The truly frightening version of The Handmaid’s Tale in 2026 is not one country turning into Gilead.

It is looking across the world and realising that different pieces of Gilead already exist in different places.

In one country, women lose control over pregnancy.

In another, women lose control over their clothing.

In another, girls lose education.

In another, women need men to move freely.

In another, politicians build entire movements around restoring the “traditional family” while attacking contraception, abortion and gender equality.

And increasingly, these movements talk to each other, fund each other, learn from each other and borrow each other’s language.

That is the part worth being frightened by.

Afghanistan: the nightmare is already real

Women and girls are systematically being pushed out of public life.

Girls cannot attend secondary school or university. Women are barred from most employment and political participation. Their movement is heavily restricted. UN Women says nearly 80% of young Afghan women are outside education, employment or training.

And it got worse again in 2026.

UN Women reported that Afghanistan’s Decree No. 12 formally removed equality between men and women before the law and permits husbands to impose punishments, including physical violence, inside the home.

That isn’t Margaret Atwood.

That is March 2026.

Iran: the state policing women’s bodies in public

Iran continues to enforce compulsory hijab rules through criminal penalties, surveillance and restrictions affecting education and employment.

A UN submission on Iran describes digital tracking, arrests and punishment of women who defy compulsory dress codes, alongside laws that continue to discriminate against women in family and personal-status matters.

Again, notice the principle.

The government decides what a woman may do with her own body because the state claims a moral authority over her.

Different issue.

Same architecture.

Poland: abortion can disappear in a democracy too

You do not need a Taliban takeover.

Poland is a European democracy and abortion remains virtually prohibited, except where the pregnant person’s life or health is at risk or the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.

Rights can retreat through courts, parliaments and elections.

That is perhaps the most important lesson of all.

Authoritarianism does not always kick your door down.

Sometimes it arrives carrying legislation.

And globally, bodily autonomy is nowhere near guaranteed

The United Nations’ 2026 Sustainable Development Goals data gives us one of the most horrifying numbers in this entire conversation:

Across 78 countries, only 56.3% of partnered women aged 15–49 had full decision-making autonomy over contraception, reproductive healthcare and whether to refuse sex.

Just over half.

In sub-Saharan Africa the figure was 36.8%.

Think about what that means.

In 2026, hundreds of millions of women still cannot confidently say:

I decide whether we have sex.

I decide whether I use contraception.

I participate in deciding what happens to my reproductive body.

We landed machines on another planet before achieving something that basic.

Meanwhile abortion restrictions do not actually eliminate abortion

WHO states plainly that restricting abortion access does not reduce the number of abortions.

It changes whether those abortions are safe.

Nearly half of abortions worldwide are unsafe, and about seven million women in developing countries are treated in hospitals each year for complications from unsafe abortion.

So when governments restrict abortion, women do not magically stop becoming pregnant.

They bleed.

They travel.

They hide.

They borrow money.

They swallow pills without medical supervision.

Sometimes they die.

That is not morality.

That is policy producing casualties.

And now comes the international backlash

UN Women has explicitly documented a growing cross-regional backlash against gender equality.

Anti-gender movements have become stronger, more organised and more visible, targeting not only women’s rights but broader democratic and human-rights institutions.

Nearly one quarter of governments worldwide reported backlash against women’s rights in the most recent UN Women global review.

This is why looking at each country separately can hide what is happening.

There is no single global Gilead government.

There doesn’t need to be.

The danger is the idea travelling.

That women are naturally subordinate.

That motherhood is women’s primary social purpose.

That governments should encourage reproduction among the “right” women.

That contraception makes society immoral.

That abortion is murder.

That gender equality destroyed families.

That religion should determine civil law.

That male authority is natural.

That women asking for autonomy are selfish, corrupted or dangerous.

We’ve heard versions of these arguments before.

Human history is basically screaming the footnotes at us.

And this is where The Handmaid’s Tale becomes frighteningly useful

People remember the costumes.

They forget the backstory.

Gilead did not begin with women chained to beds.

It began with instability.

Fear.

Falling trust in institutions.

Religious fundamentalism entering politics.

People longing for a supposedly simpler past.

Women losing rights gradually enough that society could rationalise each step.

And other people deciding:

It won’t happen to me.

That sentence may be the most dangerous political sedative humanity ever invented.

Because somewhere in the world tonight, a woman already needs permission to leave her house.

Somewhere a girl is forbidden from entering a classroom.

Somewhere a woman cannot safely refuse her husband sex.

Somewhere a pregnant woman cannot legally obtain an abortion.

Somewhere a government is monitoring what women wear.

And somewhere else, politicians are campaigning to introduce just the first little piece of that system.

No.

The world has not become Gilead.

But by 2026, humanity has assembled almost every component.

We have simply distributed them across different borders.

And that should frighten the absolute hell out of us.

For one, one-and-a-half, two people... basically anyone who does not need an industrial deli counter 😂

I am obsessed with the idea of having a tiny little sandwich bar living in the fridge.

Not meal prep in the miserable seven identical containers sense.

More like:

🥚 egg and lettuce today

🥪 ham, cheese and tomato tomorrow

🐓 chicken mayo the next day

🌯 maybe a wrap if we’re feeling fancy

The whole point is choice without waste.

For a tiny household, the secret is keeping it SMALL.

🧺 What you need

One clear fridge tub or handled basket.

That’s your entire sandwich bar.

Inside:

🥬 washed lettuce

🍅 tomato

🥒 cucumber

🧀 sliced cheese

🥚 boiled eggs

🐷 ham OR another deli meat

🐓 one chicken/tuna/egg filling

🥫 mayo

🌭 mustard

🥒 pickles or relish

Bread lives separately.

🍞 one loaf in use

🌯 wraps in the freezer

🥖 rolls or Turkish bread frozen individually

If it doesn’t fit in the tub, we have accidentally opened a Subway franchise.

🥪 The magic formula

Pick:

1 bread

+

1 protein/filling

+

1 cheese if wanted

+

1–2 fresh things

+

1 sauce

Done.

No thinking.

No staring into the fridge wondering what humans eat.

🥚 Week One

🥪 Egg + lettuce

🥪 Ham + cheese + tomato

🥪 Chicken mayo + lettuce

Make only a LITTLE egg filling.

Two boiled eggs is plenty for a tiny household.

🌼 Week Two

🥪 Curried egg + lettuce

🥪 Tuna mayo + cucumber

🥪 Ham + cheese + pickle

🍅 Week Three

🥪 Egg + tomato

🥪 Chicken + avocado

🥪 Cheese + tomato + relish

Then rotate back around.

You do not need twelve sandwich fillings at once.

Three is luxury.

Seven is fridge chaos.

🧼 The Weekly Sandwich Bar Reset

Once a week, preferably grocery day:

🧺 pull the whole tub out

🫧 wash it

🗑️ remove anything sad, limp or suspicious

🥬 wash fresh lettuce

🥒 prep cucumber

🥚 boil 2–4 eggs

🧀 move older cheese forward

🐷 check opened deli meat

🍞 freeze bread you won’t use quickly

🥣 make ONE fresh sandwich filling

Ten minutes.

Tiny deli reborn. ✨

🍞 Bread trick

Freeze it.

Seriously.

Keep a handful of slices out and freeze the rest.

Bread thaws ridiculously fast, and suddenly you’re not throwing away half a mouldy loaf every week.

Same with:

🌯 wraps

🥖 rolls

🫓 flatbread

🥯 bagels

🥬 Lettuce trick

Wash it.

Dry it REALLY well.

Store it with a little paper towel in the container.

Wet lettuce becomes swamp lettuce.

We do not want swamp sandwiches.

🍅 Things I would NOT prep for the whole week

Tomatoes.

Avocado.

Anything very wet.

Slice those when you need them.

Two seconds of extra work is better than opening the fridge to discover everything has merged into one damp organism.

💕 Tiny extras that make sandwiches suddenly exciting

🧅 caramelised onion

🥒 bread-and-butter pickles

🌶️ chilli mayo

🫙 chutney

🍯 honey mustard

🧄 aioli

🫑 roasted capsicum

🌿 pesto

🧀 cream cheese

You only need one or two at a time.

Rotate them.

🥪 My tiny-household quantities

For roughly one-and-a-half people:

🥚 2–4 eggs

🐷 4–6 slices ham

🧀 4–6 cheese slices

🥬 a small handful lettuce

🥒 ½ cucumber

🍅 1–2 tomatoes

🥣 one tiny tub prepared filling

🍞 one loaf, mostly frozen

That’s it.

Enough variety to feel spoiled.

Not enough food to start decomposing behind the yoghurt.

✨ The actual goal

This is not about making Instagram-worthy lunches.

It’s about making food easy to see, easy to grab and easy to combine.

Open fridge.

Grab tub.

Build sandwich.

Eat.

No giant meal prep session.

No wasted deli meat.

No buying ingredients for six different lunches and then ordering takeaway because your brain has resigned.

Just a tiny, cheerful little sandwich bar waiting for you.

🥪🥬🥚🧀🍅✨

And frankly...

egg and lettuce deserves its own permanent parking spot.

Apparently, people now expect every political opinion to arrive as a matching boxed set.

If I oppose MAGA, I am supposed to defend Anthony Fauci.

If I oppose Zionism, I am apparently expected to excuse anyone who positions themselves against Israel.

If I criticise Democrats, people assume I must secretly support Trump.

No.

I do not rent my conscience from a political party.

I am anti-MAGA because I reject authoritarian nationalism, billionaire worship, cruelty dressed up as strength, and a movement that turns vulnerable people into campaign props while pretending one rich man is going to save ordinary Americans.

I am anti-Zionist because I oppose an ideology used to justify occupation, dispossession, segregation and the unequal value of human life. Jewish people are not the Israeli government, and opposing Zionism is not opposition to Jewish people. It is opposition to a political project and what is done in its name.

And I am anti-Anthony Fauci because I do not trust unelected officials who accumulate enormous power, speak with certainty when the evidence is uncertain, support policies that crush ordinary people, and then retreat behind technical language, missing memories and “I was only an adviser” when accountability arrives.

These positions do not contradict one another.

They come from the same place.

I oppose concentrated power.

I oppose political cults.

I oppose governments and institutions treating human beings as expendable.

I oppose experts who confuse credentials with moral authority.

I oppose leaders who demand trust instead of earning it.

I oppose propaganda whether it arrives wearing a red cap, waving an Israeli flag or standing behind a government lectern in a white coat.

MAGA does not become good because Democrats are dishonest.

Zionism does not become acceptable because Hamas exists.

Fauci does not become trustworthy because Republicans attack him.

And Trump does not become innocent because Fauci deserves scrutiny.

That is the trick they keep playing.

They attach a legitimate criticism to the most hated political tribe, then tell everyone outside that tribe they must reject the criticism too.

Question Fauci, and suddenly you are MAGA.

Condemn Israel, and suddenly you support terrorism.

Criticise Trump, and suddenly you must defend Biden, the Democrats and every institution standing behind them.

It is intellectual hostage-taking.

I refuse.

I can believe Trump is dangerous and Fauci is untrustworthy.

I can oppose antisemitism and oppose Zionism.

I can condemn attacks on civilians regardless of who commits them.

I can reject MAGA without joining the Democratic fan club.

I can demand accountability from scientists, politicians, military leaders, pharmaceutical companies, intelligence agencies and governments all at once.

My politics are not a football jersey.

I do not defend the home team when it lies.

I do not excuse abuse because the perpetrator shares one of my opinions.

I do not need a hero, and I do not need one approved villain.

I want the truth, including when it embarrasses everyone.

So yes:

I am anti-MAGA.

I am anti-Zionist.

I am anti-Anthony Fauci.

Not because these people and movements are identical.

Because each, in different ways, represents power demanding loyalty while resisting accountability.

I am not choosing between their competing versions of authority.

I am rejecting the entire rotten menu.

Apparently, the category is simple.

You are either Jewish, or you are a non-Jew.

Catholic? Non-Jew.

Christian? Non-Jew.

Muslim? Non-Jew.

Hindu? Non-Jew.

Atheist? Non-Jew.

Everyone outside Judaism is placed into the same religious category.

And within the classical Noahide framework associated with Maimonides, non-Jews are assigned a separate code of law, with death prescribed for intentional violations.

That is not a conspiracy theory. That is not a mistranslation. That is not “hate speech” because somebody feels uncomfortable hearing it aloud.

The text exists. The classification exists. The punishment exists.

So when modern organisations, religious leaders or political figures promote the Noahide laws as harmless “universal morality,” every non-Jew has the right to ask what exactly is being endorsed.

Do you classify Christian worship as idolatry?

Do you believe non-Jews should live under a religious legal code that Jews do not?

Do you reject the death penalties attached to that code, completely and without qualification?

What happens to people who refuse your religious authority?

Do you believe Catholics, Muslims, atheists and every other non-Jew should remain legally equal, free to worship or not worship, without punishment?

And when you ask governments to recognise these laws, what is the destination?

Education?

Official endorsement?

Legal recognition?

Religious courts?

Enforcement?

Because history has repeatedly taught us not to ignore violent instructions merely because their supporters insist they are symbolic, ancient or unlikely to be enforced.

Ideas do not remain harmless simply because they are sitting quietly inside a book.

They become dangerous when people preserve them, promote them, sanitise them and carry them toward political power.

This is not an accusation against every Jewish person. Plenty of Jewish people would reject religious supremacy and violent punishment outright.

This is a demand directed at anyone promoting this doctrine:

Say clearly whether you reject its hierarchy.

Say clearly whether you reject its punishments.

Say clearly whether non-Jews are your equals.

Say clearly whether our beliefs, families and lives remain entirely outside your religious jurisdiction.

No carefully polished language.

No hiding behind “universal values.”

No pretending the violent parts disappear because mentioning them is inconvenient.

One secular law for everyone.

No separate status for non-Jews.

No religious punishment for belief.

No theological caste system.

No exceptions.

🚨 TO THE WORLD: READ WHAT THEY ARE BUILDING 🚨

This is not about Jewish people.

This is about Brit Olam, the Noahide World Center, its leaders, its published doctrine and the international structure it is openly constructing.

And I am done pretending its intention is difficult to understand.

They want the non-Jewish world organised under Noahide religious law, with authority centred in Jerusalem and guided by Israeli rabbis.

That is the fucking goal.

They call the Noahide laws a moral code binding all people. They describe non-Jews as the global majority in a spiritual system partnered with Israel, working toward the “rectification of the entire world.” They encourage followers to form communities and advertise a practical strategy involving a World Senate. �

Noahide World Center

Now they are moving from ideology to infrastructure.

In November 2026, they plan to bring representatives from six continents to Jerusalem for what they themselves call “one founding.”

Not merely a conference.

A founding.

They intend to establish:

A founding charter.

Structured international membership.

A unified religious syllabus.

Regional councils.

A financial foundation.

Central religious authority.

The first international Beit Din.

Their own advertisement says this will turn a scattered faith into a recorded movement and that the congress will be received at the Israeli president’s official residence, “at the highest level of the State of Israel.” �

Noahide World Center +1

That is organisation.

That is hierarchy.

That is money.

That is doctrine.

That is international reach.

That is a court.

And the laws around which they are constructing this machinery are not merely gentle suggestions about being nice to one another.

Their website tells non-Jews not to worship idols and supports that rule with scripture saying anyone worshipping another god “must be destroyed.”

It prohibits blasphemy and cites scripture saying the offender is “to be put to death.”

It then includes a commandment to establish courts of justice. �

Noahide World Center +1

Now put the pieces together.

They claim these religious laws apply to non-Jewish humanity.

They classify worship outside their accepted understanding of God as idolatry.

Christians worship Jesus Christ as divine.

They publish death-bearing language beside the religious offences.

They are organising councils, authority and an international religious court.

And they expect the world to treat each fact as though it exists alone in a separate little box.

Absolutely fucking not.

In my view, they are building toward a world in which followers of Jesus Christ, and anyone else whose faith they classify as idolatry or blasphemy, can be condemned under a religious system they never chose.

You do not need a banner reading “WE INTEND TO KILL CHRISTIANS” before recognising the direction of travel.

You look at the ideology.

You look at whom it claims jurisdiction over.

You look at what it defines as an offence.

You look at the punishments contained in the texts it publishes.

You look at the courts and international structures being built around it.

Then you use your fucking brain.

They may currently lack government jurisdiction, police or enforcement powers.

That does not erase the ambition.

Every system of domination begins before it possesses the power to enforce itself.

First comes the belief that its authority is universal.

Then comes recruitment.

Then doctrine.

Then membership.

Then councils.

Then money.

Then courts.

Then political recognition.

Then the demand that everyone calm down because nothing terrible has happened yet.

No.

We have seen that rotten staircase before.

Christians are not theirs to govern.

Muslims are not theirs to govern.

Atheists are not theirs to govern.

Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, pagans, Indigenous faith communities and every independent human being on Earth are not theirs to classify, organise, correct or judge.

We are not an undeclared population of Noahides.

We are not the global majority assigned a role beneath rabbinic authority.

We are not subjects waiting for Jerusalem to write our religious rules.

We did not consent.

We do not consent.

And no claim of divine authority can manufacture that consent on our behalf.

Your religion governs you.

It does not govern humanity.

The moment you declare your religious laws binding on the world and begin building international courts and governing structures around them, you are no longer simply practising your faith.

You are constructing a project of global religious domination.

Call it spiritual unity.

Call it universal morality.

Call it rectification.

Call it a covenant.

Call it whatever polished little phrase makes the brochure sparkle.

I call it what I believe it is:

AN ATTEMPTED WORLDWIDE RELIGIOUS TAKEOVER.

One that places Christians and other religious outsiders directly beneath laws that can classify their worship as a capital offence.

Their intentions are crystal fucking clear to me.

They published the worldview.

They identified the population they believe is bound by it.

They published the offences.

They published the death language.

They announced the charter.

They announced the councils.

They announced the funding.

They announced the court.

They announced the political reception.

The cat is not merely out of the bag.

It is standing on the table, wearing judicial robes, holding the fucking blueprint.

The world has been warned. 🌍🚨⚖️

The United States and Israel began attacking Iran on 28 February.

Iran did not spend months debating which countries were “technically involved.”

Within hours, missiles and drones were flying toward countries hosting American forces, protecting American operations or sitting inside the US military network. By roughly 12 hours after the opening strikes, airspace across much of the region was already empty and Dubai’s airport had sustained damage. �

Reuters +1

THE UAE 🇦🇪

The UAE hosts American military forces and infrastructure.

It was hit almost immediately. Airports were disrupted, Dubai International sustained damage, and later attacks and missile debris affected major gas facilities and the Fujairah export terminal. �

Reuters +1

Time taken: hours to days.

QATAR 🇶🇦

Qatar hosts Al Udeid, one of America’s most important military bases in the entire region.

Iranian attacks followed during the opening days. Qatar’s airports and airspace were disrupted, and its energy infrastructure was later struck so badly that part of its LNG export capacity was knocked offline. �

Reuters +1

Time taken: days.

BAHRAIN 🇧🇭

Bahrain hosts the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

It was attacked during the opening phase and has continued to face Iranian strikes. Its Sitra refinery was later hit, and Iran recently targeted US military facilities there again. �

Reuters +2

Time taken: days, followed by repeated attacks.

KUWAIT 🇰🇼

Kuwait hosts thousands of American troops and major US logistics facilities.

It was struck during Iran’s retaliation and has since faced further attacks directed at American military targets. �

Reuters +2

Time taken: days.

JORDAN 🇯🇴

Jordan hosts US forces and provides military access and cooperation.

Iran targeted the Al Azraq airbase and other American-linked facilities. Jordan intercepted missiles, and later attacks reportedly killed US personnel in the region. �

Al-Monitor +1

Time taken: during the opening retaliation, then again as the war escalated.

SAUDI ARABIA 🇸🇦

Saudi Arabia hosts US military personnel and supports the wider American security system in the Gulf.

Iranian missiles and drones struck the country, and later attacks targeted energy infrastructure. Iran-aligned Houthis have also threatened Saudi shipping and oil routes. �

Reuters +2

Time taken: days.

OMAN 🇴🇲

Oman had tried to act as a mediator, but its ports and territory are also used by Western military forces.

Iranian strikes targeted Duqm and Salalah, ports used by the United States, beginning on 1 March, only about a day after the opening attack on Iran. �

Wikipedia +1

Time taken: roughly one day.

BRITAIN 🇬🇧

Britain has allowed American bombers to use British airfields and has provided military support, bases and regional defence.

Iran has now publicly warned that Britain will become a “definite and legitimate target” if it continues supporting the United States. Iranian officials specifically pointed to American bombers using British airfields. �

Reuters +1

Britain has not yet suffered the same direct attack on its homeland.

But Iran has placed the warning on the table.

AND NOW AUSTRALIA 🇦🇺

Australia deployed an E-7A Wedgetail and ADF personnel to the Gulf and committed air-to-air missiles to the UAE.

Our own Defence Department says the Wedgetail has flown more than 40 missions detecting Iranian missiles and drones, then passing that information to forces capable of destroying them. �

Defence Ministers +1

Read that again.

Australian military personnel are locating Iranian weapons so allied forces can shoot them down.

Canberra calls that defensive.

Iran may call Australia part of the enemy’s military system.

And the evidence from this war is already sitting in front of us:

Countries hosting American forces were hit.

Countries protecting American operations were hit.

Ports used by America were hit.

Airbases housing American aircraft were hit.

Energy infrastructure belonging to American partners was hit.

Some were struck within hours.

Others within one or two days.

The attacks did not wait for a formal declaration of war.

They did not wait for those countries to drop bombs directly on Tehran.

Iran looked at the entire support chain and retaliated against the parts it could reach.

And Australia has now inserted itself into that chain.

We provide surveillance.

We provide personnel.

We provide missiles.

We support Gulf states fighting Iranian attacks.

We are part of a British-French-led coalition preparing operations around the Strait of Hormuz.

We host Pine Gap and other facilities essential to American intelligence and military operations.

Yet Australians are still being spoken to as though this is distant foreign news.

It is not.

The worst case is not necessarily an Iranian missile landing in Sydney next week.

It is Australian aircraft or personnel being attacked overseas.

Australian embassies, ships or businesses becoming targets.

Cyberattacks hitting banks, ports, government systems, energy networks or communications.

Pine Gap and other military facilities appearing on Iranian target lists.

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz collapsing further.

Petrol, food, electricity, flights and insurance becoming painfully more expensive.

Then retaliation against an Australian target gives Canberra the excuse to escalate again.

More deployments.

More military spending.

More surveillance.

More emergency powers.

More reserve preparation.

More “whole-of-nation readiness.”

And eventually, if the war grows large enough, the existing legal machinery for compulsory service is sitting there waiting to be activated.

That is how countries are dragged into major wars.

Not with one dramatic announcement.

With bases.

Then intelligence.

Then radar.

Then missiles.

Then personnel.

Then retaliation.

Then suddenly the government tells us Australia has been attacked while quietly skipping the chapter where it placed Australian military capability inside the war first.

The countries closest to America’s war machine have already learned how quickly Iran responds.

Some learned within hours.

Australia should not assume distance makes us invisible.

We have chosen the American, British, Israeli and Gulf military side.

Iran can see exactly where we are standing.

And pretending otherwise will not protect a single Australian. 🇦🇺⚠️

Around the world, ordinary women begin experiencing the same strange, overwhelming reaction.

It only happens when they come within a certain distance of a man who has built his life, power or reputation on cruelty, corruption, abuse or the machinery of patriarchy.

The feeling is instant.

A pressure in the chest. A ringing in the e…

Read more

Writing

SAME COURT. DIFFERENT FRIEND.

Let us put America’s position on international justice side by side.

Not buried beneath speeches.

Not softened with diplomatic language.

Just placed next to itself.

WHEN THE ICC ISSUED A WARRANT FOR VLADIMIR PUTIN

America said the warrant was justified.

America praised the significance of the Court’s decision.

America described the ICC as holding an important place in international justice.

America supported the Court’s investigation.

America celebrated the fact that Putin’s ability to travel had been restricted.

America reminded the world that ICC member states had duties to cooperate with the Court.

America spoke about victims.

America spoke about evidence.

America spoke about accountability.

America said powerful leaders must not escape justice.

The United States publicly supported the ICC’s Ukraine investigation and welcomed its warrants concerning the alleged unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children.

The message was simple:

A head of government is not above the law.

THEN THE ICC ISSUED A WARRANT FOR BENJAMIN NETANYAHU

The Court did not convict him.

It did not sentence him.

It issued a warrant after judges found reasonable grounds concerning alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Netanyahu was entitled to challenge the Court’s jurisdiction, dispute the evidence and defend himself through legal proceedings.

That is supposedly what courts are for.

But America did not say:

“Let the evidence be tested.”

America did not say:

“No leader is above the law.”

America did not remind ICC members of their cooperation duties.

America did not celebrate the shrinking world of a wanted leader.

America declared the warrant baseless.

America said the Court lacked authority.

America treated the proceedings as an attack upon Israel.

Then America sanctioned people connected to the Court and authorised asset freezes and entry restrictions against those helping investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute protected American and allied persons.

The United States declared such ICC action an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to its national security and foreign policy.

Read those two responses again.

Putin warrant: international justice.

Netanyahu warrant: national-security emergency.

Same Court.

Different friend.

WHEN RUSSIA ATTACKED THE ICC

America presented Russia’s threats against ICC judges as part of the Kremlin’s effort to evade responsibility.

The US government criticised Russian calls to arrest the Court’s judges and destroy or neutralise the institution after the Putin warrant.

America wanted the world to understand that intimidating judges was the behaviour of a guilty and authoritarian state.

Then the Court came for Netanyahu.

And America imposed consequences upon ICC personnel.

So let us translate the principle:

When Russia threatens the Court for pursuing Putin, it proves Russia’s contempt for justice.

When America punishes the Court for pursuing Netanyahu, it proves America’s commitment to justice.

Apparently.

WHEN PUTIN WAS ACCUSED

America said the allegations mattered even though Russia was not an ICC member.

Why?

Because Ukraine had accepted the Court’s jurisdiction over crimes committed on its territory.

The nationality of the accused did not magically erase the Court’s territorial authority.

Putin did not receive immunity merely because Russia had rejected the ICC.

America understood that perfectly well.

Then Israel made essentially the same objection.

Israel is not a member.

Netanyahu did not consent.

Therefore, America argued, the Court had no business touching him.

The territorial basis suddenly vanished from the American conversation.

The legal principle did not change.

The defendant did.

WHEN THE ACCUSED WAS PUTIN

America spoke about the victims.

Children allegedly deported from occupied Ukrainian territory.

Families separated.

Civilian suffering.

The warrant was discussed in the language of human consequences.

The accused leader’s political importance did not outweigh the allegations.

His country’s objections did not silence the victims.

WHEN THE ACCUSED WAS NETANYAHU

America spoke primarily about Israel’s sovereignty.

Israel’s democracy.

Israel’s right to defend itself.

The Court’s supposed overreach.

The danger to America and its allies.

The people whose suffering produced the investigation moved to the edge of the frame.

The alleged conduct became secondary.

The accused leader’s relationship with Washington became central.

That is the double standard in its purest form:

For enemies, begin with the victims.

For allies, begin with the accused man’s importance.

AMERICA SAYS THERE IS “NO EQUIVALENCE”

Of course the cases are not factually identical.

No two cases are.

Different conflicts.

Different alleged crimes.

Different evidence.

Different defendants.

But that is not the relevant comparison.

The comparison is how America responds to an independent court finding sufficient grounds to issue a warrant.

With Putin, America said the proper response was cooperation and accountability.

With Netanyahu, America said the proper response was rejection, protection and punishment of the institution.

The issue is not whether Putin and Netanyahu are identical.

The issue is whether the law changes according to America’s relationship with the accused.

And America’s answer is visible.

It does.

At a State Department briefing, the US position was challenged directly: America had supported cooperation with the Putin warrant, so why not the Netanyahu warrant?

The response was that the cases were different and that America rejected the Court’s action against Israeli leaders.

That is not an explanation of one universal principle.

It is the refusal to apply one.

HERE IS THE RULE AMERICA ACTUALLY FOLLOWS

When the ICC pursues an enemy:

The Court is legitimate enough.

Its evidence deserves attention.

Its judges deserve respect.

Its warrants restrict the accused’s movement.

Member states should perform their obligations.

The accused must answer grave allegations.

When the ICC pursues a protected ally:

The Court is illegitimate.

Its evidence is dismissed before trial.

Its judges become targets.

Its warrants are treated as political attacks.

Member states are pressured not to cooperate.

The accused is protected from having to answer the allegations at all.

That is not one justice system producing two controversial cases.

That is America operating two moral systems.

One for enemies.

One for friends.

AND BIBI IS NOT BEING DENIED DUE PROCESS

He is being shielded from it.

Due process would mean appearing before a court.

Challenging jurisdiction.

Examining the evidence.

Cross-examining witnesses.

Presenting a defence.

Seeking dismissal or acquittal.

That is due process.

Threatening the institution before the case can be heard is not due process.

Sanctioning people involved in the proceedings is not due process.

Declaring the courtroom a national-security threat is not due process.

That is using political and economic power to prevent process.

America says Netanyahu is innocent of the allegations.

Fine.

Then let the evidence fail.

Let the prosecutors prove nothing.

Let the judges reject the case.

Let him walk out acquitted.

But that is not what America is demanding.

America is demanding that its chosen ally never be required to enter the courtroom.

That is not confidence in his innocence.

That is confidence in American power.

THIS IS WHY THE DOUBLE STANDARD CANNOT BE UNSEEN

America does not ask:

“Did the Court apply its legal rules?”

It asks:

“Who did the Court touch?”

If it touched Putin, the Court advanced accountability.

If it touched Netanyahu, the Court endangered world order.

If Russia attacks the judges, Russia is lawless.

If America punishes the judges, America is defending sovereignty.

If an enemy rejects the warrant, he fears justice.

If an ally rejects the warrant, he is resisting persecution.

If another country shields its leader, that is authoritarian impunity.

If America shields Bibi, that is friendship.

Once you see the pattern, the language stops working.

“Rules-based order” becomes:

Rules for the people outside our circle.

“International justice” becomes:

Justice for leaders we have already condemned.

“Sovereignty” becomes:

The exemption claimed by our friends.

“Accountability” becomes:

A weapon that must never rotate back toward us.

America did not lose faith in the ICC between Putin and Netanyahu.

It revealed that faith was never the point.

The Court was acceptable while it processed an enemy.

The moment it attempted to process a friend, America treated the machinery itself as criminal.

That is the hypocrisy.

Not hidden in some obscure historical document.

Not dependent upon an ideological interpretation.

It is sitting in two official responses:

Arrest Putin.

Protect Bibi.

Respect the Court.

Punish the Court.

No leader is above the law.

Except the leaders America places above it.

Not every American.

Not every community, worker, dissident, whistleblower, journalist or person fighting the machinery from inside it.

America as a state. America as an empire. America as a self-appointed moral authority.

Morally bankrupt.

Because morality is not what you preach when judging your enemies.

Morality is what you accept when the same rules come knocking at your own door.

And America’s record is painfully clear:

It wants international justice for everyone it opposes, and international immunity for itself and everyone it chooses to protect.

America helped prosecute Nazi leaders at Nuremberg and turned those trials into a cornerstone of its postwar identity.

The message was supposedly universal:

Government office is no defence.

Military orders are no defence.

National sovereignty cannot conceal atrocities forever.

Some crimes are so serious that humanity itself has the right to judge them.

Powerful words.

There was just one little American footnote buried beneath them:

These principles are safest when applied to defeated enemies.

America later championed tribunals for atrocities in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

Again, justice was celebrated.

Again, the accused were located somewhere beyond the American fence.

Again, Washington could support accountability without surrendering meaningful control over the machinery.

Then the world attempted to establish something far more threatening to powerful nations:

A permanent International Criminal Court.

Not a temporary tribunal created after a selected enemy had been defeated.

Not a courtroom assembled for one approved conflict.

Not justice switched on and off according to Washington’s foreign-policy calendar.

A standing court capable of investigating genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes wherever its lawful jurisdiction reached.

That was when America’s soaring commitment to universal justice suddenly developed territorial limits.

At the 1998 Rome Conference, the United States voted against adopting the Rome Statute.

President Bill Clinton eventually signed it on 31 December 2000, declaring support for accountability while simultaneously refusing to recommend that the treaty be submitted for ratification until America’s objections were resolved. His statement openly acknowledged the concern that the Court might exercise jurisdiction over American personnel even without US ratification.

Translation:

America supported an international court, but not one capable of treating Americans like ordinary human beings subject to ordinary laws.

Then George W. Bush’s administration removed even the pretence.

On 6 May 2002, the United States formally notified the United Nations that it did not intend to become a party and claimed no legal obligations arising from Clinton’s signature.

But America did not simply remain outside the Court.

It began constructing an armour-plated exemption around itself.

Congress passed the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, restricting cooperation with the ICC and authorising the president to use “all means necessary and appropriate” to secure the release of certain American or allied personnel detained on the Court’s behalf. The legislation became widely known as the Hague Invasion Act because the world’s loudest preacher of the rule of law had effectively preserved authority for a hypothetical rescue operation against an international court.

Sit with the obscenity of that.

America tells the world that suspected perpetrators must face justice.

Unless they are American.

Then Congress prepares the crowbar.

Washington also pursued bilateral agreements designed to prevent other countries from surrendering American personnel to the ICC. Its own policy documents made clear that it intended to seek these Article 98 agreements around the world.

This is where membership in the ICC became more than a legal question.

It became a test of obedience.

Countries could speak about human rights.

They could join the Court.

They could prosecute America’s adversaries.

They could praise the international rules-based order until their tongues went numb.

But when the machinery threatened to reach an American soldier, official or protected ally, friendship with Washington came with another expectation:

Help us escape the rules we demand for everyone else.

That is not leadership.

That is organised hypocrisy wearing a flag pin.

America’s objection has always been dressed in respectable language: sovereignty, due process, politically motivated prosecutions, unchecked prosecutors and insufficient Security Council oversight.

Some of those concerns can be debated seriously.

But beneath them sits an enormous structural convenience.

The United States holds a permanent seat and veto on the United Nations Security Council.

A justice system heavily controlled through the Security Council therefore preserves American power.

An independent court capable of acting without Washington’s permission does not.

America’s preferred version of international law is not law above nations.

It is law managed by powerful nations.

Preferably America.

That is why the United States can support war-crimes accountability in one country and condemn the institution pursuing it in another.

It can assist investigations that weaken adversaries while treating scrutiny of Americans as an attack on national sovereignty.

It can praise brave prosecutors when they face America’s enemies and punish them when they approach America’s friends.

It can insist that Russian, African, Balkan or Middle Eastern defendants submit to international justice while regarding an American passport as a portable jurisdictional force field.

That is not a principled objection to the ICC.

It is a principled objection to equality.

America does not oppose international justice.

America opposes international justice it cannot control.

That distinction unlocks the entire performance.

When accountability points outward, America calls it civilisation.

When accountability turns inward, America calls it persecution.

When an enemy is accused, America invokes humanity.

When an ally is accused, America invokes complexity.

When another government refuses cooperation, America calls it lawlessness.

When America refuses cooperation, it calls it sovereignty.

When another state threatens a court, it is authoritarian intimidation.

When America does it, it is national security.

That is moral bankruptcy.

Not the absence of moral language, but the industrial production of it without the slightest intention of living underneath it.

America has wrapped itself in the language of freedom while invading countries, supporting coups, arming abusive governments, shielding useful allies and demanding that the international system recognise its violence as uniquely necessary.

Every empire thinks its bombs are corrective.

Every empire calls its interests stability.

Every empire describes resistance as chaos and obedience as peace.

America simply hired better publicists.

Its greatest political product has never been democracy.

It has been the story of American innocence.

The belief that America may make mistakes, but never possesses the ordinary motives of empire.

That its invasions are interventions.

Its occupations are assistance.

Its military bases are partnerships.

Its sanctions are diplomacy.

Its civilian deaths are regrettable consequences.

Its enemies’ civilian deaths are atrocities.

Its allies’ crimes are complicated.

Its own crimes are investigated internally, classified indefinitely or buried beneath patriotic fog.

And still it expects the world to accept lectures about law.

A country does not get to proclaim that nobody is above justice while threatening the institutions that might test the claim.

It does not get to prosecute defeated enemies, exempt itself, protect selected allies and continue calling the arrangement universal.

It does not get to build the courtroom, select the defendants, intimidate the judges and then pose for photographs beneath the words RULE OF LAW.

That is not a rules-based international order.

That is a hierarchy.

At the top sits America, claiming the authority to define justice.

Below it sit loyal allies, protected according to strategic usefulness.

Below them sit rival states, subject to every principle America refuses to apply to itself.

And at the bottom sit ordinary people, crushed beneath decisions made by officials who will probably never enter any courtroom at all.

So watch America’s relationship with the ICC.

Watch which investigations it supports.

Watch which warrants it celebrates.

Watch which defendants it calls monsters.

Then watch what happens when the accused is American or politically valuable to Washington.

That is where the sermon ends.

That is where the threats begin.

That is where America reveals what it truly believes:

Not that no nation is above the law.

Not that every victim deserves justice.

Not that war crimes remain war crimes regardless of the uniform.

But that power determines whose suffering matters, whose prosecution is legitimate and whose hands may remain permanently beyond the reach of the Court.

America helped teach the modern world that individuals could be held internationally responsible for atrocities.

Then it spent decades ensuring the lesson would never be taught too effectively at home.

That is not moral leadership.

It is moral fraud backed by military power.

And a country demanding justice for its enemies while engineering immunity for itself is not the guardian of the international order.

It is the clearest evidence that the order was never equal in the first place.

How politicians keep passing rotten shit while pretending half of them tried to stop it 🎪

People keep watching individual politicians and asking:

“Why did she suddenly change her vote?”
“Why is he the rebel this week?”
“Why does the bill always scrape through by one or two votes?”

Because you are watching the actors.

You need to watch the vote counter.

Congressional leadership does not normally stroll into a major vote with no idea what will happen. Whips count members beforehand as yes, no, leaning or undecided. Bills are frequently delayed, negotiated or altered until leadership believes the numbers are there.

That is where the rot can hide.

IMAGINE THERE ARE 220 GOVERNMENT VOTES

They need 218 to pass the bill.

That means leadership can afford to lose two.

So two politicians can vote no.

They can cry.

They can give speeches.

They can issue furious statements.

They can tell their constituents:

“I fought my own party.”

And the bill still passes.

Their opposition changes nothing.

But it changes how they look.

That is a safe no vote.

THE BASIC FORMULA

The party gets the law.

The donors get the policy.

Vulnerable politicians get political cover.

The public gets a performance.

Everyone important leaves with something.

Except the people living under the law.

HOW THE SHOW WORKS

1. LEADERSHIP COUNTS THE VOTES

Before the public drama, party whips are already asking members where they stand.

Who is definitely yes?

Who needs convincing?

Who wants something added?

Who is electorally vulnerable?

Who needs to pretend they resisted?

The public sees debate.

Leadership sees arithmetic.

2. THE BILL IS LOADED WITH EVERYTHING

The legislation may contain:

• tax cuts

• welfare cuts

• military spending

• industry handouts

• unrelated riders

• regulatory changes

• little gifts for individual districts

• provisions nobody wants attached to provisions everybody needs

Then politicians say:

“I hate parts of this bill, but I must support the whole package.”

That is one of the oldest laundering machines in politics.

Put the poison in the medicine bottle, then accuse anyone rejecting it of wanting the patient dead.

3. A HANDFUL OF “REBELS” APPEAR

Suddenly the media has its cast:

The concerned moderate

“I worry this goes too far.”

The fiscal conservative

“I worry it does not go far enough.”

The principled progressive

“This abandons working people.”

The reluctant loyalist

“I have concerns, but doing nothing would be worse.”

The last-minute convert

“After productive conversations, I am now satisfied.”

Different costumes.

Same stage.

4. THE NEGOTIATION BECOMES TELEVISION

For several days, the headlines say:

🚨 BILL IN DANGER
🚨 PARTY REVOLT
🚨 PRESIDENT FACES DEFEAT
🚨 HOLDOUTS REFUSE TO BUDGE

Then one sentence is adjusted.

One deadline is moved.

One local project is promised.

One future vote is guaranteed.

One politician announces they have achieved a “major victory.”

Most ordinary people never hear exactly what changed.

They just hear that the crisis has been resolved.

5. EXACTLY ENOUGH PEOPLE CAVE

Not everyone.

Just enough.

The bill passes 218–217.

Or 51–49.

Or 50–50 with the vice-president deciding.

Then the party celebrates the achievement while several members loudly advertise that they voted against it.

Notice the precision.

Not twenty defections.

Not enough to kill it.

Just enough dissent to maintain the illusion that the institution contains healthy resistance.

THE ROTATING ROSTER

The names change depending on who controls government.

DEMOCRATIC CAST

For years, Americans were told the entire Democratic agenda was being restrained by:

• Joe Manchin

• Kyrsten Sinema

• Josh Gottheimer

• “moderate Democrats”

• the Senate parliamentarian

• the filibuster

• one or two unnamed nervous senators

Every time something popular died, there was a designated body standing beside the grave.

The party could continue promising:

• healthcare reform

• voting protections

• labour rights

• higher minimum wages

• stronger social programs

• corporate accountability

Then explain that it had been tragically defeated by two people supposedly standing apart from the entire machine.

Maybe those objections were genuine.

But here is the question:

Why does a powerful national party repeatedly allow its entire public agenda to depend on the same tiny doorway?

Why are the obstructionists rarely stripped of influence before the damage?

Why do they continue receiving committee positions, access, fundraising support and institutional protection?

Because an obstructionist can also be useful.

They absorb the anger that might otherwise reach the whole party.

REPUBLICAN CAST

Republicans have their own rotating resistance troupe:

• Susan Collins

• Lisa Murkowski

• Rand Paul

• Thomas Massie

• Brian Fitzpatrick

• Chip Roy

• whichever Freedom Caucus member is currently furious

• whichever senator has suddenly discovered concern about deficits

One Republican says a bill is too cruel.

Another says it is not cruel enough.

One says it costs too much.

Another demands more military spending.

One threatens to sink it.

Another changes their vote after “assurances.”

Then the bill passes.

The rebels return to television and continue calling themselves independent.

PROCEDURAL VOTES: WHERE THE ROT GETS EVEN EASIER TO HIDE

Most people only notice the final vote.

But legislation moves through:

• committees

• amendments

• procedural rules

• debate limits

• cloture votes

• reconciliation instructions

• conference negotiations

• final passage

A politician can help a bill survive at every important stage, then vote against the final version when defeat is no longer possible.

They can say:

“I voted no.”

True.

But did they vote to advance it?

Did they vote for the rule allowing debate?

Did they vote against amendments that might have fixed it?

Did they help block alternatives?

Did they support the committee leadership that designed it?

Did they vote to prevent a filibuster?

The final vote can be the clean white glove placed over fingerprints already covering the room.

COMMITTEES: WHERE DEMOCRACY GOES TO DISAPPEAR QUIETLY

Thousands of proposals never receive a dramatic public defeat.

They simply:

• never receive a hearing

• never leave committee

• never receive a floor vote

• are stripped from larger legislation

• are buried under procedural objections

• expire when the congressional session ends

Nobody has to vote against them publicly.

Nobody has to explain themselves.

Leadership can quietly prevent a popular measure from ever reaching the stage where voters would see who opposed it.

That is much tidier than democracy.

THE “POISON PILL”

Suppose a bill is politically popular.

Rather than openly voting against it, opponents attach something inflammatory or unacceptable.

Now supporters face a trap:

Vote yes, and accept the poison.

Vote no, and get accused of opposing the original popular idea.

The clean question is deliberately turned into a filthy bundle.

Then both parties build campaign advertisements from the wreckage.

THE HERO AMENDMENT

A politician offers an amendment they know will fail.

It sounds wonderful.

Tax billionaires.

Protect children.

Stop corruption.

Raise wages.

End congressional stock trading.

The politician gives a magnificent speech.

The amendment dies.

But the clip survives.

Now they can say:

“I introduced legislation.”

Introducing legislation and obtaining a result are not the same thing.

Washington produces mountains of proposed reforms that never threaten the system maintaining Washington.

THE BILL PASSES. NOW EVERYONE BLAMES EVERYONE ELSE.

The president blames Congress.

Congress blames the Senate.

The Senate blames the House.

The House blames the courts.

The party blames the opposition.

The opposition blames the bureaucracy.

Everyone blames the parliamentarian.

Nobody can locate the steering wheel.

Yet somehow:

• defence contractors keep getting paid

• wealthy donors keep receiving access

• corporations keep shaping legislation

• lobbyists keep writing policy

• congressional careers keep flourishing

• ordinary people keep being told meaningful reform is mathematically impossible

The government appears completely powerless whenever the public wants something.

It becomes astonishingly efficient whenever powerful interests do.

AND THEN COMES THE MEDIA

The media reports politics as personality drama:

MANCHIN DEALS BLOW TO BIDEN

MASSIE DEFIES TRUMP

COLLINS EXPRESSES CONCERN

PROGRESSIVES REVOLT

That framing directs attention toward one character.

It rarely asks:

• Who wrote the bill?

• Who funded the campaigns?

• Which lobbyists shaped it?

• Which committee buried the alternative?

• Which members helped it advance procedurally?

• Who was permitted to vote no after passage became secure?

• Who benefits financially?

• Why does the same outcome survive changing governments?

The public receives a soap opera.

The underlying economic arrangement barely changes.

THE DONOR SHIELD

A party cannot openly announce:

“Our donors do not want this.”

So it says:

“We simply do not have the votes.”

That phrase is political holy water.

It cleanses everybody.

Who withheld the votes?

Why?

What pressure was applied?

What consequences followed?

Was the politician removed from a committee?

Did the party fund a challenger?

Did leadership threaten their privileges?

Or did everyone shrug, send another fundraising email and return next election promising the exact same reform?

When a party truly wants obedience, it knows how to punish disloyalty.

When it supposedly wants public healthcare, worker protections or corruption reform, it often becomes a gentle book club unable to impose consequences on anybody.

Interesting.

THE TWO-PARTY ESCAPE HATCH

Each party survives by making the other one slightly more terrifying.

Democrats say:

“You must support us or Republicans will make everything worse.”

Republicans say:

“You must support us or Democrats will destroy the country.”

Both statements can contain real stakes.

But fear also becomes a shield against accountability.

You are not asked whether your representatives delivered.

You are asked whether you are terrified enough to vote for them again.

The bar is no longer:

Did they improve your life?

The bar becomes:

Are they marginally less alarming than the alternative?

That is how failure becomes a permanent electoral business model.

THE REAL ROT

The rot is not simply that politicians sometimes change their minds.

The rot is that the system allows every participant to deny responsibility.

One politician votes no.

Another says their hands were tied.

Leadership says the numbers were not there.

The president says Congress failed.

Congress says the courts interfered.

The party says voters must elect more of them.

Then voters elect more.

A new rotating villain appears.

And the promised change remains one vote away forever.

ALWAYS ONE VOTE AWAY.

One senator.

One moderate.

One procedural ruling.

One difficult election.

One more fundraising cycle.

One more chance.

One more decade.

IMPORTANT: THIS IS NOT PROOF THAT EVERY CLOSE VOTE IS SCRIPTED

Politicians genuinely disagree.

Bills genuinely fail.

Members sometimes risk their careers to oppose leadership.

There is no evidence that every dissenting vote is secretly assigned like a school play.

But the structure itself enables managed dissent.

Once leaders know they possess enough votes, extra members can oppose legislation without threatening its passage.

That produces a system where a vote can be sincere and politically convenient at the same time.

The rot does not require a secret meeting.

It only requires everyone to understand the incentives.

HOW TO SEE THROUGH IT

Stop asking only:

“How did my representative vote at the end?”

Ask:

Did they help the bill reach the floor?

How did they vote on the procedural rule?

Which amendments did they support or kill?

Who donated to them?

What committee positions do they hold?

Did leadership punish their supposed rebellion?

Did their vote alter the outcome?

Would they have voted the same way if theirs were the deciding vote?

That final question matters.

WOULD THEY STILL BE BRAVE IF THEIR VOTE COULD ACTUALLY STOP IT?

Or were they brave only after somebody else had guaranteed the result?

The public is shown disagreement.

The media is given a cliffhanger.

Politicians are given plausible deniability.

Donors are given policy.

And the system continues pretending nobody is truly in charge.

That is the trick.

The roster rotates so the machine never has to take the blame.

🎭 New villain.
🎭 New hero.
🎭 New reluctant vote.
🎭 Same machinery.
🎭 Same winners.
🎭 Same people paying for it.

It is not always fake opposition.

It is opposition safely contained inside a result the institution can tolerate.

And that is far more effective than openly admitting the game is rigged.

Racism really said:

“Let’s make one stupid idea and franchise it internationally.” 🍟🤡

Different countries.

Different flags.

Different weather.

Same fragile little man yelling about bloodlines while using a password like Viking88! 📱⚔️

🇺🇸 THE “REAL AMERICAN” RACIST

Family arrived in 1912.

Now patrols Facebook demanding everyone else provide arrival receipts. 🧾🦅

Says:

“Speak English!”

Can’t spell “immigration.”

Calls himself a constitutional scholar because he once watched half a YouTube video in his truck. 🚙📜

Believes America belongs to him personally despite contributing one broken lawnmower and several noise complaints.

🇬🇧 THE EMPIRE NOSTALGIA RACIST

Gets misty-eyed talking about when Britain “ruled the world.”

Mate, you did not rule anything.

You were born in Wolverhampton in 1984. ☕😭

Acts like colonisation was a group project he received top marks for.

Complains that foreigners “bring their culture here” while ordering tikka masala and watching Egyptian artefacts in a British museum. 🍛🏛️

Calls migration an invasion.

Calls actual British invasions “history.”

🇦🇺 THE PUB CAR-PARK RACIST

Has opinions on immigration after six schooners and one sausage roll. 🍺🥐

Says Australia is being “taken over.”

Lives in a suburb containing four kebab shops, two Thai restaurants and a chemist named Kevin.

Still doing okay. 🌯💊

Yells about people respecting Australian culture.

Australian culture, apparently:

Getting sunburnt.

Arguing about parking.

Calling everyone “mate” when angry.

Going to Bali and behaving like a dropped pie. 🥧🏝️

🇨🇦 THE POLITE LITTLE BIGOT

Begins every racist rant with:

“I don’t want to sound rude…”

Then spends eight minutes sounding like a maple-syrup-coated segregation leaflet. 🍁📜

Insists Canada is welcoming.

Unless someone welcomes the wrong person.

Says “sorry” after saying something monstrous, as though racism has an undo button.

🇫🇷 THE CULTURAL PURIST

Claims France is being destroyed because somebody somewhere pronounced croissant incorrectly. 🥐😡

Treats language as sacred while using English words for business, music, technology and half their wardrobe.

Believes secularism means freedom for everyone to dress exactly how he personally prefers. 👗🚫

Talks about preserving French identity while smoking an American cigarette, listening to African music and eating North African food.

🇩🇪 THE FAILED HISTORY STUDENT

Has access to perhaps the clearest national warning label in modern history.

Still somehow says:

“But perhaps nationalism deserves another chance.” 📚🚨

No, Klaus.

The stove is hot.

The sign says hot.

Your grandparents said hot.

The museum says hot.

Stop touching the fucking stove. 🔥🤦🏻‍♂️

🇮🇹 THE ROMAN EMPIRE SUBSCRIBER

Brings up Rome constantly.

Has never read a book about Rome. 🏛️📖

Thinks being Italian means he personally receives hereditary credit for aqueducts.

Brother, you did not build the Colosseum.

You complain when the Wi-Fi drops. 📶

Says foreigners cannot integrate while having relatives in Australia who still call sauce “sugo” after four generations.

🇪🇸 THE CONQUISTADOR COSPLAYER

Talks about protecting Spanish identity while forgetting Spain spent centuries mixing cultures, conquering others and being conquered back. 🐎🗺️

Claims immigrants refuse to adapt.

Gets furious when tourists put chorizo in paella.

Believes cultural purity is real because he has never opened a history book past page three.

🇵🇹 THE MINI-EMPIRE RACIST

Very proud Portugal once sailed everywhere.

Less excited when people from those former colonies arrive by plane. ✈️🚢

Loves the global Portuguese legacy.

Does not love the actual global people connected to it.

History is apparently wonderful until it knocks on the front door.

🇳🇱 THE TOLERANCE-UNTIL-TESTED RACIST

Loves telling everyone the Netherlands is progressive. 🚲🌷

Then someone suggests changing one racist tradition and suddenly Jan is defending it with the energy of a constitutional crisis.

“We are very tolerant here.”

Terms and conditions:

Must look right.

Talk right.

Dress right.

Celebrate Christmas exactly like Jan’s grandmother.

🇧🇪 THE CONFUSED RACIST

Cannot agree which language the country should speak.

Still finds time to complain that newcomers are not integrating correctly. 🇧🇪🤨

Country split into regions, languages and political identities.

Racist somehow expects a Syrian family to solve Belgian unity by Tuesday.

🇨🇭 THE NEUTRAL RACIST

Claims neutrality while holding very strong opinions about who should be allowed near the mountains. 🏔️

Enjoys international money.

Less keen on international people. 💰

Believes borders are sacred unless wealth needs somewhere discreet to sleep.

🇦🇹 THE “WE WERE DIFFERENT” RACIST

Has spent decades insisting Austria was mostly standing nearby during history. 👀

Now Dietmar is online posting suspiciously familiar slogans beneath pictures of Alpine meadows.

Sir.

The mountains are not responsible for your politics. 🏔️🚩

🇳🇴 THE MODERN VIKING RACIST

Owns a beard comb and therefore believes he descends directly from Odin. 🧔⚔️

Works in customer support.

Gets migraines from fluorescent lighting.

Posts:

“We were warriors once.”

You currently need an ergonomic chair and two-factor authentication.

🇸WEDEN THE IKEA ETHNONATIONALIST

Builds an identity around blond purity while eating Turkish pizza, listening to American music and assembling furniture designed by a multinational corporation. 🍕🎧🪑

Claims Sweden is losing its culture.

Cannot identify Swedish culture beyond meatballs, midsummer and crime statistics from a meme.

🇫🇮 THE SILENT RACIST

Says very little.

Unfortunately, what he does say is beneath a news article at 2:47 a.m. and begins with:

“I’m not racist, but statistics…” 📊🌙

Has never read the statistics.

Has read several screenshots of statistics.

🇵🇱 THE CATHOLIC NATIONALIST RACIST

Talks endlessly about protecting Christian Europe.

Has apparently forgotten every Christian teaching involving strangers, mercy or the poor. ⛪🤡

Very concerned about morality.

Unless morality interrupts nationalism.

Then morality can wait outside.

🇭🇺 THE AUTHORITARIAN FANBOY

Says democracy has gone too far because people he dislikes are allowed to exist publicly. 📣

Calls cruelty “traditional values.”

Calls censorship “protection.”

Calls every criticism foreign interference.

Believes the nation is strong only when one furious man controls everything, including the television schedule.

🇬🇷 THE ANCIENT CIVILISATION RACIST

Claims personal ownership of philosophers he has never read. 🏺

Says Greece gave the world democracy.

Becomes furious when democracy includes minorities.

Talks about ancient blood.

Would fail an ancient Greek language quiz before the first question was finished.

🇮🇪 THE SELECTIVE-MEMORY RACIST

Family has relatives in Boston, London, Perth and Toronto.

Still complains newcomers are changing Ireland. 🍀✈️

Irish migration overseas:

Courage.

Survival.

Hard work.

Other people migrating to Ireland:

Apparently civilisation-ending.

Interesting little double standard there, Patrick.

🇳🇿 THE “WE’RE NICER THAN AUSTRALIA” RACIST

National identity heavily based on not being Australia. 🥝

Still manages to become furious at bilingual signs.

Loves Māori culture when it looks powerful before a rugby match.

Less enthusiastic when Māori people ask for land rights, justice or political power.

Performs the haka.

Ignores the history.

🇿🇦 THE “LET’S MOVE ON” RACIST

Very eager to stop talking about apartheid.

Mentions apartheid-era grievances before dessert. 🍰

Says everyone should start equal now.

Not interested in discussing why some people are starting with farms, money and property while others are starting with a motivational quote.

Calls this “merit.”

🇦🇷 THE EUROPEAN SOUTH AMERICAN RACIST

Will explain within minutes that Argentina is “basically Europe.”

Nobody asked. 🧉

Acts like having Italian grandparents turns Buenos Aires into Milan.

Extremely proud of European migration.

Less delighted by migration from nearby Latin American countries.

Migration is classy only when Grandpa did it in black-and-white photos.

🇧🇷 THE PIGMENT ACCOUNTANT

Lives in one of the most racially mixed countries on Earth.

Still spends enormous energy calculating who is “really white.” 🧮

Family tree contains Indigenous, African, Portuguese, Italian and mystery branches.

Identifies exclusively with the palest great-grandmother available.

🇨🇱 THE PINOCHET UNCLE

Appears at family lunch wearing sunglasses and saying:

“At least the trains ran properly.” 🕶️

They were not trains.

The country was not functioning normally.

Please take Uncle Rodrigo away from the barbecue.

🇷🇺 THE TELEGRAM WARRIOR

Profile photo: bear, tank or shirtless dictator. 🐻

Actual location: gaming chair.

Talks about national strength while hiding behind six anonymous usernames.

Believes masculinity means never apologising, never questioning authority and becoming emotionally attached to military parades.

🇺A THE DIASPORA RACIST

Lives in another country because migration improved their family’s life.

Now campaigns against migration improving anyone else’s. 🧳

Grandparents were brave newcomers.

Today’s newcomers are suspicious.

Apparently courage expired after their family cleared customs.

🇺🇸🇬🇧🇦🇺 THE EXPAT RACIST

Very important category.

Moves overseas permanently.

Calls himself an expat.

Calls everyone moving into his home country an immigrant. ✈️🤡

Demands locals speak English to him.

Complains foreigners back home will not assimilate.

Lives in Spain for fourteen years.

Can order one beer.

🌐 THE ONLINE PAN-WHITE RACIST

The final boss of embarrassment. 🎮🚩

Has invented a united white civilisation that never actually existed.

Pretends Irish, English, French, German, Italian, Slavic, Nordic and Balkan people have always been one giant happy family.

History immediately bursts out laughing. 📚🤣

Uses Roman statues as profile pictures.

Quotes Vikings.

Talks about crusaders.

Lives in Ohio.

Has no passport.

Calls himself a son of Europe despite being banned from his local bowling alley.

THE COMMON INGREDIENT 🤡

Every regional racist thinks theirs is the sophisticated version.

American racist thinks he is defending freedom.

British racist thinks he is defending civilisation.

European racist thinks he is defending culture.

Australian racist thinks he is defending the pub.

Internet racist thinks he is defending Rome.

They are all defending the same thing:

A bruised ego terrified that skin colour is not a personality, ancestry is not an achievement and equality means they may finally be judged on what they personally bring to the table.

Which, unfortunately, appears to be one flag, six conspiracy memes and a plate of dry chicken. 🚩📱🍗

Different accent.

Same clown.

Worldwide shipping available. 🌍📦🤡

This could also be turned into a sharper “racist zodiac signs” version, where every subtype gets its own ridiculous little horoscope.

A small collection of Australian facts that may ruin your afternoon

Let us begin with the sentence wheeled out whenever Australians question where their money goes:

“But taxes pay for roads, schools and hospitals.”

Yes.

That is what taxes are supposed to do.

Nobody is trying to repossess the Pacific Highway or send the Year 4 class home because taxation has been cancelled.

The real question is:

💰 After paying for the country we all need, who receives the rest?

Because Australians are being told to tighten their belts by people quietly drilling extra holes into them.

🏚️ FACT ONE: CENTRELINK EXPECTS AN ADULT TO LIVE ON ABOUT $58 A DAY

From March 2026, a single adult without children can receive a maximum JobSeeker payment of $808.70 per fortnight.

That is:

💵 $404.35 per week
💵 $57.76 per day

That must help cover rent, food, electricity, transport, medication, clothing, phone bills and every other cost attached to remaining alive in Australia.

And the moment that person earns more than $150 per fortnight, their payment begins shrinking.

Above $256, JobSeeker can be reduced by 60 cents for every additional dollar earned.

Read that again.

A struggling person attempts to earn a little money and the government immediately begins clawing assistance back.

Meanwhile, wealthier Australians are encouraged to “structure their affairs efficiently.”

Poor people have income tests.

Rich people have tax strategies.

🏛️ FACT TWO: THE PEOPLE POLICING POVERTY DO NOT LIVE IN IT

Federal parliamentarians receive a salary determined by the Remuneration Tribunal, plus employer superannuation contributions.

Centrelink recipients receive surveillance.

📋 Report your income.
📋 Report your partner.
📋 Report changes in your living arrangements.
📋 Attend appointments.
📋 Meet obligations.
📋 Prove you are still poor enough.
📋 Repay money immediately if an automated system decides you were overpaid.

A politician’s comfort is treated as necessary for them to perform important work.

A struggling Australian’s comfort is treated as a dangerous incentive.

Apparently a politician requires dignity to function.

The unemployed require hunger.

🏫 FACT THREE: YOUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT GIVES MORE SCHOOL FUNDING TO NON-GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS THAN GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

In 2025, 62.8% of Australian students attended government schools, while 37.2% attended non-government schools.

Yet the 2026–27 federal budget estimates Commonwealth school funding of:

🏫 $13 billion for government schools
🎓 $21.4 billion for non-government schools

That does not mean private schools receive more total government funding overall, because state governments provide most public-school funding.

But it does mean the federal government itself is directing considerably more school money toward the non-government sector, despite it educating a much smaller share of students.

So when your child’s public school asks families to supply tissues, stationery, fundraising prizes or money for equipment, remember:

The money exists.

It has simply developed expensive tastes.

🏢 FACT FOUR: MORE THAN ONE IN FOUR LARGE CORPORATE ENTITIES PAID NO INCOME TAX

The ATO’s latest corporate transparency reporting said 28% of covered large entities paid no corporate income tax in 2023–24.

Important context: paying no income tax does not automatically prove wrongdoing. Companies may report accounting losses, use previous tax losses or apply legitimate offsets.

But try giving that explanation to Centrelink.

Try telling them:

“I did receive money, but after accounting adjustments, previous losses and applicable offsets, I have determined that I owe you nothing.”

They would launch a satellite to watch your letterbox.

Large corporations receive tax law, specialists and complex reporting systems.

A pensioner who makes an error receives a debt notice.

That contrast is the point.

🪖 FACT FIVE: WHEN DEFENCE WANTS BILLIONS, THE MONEY MATERIALISES

The 2026 National Defence Strategy includes an additional $53 billion over ten years, including around $14 billion over the first four years.

Whether every part of that spending is justified is a separate debate.

The lesson is simpler:

When government declares something a national priority, enormous sums can be found.

Immediately.

There are plans, announcements, investment programs and ten-year commitments.

But when Australians ask for:

🏠 enough public housing
🦷 dental care through Medicare
🏫 properly resourced public schools
♿ adequate disability support
💊 affordable healthcare
🍞 income support that actually covers survival

Suddenly everyone becomes deeply concerned about the budget.

The government does not lack money.

It makes choices.

🏠 FACT SIX: POVERTY IS TREATED AS A PERSONAL FAILURE WHILE POLICY CREATES THE CONDITIONS FOR IT

A single non-homeowner can hold up to $600,000 in assessable assets before JobSeeker is cancelled under the assets test, but their ongoing income is still tightly assessed and reduced as earnings rise.

This produces the strangest national theatre imaginable.

Governments tell people to:

💼 find work
💰 save money
🏡 secure housing
📈 improve their circumstances

Then assistance is withdrawn as soon as they begin doing exactly that.

We call it a safety net.

But nets are supposed to catch people.

Ours asks them to complete an online form while falling.

🎓 FACT SEVEN: THE PRIVATE-SCHOOL ARGUMENT IS NOT ABOUT PUNISHING CHILDREN

Every child deserves an education.

Every child deserves safety, opportunity and properly supported teachers.

That is precisely why the funding figures matter.

Across all levels of government, government schools received $68.3 billion in recurrent funding in 2023–24, while non-government schools received $22.8 billion. States supplied most public-school funding, while the Commonwealth supplied 79% of government funding for non-government schools.

The question is not whether children at private schools deserve education.

The question is why public money should preserve educational advantage while public schools are expected to patch shortages through parents, raffles and exhausted teachers.

Education should reduce inequality.

It should not come with a velvet rope.

🚨 FACT EIGHT: THE ARGUMENT IS NOT “TAX IS THEFT”

Tax is how a functioning society pools resources.

It pays for things individuals could never efficiently build alone:

🛣️ roads
🚑 emergency services
🏥 hospitals
🏫 schools
🚒 firefighters
⚖️ courts
🚰 infrastructure
👵 aged care
♿ disability services
🛡️ public safety

The betrayal is not that Australians pay tax.

The betrayal is that ordinary people are repeatedly told their survival is too expensive while enormous spending decisions, concessions and institutional arrangements remain invisible to them.

You are encouraged to inspect the grocery purchases of someone receiving Centrelink.

You are not encouraged to inspect a federal budget.

You are trained to resent the unemployed person receiving $57.76 a day.

You are not trained to ask who influenced the policies governing hundreds of billions of dollars.

That distraction is doing unpaid overtime.

🧾 “BUT MY TAXES PAY FOR THEM!”

Your taxes contribute to the entire public budget.

They do not arrive at Treasury wearing tiny name tags saying:

“This $4 is specifically for Sharon’s JobSeeker payment.”

And welfare recipients also pay taxes.

They pay:

🛒 GST through everyday purchases
⛽ fuel excise embedded in transport costs
🏠 taxes and charges passed through rent
🚬 excise where applicable
📱 GST on phone services
⚡ GST on energy bills
🧼 GST on household goods

A person can be too poor to pay much income tax while still paying tax throughout daily life.

They are not outside society consuming everyone else’s money.

They are Australians using the system Australians supposedly built for one another.

👀 THE PART YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO NOTICE

The public is taught to look downward.

At the person receiving welfare.

At the public-housing tenant.

At the disabled person requiring support.

At the parent receiving assistance.

At the unemployed worker.

At the migrant.

At anyone who can be framed as receiving slightly more than somebody thinks they deserve.

Because while we fight over crumbs, the banquet continues upstairs.

We argue about whether a poor person bought takeaway.

Nobody asks why surviving requires an audit while governing billions apparently requires a press release and matching lectern signs.

🇦🇺 SO, TO THE PERSON SAYING “WE NEED TAX FOR ROADS”

You are correct.

We need tax.

We need roads, schools, hospitals and a functioning civilisation.

But you are defending the part of the system nobody is trying to destroy.

We are asking you to examine the rest.

We are asking why poverty is policed more aggressively than privilege.

Why public schools must beg while wealthy institutions are publicly supported.

Why governments can commit tens of billions to strategic priorities but call basic human security unaffordable.

Why a struggling Australian must disclose nearly everything about their life while enormously consequential spending decisions remain a blur to the people funding them.

You are not the enemy.

You are probably overworked, underpaid and one serious crisis away from discovering exactly how thin the safety net has become.

That is why we need you looking up instead of kicking down.

🔥 You are not rich enough to defend this arrangement.

🧾 You are paying for it.

👁️ And once you see it, roads and schools are no longer the end of the conversation.

They are where the questions begin.

mini opening sneak peek

The landline is blaring.

Not ringing.

Blaring.

That sharp, plastic scream cuts through the room and yanks me out of sleep so hard I nearly stop breathing.

I sit bolt upright.

Purple doona.

Glow stars on the ceiling.

A lava lamp bubbling pink in the corner.

A stack of VHS tapes by the bed.

My Dolly magazine on the floor.

No mobile.

No charger.

No notifications.

No now.

Just then.

Just 1996.

I stare at the clear pink phone like it’s a snake.

Somewhere outside, magpies are carrying on, a car rattles down the street, and the sleepy little town of Wingham, NSW is waking up like nothing is wrong.

But everything is wrong.

Because I know things I’m not supposed to know yet.

I know Tupac is still alive.

I know there are lottery numbers out there with my name on them.

I know whole disasters are still standing upright, smiling politely, waiting their turn.

And I know one more thing.

If I start acting too strange, too fast, too different...

someone will decide I’m a problem.

And when that happens, I’ll be packed off to my dad’s in Nightcliff, NT before I can blink.

Different town.

Different heat.

Different life.

Maybe that saves me.

Or maybe that’s where I become something else entirely.

Not rich.

Not rescued.

Not normal.

Something sharper.

Something dangerous.

The kind of girl who wakes up in the past with a head full of future and realizes she has choices no one else does.

Save Tupac?

Buy the winning ticket?

Change everything?

Disappear before anyone notices?

Or become what this timeline deserves.

The phone keeps screaming.

I reach for it slowly, my hand shaking.

And before I even answer, I already know this:

I didn’t come back to 1996 to behave.

mini story draft

I wake up to the sound of a dial-up modem screaming like a robot being murdered.

At first I think I’m dreaming.

Then I see the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling.

The purple doona.

The stack of VHS tapes.

The Dolly magazine.

The little plastic cassette player beside the bed.

My stomach drops.

No phone.

No apps.

No internet in my hand.

No proof I ever existed past this moment.

Just me.

Back in 1996.

Small town, NSW.

Hot bitumen.

Milk bars.

School bags with keychains.

Girls smelling like Impulse body spray and secrets.

Boys with curtains haircuts and too much Lynx before Lynx even properly became the plague.

I sit up slowly.

And then it hits me.

Tupac is still alive.

Princess Diana is still alive.

9/11 hasn’t happened.

The towers are still standing.

The world is still on the rails, technically, even if the rails are already rusted underneath.

I know things.

Too many things.

Lottery numbers.

Deaths.

Wars.

Scandals.

Stocks.

Missing girls.

Names that won’t mean anything yet but will one day rot the world from the inside out.

My first thought?

Buy a lottery ticket.

My second thought?

Save Tupac.

My third?

Shit.

I’m a kid.

A kid in a small town in NSW with no driver’s licence, no adult money, no internet, and absolutely no way to convince anyone that I have arrived from the future without being sent directly to a therapist, a priest, or my dad’s place in Nightcliff, Northern Territory.

And that’s the real danger.

Because any minute now, someone could decide I’m “too much,” “acting strange,” “needs discipline,” or “better off with Dad.”

And then I’m gone.

Shipped north.

Nightcliff.

Heat.

Salt air.

Cyclone skies.

A whole different timeline.

Maybe that’s where it starts.

Maybe I don’t save Tupac.

Maybe I don’t buy lottery tickets.

Maybe I don’t become rich.

Maybe I become something else.

Not famous.

Not normal.

Not harmless.

A girl with future knowledge and no adult supervision is not a child.

She is a loaded weapon in jelly sandals.

I look at the room again.

The posters.

The cassette tapes.

The pink plastic phone.

The whole 90s sparkling around me like it has no idea it’s already doomed.

And I laugh.

Because everyone else thinks the future is coming.

But I know better.

The future is already here.

It woke up in my body this morning, wearing butterfly clips, with a head full of spoilers and a heart full of rage.

So what do I do?

Save the world?

Save myself?

Save Tupac?

Get rich?

Run before they send me away?

Or become the thing history never saw coming?

The girl from nowhere.

The ghost in the timeline.

The small-town NSW kid who knew too much.

I pick up the pink landline.

My hand is shaking.

I don’t know who I’m calling yet.

But I know one thing.

This time, I’m not waiting for the world to happen to me.

A lot of us cannot even begin to fathom what is being taken from our Lebanese brothers and sisters.

Not just land.

Not just safety.

Not just homes.

Culture. History. Language. Food. Faith. family lines. Graves. Villages. Stories. Olive trees older than our entire colonial identity.

We live on stolen land, in a country still trying to pretend 200-something years is “heritage” while Indigenous culture here goes back tens of thousands of years.

And a lot of white Australia? We are descendants of convicts, labourers, colonisers, poor people, displaced people, people shipped here by empire and then taught to call the theft “settlement.”

So when we watch Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Sudan, Congo, Haiti, anywhere with deep roots and ancient memory being bombed, carved up, destabilised, robbed, and mocked by the same empire machine, maybe we should shut up for five seconds and listen.

Because we do not understand what it means to have thousands of years of cultural memory under threat.

We do not understand what it means to watch your ancestral land be treated like a chessboard for foreign powers.

We do not understand what it means to carry a homeland in your chest because the world keeps making it unsafe to live there.

And no, this is not white guilt theatre.

This is perspective.

This is humility.

This is remembering that empire chews everyone eventually. It stole this land. It brutalised First Nations people. It transported the poor. It built a nation on cages, labour, silence, and lies.

So maybe instead of acting like we are the moral referees of the world, white Australians can start by admitting we barely know who we are because so much of our identity was built on forgetting.

Our Lebanese brothers and sisters know who they are.

That is exactly why the machine tries so hard to break them.

Culture is power.

Memory is resistance.

And the people who still know where they come from are a threat to every empire that survives by making people rootless, obedient, and easy to control.

Most people are not born “left-wing” or “right-wing.”

Most people are just walking around with a gut feeling about fairness, money, work, safety, freedom, community, government and who is getting absolutely shafted.

The labels come later.

So here is the plain version.

Capitalist

A capitalist believes private people and companies should own most businesses, set prices, compete, make profit, and drive the economy.

Best version: innovation, choice, small business, people building things.

Worst version: billionaires, exploitation, homelessness next to empty investment properties, healthcare as a business, and workers treated like replaceable batteries.

Simple question:

Do you think profit should be the main engine of society?

If yes, you lean capitalist.

Conservative

A conservative generally believes society should change slowly. They often value tradition, family, law and order, private business, personal responsibility, lower taxes and smaller government.

Best version: stability, caution, community responsibility.

Worst version: protecting old systems even when they are clearly harming people.

Simple question:

Do you often think “we should preserve what already works” before changing things?

If yes, you may lean conservative.

Liberal

This one gets confusing because in different countries it means different things.

Generally, liberalism is about individual rights, personal freedom, private property, democracy, civil liberties and market economies.

Best version: freedom of speech, equality before the law, human rights.

Worst version: “everyone is free” while ignoring that some people start life with a mansion and others start in a ditch.

Simple question:

Do you care most about individual freedom and legal rights?

If yes, you may lean liberal.

Social democrat

A social democrat still allows capitalism, but wants it heavily regulated so people do not get crushed by it.

They usually support public healthcare, public education, welfare, disability support, unions, affordable housing, strong worker protections and taxing the rich.

Best version: capitalism with guardrails, public services, less poverty.

Worst version: still leaves the wealthy owning too much power.

Simple question:

Do you think capitalism can stay, but it needs a leash, a muzzle and adult supervision?

If yes, you may be a social democrat.

Democratic socialist

A democratic socialist believes democracy should not stop at voting every few years. It should also apply to the economy.

They usually believe essentials like healthcare, housing, energy, transport, childcare, aged care and disability support should not be profit machines.

They want more public ownership, worker ownership, community control and less billionaire power.

Best version: people before profit, democracy in everyday life, essentials treated as rights.

Worst version: can sound scary to people trained to think “socialism” means government stealing your toaster.

Simple question:

Do you think society’s essentials should be owned or controlled by the people, not corporations?

If yes, you may be a democratic socialist.

Socialist

Socialism is a broad umbrella. At its core, it means the economy should be organised around people’s needs instead of private profit.

That can mean public ownership, worker-owned businesses, community control, strong unions, shared resources and wealth redistribution.

Best version: no one is left starving while others hoard billions.

Worst version: if done without democracy, it can become controlling and authoritarian.

Simple question:

Do you believe workers and communities should control wealth and resources more than private owners?

If yes, you may be socialist.

Communist

In theory, communism means a classless society where wealth and resources are shared, and there are no billionaires, landlords, bosses or extreme inequality.

In practice, many countries that called themselves communist became authoritarian, one-party states where ordinary people had very little freedom.

Best version in theory: no poverty, no class system, no exploitation.

Worst version in practice: state control, censorship, corruption, punishment for dissent.

Simple question:

Do you believe private ownership of major wealth should eventually disappear entirely?

If yes, you may lean communist in theory, but democracy and human rights matter massively.

Libertarian

A libertarian wants as little government involvement as possible. They usually value personal freedom, private property and individual choice above almost everything else.

Best version: leave people alone, stop over-policing lives, protect personal freedom.

Worst version: ignores that without rules, the richest and strongest often dominate everyone else.

Simple question:

Do you think government is usually the problem and people should mostly be left alone?

If yes, you may lean libertarian.

Anarchist

Anarchism does not mean “chaos” in the cartoon sense.

It means opposition to unjust hierarchies. Anarchists generally distrust governments, bosses, police states, billionaires and concentrated power.

They often support mutual aid, community care, direct democracy and people organising without rulers.

Best version: community power, cooperation, no masters.

Worst version: difficult to scale and easy for people to misunderstand.

Simple question:

Do you distrust almost all concentrated power, whether it is government, corporate or police power?

If yes, you may lean anarchist.

Fascist / far-right

This is the danger zone.

Far-right politics usually centres hierarchy, nationalism, racial or cultural purity, strongman leaders, militarism, scapegoating minorities, hatred of the left, and obsession with “order.”

Best version: there isn’t one worth dressing up.

Worst version: history already showed us.

Simple question:

Do you think one group of people should dominate others because of race, religion, nationality, gender, sexuality or culture?

If yes, that is not “just politics.” That is the sewer.

The easiest way to remember it

Think of society as a house.

Capitalist:

“The person who paid for the house owns it and makes the rules.”

Conservative:

“Do not renovate too quickly. This house has traditions.”

Liberal:

“Everyone in the house should have individual rights.”

Social democrat:

“The house can be privately owned, but everyone needs heating, food, safety and a room.”

Democratic socialist:

“Why does one rich person own the whole house when everyone keeps it running?”

Socialist:

“The house should be run for everyone who lives and works in it.”

Communist:

“No landlords, no owners, the house belongs to everyone.”

Libertarian:

“Stop making house rules. Leave people alone.”

Anarchist:

“Why do we need a landlord, boss or ruler at all?”

Fascist:

“Only certain people deserve rooms, and everyone else should obey or disappear.”

How to figure out what you are

Do not start with the label.

Start with the questions.

Who should own the essentials?

Private companies, government, workers, communities, or everyone?

What matters more: freedom or fairness?

And when they clash, which one wins?

Why are people poor?

Bad choices, bad systems, bad luck, exploitation, or a mix?

Should billionaires exist?

Your answer tells you a lot.

Should healthcare, housing, food, education and disability support be rights or products?

Do you trust corporations, governments, communities or individuals more?

Do you believe society should reward hard work, or ownership?

Because that is the sneaky little goblin in the room.

Most workers do not get rich from working.

Owners get rich from owning.

That is where politics begins.

The quick cheat sheet

I want tradition and slow change: conservative.

I want individual freedom and rights: liberal.

I want capitalism, but kinder and regulated: social democrat.

I want democracy and public control over essentials: democratic socialist.

I want workers and communities to control the economy: socialist.

I want no class system and no private ownership of major wealth: communist.

I want minimal government: libertarian.

I want no rulers or unjust hierarchies: anarchist.

I want hierarchy, nationalism and scapegoats: far-right.

Final test

Ask yourself this:

When society breaks, who do you blame first?

The poor?

The rich?

The government?

Corporations?

Immigrants?

Workers?

History?

The system itself?

That answer is probably closer to your politics than any label you have ever been handed.

Because politics is not just who you vote for.

It is who you think deserves comfort.

Who you think deserves punishment.

Who you think should have power.

And who you are willing to let suffer so the current system can keep pretending it works.

I shut the conversation down.

Completely.

Not because I think every fighter on the card is evil.

Not because Max Holloway has done anything wrong.

Not because I don’t understand that fighters have families, bills, careers, dreams, pressure, contracts, bodies on the line, and mouths to feed.

I understand that.

But I also understand this:

Conor McGregor is not just “a fighter” to me.

His name is now permanently etched into my brain as a vile abuser.

And I am not going to sit in my own home, inside my own nervous system, and casually chat about his comeback like this is just sport.

Because the receipts matter.

In November 2024, an Irish civil jury found that Conor McGregor assaulted Nikita Hand and ordered him to pay damages. He denied the allegation. In July 2025, Ireland’s Court of Appeal rejected his attempt to overturn that civil finding.

That is not gossip.

That is not a rumour.

That is not women being “too emotional.”

That is public record.

And now here we are, in 2026, with UFC 329 being promoted as McGregor vs Holloway 2. UFC’s own event page lists Conor McGregor against Max Holloway, and UFC’s promo material frames July 11, 2026 as McGregor’s return.

So please understand the full picture.

A woman goes through the courts.

A jury finds in her favour.

An appeal fails.

And the machine keeps moving.

Lights.

Cameras.

Promo reels.

Pay-per-view.

Comeback narrative.

Legacy talk.

“Two of the biggest names in the sport.”

And women are supposed to what?

Sit quietly?

Be reasonable?

Separate the man from the entertainment?

Discuss the fight like the whole thing doesn’t make our stomachs turn?

My partner mentioned that the other fighter has done nothing wrong. That he is trying to feed his family and live his dream.

And honestly, I get that.

I really do.

That is the part that makes this morally messy.

Because there are people attached to these events who are not responsible for McGregor’s actions. Opponents, trainers, staff, workers, families, venues, crews, people trying to survive inside the same machine.

But that is exactly how rotten systems protect themselves.

They make the harm too tangled to reject cleanly.

They wrap one man’s public record in everyone else’s livelihood.

They make women feel guilty for objecting because “what about the other guy?”

What about his dream?

What about his family?

What about his opportunity?

Okay.

But what about her?

What about Nikita Hand?

What about the women watching this?

What about survivors?

What about the message sent every time a powerful man is repackaged into a comeback story?

What about the fact that women are constantly expected to make room for male complexity while our disgust is treated like a personal inconvenience?

Because this is what I cannot swallow.

The world will tell women to go through the proper channels.

Report it.

Prove it.

Survive the legal process.

Survive the public commentary.

Survive the humiliation.

Survive the threats.

Survive the headlines.

Survive the appeal.

Then, even after all that, the man still gets the stage.

Still gets the posters.

Still gets the hype.

Still gets the “long-awaited return.”

Still gets the crowd.

Still gets his name in lights.

And women get told not to ruin the vibe.

That is why I shut the conversation down.

I am not interested in a boys’ club breakdown.

I am not interested in fight predictions.

I am not interested in the “but Holloway” angle.

I am not interested in pretending this is just sport.

To me, this is a vile, complicit setting.

A setting where violence can be monetised, allegations can be folded into controversy, controversy can be spun into attention, and attention can be turned into cash.

A setting where a man with this public record can still be sold as entertainment.

And I know some people will say:

“Well, he wasn’t criminally convicted.”

I know.

Civil court is not criminal court.

I understand the legal distinction.

But my personal boundary is not a courtroom.

My lounge room is not a commission hearing.

My disgust does not require a permission slip.

I am allowed to say: no.

No, I will not watch.

No, I will not discuss it.

No, I will not help normalise it.

No, I will not be the polite woman nodding along while the machine chews up female pain and spits out a promo trailer.

And this is where I want to ask other women, survivors, subscribers, and anyone with a functioning moral gag reflex:

How do you deal with this?

How do you handle it when your partner, friend, brother, dad, coworker, or mate wants to casually talk about something you find morally rotten?

How do you set the boundary without being painted as dramatic?

How do you say, “You can watch that, but do not bring it to me”?

How do you hold space for the fact that innocent people may be attached to an event while still refusing to participate in the system around it?

Where do you put the rage?

Where do you put the exhaustion?

Where do you put the feeling that women are always being asked to understand everyone else’s dreams, careers, pressures, reputations, families, and futures…

while women’s trauma is treated as background noise?

Because I am tired.

Tired of the excuses.

Tired of the “separate the art from the artist” circus.

Tired of violence against women being treated like a branding hiccup.

Tired of the way powerful men are never really cancelled, just paused, polished, and relaunched.

So no.

I do not want to talk about the fight.

I do not want updates.

I do not want hype.

I do not want the redemption arc.

I do not want the “what about the other fighter?” debate used as a moral crowbar to pry open a door I already closed.

Some names stop being entertainment.

Some names become evidence.

And Conor McGregor’s name, for me, is one of them.

Every time Australians say life is becoming unliveable, the same smug little chorus appears.

Work harder.

Budget better.

Stop buying coffee.

Move somewhere cheaper.

Get a second job.

Be grateful.

Meanwhile, the people saying this are usually standing on a mountain of stolen public wealth, tax minimisation, property hoarding, corporate welfare, underpaid labour, privatised essentials and political access the rest of us will never get.

So no, Australia does not have a “poor people problem.”

Australia has a wealth extraction problem.

We have allowed a tiny class of landlords, billionaires, mining giants, banks, supermarkets, developers, private consultants, corporate lobbyists and political mates to turn an entire country into a feeding trough.

And now they want everyday people to feel guilty for wanting rent, food, medicine, childcare, power and dignity.

Absolutely not.

The money exists.

It is just being held hostage.

The Real Laziness Is At The Top

They call workers lazy while living off rent.

They call disabled people a burden while taking government contracts.

They call parents irresponsible while childcare costs swallow wages.

They call renters entitled while hoarding investment properties.

They call welfare recipients parasites while corporations receive subsidies, bailouts, loopholes, grants, contracts and tax arrangements that ordinary people could never dream of.

That is the real bludger class.

Not the pensioner.

Not the carer.

Not the disabled person.

Not the retail worker.

Not the nurse.

Not the teacher.

Not the parent counting coins at Woolies.

The real bludger class wears suits, owns assets and gets invited to budget dinners.

So What Should Australia Do?

Simple.

Claw it back.

Not from ordinary people.

Not from workers.

Not from small family businesses barely surviving.

Not from the person with one home and a ute.

Claw it back from the top layer that has been draining the country dry.

A serious Australian wealth clawback would target:

1. Billionaire wealth hoarding

Extreme wealth should not sit untouched while people sleep in cars. If someone has more money than they could spend in ten lifetimes, the public has every right to ask how much of that was built from public infrastructure, underpaid labour, extracted resources and rigged policy.

2. Mining super-profits

Australia’s minerals belong to the country, not just boardrooms. If corporations pull wealth out of Australian land, they should pay enough back to fund Australian lives.

3. Empty homes and property hoarding

Housing is shelter, not a casino chip. Vacant properties, land banking and bulk investment ownership should be taxed hard enough to make hoarding painful.

4. Corporate tax avoidance

If a company makes billions in Australia, it pays properly in Australia. No maze of offshore paperwork. No accountant witchcraft. No “technically legal” disappearing act.

5. Political donations and lobbying capture

You cannot fix poverty while parliament is wearing a corporate dog collar. Money must be ripped out of politics before policy can serve people again.

6. Supermarket and bank excess profits

When people are skipping meals and banks are celebrating record profits, that is not a healthy economy. That is a hostage situation with EFTPOS.

Then What?

Redistribute it directly.

Not through ten layers of consultants.

Not through a “pilot program.”

Not through a shiny website that crashes.

Not through private companies clipping tickets on the way down.

Directly.

A national cost-of-living dividend.

A housing repair fund.

Debt relief.

Public dental.

Free childcare.

Free TAFE and university.

Public homes built at scale.

Massive increases to disability, carer and pension payments.

Food security programs.

Bulk-billed healthcare restored properly.

Energy brought back under public control.

Because money in the hands of ordinary people does not disappear.

It goes straight back into communities.

It pays rent.

It buys groceries.

It fixes cars.

It gets kids shoes.

It pays overdue bills.

It funds school excursions.

It lets people breathe for five bloody minutes.

That is not waste.

That is life support for a country being economically strangled.

They Will Scream “Communism”

Of course they will.

They scream “communism” every time the public asks for its own wealth back.

But when billionaires get tax breaks?

That is “investment.”

When mining companies underpay for public resources?

That is “growth.”

When banks profit from housing misery?

That is “the market.”

When supermarkets raise prices while families struggle?

That is “inflation.”

When the poor ask for enough to live?

Suddenly it is dangerous radical politics.

Funny how the alarm bells only ring when money starts moving downward.

This Is Not About Punishing Success

That is the lie they hide behind.

This is not about punishing a tradie who built a business.

This is not about punishing a family who bought one home.

This is not about punishing someone who saved hard and did well.

This is about stopping the people who turned Australia into a private ATM.

There is a difference between success and extraction.

There is a difference between earning and hoarding.

There is a difference between building something and buying the rules so nobody else can.

Australia does not need more lectures about resilience.

We are resilient.

That is the problem.

They keep mistaking our survival for consent.

The Why Is Simple

Because children should not be hungry in a rich country.

Because disabled people should not have to beg for support.

Because carers should not be financially punished for keeping people alive.

Because workers should not need three jobs to rent a mouldy box.

Because teachers, nurses, cleaners, aged care workers and retail staff hold the country together while billionaires get called “job creators” for owning things.

Because public wealth should serve the public.

Because Australia is not poor.

Australia is being looted.

The How Is Also Simple

Tax extreme wealth.

Tax super-profits.

Tax vacant housing.

End corporate tax avoidance.

Ban dirty political money.

Cap essential profiteering.

Build public housing.

Restore public ownership of essentials.

Redistribute directly to the people.

No more trickle-down fairy tales.

We have waited decades for the wealth to trickle down.

It did not trickle.

It was dammed, fenced, guarded, lawyered, inherited and hidden offshore.

So now?

Open the gates.

Australia does not need charity from the rich.

Australia needs to reclaim what was taken. 🧾🔥

Because the world does not actually run on outrage.

It runs on usefulness.

That is the ugly little engine under the floorboards.

A story becomes massive when it is useful to power. Useful to a government. Useful to a party. Useful to a war machine. Useful to a media company. Useful to advertisers. Useful to someone’s clean little narrative.

But children?

Children are only “front page” when their suffering can be pointed in the right direction.

When it can sell fear.

When it can justify policy.

When it can make one side look holy and the other side look monstrous.

When it can be packaged neatly in forty seconds between a weather update and a bank ad.

But this?

This is messy.

This asks too many adults too many questions.

It asks border agencies why children were moved around like luggage.

It asks child protection systems why warnings were not enough.

It asks governments why extremist groups can cross countries before anyone acts properly.

It asks courts, police, welfare departments, immigration officers, schools, religious leaders and politicians:

Where the hell were you?

And that is the problem.

This story does not give power a clean villain it can safely throw into the town square.

It gives us a whole machine.

A machine with paperwork.

A machine with delays.

A machine with “jurisdictional issues.”

A machine with adults saying “we had concerns” after the damage is done.

A machine that fails children, then hides behind procedure like a coward behind a clipboard.

That is why it did not become worldwide front pages.

Because real child protection stories are dangerous.

They do not just expose monsters.

They expose the polite people who let monsters keep moving.

They expose the system that waits for children to be destroyed before it decides the evidence is finally tidy enough.

They expose how religion, power, borders and bureaucracy can become a fog machine for abuse.

And media hates stories that do not fit in a box.

If the accused are too politically sensitive, they step carefully.

If the victims are too hidden, they move on.

If the crime crosses borders, they call it complicated.

If the system failure is too wide, they shrink the story down until it becomes one “cult scandal” instead of what it really is:

an international child protection collapse.

And let’s not pretend the media has no appetite for horror.

They do.

They gorge on it.

They can replay one crime for weeks if it feeds the right narrative.

They can turn individual suffering into a national mood board.

They can build entire careers on “won’t somebody think of the children?” outrage.

So when they go quiet, ask why.

Not because one group of people is magically protected from criticism.

Not because every person from one country or religion is responsible.

That is lazy rot, and it helps nobody.

Ask the harder question:

Who benefits when this stays small?

Who benefits when it is treated like a weird sect story instead of a global failure?

Who benefits when the public does not ask how many children slipped through borders, systems and official hands?

Who benefits when outrage is selective?

Because that is the wound.

Selective outrage.

The world does not lack cameras.

It lacks courage.

The world does not lack journalists.

It lacks editors willing to keep digging when the story gets politically uncomfortable.

The world does not lack child protection slogans.

It lacks adults prepared to protect children when the abusers come wrapped in religion, family, authority, passports and legal grey zones.

That is why it was not worldwide front pages.

Because front pages are not mirrors.

They are menus.

And someone decided this story was not the special of the day.

But children do not stop mattering because editors got nervous.

Children do not stop mattering because governments prefer silence.

Children do not stop mattering because the story is awkward, religious, international, legally messy or politically inconvenient.

Children are not footnotes.

Children are not niche news.

Children are not “too complicated.”

The truth is simple:

If children were allegedly trafficked, abused, forced into marriages and dragged across borders, then the whole world should have been screaming.

And if it wasn’t?

That silence deserves its own investigation.

Because “Australia or Isrealia?” was not a joke

Let’s stop pretending this is some invisible fog.

It has names.
It has offices.
It has lobby groups.
It has media access.
It has government meetings.
It has taxpayer-funded outcomes.
It has political cover.

And no, this is not about Jewish Australians.

Jewish Australians are not one political opinion.
Jewish Australians are not responsible for Israel.
Jewish Australians do not all support Zionism.
Jewish Australians do not all support the Israeli government.

This is about the public pro-Israel lobby class in Australia.

The people and organisations who work to keep Australia politically, diplomatically, culturally, and emotionally glued to Israel while Palestinians are expected to bleed politely in the background.

So yes.

Name names.

Jeremy Leibler
President of the Zionist Federation of Australia.

The Zionist Federation of Australia openly describes itself as the representative body of Australia’s Zionist organisations. So this one is not a whisper. It is literally on the sign out front.

Alon Cassuto
Chief Executive Officer of the Zionist Federation of Australia.

A paid senior figure in the organisation whose stated purpose is strengthening the Australian Jewish community’s connection to Israel and building a Zionist movement.

Mark Leibler
National Chairman of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.

AIJAC is one of the loudest pro-Israel public affairs organisations in Australia. It exists to influence government, media, and public debate around Israel.

Colin Rubenstein
Executive Director of AIJAC.

One of the most recognisable pro-Israel lobby voices in Australia. If there is a camera, a panel, a newspaper column, or a government ear nearby, AIJAC is usually not far from the room.

Paul Rubenstein
NSW Chairman of AIJAC.

Another senior figure inside Australia’s pro-Israel advocacy machine.

Arsen Ostrovsky
Head of AIJAC’s Sydney office.

A public pro-Israel advocate with a senior role inside one of the country’s main Australia-Israel lobby organisations.

Daniel Aghion
President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

ECAJ is the peak representative body that advocates to government and public institutions. It has been central in national debates about antisemitism, social cohesion, Israel, protest, and public speech.

Jillian Segal
Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism.

The problem is not fighting antisemitism. Antisemitism is real and should be fought.

The problem is when criticism of Israel gets dragged into the same bucket, shaken around, and used to chill Palestine solidarity, university protest, media criticism, and political speech.

That is where the alarm bells start screaming.

Because this is the move:

Conflate Israel with Jewish identity.
Treat criticism of Israel as suspicious.
Treat Palestine solidarity as a threat.
Pressure universities, media, artists, politicians, councils, and institutions.
Then call it “social cohesion.”

No.

That is not social cohesion.

That is political protection for Israel wrapped in a safety vest.

And while all this happens, Palestinians are expected to keep proving they are human.

Lebanese Australians are expected to watch family members live under threat and stay calm.

Muslim Australians are expected to condemn, apologise, explain, soften, qualify, and beg not to be treated like suspects.

Arab Australians are expected to be grateful for crumbs.

Meanwhile, the pro-Israel lobby gets treated like a trusted moral authority.

No thanks.

If Australia is a democracy, then Australians deserve to know who is pushing our government, our universities, our media, and our institutions closer to Israel.

Because the issue is not just who supports Israel.

The issue is who has power.

Who gets access.
Who gets funding.
Who gets listened to.
Who gets protected.
Who gets to define racism.
Who gets to define safety.
Who gets to define extremism.
Who gets to define what Palestinians are allowed to say about their own destruction.

That is the real question.

And the answer is ugly.

Australia is not short on pro-Israel power players.

It is short on courage.

Because if the Australian government can find endless time for Israel’s feelings but not enough spine for Palestinian freedom, then we are not looking at neutral leadership.

We are looking at political capture with a flag pin.

Australia?

Or Isrealia?

At this point, the question is doing less heavy lifting than the evidence.