Democracy

In this discussion, Peyton Bowman and I discuss my term ‘fast-foodification’. I coined the word trying to describe modern politics. The techniques used by politicians and their professional enablers are optimised to attract votes in the same way that McDonalds and … Continue reading →

This is a piece I did for Crikey I’d forgotten I’d written and hadn’t put it up here. So now I have. The article was spotted by someone who has been exposing just how much damage opening up Congressional committee … Continue reading →

If we want politicians to actually represent their constituents, we need to free them from the pressure of toeing the party line. A week or so ago someone tweeted this to me. It was a response to my Crikey! article … Continue reading →

I use Troppo to make various notes for file as it were for reference in future. And on wanting to record something I found that I hadn’t reproduced this post — which was originally at The Mandarin — here. So … Continue reading →

Michael Haines, who has previously posted on Troppo, is campaigning for universal income funded from the adoption of sovereign money — which would yield a large amount of seigniorage like revenue to government. Geoff Croker is campaigning for something similar … Continue reading →

I What is it with James Burnham? I associate him — via Curtis Yarvin — with the alt-right. And Burnham is the founding text of what I call the Alt-centre (of which I am the founder and which I’m hoping … Continue reading →

As part of my recent fascination with competitive and ‘de-competitive’ merit selection, I’ve been looking at the origins of both parliamentary and presidential elections. Intriguingly though we now associate elections with competition between candidates, in both the British parliamentary system … Continue reading →

Like me, Leslie Cannold is deeply grateful for Liz Chaney right now — you know, the way she’s speaking truth to fruitcakery. Liz Cheney is my hero. On positions of policy, I disagree with her almost 100% of the time, … Continue reading →

.@FergusonNews asks Opposition Leader @PeterDutton_MP: What would prevent you now from taking the next step and that is backing the referendum on the Voice? #abc730 #auspol pic.twitter.com/ebAUd6uM7P — abc730 (@abc730) August 11, 2022 Peter Dutton is a human being. That’s … Continue reading →

Scott Morrison’s “secret powers” are being heralded in much of the media as proof that he was up to no good. The simpler explanation is that on governance issues, he was often just not much good. As a journalist and … Continue reading →