En Passant

It’s not that hard to understand why republicanism is at a low ebb writes Corey Oakley in Red Flag. Once long ago the banner of republicanism was raised by rebellious democrats, heroes of popular power and enemies of the establishment. Today the “republican movement” is a plaything of a section of a political elite that is despised and discredited in the eyes of most of the population.

In Australia, according to ACOSS, more than 2.2 million Australians, or 12.8% of the Australian population, live below the poverty line. That figure includes 575000 children. To put that into relative terms, 17.3% of all Australian children live in poverty.

Compared to page after interminable page about the future king George, where is the one paragraph in one mainstream newspaper anywhere in the world mentioning the mass poverty of children across the globe or in their own countries, let alone making the argument that they are poor because George is rich?

It is hard for me to put into words what I think about whatsitsname, the royal baby. So I won’t. This Facebook meme says it all.

We should oppose the poverty, alienation and misery that isolates people in despair. And we should have no truck with the hypocritical handwringing of those at the top who cause that misery.