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A Societal Cytokine Storm
The longer shutdowns continue, the greater the risk that the post COVID-19 world will be dangerous and unstable. We are not simply talking about the external challenge by China to a weakened West. We could be facing an unprecedented destabilization of civil society. Democratically elected governments have assumed the kind of executive powers, normally only reserved for wartime emergencies. Yet not even under war powers legislation during World War II did any any democratic government dare to exercise the degree of control over private citizens’ movements we have endured in 2020.
Under the cloak of saving lives and easing pressure on the public health system, the relationship between government and the governed has been entirely reversed. The elected politicians front for the bureaucracy’s lords and masters and the people must obey or be punished. Never mind that the now-discredited computer modelling of a certain Dr Neil Ferguson has been the rationale behind the total…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins