Archives For Australian History

COVID-19 Measures are Killing cancer Research

May 30, 2021 — Leave a comment

Heavy handed COVID restrictions, in conjunction with a reassignment of medical resources, has stalled Australia’s cancer research, which, according to Medical Republic, runs the risk of sending cancer research backwards.

Paul Mirabelle, chairman of the grants committee at Tour de Cure, told M.R that ‘cancer researchers around the country were struggling.’

The causes were the direct results of a lockdown fuelled funding freefall.

Mirabelle said, the potentially fatal halt in momentum was due in part to The Australian Government’s counter-lockdown COVID welfare program, JobKeeper, not being extended to include ‘university employees.’

This is despite, the Australian Government’s Cancer Australia grants programs, and extensive taxpayer supported funding, including a recent commitment by the LNP, allocating ‘$100.4 million for improvements to cervical and breast cancer screening programs which will help detect these life-threatening cancers earlier, improving survival rates.’

Along with ‘$6.6 million for Breast Cancer Network Australia to operate its helpline, rural and regional information forums and extending its consumer representative training program.’

Other contributing factors cited by Mirabelle, were the ‘drop in income from the loss of international students,’ and COVID restrictions affecting fundraising events.

Door to door, morning teas, researchers and patient trials have been scaled back in the interest of practitioner/patient safety.

The pandemic’s negative, and I believe, wide ranging, long term, impacts on Cancer research aren’t isolated to Australian scientists.

Research organisations in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States also report a significant drop in personnel, and funding.

An article from May last year appearing in The Toronto Star, claimed that ‘up to 15,000 medical research staff faced layoffs as the fell through the cracks of aid programs’ offered by the Canadian government.

The only researchers who qualified for aid were those working with, on, and because of COVID-19.

The Star pointed out: ‘Clinical and research trials that were unrelated to the coronavirus were suspended or cancelled by order of the [Canadian] federal government as the country went into lockdown in mid-March, including more than 600 cancer research trials.’

In the U.K., University of Oxford professor of cancer medicine, oncologist David Kerr called the pause in clinical cancer research, a ‘knee-jerk reaction,’ made worse by the uncertain nature of COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic, and the transfer of ‘nurses and doctors from the research frontline to the clinical frontline.’

Kerr told online medico news site, Medscape, that Cancer Research UK, one of the biggest cancer charities in the world, ‘has projected an annual loss of income of roughly 200 million pounds, down from 450 million. For the Canadian Cancer society, a drop of $100 million, and in America, a drop of $200 million.’

All of it, said Kerr, is because of lockdowns. The impact of which, ‘will be enormous and will echo forward for many years.’

The National Breast Cancer Foundation of Australia’s report card, while crediting the global partnerships of researchers singularly focused on battling the COVID-19 virus, also attributed the halt in cancer research to ‘working restrictions and lockdowns.’

NBCF’s snapshot asserted that ‘9 out of 10 respondents anticipate their research program will take over 12 months to recover from the impact of COVID-19.’

NBCF’s launches it’s annual ‘GOPINK’ campaign in June to back its goal for “Zero deaths from breast cancer in 2030.”

The silver lining, if there is one, is that the collaborative precedent set by the urgency of restraining COVID-19 sets the standard for a similar, singular focus on better treating, diagnosing, and eliminating the cancer pandemic that kills more people each year than COVID-19 ever has.

The down-side to this silver lining is this: if cancer research can be halted, and risk being sent backwards, for a virus that’s become more about politics than healthcare, it can be halted for other political reasons.

This should concern all stakeholders.

Organisations are being increasingly pressured to become “WOKE” compliant, and that means surrendering to the far-Left’s ever darkening rejection of binary facts and biological science.

Based on current trends, it’s not long until the LGBTQAAI+ “WOKE” lobby boycotts breast cancer research, appealing to their belief that using the colour “Pink” and the terms women and men, are “heteronormative oppression” that foster a “hateful and negative space” for those who identify as LGBT.

Ridiculously claiming, as perhaps they no doubt one day will, that organisations like the National Breast Cancer Foundation are reinforcing “harmful” gender stereotypes.

Not kowtowing to the new cultural norms, and using gender neutral language, or gender-neutral colours, imposed and approved by the radical left, the NBCF will face accusations from its fanatical adherents that they want “LGBT people to die.”

All of this will resemble the overzealous bureaucrats wielding the lockdown sword, who suffocated essential services like cancer treatment, patient care, and research, without giving much thought to the long-term consequences.

In this sense, the diagnosis doesn’t look good.

Unless there’s a stop to the funding freefall, and lockdowns that are negatively impacting cancer research, it could be that the numbers of deaths from, and with covid will be outnumbered in the long run by treatable non-Covid related diseases.

Largely because these essential services were ignored by politicians whose reckless decisions were backed by big tech censorship, healthcare providers with time on their hands to choreograph dances for TikTok, and a lust for the political capital that COVID cult fanaticism keeps on delivering.

In sum, lockdowns, through killing livelihoods, may very well end up killing more people than a deadly virus, that governments said justified such terrible totalitarian measures.

First published on Caldron Pool, 24th May 2021.

©Rod Lampard, 2021.

In Australia, Australian History, Political Theology, Politics , , , , ,
permalink

Virtue Signalling Budget Blowouts Sell Off Australians to the Cult of “Wokeness”

May 27, 2021 — Leave a comment

For all the good Australia’s Budget 2021 promises, it’s ultimately an “if you don’t vote for this, you’re a misogynist” manifesto.

Before dismissing this as an overreaction, digest these words from The Australian’s Glenda Korporaal,

‘After months of heated discussion about the Morrison government’s attitude towards women, the 2021 budget will go down in history as the first time that women have been so heavily identified in such a key economic statement in Australia.’

Korporaal added, ‘it’s not just the 81-page Women’s Budget Statement that puts a ‘gender lens’ on everything, it’s the explicit identification of women’s role in the economy.’

This is a sign, noted Korporaal, that the Morrison led Liberal National Coalition, are ‘taking responsibility for women’s economic and personal security.’

The budget rhetoric, wrote Korporaal, ‘expands the areas of perceived government responsibility into women’s safety.’

For the cynic, she said, it looks like the LNP are ‘trying to repair their image on women’s issues.’

I’m one of those cynics.

What the LNP are communicating is partiality.

So much for government neutrality, and with it, gender equality.

My cynicism isn’t unwarranted.

The party aggressively portrayed by its Leftist opponents, and fencing sitting opportunistic enemies, as being a party against women, are now the party for women.

If justifying my cynicism with the witch’s brew context the budget was boiled in, isn’t enough, note that I’m not the only one.

Author and veteran, ABC journalist, Quintan Dempster quoted ABC Insiders in a Tweet on the 9th of May, writing, ‘according to The Guardian Australia, the Prime Minister’s approval rating with Australian women has taken a “massive hit.”

Dempster then asked, ‘Will Tuesday’s budget will be a counter misogyny masterpiece then?’

Regardless of what you think of me or my fact-based opinions, Korporaal, and Dempster aren’t lightweights.

Read together, The Australian and the ABC agree.

This is a virtue signalling budget that will reap an ill wind for the LNP, because no matter how “woke” the LNP try to be, it’ll never be enough for the patriarchy hating Leftist vandals, who a large portion of this budget appears to appease.

In essence the 2021 LNP budget is payment for applause from the LNP haters who gaslighted them into splashing dollars they don’t have, on a rush to satiate the anti-woman propaganda, pinned on the LNP by radical adherents of, as Morrison said last week, the ‘moral corrosiveness of identity politics and cancel culture.’

Fair criticism of the Canberra bubble’s poor history in its treatment of women aside, is the national budget the appropriate place to go to war on behalf of its victims?

Sending the country broke for the sake of appearing “woke” is a dodgy gamble with other people’s money.

The only authentically clap-able decision in the budget’s women’s only cash splash, is the $1.1 billion dollars directed towards Domestic Violence services, some of which will go towards helping Indigenous Australian women.

That’s a positive. As are some of the budget’s more sober applications, such as funding opportunities through new apprenticeships, expanding manufacturing, bigger focus on defence, infrastructure, and healthcare.

The instant political win for Morrison is that budget did what it appears to have been designed to do: send the LNP’s political opponents into an unrecoverable flat-spin.

For example, Labor’s anti-women narrative is disarmed, and even the Radical Left Greens Party are struggling with how to respond.

The Greens seem stuck between celebrating the LNP’s new found partiality towards radical feminism, and the LNP not paying enough towards Ponzi schemes that support the Green’s mythos of “climate justice,” or their Ponzi operators whose ‘apocalyptic climate change’ scaremongering is shoved like a rushed vaccine down the throats of children, and the elderly, “for our greater good.”

The budget deficit isn’t a win for the Australian people.

Lower taxation looks great on the surface, but even that’s weighed down by an increase in superannuation from 9.5% to 10% after July 2021, increasing to 12% in 2025.

What this means is that those in Government, along with millionaires like Kevin Rudd, and Paul Keating, who bleat on about raising that compulsory contribution amount to 12%; railing, as they have, against proposals to allow workers access superannuation for use on a first home, benefit from the dollars they, and the unions they serve, can skim off the top.

It comes down to this: more of your hard-earned money for them, and the unions, less of it for you.

The Morrison budget was about government empowerment, not the self-empowerment of women.

It means more social workers, and more money to man-haters in women’s refuges, meddling in the lives of families, who don’t need the help, instead of putting social workers where the help is needed most.

This one-sided nonsense doesn’t help balance the family court system, which often pushes men into a corner through its own vicious partiality.

Why not add new funding to support Dads in Distress, and men’s shed projects as well?

Either the 2021 budget shows that Scott Morrison’s prowess in outplaying leftists is pure genius; or he’s a sell-out, playing quiet Australians for all their worth.

I bounce between the two, but lean towards the latter. Simply because getting in debt to satiate identity politics is plain stupid.

It’s not a good look. The same PM who rejected identity politics last week, has embraced it this week.

What’s more, as a Christian, identity – brokenness – sin – all the trash, whether self-inflicted or inflicted on us by others, is to be grounded and held accountable in Jesus Christ.

‘God’s grace in the flesh’ is where society, if both man and woman are to thrive and survive together, has to find its core identity.

There is no greater common denominator, or battlefield neutraliser than Jesus Christ.

That Biblical instruction which separates humans from machines at the mercy of bean counters, which, long before Darwin’s and Marx’s twisted religions came on the scene, asserted that men and women are not economic units to be solely identified with the almighty dollar, but are Divinely created beings made in the image of almighty God.

Such is the importance between living vs. earning a living preached by Solomon in Proverbs 27, where lives are put before livelihoods.

Solomon’s advice, in sum? Don’t be so caught up earning a living, that you forget how to live.

Plenty of people still adhere to this, it’s just the ones who see Government as god, and seek to use government as a god, who spell hell for the rest of us.

Without the same ‘Deus ex-Machina’ spike that magically coronated Joe Biden as President of the United States, Morrison’s “wokeness” gamble is a reckless one.

Inserting identity politics into the budget sets a precedent for entitlement through a “woke” woman over man, standard, that will divide Australia, not unite it.

First published on Caldron Pool, 14th May 2021.

©Rod Lampard, 2021.

In Australia, Australian History, Feminism, Political Theology, Politics , , , ,
permalink

Clive Palmer Signs Israel Folau, Speaks out against Christian’s Being Persecuted in Sport: “Religious Freedom is a fundamental right.”

May 24, 2021 — Leave a comment

Australian businessman, Clive Palmer has signed Israel Folau to the Gold Coast’s Southport Tigers through his company Minerology.

Palmer played for the club in the 1970s, and is a key sponsor.

In a press conference breaking the news, the many faceted, adventure driven billionaire said he’s been a supporter for over 50 years.

Palmer told journalists that the Bronco’s (Folau’s last team) has cleared the decision.  

When asked if he agreed with Israel’s “views” around homosexuality, Palmer offered this sharp response,

“Look, I don’t know what his views are to be honest. All I know is he’s placed on the Twitter or something a quote from the Bible. And I know that the Bible’s used every day; quoted in Churches across Australia for millions of Australians.”

He then added,

 “I know when we go to Parliament, many parliamentarians refer to texts of the Bible, and they pray every day. I know that when you go to court and you swore in for evidence you put the hand on the Bible. So, to me it’s nothing extraordinary that someone makes a quote from the Bible.”

Palmer then took the media to task for blowing Folau’s 2019 social media post out of proportion stating, “I’d just say from the media it’s grown out of all proportions. It certainly shouldn’t affect a person’s livelihood, how he can support his children, or what he can do.”

The Southport Tigers alumni made it clear that he wants the club to lead in being open to religious diversity, saying, he didn’t want to bring a persecution of people for their religious beliefs into sport.       

Answering questions about the legality of signing Israel, Palmer said there is no legal prohibition on his participation in the sport, adding, ‘religious freedom in this country is a fundamental right.’

Asked whether Queensland Rugby League will be putting legal restrictions on him, Folau said he’d have to talk with Palmer, who was quick to address it, saying there is no legal prohibition on what Folau can and can’t say.

With this came the reminder that the Rugby Australia paid Israel for damages for doing exactly that, which Palmer said was an admittance by the RA of wrongdoing on their part.

His comments preceded a warning to Folau’s haters looking to cause new drama through litigation, ‘I’ve got some resources, and if it got down to a legal battle, I’m sure anyone opposing someone on the basis of religious persecution would go down very seriously, and they’d have to pay a lot of damages.’

Critics are already laughing off the “partnership,” in true compliance with the false narratives built up around both Australian celebrities by the largely leftist legacy media, who’ve painted Palmer as a mad, loose cannon, and conditioned people in the false belief that Folau as an anachronistic, homophobic “happy clapping gay basher.”

The Herald Sun, citing a February 2021 black flip from St George Illawarra Dragons on signing Israel, supported LGBTQAAI+ lobbyist and widespread legacy media accusations of “gay hate,” stating in its report that NRL has no jurisdiction over the QRL, and that the QRL will have to decide whether or not to let the “controversial anti-gay former Wallabies star” play.

ESPN didn’t follow the Herald’s lead. The sports magazine highlighted Folau’s talent, respectfully handled the controversy, and pointed out the Australia Christian Lobby’s ‘recent online petition, which garnered 12,000 signatures demanding Folau be allowed to play in the NRL.’

Super charging the Southport Tigers, Folau will be joining two of his brothers on the field in a first for the A-grade Queensland Rugby League team.

Folau said it’s a step in the right direction, and credited ‘his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’ for the opportunity.

First published on Caldron Pool, 21st May 2021.

©Rod Lampard, 2021.

In Australia, Australian History, Political Theology, Politics , , , , ,
permalink

Chief CCP Propagandist Tells Mao’s Misguided Children to “Bomb Australia”

May 24, 2021 — Leave a comment

For the second time in six months, Communist Chinese propaganda bullhorn, the Global Times, has published false accusations about Australia’s military involvement in Afghanistan.

The Maoist-state-affiliated organisation published a poster alongside a defamatory editorial, claiming Australian soldiers committed ‘sanctioned massacres’, were part of ‘cover-ups’, had ‘a kill list’, and photoshopped enemy activity to mask” ADF evils.

In the same month, the Marxist mouthpiece used selective comments from Australia’s Home Affairs Secretary Michael Pezzullo,  who the CCP rag accused of “sabre-rattling,” for warning against belligerency in his 2021, ANZAC Day speech,

“Today, as free nations again hear the beating drums and watch worryingly the militarisation of issues that we had, until recent years, thought unlikely to be catalysts for war, let us continue to search unceasingly for the chance for peace while bracing again, yet again, for the curse of war.” 

Pezzullo doesn’t mention China, but The Global Times (along with the Australian Labor Party) responded to his speech as an attack on Communist China’s position on Taiwan.

CCP propagandists then falsely used Pezzullo as an example of Australian politicians exhibiting a ‘high zeal for war.’

The CCP’s manipulation of facts are its primary ingredient in their ramped-up belligerency against Australia.

There’s a clear, discernible pattern.

Take for instance, the bannable by Twitter standards, actions of Chinese Communist Party official, Zhao Lijian, who, in a Twitter post in November last year depicted photoshopped images of Australian soldiers beheading Afghan children. (The post inciting violence against Australians was reported, but Twitter neither blocked Lijian, or booted his account).

This follows The Global Times’ Beijing Bettys penning articles telling Australia to ditch the United States and embrace the CCP’s debt slave, ‘Belt and Road Initiative’, or else!

This includes the CCP’s incursion into Australian society, via money hungry Australian Universities, abuse of trade relations, and the bullying of Australian citizens, such as Australian swimmer Horton Mack.

Let’s not forget the unscheduled visit in June 2019 of three Chinese Warships who entered Sydney harbour unannounced, with sailors dressed in full combat gear.

This list doesn’t include cyber-attacks, the potential biological warfare origins of the Communist COVID virus, or the tariff war triggered by China’s Communist leaders, who view Australia as a puppet of the United States in need of some good ole’ Red Guard, gulag Marxist “liberatin’ lovin.”

Examine The Global Times’ latest song and dance routine.

Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of The Global Times, said Beijing should bomb Australia, if the Oceanic island continent decided to back a U.S lead defence of Tawain.

Affirming China’s ‘love for peace’, Xijin stated that ‘retaliatory punishment should include long-range strikes on the military facilities and relevant key facilities on Australian soil.’ 

Before reading Xijin’s military strategy, I said to my wife last week that I wouldn’t be surprised if the Communist Chinese Party did something like nuke a part of Australia in order to coerce submission through a show of force.

Although the CCP claim to adhere to a “no-first-use of nuclear weapons policy,” they’d appeal to Hiroshima and Nagasaki as examples; making out that our new “benevolent” and “glorious” Marxist rulers wanted to avoid bloodshed, or direct military confrontation.

America’s new Commander in Chief is weak. So is the jihadist leftist narcissistic party he serves.

Like the blind bats most of them in that category are, many on the Left would surrender and celebrate.

Biden would ramble out a few sentences through his mandatory mask, something like “that’s not nice, don’t do it again,” while the CCP laughs in his face, then maybe sinks a carrier battle group or two; as BLM, and PRIDE parades break out across America in celebration of the Communist destruction of the “racist and homophobic” West.

Think about it. There’s plenty of desert the CCP could use to scare the hell out of (paralysed by political correctness) fence sitting Aussies.

This kind of approach would also allow the CCP to encourage their Leftist sycophants in Australia to blame “warmongering right-wing extremists,” “racism” etc.; gaslighting Australians by saying: “you brought this on yourself; because of your “whiteness” warmongering. You only have yourselves to blame.”

Would it mean war? Not necessarily.

Australia would simply capitulate, ditching ANZUS, as quickly as Australia is ditched by the Pro-CCP Whitehouse Democrats. The surrender would be unconditional, with Australia’s leftist legacy media leading the charge – especially the ABC, and perhaps Eternity News – doing everything in their power to make that happen.

Led, as they would be, by former “glorious” leader Kim Il-Kevin07, or another power hungry wanna-be from the Left at the helm.

The U.N would applaud the smashing of “Sinophobia, the patriarchy, racism, and homophobia.”

Anyone who still stood in their way would be punished under puppet state rules established by the Communist Chinese Party.

I’ll stop there. You get the point.

If you think this is a stretch.

Precedence would beg to differ.

Founding member of the anti-Vietnam war movement in the United States, David Horowitz, now an ex-Marxist, stated in a 1985 piece marking the 10th anniversary of the fall of Saigon:

‘Let this be perfectly clear. Those of us who inspired and then led the antiwar movement did not want to just stop the killing, as so many [antiwar protesters from back then] now claim. We wanted the Communists to win.’

Horowitz adds, we operated from a double standard, holding America to account, while ignoring the crimes of those America was fighting against.

Some of us, says Horowitz, ‘like Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda, provided a protective propaganda shield for Hanoi’s Communist regime while it tortured American war-prisoners; others engaged in violent sabotage against the war effort.’ (“My Vietnam Lessons”)

He concludes, ‘my experience has convinced me that historical ignorance and moral blindness are endemic to the American [and Australian] left.’

Horowitz couldn’t have described the response from the Leftist elite in Australia to the increasing belligerence of the Communists in China, more accurately.

In April, Australian Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, Penny Wong aligned with the CCP in openly criticising Pezzullo’s ANZAC address.

Wong, according to the Sydney Morning Herald rebutted Pezzello by accusing him of not using ‘sober and cautious language.’

Labor responded in kind to Australia’s Defence Minister, Peter Dutton’s well publicised concerns for the Taiwanese people, and Australian sovereignty.

Fast forward to this week.

Australian Labor’s Shadow Trade Minister, Madeleine King, demanded LNP member George Christensen be ‘sacked.’

As Wong did with Pezzullo, King took Christensen’s’ words out of context, then accused him of being an ‘unhinged’ warmongerer, for pointing out Communist Chinese warmongering.

Christensen is right.

Contra to King, honest observers would acknowledge that it’s China, not Australia, who’s militarising the South China Sea, and its maritime navigation lanes.

Likewise, as much as the majority of Australians don’t like how it enslaves the Chinese people, Australia isn’t infiltrating Moa’s dystopian society by way of the wolf diplomacy, intimidation, or belligerency.

Australia isn’t invading Taiwanese airspace, or practising chest-beating invasion drills. Neither is Australia seeking militant global dominance.

More to the point, unlike China, Australia isn’t a nuclear power, with unelected bureaucrats encouraging its bureaucratic caste to bomb another country!

Despite the CCP’s claims to the contrary, – including criticisms from self-hating, clueless Leftists who have a distaste for ANZUS, The QUAD, Five-Eyes, and America’s close relationship with Australia – accusations from China’s Communist propaganda arm best fit the ‘sabre rattling’ of the Chinese Communist Party, not Australia.

With help from blind bats in the Australian Labor Party, Beijing Betty from the CCP’s cut and piece propaganda department is projecting.

No Australian wants a war with the Communist Chinese Party or its indoctrinated Marxist minions, but it’s treasonous to advocate we walk around ignorant of the drums of war.

Far better to draw a line in the sand, than bury our heads in it.

As I argued in May last year:

Appeasement of the Chinese Communist Party is treason.

First published on Caldron Pool, 12th May 2021.

©Rod Lampard, 2021.

In Australia, Australian History, Political Theology, Politics , , , , , , ,
permalink

The Gospel According to Kevin Rudd

May 6, 2021 — Leave a comment

Criticisms from former Labor Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, aimed at Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison’s Christian faith, are asinine, petty, and hypocritical.

In response to Scott Morrison’s speech at an Australian Christian Churches conference in April, Rudd told the ABC’s 7:30 Report,

“The idea that anyone leading a political party could believe that it is ‘God on our side,’ is just the stuff of real danger in my view.”

Rudd’s problem with Morrison is largely manufactured outrage.

Morrison never said or alluded to the absolutizing of the Church through the State by way of hyper-nationalism.

In ripping apart Morrison’s testimony concerning answered prayer, Rudd twisted what Prime Minister said, and skewed the message to serve his own ends.

No where in the speech – which was transcribed by Crikey  – does Scott Morrison say about the 2019 election that “God was on our side,” nor did Morrison suggest that Australia should become a theocracy.

The Prime Minister spoke of being the image bearers of God. A key part of healthy Biblical theology, and a major part of the fabric from which Western Civilisation was formed.

Contrary to Rudd’s self-centred accusations, Morrison asked those gathered to be what they are called to be: a landmark; a beacon of hope under the 24/7/365 Lordship of Jesus Christ.

In essence, Morrison was calling the Church to be image bearers of the self-revealing God in a sea of poisoned politics, societal division, ideological extremism, and the subsequent surge of political turbulence.

There’s nothing Morrison said that justifies Kevin Rudd’s venomous anti-Church and State tantrum.

Granted, his concerns about the excesses of Pentecostalism weren’t all that off the mark. I’ve seen some dumb stuff done in the name of the Holy Spirit.

While criticism of certain aspects of the Christian denomination are necessary, the more appropriate platform for such criticism is theological analysis, not trial by media.

Certainly not trial by ex-Prime Minister, who from his political pulpit, appears to be saying that the Christian faith should be constrained to four walls on a Sunday, and read through the lens of Das Kapital.

Rudd’s bourgeois leftist social justice Christianity, is as concerning as cultural Christians who keep Jesus in his Sunday box, bringing Him out for a cameo at Christmas, and Easter. Only apply if necessary. Particularly if there’s an election on, and the mood feels right.

By using Morrison’s Christian faith, to shove his own bigoted bourgeois leftist, Marxist Jesus of “Social Justice,” down the throats of Australians, Rudd appears to be completely unaware that his self-righteous chest-beating negates proclamations about his own Christian faith.

For example, Rudd, in his article for the Guardian placed his own “garden-variety theology” (whatever that is) against what he alleges is Morrison’s “radical political theology.”

His juvenile outbidding of Morrison should be read as it appears to have been written: “Morrison isn’t a real Christian. I know, because I’ve always been one.”

It’s not the first time.

In a quarterly essay discussing faith and politics, Chris Uhlmann explained how Rudd “compared his faith, with that of John Howard, and [did so] to find his opponent wanting.”

Could Rudd’s hypocrisy be any more blatant?

He condemns Scott Morrison for bringing “religion” into politics, but was not averse to using God in his 2006-2007 election campaign.

In a 2006 essay for the Monthly, Rudd appealed to the strength of German Evangelical (Lutheran) theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Rudd appears to have used Bonhoeffer’s Christian opposition against the Nazi state, to inadvertently portray the Liberal National Party as Nazis, and the Australian Labor Party as anti-Nazis, for the goal of winning the 2007 election.

Spot the irony. Kevin Rudd, a “Christian Socialist” employed an ecclesiastically Conservative Christian theologian, who stood up against National Socialism, to promote Christian Socialism.

Bonhoeffer wasn’t a fan of the all-consuming, and never satisfied, economic leviathan, stating, (and I’m quoting him verbatim): ‘a lack of obedience to Scripture is characteristic for the teaching of the social gospel.’ (DBW 12, Memorandum, p.242)

Around the time of the 2007 election, when it came to roles played in society by both the Church and State, Kevin Rudd was all for it, writing,

‘The function of the church in all these areas of social, economic and security policy is to speak directly to the state: to give power to the powerless, voice to those who have none, and to point to the great silences in our national discourse where otherwise there are no natural advocates.’

Adding to this, he then asks secular politicians not to reject the Christian perspective:

‘A Christian perspective, informed by a social gospel or Christian socialist tradition, should not be rejected contemptuously by secular politicians as if these views are an unwelcome intrusion into the political sphere. If the churches are barred from participating in the great debates about the values that ultimately underpin our society, our economy and our polity, then we have reached a very strange place indeed.’

It’s telling. Kevin Rudd is okay with the Christian perspective in politics, as long as it’s the Leftist authorised version.

A deceptive, flowery version informed for the most part, by false doctrines that submit the Lordship of Jesus Christ to the tyrannical lordship of Karl Marx.

It’s not Morrison’s faith in politics that needs a health check-up, it’s Kevin Rudd’s.

‘Socialism’s real error’, said Christian, ex-Marxist and French scholar, Jacques Ellul, is ‘the one that lies behind all the rest, is that it ended up formulating a new religion, setting up gods: history, proletariat, socialism, revolution.’ (Jesus & Marx, 1988. p.139)

As Simone Weil asserted: ‘Marxism is a badly constructed religion.’

Rudd’s hypocrisy and its utterly self-important nonsense beg the question, why is #kevin07 still being taken seriously?

The former populist P. M has discredited himself by letting his lust for media attention assuage his narcissistic opportunism.

Watching Kevin Rudd’s responses to Leigh Sales on the 7:30 report was like watching a sketch from the Comedy Company.  

The election of Kevin Rudd ignited over a decade of destabilisation in Australian politics. Him calling the Prime Minister “wacky” is genuinely laughable.

To be in Christ, is to be in the Church.

Crucially, and perhaps most importantly, is that Rudd’s criticism of Morrison, not only misconstrues the role of church and state, it neglects vocation.

Vocation is God’s sovereign grace working through human hands, where, says, Lutheran scholar, Gene Veith, ‘His Word extends into the world.’

Through vocation the spirituality of the cross is lived out in ‘parenting, farming, labouring, soldiers, doctors, judges or retailers.’

It’s impossible for a genuine Christian to be separated from Jesus Christ.

The distinction between church and state is not to be understood as a separation between the secular and sacred.

A Christian defined by their church attendance record, melanin, ethnicity, or loyalty to a political ideology – is not a Christian.

Jesus is bigger than Sundays.

First published on Caldron Pool, 3rd May 2021.

©Rod Lampard, 2021.

In Australia, Australian History, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Political Theology, Politics , , ,
permalink

Australia’s Prime Minister Cautions Against Identity Politics, & Cancel Culture: “they are the work of the Evil one”

May 5, 2021 — Leave a comment

Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison has rejected identity politics and cancel culture in a speech delivered to the United Israel Appeal Dinner, in Randwick, NSW.

Morrison’s April 29th address wasn’t a thunderous “no,” but it was an encouraging reiteration of comments he’d originally made during an informal speech at the Australian Christian Churches conference held on the Gold Coast the previous weekend.

One that inadvertently triggered a meltdown amongst the radical leftist vanguard because a) he seemingly didn’t ask their permission, b) didn’t officially schedule it on his Prime Ministerial calendar, and c) a Christian Prime Minister giving a speech at a Christian conference, was a bridge too far for the “Australia is supposed to be a secular country” blusteringly bigoted, anti-Christian belligerents.

The essence of his speech reinforces a commitment from the 3rd highest office in the land, after God and Governor-General, that Australia won’t be led by extremists on the left, who are demanding total conformity to their divisive ideological agenda.

This all sounds promising, but there is a caveat. Morrison’s words are dimmed by the Liberal National Party appearing to follow the direction of Australian Labor’s virtue signalling vote grab, by implementing gender quotas.

With this in tow, we’d be fools to not ask whether the Prime Minister was fully committed to his convictions?

If the Prime Minister’s commitment to tackling the toxins of identity politics and cancel culture is an authentic “hell no – full stop!”, we are seeing a watershed moment in Australian politics.

Morrison’s boldness wasn’t a Menzies sonic boom, heard when the Liberal founder, and Prime Minister, stood in the gap for all Australians with ‘The Forgotten People,’ and his perceptive, if not over-the-top-at-times, consistent defence of Australia’s [Classical] Liberal Democracy, against the totalitarianism of Communism at the height of its insidious power.

This said, Morrison’s address was, in many ways, a Menzies moment.

Scott Morrison, drove home the message of community, and individual responsibility; of offering grace towards our neighbours through the Biblical Christian emphasis on an ‘inherent dignity’ handed to humanity by way of the being made in the image of God (Imago Dei).

Liberty, the Prime Minister said, ‘is not borne of the state but rests with the individual, for whom morality must be a personal responsibility.’

He adds,

‘This is not about state power. This is not about market power. This is about morality and personal responsibility…That is the moral responsibility and covenant, I would argue, of citizenship. Not to think we can leave it to someone else. ‘

‘Community begins with the individual, not the state, not the marketplace…to realise true community we must first appreciate each individual human being matters.

Then Morrison qualifies his meaning stating that,

‘In this context, we must protect against the social and moral corrosion caused by the misuse of social media, & tendency to commodify human beings through identity politics.’

‘We must never surrender the truth that the experience and value of every human being is unique and personal. You are more, we are more, individually, more than the things others try to identify us by, you by, in this age of identity politics.’

‘You are more than your gender, you are more than your race, you are more than your sexuality, you are more than your ethnicity, you are more than your religion, your language group, your age.’

Finally, and with justification, Morrison solemnly nails the fascist nature of identity politics, cancel culture, and by extension Critical Race Theory/Queer theory, asserting:

‘Throughout history, we’ve seen what happens when people are defined solely by the group they belong to, or an attribute they have, or an identity they possess. The Jewish community understands that better than any in the world.’

Cancel culture and identity politics are birthed from same DNA found in Communism, Nazism, and Islamism. They are totalitarianism proper.

That Australians have a Prime Minister publicly moving against this new authoritarianism, is, to lean on the sentiment expressed by CDP leader, Lyle Shelton, a gift.

This, Shelton said, ‘has been Morrison’s finest hour as PM. For a politician who is known more for his pragmatism, this is a welcome and necessary shift.’

I’m a little more cautious. At the moment Morrison’s words are just that, words.

They come from the same Prime Minister whose Communist Chinese inspired anti-COVID counter measures hurt civil liberties, and came without any promise of preserving those liberties, hand-in-hand with his Government’s fight against the Communist COVID virus.

They also come from a P.M. who entertains the hysterical dogma of apocalyptic climate change catastrophisers.

Hopefully, Morrison’s new speech suggests a new direction.

Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister that no one seems to be able to box in, pin down, or label, no matter how hard they try, has gone into bat, shouldering his fair share of the burden for the sake of our civil liberties.

As such, Morrison has delivered one of the best speeches of his time in office, and is to be commended for it.

WATCH.

First published on Caldron Pool, 5th May 2021.

©Rod Lampard, 2021.

In Australia, Australian History, Political Theology, Politics, Theological Reflection , ,
permalink

Racist Tender Stopped After Senator Amanda Stoker Confronts Australian Human Rights Commission

May 5, 2021 — Leave a comment

Australian Senator, Amanda Stoker, has, according to reports from The Australian, directly criticised a plan to infuse an antiracism campaign by The Australian Human Rights Commission, with Critical Race Theory.

Linking the two, The Australian said that AHRC has now held back from a committing $140,000 tender to align Critical Race Theory with the “Racism: its stops with me” (RISWM) campaign.

The intention of the “addition” was to move the ‘focus of the campaign beyond the level of interpersonal racism towards a critical look at forms of structural/systemic and institutional racism, as well as unconscious bias.’

The $140,000 ideological alignment tender’s purpose was to ‘increase understanding about these concepts,’ along with ‘mobilise supporters and potential supporters into action to address them.’

Amanda Stoker is quoted as saying that after learning of the project, she ‘immediately called AHRC president to express concern that it was fostering racial division.’ Racism, Stoker said, ‘is completely unacceptable in modern Australia, but ideas like Critical Race Theory, only lead to greater racial division.’

AHRC president, Rosalind Croucher, said that the call with Amanda took place, but denied that Stoker’s criticism had any influence on the decision to put the project on the back-burner.

Defending the $140,000 tender, Croucher said, crucially, it was an idea that sought to include CRT, ‘not replace the current focus on individual behaviour and building social cohesion.’

The Australian said that Croucher rebuked Stoker, telling her that ‘while open communication is valuable, it is not for an assistant attorney to give direction to an independent agency head.’

IPA director, Bella d’Abrera backed Amanda Stoker, ‘accusing the AHRC of using radical race theory to divide Australians, while notorious Twitter race baiter, Greens Senator, Mehreen Faruqi backed the AHRC infusing CRT into its RISWM campaign.

The debate over CRT as a basis for education is raging in the United States. Donald Trump restrained CRT because of its far-left wing toxicity, but Joe Biden backs it.

Some States, however, are following the Trump lead, and seeking to limit the radical Left-wing ideology’s reach, by banning the teaching of CRT in schools.

In other words, these states are seeking to restrain maddening radical left-wing dogmas such as: ‘systemic racism, white privilege, “whiteness”, and gender bias issues.’

Stoker’s concerns are valid.        

The minute the Australian Human Rights Commission starts preaching from the “woke gospel” of Critical Race Theory, and it’s sibling, Queer theory, it’s no longer an organisation advocating human rights, but reinforcing the protection of an emerging oppressive political class, and its false doctrines.

Ex-hard-line Communist, and veteran of the New Left, David Horowitz, in ‘Hating Whitey & Other Progressive Causes’ described what we now know to be Critical Race Theory, as an academic movement of ‘radical left anti-white hatred’, calling it ‘a by-product of anti-Americanism.’

Horowitz, once an avid supporter of the Black Panthers, noted,

“Ideological hatred of whites is now an expanding industry. [See] Noel Ignatiev’s “Whiteness Studies,” an academic field promoting the idea that “whiteness” is a “social construct” that is oppressive and must be “abolished.” [Also] The magazine Race Traitor, the theoretical organ of this academic cult, emblazoned with the motto: “Treason to Whiteness is Loyalty to Humanity.”

He wrote this in 1999.

His comments pre-date – and perhaps predict – the rise of Black Lives Matter, popularity of CRT, Democrat race baiting, and the “all white people are racist” stereotyping.

Horowitz, an agnostic, is hated by the Left.

It’s easy to see why Amanda Stocker is now on their ridiculous “religious right-wing” watch – them because we hate them – list.

Thankfully, Amanda isn’t alone.

Recall what Kemi Badenoch, a Conservative MP from the U.K., said in October last year:

CRT as an “an ideology that sees blackness as victimhood and whiteness as oppression. We do not want to see teachers teaching their white pupils about white privilege and inherited racial guilt…What we are against is the teaching of contested political ideas as if they are accepted facts.”

If the AHRC is as passionate about antiracism as they claim, surely the AHRC’s hierarchy will recognise this, and look to a broader range of voices, than those identified by Horowitz.

Critical Theory praxis is designed to discredit. CRT and Queer theory are its weapons. Manipulative thought cancelling platforms used to censure a person based on the lightness of their melanin, convictions about biology, faith, and the man for woman, woman for man, union.

Critical Theory, and its offshoots, Critical Race Theory and Queer Theory, are not what they appear to be.

In the end, Rosalind Croucher, the AHRC president, is to be commended for halting the $140,000 tender, for the simple fact that ultimately, ‘Critical Race Theory is culturally accepted racism.’ – Virgil Walker

First published on Caldron Pool, 30th April 2021.

©Rod Lampard, 2021.

In Australia, Australian History, Politics , , , , , , ,
permalink