RE: https://openbiblio.social/@calidius/117009530665304893

Dieser Toot, 💯. Ich habe hier in den letzten Jahren im deutschsprachigen Fediverse genau zugehört, habe jedes freilaufende Gespräch über Bibliotheken und Archive aufgegriffen und verfolgt. Wer mich persönlich kennt, weiß, dass ich ein sonniges Gemüt bin. Aber eines sage ich euch: was Bibliotheken und Archive angeht sind wir längst auf verlorenem Posten. Ja ich weiß, wir sind die am stärksten besuchten Kultureinrichtungen des Landes und so, stimmt ja auch. 1/3

2/2

"
Seselja is still trying to be a conservative power in the land. But he is no longer the moral lamppost and is more involved in ordinary secular politics. He has a big role in the Advance public advocacy movement, set up to counter the influence of Get Up! Its website claims the credit for the defeat of the Voice and urges voters to mobilise around stopping mass migration, getting rid of Albo and the Victorian Labor government, dumping net zero and resisting efforts to put hands on the flag. All worthy aims, if that's your bag, but not based on faith or morals, and having nothing to do with the moral imperative of defending traditional Catholic values.

It is all very well for devout Catholics to stand up for their values in a party they are attempting to make conform to their own. But if the almost certain consequence of their efforts is to make the achievement of any power less likely, what is the point? Australia is not the sort of nation, like the US, where judges and politicians can wind back reforms, or win acclaim for trying. If it is, the power of Catholic politics must be said to be in marked decline.

I very much doubt that Ignatius of Loyola, the Basque founder of the Jesuits, would have had much time for Opus Dei and this sort of performative display. He once said that he was inspired to create his order after pondering the words of Jesus: "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?"

If one were a member of the Faction in NSW, the answer might be a career trading favours in politics in exchange for money illegally obtained from developers. The prospect of getting a seat in parliament, and the temporal power that represents by controlling a tight and disciplined faction of zealots can provide the power to reward one's friends and punish one's enemies - without changing any law or custom that pretended to motivate entry into politics.

The prospect of dirtying one's reputation and one's values by engaging in the crude practices of politics, such as inventing shit sheets, and arranging the sacking of public servants who won't do the bidding of dodgy developers.

And embarrassing and humiliating the Catholic church and its local leader, Archbishop Fisher. The ICAC evidence has not yet satisfied curiosity about whether Fisher had any idea that one of his most trusted lieutenants was secretly borrowing his car for expeditions of his own.

If this was the case, ICAC might well be critical of his supervision and stewardship of public money. Alternatively, ICAC could decide that Fisher knew of the plan to subvert the Liberal Party and approved it and its methods. If so, that could raise questions of legal or moral culpability, and perhaps his fitness for office.

Thank heavens we are in no position to be asking similar questions about the motives and intentions, and the actions with public money, of anyone doing anything similar in the ACT, or in the Canberra archdiocese.

• Jack Waterford is a former editor of The Canberra Times."

2/3 Aber ehrlich gesagt, leider: kein Schwein weiß, wozu es uns gibt, und was wir machen. Irgendwas wo gedruckte Bücher stehen - so auf dem Niveau bewegt sich der Wissensstand. Und wir bewegen uns hier im Fediverse, einem überdurchschnittlich schlauen Nerdland. - Warum ich das sage ist vor allem: wir stehen im Kreuzfeuer. Die aufstrebenden Autoritären wollen die Geschichte kontrollieren, und wir sind ihnen lästig, fast schon so wie unabhängiger Journalismus.