A Little Payback

Australia need not look beyond its borders for potential enemies.  We are our own worst enemy.  And that also potentially means our government is our worst enemy, because I don’t think it is you or me.  Well, it’s certainly not me, but you could be part of the problem too by stupidly voting to retain this or any other current potential government in place.

I never vote in parliamentary elections because there is never a valid choice for good national leadership on offer and I refuse to participate in being responsible for electing what at best could be labelled as ‘mediocrity’ into positions of power.  In any case, my time is nearly up and I shouldn’t try to influence the future for young Australians.  Goodness knows my generation’s efforts in the past to do so have all been dismal failures.

So, wake up young people and start planning for your own future.  Best to ignore anything currently available, any current party structure, and work out what it is you want to see, taking into account all of the internal and external factors at play for the foreseeable future – which I know is a bloody mess, thanks to your forebears mostly dim-witted outlook on life.  You don’t have to follow in their footsteps.

So, to the story……and I can’t think of a better introduction than this ‘editor’s note’ from the email I received this morning – to which I can only add ‘how ridiculously stupid is your government, Australia?’:

“Often in international disputes, we are given only one side of the story. The side we’ve been given about China’s threat to impose punitive tariffs on the import of Australian barley is that it came out of the blue and was payback for Australia’s decision to push for an international inquiry into the origins of COVID-19. 
This morning Weihuan Zhou reminds us that China’s so-called anti-dumping investigation into Australian barley has been going on for 18 months. He wrote about it in The Conversation when it began in late 2018. 
If anything, it is payback for the extraordinary number of anti-dumping actions Australia has launched against China, in which it has accused it of dumping underpriced products including steel in the Australian market in order to harm Australian producers. 
Australia has launched more anti-dumping actions against China than it has against any other country, and far more than China has launched in return. Barley turns out to be a particularly useful way to hit back.”

Editor’s note – email notification – The Conversation – May 12, 2020

“China might well refuse to take our barley, and there would be little we could do” – The Conversation