Big Day in Melbourne...So, Melbourne, wow. Hard Lockdown on the Projects low-income housing commission 20 storey towers...over 3,000 folk and quite a very few hundred with more than a passing attachment to ice, heroin, hybrid ganga, and grog...etc and only holding usually a maximum of 2 days supply...and No one gets out...or in...for 7-10 days. Strict. All locked down with police on each level...500 police on each shift 24 hours a day...for 7-10 days. Meals and services delivered by...police. Big City, Big Problems. I expect that there may be quite a few fire alarms going off at night, and maybe even a few real fires as the 'cooking' goes wrong. Whoosh.

I don't think we are facing a Hitleresque future, Barbara. I'm not an American, so my views of both Trump and Biden are a foreigner's views. As long as the USA moves out of Asia, Asia will be pretty happy and will have a better healthier and richer future. North Asia is the only important place on Earth for the future survival of everyone and, so far, everyone is very careful about it, as they should be. As for inside America, well, i don't think the Lives Matter thing means anything and is just all a knee-jerk reaction to the Virus mostly. It is about the difficulty people have with change. Who is to blame? There must be someone to blame! The more advanced societies will deal with the Virus in the best way, mostly. The ones who don't have Universal Health insurance etc will suffer a lot more which may lead some governments to think that maybe a Universal Health insurance, based upon, say, a 1 or 4 percent tax would be better for most. You can still have Private Insurance on top of that for folk who wish to pay for orthopaedic massages and kombutcha tea and nicer rooms whilst they are living and dying, if you like. Putin wishes to remain in power, of course he does. Trump wishes to remain in power, of course he does. Mr Xie, the same. Of course. This is human nature. It is hard to remove human nature from the political world. None of them are sprouting War! as the answer to the problems associated with change due to a Virus. You will always get Mad Bastards of the Far Right no matter what is happening, and you'll get the same bunch of neo-Christian retards, but i don't see anyone with the gall and psychotic view of Hitler in this mix. Things will be okay as time goes by. Things won't be as good for America, still, the numbers of those suffering from poverty etc world wide will still be falling at a faster rate than they ever have, as they are now, and things will be basically okay, even for Americans.

answer to a white racist rant: I'm not proud to be white caucasian Australian, but I guess I was fortunate to be one in terms of living pretty easy, always working class, although at 67 years of age not actually owning anything..as is the norm. I'm not proud of my country, I think its really awful... a disgrace to humanity...yet a fortunate island compared to a few. My wife, who is very mainland Chinese, is very very pro Trump. I don't understand why, but I do love her just the same. She knows that she married a white Australian communist who supports very much the great job of the Chinese Communist party, but loves me anyway. I'm not proud to be white, I just am white. I'm not proud to have Irish/English forbears, although I do like Irish music, even though the dancing is just plain silly... and , like everyone else, as individuals, this is all just a passing parade over which we have no power at all and we'll all be dead within a few or 8 decades, and me much sooner, so why get so upset? True, I get upset whenever I see the current Australian flag, yes, it does make me nauseous and does bring a chunk of vomit to the back of my throat, as I despise it, and I'd never stand up for it and I'd kill myself with a cricket bat before I stood up for the cunt of a thing...and I'd never ever fight for that flag or its symbolism or for what this scum country is in ethical and moral values, and I pretty well despise those who have...because of the betrayal built into the double-cross Sassenach/English flag in the sinister corner of it, but, still, there it is. Still flying. Fortunate to be Australian, true, in some ways, but not proud.

People seem to think, or want, that China will somehow become democratic, or will collapse...but neither is realistic. China will continue as the massive and united society it is for a couple of hundred years at least, growing more powerful etc yet not war-like. In this way China is very different from every other rising power in our Western histories. It doesn't make war. We will have to get used to that. Sure, within China, there will be better organised more representational forms within government, but never anything as stupid as what we define as democracy. China is doing well and will continue to do well. As for the government...a solid party core at the centre of a free wheeling yet controlled capitalism, it will do very well indeed. The world has never seen a society like China as it now begins to just emerge on the world scene, so we have no way of understanding it. Our histories of rising and collapsing empires isnt what China is doing at all. it is not like what we know or understand. Tibet will not be free to sell its resources to India or America. Hong Kong will remain a city in China. Taiwan will be accommodated. China operates on the basis of the Walled World Concept, whilst utilising globalism as it is. The Great Gates of China, well, some open, and some close, as it suits the times, but it remains China. One China, intact. Certain.

I think the best way through the current social miasma to a new social dawn is simply to: 1: As Much as Humanly Possible, Buy Nothing. Minimise Food purchases, minimise energy use, and never buy cars or anything electrical. Just let them be, and let them run down. That about sums it up. That would really, really, help the whole world.

as a member of HACSU I note that when you put a legitimate comment about HACSU on the site, and its removed in a minute, then, a member feels they might as well withdraw their $500 a year membership and spend it on the charities of their own choosing. $500 is a lot of money to be wasted. I don't have that kind of money to waste just because my Union is interested in funding themselves and other vague changing social notions that never deliver improvements to their members pay packet. We are talking in the Decades now.

As an Australian, On the whole, I don't mind Trump at all. He hasn't launched a major war or conflict in his time as President. In this way, he has done more for world peace than Obama, and all the previous presidents going back to Carter. Sure, he is in favour of Americans in America having guns, but they only shoot other Americans with them. That's fine. The world doesn't need more Americans. And, yes, he is pulling US Forces out of Asia, which is great for all of us for enduring world peace.