration of 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and warning of a planetary emergency, the next step is a meeting in New York 20-23 September 2024: The Summit of the Future.

A report by Yudi Sherman in The Gold Report provides the following information:

“At the conference, world leaders will sign Pact for the Future, an accord in which member states will pledge their allegiance to the UN as a central, unifying government. 

“We, the Heads of State and Government, representing the peoples of the world, have gathered at United Nations Headquarters to protect the needs and interests of present and future generations through the actions in this Pact for the Future,” the document begins.

“We recognize that the multilateral system and its institutions, with the United Nations and its Charter at the centre, must be strengthened to keep pace with a changing world.”

Member states then repeatedly “reaffirm” their “unwavering commitment” to the UN, its charter, its purposes, its principles, and Agenda 2030. They vow to comply with the UN’s International Court of Justice and promise to “reform the international financial architecture.”

The report by Mr Sherman outlines the UN’s plan to gain further control of national decision-making;

“The latest draft of the treaty was published the same week that a UN official was caught on hidden camera suggesting the organization aims to be a one-world government with its own military power.

The remarks were unwittingly made by Jorge Paoletti, an associate legal officer in the UN Office of Legal Affairs’ treaty section. Paoletti did not know that the person he was conversing with was an undercover journalist from Mug Club Undercover and was secretly recording everything.

“They created this institution [the UN] which is the closest we’ve ever got to kind of like a world government. A world state.”

“Like a one-world government?” the reporter asked.

“Exactly,” Paoletti responded.

The United Nations, in Paoletti’s words, aspires to be a globalist world government that rules over Earth’s citizens, all of whom would be forced to adhere to a uniform identity.”

Mr Sherman highlights an important clause in the UN document “buried towards the end”:

“[Member states will] deepen United Nations’ engagement with national parliaments in United Nations intergovernmental bodies and processes, in accordance with national legislation, including through building on the efforts of the United Nations and Inter-Parliamentary Union to engage parliamentarians to maintain support for the implementation of relevant UN agreements and resolutions.”

We all need to take the aspirations of the UN seriously and this includes those of the World Health Organization. If we don’t draw attention to the intentions of the UN, one day we will find ourselves trapped in the UN bureaucracy as pawns in a globalist collective.

Dr Jacob Nordangård has noted the lack of attention by the media regarding the signing of the Pact for the Future and the Global Digital Compact.

The Media Silence Surrounding the UN Pact for the Future

He writes:

“On Sunday, the Pact for the Future will be signed by world leaders at the Summit of the Future in New York. The pact aims to “upgrade the multilateral system” (i.e. the UN system) and make it more adapted to “future challenges” (i.e. give it more power) with the help of technology and AI systems (which will give it “foresight capabilities”).

The pact to be signed by world leaders has been written by unelected bureaucrats and with unintelligible phrases such as:

“The draft Pact under negotiation has the potential to promote a multilateral system that reflects the realities of today and that delivers for everyone, everywhere..”

Who could be against that?

The Pact for the Future is certain to receive unanimous approval and the signatories could find themselves caught in a bureaucratic trap that limits national sovereignty.