Daily Archives: September 18, 2020

The issue I have with this message is not that Frito-Lay is looking for recognition by asking not to be recognized: That's a flex we see all too often when corporations that splash on CSR are looking for some R on their hefty I. They are forgiven. The issue, as far as I'm concerned, is that each day we stray further from God's light. God's light, in this context, being that Frito-Lay is a chips brand that I don't associate with crisis-time job creation or freely accessible Covid-19 testing facilities for the general public. I associate them with Dorito-dust on my fingers that requires more hand washing than I'm technically comfortable withbut I still go in for seconds after the wash. Because it makes me feel good.

Eating chipsor any comfort foodis a very intimate act that involves people inserting highly processed products into their body, being fully aware that they hold no nutritional value whatsoever. And yet I love doing it. Judging by Frito-Lay's post-lockdown sales figures (Lay's +32 percent, Tostitos +42 percent), I am not the only one.

When, in the wake of the global financial crisis, Simon Sinek suggested brands should start with the "why" instead of the "what," I have been cheerleading the shift toward purposeful marketing. "People don't buy what you do; people buy why you do it" was genius in 2009, and it still holds up 11 years later. But during Cannes Lions 2019, where the why trend culminated in a champagne-fueled orgy of purpose, we could already see the logical endpoint of the movement on the horizon: What began as sincere started morphing into woke-washing.

In food marketing, where I'm operating globally with the company I co-founded, the "why" has always had a shorter shelf life than in other categories. That's because decisions about which foods to consume can often be completely irrational, and this irrationality is accelerated by stress factors likesay, oh I don't knowa global pandemic. During times like these, it's the "what" that drives people: products with bright colors, strange consistencies and untraceable ingredients can exist and be successful in this space. Asking "why" opens up both the brand and the consumer to a line of questioning that might be best left unexplored.

This leaves a great opportunity-gap for brands to explore politically incorrect positioning, or at a minimum, ignore politically correct positioning. Take the upcoming relaunch of Cheese Puffs, a product so wonderfully out of touch with today's values about transparency that it is unthinkable that any self-respecting R&D department would come up with it in 2020. As Cathy Erway notices in her highly recommended Eater piece about the return of '90s snacks, Cheese Puffs deliberately look like nothing you would find growing in naturethey are the polar opposite of artisanal.

Yet Kraft Heinz is plotting a comeback for the snack because nostalgic '90s kids find comfort in eating a product that is designed to be so light that it actually tricks the brain into failing to recognize you are overeating. There has always been room for this kind of product, but the Covid-19 pandemic and the global lockdown have provided brands the opportunity to rebrand indulgence as self-care.

As all food brands did, French dairy behemoth Danone saw a spike in sales during the pantry-loading phase of the pandemic in March. But when the new reality settled in with people, the company noticed its indulgent product lines continued to outperform expectations. People, they found, were opting for familiarity and gratification.

On LinkedIn, Danone's global marketing director added: "Nutritional advice and healthier eating trends are too often overshadowing the fact that indulging (from time to time, in a reasonable and balanced way) plays its part in keeping a healthy mind. :)"

It made complete sense for the swing toward indulgence to start in food. During the lockdown, we suddenly find ourselves in a world without parties, concerts and restaurants. Food is all we have, so there is room for brands in that segment to be politically incorrect. But expect luxury brands to follow suit. They speak to the same sentiment: making people feel better.

Does that mean a hard stop for the purpose parade? I personally don't think or hope so. Purposeful marketing has brought us a lot of good. It has pushed brands toward more sustainable models. But there's something refreshing about brands that drop all pretense and are honest about the fact that all they want is to make you happy.

So thank you, Frito-Lay, for creating 2,000 jobs (with benefits!) and feeding hungry kids. But my decision to keep buying Dorito's is driven by that fleeting moment of happiness that binging a bag of Cool Ranch gives me when my wife is out with friends.

And you know what? I love you for that, too, from the bottom of my Dorito-dust colored heart.

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The Return of the Politically Incorrect Food Brands - Muse by Clio

To the Editor:

As the election approaches, I am very concerned that much of the mainstream media, including The Times, repeatedly falls into the trap of focusing on President Trump his outrageous behavior, his mendacity, his corruption and his latest tweet while giving comparatively short shrift to Joe Biden and his agenda.

The Republican convention ended with no new platform except supporting Mr. Trumps re-election, while the Democratic convention produced a very substantive platform. Even when media attention is paid to Mr. Bidens agenda, all too often the focus is on how much it would cost rather than what it would accomplish.

There is a danger of repeating the mistake of 2016: heavily criticizing the Democrats shortcomings, while treating Mr. Trump as entertainment. An endorsement by the editorial board will be nice, but truly balanced coverage would be so much better.

Diane SunarIstanbul

To the Editor:

Re The Towering Lies of President Trump, by Greg Weiner (Sunday Review, Sept. 13):

As a lifelong Republican, I support many of the current administrations policies, and I believe that much of what President Trump says really is just hyperbole (rather than lies! as has become fashionable in the media). But there have certainly been lies. And there are real risks in re-electing him, including his consistent promotion of misinformation, division and authoritarianism.

As an epidemiologist, I believe that the unthinkable Covid-19 death toll has been tragic and absolutely preventable. A large part of me wants to join the Never Trumpers on their moral high ground. But an equally large part of me thinks its silly to pretend that policy under Joe Biden wouldnt be heavily skewed toward the left.

And so it goes. I think that Mr. Weiner mistakenly implies that support for Mr. Trump precludes trying to make the best judgment one can on the basis of competing views. I still dont know whom Im going to vote for when I get my ballot in the mail. But itll be based on serious consideration of arguments on both sides.

Carl GrafeSt. Anthony, Idaho

To the Editor:

Re Can Trump Win Pennsylvania?, by Michael Sokolove (Sunday Review, Sept. 13):

This article featured my hometown, New Milford, in rural Pennsylvania, where Donald Trump won by a landslide. Given that I grew up there, I know that: 1) this is a place where rifles are raffled off at happy hour; 2) my childhood classmates are planning to vote for Donald Trump (again); and 3) they worship him for the exact reasons the world does not.

To argue that he is offensive, crude, cocky, politically incorrect and unpresidential are actually points in his favor in their eyes that is how they view themselves. As long as Mr. Trump continues being unpresidential, he is, in a most ironic fashion, their most desirable presidential candidate. Frankly, we Democrats would do better to paint him as a proper, well-educated gentleman one who knows exactly which fork to use.

Ash AmbirgePhiladelphia

To the Editor:

Re Battleground Dispatches: 51 Days to Go (news article, Sept. 13):

To those Wisconsinites you profiled, and other swing state undecideds who say they dont know enough about Joe Biden yet, I have one word: Google. Or better yet, go to JoeBiden.com. His website is replete with detailed information about what he stands for and what he plans to do.

Then go visit donaldjtrump.com to see what he plans to accomplish in the next four years. Spoiler alert: Theres virtually nothing there. He wants your vote, but hes not going to tell you what hell do for you and your family, for America. He either doesnt want to commit to promises hell probably break, or hes just too lazy to make real plans and share them in writing. Why would anyone trust that?

Rebecca SpenceNew Providence, N.J.

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The Medias Coverage of the Election - The New York Times

Remote learning was off to a fine crash-and-burn Wednesday, with big problems all across the city. Worse yet, many teachers are determined not to show when in-person schooling resumes in a few days under any condition. Mayor de Blasio nonetheless vows schools will open Monday. He needs to stand tough.

The mayors reopening plan is not safe, huffed a teachers-union caucus, the Movement of Rank and File Educators. It blasted the city for inadequate contact tracing and a lack of transparency and threatened that teachers wouldnt return until theyre satisfied which looks like never.

United Federation of Teachers boss Mike Mulgrew cited a major staffing challenge. The city is adding 2,000 teachers, but principals-union head Mark Cannizzaro says 10,000 are needed. Indeed, the hapless Department of Education dropped the news late Tuesday that roughly half the children slated for blended learning may have no direct contact with a teacher on days when theyre logged in from home.

Its a mess. This is a system, after all, run by a race-obsessed chancellor whose hires have left the bureaucracy even more inept than usual.

But the city is taking countless steps to make schools safe. It set up testing routines, contact tracing, ventilation procedures, hybrid schedules and numerous other measures. Kids whose parents have concerns can opt for online instruction only. Teachers with serious medical issues can get exemptions.

As for the staffing challenge, de Blasio got it right: Ive never met a manager [who] didnt want ... more personnel, he snarked Tuesday. If gaps remain, he said, his folks will address them. Thats eminently reasonable, yet not good enough for some teachers and union leaders.

What a contrast from, say, health-care providers, police or transit workers all of whom reported for duty at the pandemics height despite sky-high infection rates and triple-digit daily death tolls. This week, the infection rate has been below 1 percent; Mondays death toll: seven. Of 17,000 school officials tested, only 55 (i.e., 0.32 percent) were positive.

Meanwhile, online-only learning remains a virtual joke. Teachers spend much of the day just getting students to log on and pay attention and thats when the system can avoid the glitches that plagued the first day of school. Many parents are counting on kids in school at least part-time so they themselves can work.

Another delay would mean cheating children of anything close to a real education, while wreaking havoc on their parents lives.

De Blasio admits the system wont be perfect. And some teachers and kids will contract the virus.

Some will test positive, he noted, and theyll immediately get support. Infected students will go home for two weeks, and then come back and complete the school year. For the very small percentage of people who test positive for the coronavirus, it is a very temporary reality.

Hes absolutely right, even if its politically incorrect to say. As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports, 94 percent of COVID deaths have involved people with an average of 2.6 other conditions; 92 percent were 55 or older, an age when many teachers have already retired. Younger people often dont get sick or, if they do, recover quickly.

So what happened to follow the science? Doctors and scientists (the American Academy of Pediatrics, for example) stress that the benefits of in-person school outweigh the dangers of COVID. Fact is, its vital to get kids out of the house, away from screens and back in class.

De Blasio vows the system will open for in-person instruction Monday. Yet he also promised theyd open Sept. 10, before caving. For the sake of the kids, parents and science he best not buckle again.

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Open the schools! We need in-person learning in NYC ... now - New York Post

By Marvin Botwinik, Las Vegas

Thursday, Sept. 17, 2020 | 2 a.m.

Many seniors living in Las Vegas do not have family with us. We miss our families and want to see them so badly. However, we are afraid to travel to visit them or have them visit us because of this pandemic. We dont want to catch the coronavirus, nor do we want to expose our children and grandchildren to it. Yet here we are, sitting and waiting for a miracle cure, getting more and more lonely and depressed.

We know that if everyone would wear a mask and wash their hands and socially distance, we might have a chance to substantially diminish this disease. I beseech those who are not complying to stop being selfish and give me and thousands of other seniors an opportunity to visit our loved ones. Please, stop being politically correct or incorrect and imagine we are your mom or dad, grandma or grandpa, and help us get to see our family while we still can. We really miss them.

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Be safe for all of the grandparents - Las Vegas Sun

Its not about Rhea being nice, or not nice. It is about her being framed or not framed. Do you know what a doob stands for? I didnt. I had to ask my children. They found it funny that I was wondering about weed I guess you know what that is. Ganja. Grass. Cannabis. Marijuana. The leaf thats legal in 36 countries. Same one thats ground and added to sweetened milk during Holi and served freely across India, without the cops showing up with warrants of arrest. Some smoke the stuff, others make pakodas out if it. From now on hold that doob. There are nasty nutjobs out there who are hell bent on throwing people into the slammer if they cannot find any other grounds to do so. Watching clips of the gorgeous Zeenat Aman swaying sensuously to Dum Maro Dum in a cloud of chillum smoke, I felt like smoking doob myself as I shook my head in utter disbelief at the ridiculousness of it all.

Lets talk about the woman. Yes, her 28-year-old Rhea Chakraborty. The woman in jail right now. For what? For maybe having smoked up at some point in her life for maybe being a habitual stoner for maybe having shared a doob with her late boyfriend, Sushant Singh Rajput. As of now, thats her sole crime. Three crack investigating agencies have failed spectacularly to nail her for anything more heinous than maroing dum. So far, nothing connects her to fraudulent financial deals involving her late boyfriends funds, nor was she present at the scene of the tragedy. But none of this matters. Rhea Chakraborty has already been condemned and thrown to the wolves by people desperate to silence her and divert the countrys attention from other, vaster issues. This clumsy ploy isnt working. And the narrative is no longer about Rhea alone either her innocence or culpability. It is about the blatant misuse of state machinery. And the brazen abuse of power.

Once the main players achieve their political objectives a win for the BJP in the Bihar elections, and the collapse of the doddering coalition in Maharashtra, with the BJP re-grabbing the gaddi in the state, the over-sensationalised 247 coverage of the SSR case will cease overnight. Bollywood will go back to being Bollywood. And even Rheas most vocal and ardent supporters will forget her existence. At the moment, Rhea has her uses. She is required as a bargaining chip, a valuable pawn. Nobody really cares what happens to her or her shattered family in the long run, once the political jugaad ends.

Till six months ago, nobody had really heard of Rhea. Today, everyone has an opinion about her. Random types remotely connected to Rhea or her late boyfriend are grabbing a piece of the action, making the most of the mauka to get a lil publicity. A television actor protested that the case has become a chai biscuit conversation. But suddenly, caste has been brought into the controversy Rhea, we are told, is a Bengali Brahmin lady by West Bengals Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Choudhary. So what if she is? Economist Kaushik Basu has introduced suttee into the narrative by insisting the public is thirsting for a morbid spectacle involving a helpless woman. I have received communication from a highly influential person telling me to remember that Rheas mother is Maharashtrian, and a GSB like me, which makes Rhea a Marathi Mulgi. Someone forgot to update Sanjay Raut and Uddhav Thackeray, I guess. Strange that its Rheas Bengali father, and not the Maharashtrian Aie who has been in the picture so far. Sharad Pawar is all set to play the Maratha/Kshatriya card and woo the Kshatriyas in Maharashtra and Bihar, on behalf of SSRs family. In effect, he has chewed up his political partners (Shiv Sena) in Maharashtra. Complicated? Not really! Everyone is playing the same dirty game, employing identical dirty tactics. Now everything depends on whos dirtier and who sinks still lower.

Which leaves Rhea, the woman who is being damned for not being an achchi aurat. She will have to row her own boat once the rats desert her. She still holds a few cards there is the woman card, the feminist card and the patriarchy card all these highly inflammable cards waiting to be further exploited. If the caste card doesnt do the job, the top players in the game will pull out some other card. Lets see she has already been branded a murderer, a drug dealer, an embezzler. Forces must be hard at work looking for some other crimes. For now, public opinion seems to be with the Byculla womens jails latest celeb from Rhea ko phasao to Rhea ko bachao. Eventually, Ms Chakraborty may emerge innocent of all charges. But the person whose life will never be the same again is the postman. Yup! The same one who has become an overnight celebrity for delivering mail to the building where the Chakrabortys reside. Nobody has asked him his caste so far. Huge oversight! Come on, mediawallas what about an exclusive, prime time interview with the postman? Now that would be a scoop!

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Lights, camera, politics: How Rhea became a valuable pawn - The Times of India Blog

PUBLISHED: 13:31 17 September 2020 | UPDATED: 13:31 17 September 2020

Tim Walker

Special Political Advisor for the Prime Minister of the UK Dominic Cummings. (Photo by WIktor Szymanowicz/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

WIktor Szymanowicz/NurPhoto

TIM WALKER explains there is no interest in a book about the prime ministers senior aide.

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Almost four years after its creation The New European goes from strength to strength across print and online, offering a pro-European perspective on Brexit and reporting on the political response to the coronavirus outbreak, climate change and international politics. But we can only continue to grow with your support.

Seemingly unsackable and above the law, Dominic Cummings can legitimately lay claim to being the most powerful man in the land. Boris Johnsons omnipotent adviser has still, however, to be the subject of a single biography.

Mandrake hears that one journalist, who has lately stepped down from a national newspaper, has shown publishers what I am told is an intriguing dossier on Cummings, but there are as yet no takers.

One or two writers have touted the idea around, but there isnt much enthusiasm, one leading literary agent tells me. Theres probably a great chapter to be written about the period Cummings spent in Russia, but the rest of his life is, on the face of it, pretty well-documented and pretty boring. A book needs to have some trans-Atlantic appeal, too, to command a good advance and a lot of people havent heard of him on this side of the pond, let alone on the other.

Another agent says: I think theres resistance to it just because of the idea of Cummings face on the cover. Its like when you see Johnsons now. It just makes a lot of people certainly the kind of people who read hardback books feel nauseous and its frankly the last thing they want to read.

If a book does get off the ground, I trust Cummings biographer will talk to his former friend, the art historian James Beechey. He told me earlier this year how Cummings had once admitted to him he was emphatically not a Tory, but an anarchist.

Tom Bowers biography of Johnson the third so far comes out next month from W H Allen. Shrewdly, perhaps, Johnson saw to it that the Brexit-supporting authors wife Veronica Wadley was elevated to the Upper House in his last controversial honours list.

Wrong Ron

The playwright and Oscar-winning screenwriter Sir Ronald Harwood was laid to rest in a traditional Jewish ceremony on Sunday where numbers were restricted because of the coronavirus crisis. The obituaries in the Daily Telegraph and the Times made much of how politically incorrect he was which is quite true and the implication was that he was right wing. Michael Cashman, the actor, went so far as to state he was Margaret Thatchers speechwriter.

That dubious distinction happened to belong to Sir Ronald Millar a common mistake and this Ronald was a passionate defender of the weak against the strong. He was a former president of PEN which promotes the freedom to write and to read, even in oppressive states and he was also, although this was not mentioned, passionately opposed to Brexit.

His admirable daughter Deborah was an influence here, but Ronnie could see for himself how damaging it would be to the country and how all there was at its rotten core was prejudice, which he hated above all things, one of his friends tells me. Even at the Garrick club where the members include Michael Gove and the former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre he made no secret of how he felt on this issue.

In the money

One question Sarah Vine may care to address in her inaugural column for the Mail on Sunday this weekend is how, despite the humongous salary shes reputedly paid by her proprietor Lord Rothermere, the Barlby Group, the private company she set up to channel her journalistic income, still trades at a loss. Its latest accounts to Companies House show a net deficit at 21,742 for the year ended November 30, 2019. Vine set her firm up in 2012, and, despite posting an annual profit on occasion, it has still to report a surplus on its balance sheet.

Her husband Michael Gove is, meanwhile, raking it in. Hes in receipt of 45,003 in ministerial pay on top of his basic 81,932 annual salary for being an MP. Gove has also declared 65,000 worth of support donations in the Register of Members Interests, including 35,000 from Lord Harris of Peckham. His lordship may be hedging his bets perhaps for a future leadership battle.

Lying King

The theatre critic Mark Shenton wondered out loud last week what a Boris Johnson musical might be called. The hills were soon alive with the sound of great ideas.

My favourites were The Lying King, Scamalot, Gobspell, Gove Never Dies, Fiddler With the Truth, Worst Snide Tory, The Non-Commitments, Top Prat, Shamilton, The Prince of Eejit, Illegally Blonde, The Book of Moron and Seven Sons From Seven Mothers.

The humour here would probably be lost on Johnson as Ive never once seen him in a theatre. Shamilton was, by the way, the idea of the splendid actress Kathy Burke.

Almost four years after its creation The New European goes from strength to strength across print and online, offering a pro-European perspective on Brexit and reporting on the political response to the coronavirus outbreak, climate change and international politics. But we can only rebalance the right wing extremes of much of the UK national press with your support. If you value what we are doing, you can help us by making a contribution to the cost of our journalism.

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MANDRAKE: Dominic Cummings fails to rouse the literary world - The New European

Three heavy shoes dropped over the last week for President TrumpDonald John TrumpBarr criticizes DOJ in speech declaring all agency power 'is invested in the attorney general' Military leaders asked about using heat ray on protesters outside White House: report Powell warns failure to reach COVID-19 deal could 'scar and damage' economy MORE on three issues of great importance to voters in this election. They have to do with Trumps treatment of the coronavirus pandemic, race relations and our countrys military veterans.

Most recently, we learned of Trumps stunning admission to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Woodward in February that he knew COVID-19 was airborne and deadlier than the flu but downplayed its danger.

COVID-19 has killed almost 200,000 Americans, including a disproportionate number of African Americans and Latinos. To this day, Trump refuses to prioritize the pandemic and implement a national plan to stop the spread of the virus. Tens of thousands of American lives might have been saved had Trump taken decisive action.

A couple of days ago, Trumps former personal attorney Michael CohenMichael Dean CohenMichael Cohen: Trump taxes would reveal 'wealth is not as significant' as he says Michael Cohen: Trump's dislike of Obama is 'purely racial' Michael Cohen blames 'Stockholm syndrome' for letting Trump leer at his daughter MORE released a memoir of his time as Trumps most trustworthy aide in which he alleges a firsthand account of Trumps apparent disdain for people of color.

According to Cohen, Trump said, Latinos like the Blacks are too stupid to vote for Trump. They are not my people.

Trump also alleges praised apartheid and slammed South Africas first Black president, Nelson Mandela, who died in 2013 and was honored around the world for ending the racist regime in South Africa. According to Cohen, Trump had a different view of him. Trump said Mandela f---ed the whole country up. Now it's a s---hole. F--- Mandela.

Cohen also describes an episode in which Trump allegedly hired a Barack ObamaBarack Hussein ObamaGOP senator blocks Schumer resolution aimed at Biden probe as tensions run high D-Day for Trump: September 29 Obama says making a voting plan is part of 'how to quarantine successfully' MORE look-a-like just so he could pretend to denigrate and then fire him.

These excerpts confirm the view of many that Trump is a racist.

Late last week, The Atlantic published a disturbing report alleging that Trump denigrated Americans who died defending the country in various wars. According to the report, Trump derided our countrys veterans, especially those who gave their lives in World War I, as losers and suckers.

After this avalanche of new and disturbing revelations, will well-meaning Trump supporters finally see the president for who he really is? Or will they continue to sacrifice their own standards on the altar of misguided loyalty to a president who has never had the best interests of his supporters, much less the countrys, at heart?

Trumps mistreatment of Black and Latino Americans has been widely reported and repeated from his promotion of the racist birther conspiracy theory that the first Black president was not born in the United States and thus was ineligible to become president; to accusing Mexico of sending rapists and criminals to the United States; to repeatedly demonizing migrants trying to enter the United States at our southern border as invaders.

But many Trump supporters continue to find a way to excuse these racist comments, insisting thats just Trump being Trump. Some even admire Trump for using such politically incorrect language and laud him for having the courage to tell the truth and do something to protect a way of life that they are afraid is slipping away.

But how will they excuse his seemingly anti-veteran attitude? How will they explain away Trump putting their lives in danger by lying about the deadly nature of COVID-19?

At what point do dutiful, values-driven Americans who gave Trump a chance in 2016 say enough is enough and turn against him? A few have defected, but not nearly enough.

Perhaps these recent reports will help convince more Americans who held their noses to vote for Trump in 2016 that he does not deserve a second chance.

The United States was founded on the premise that everyone is created equal and that we all have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The president should embody these values; Donald Trump does not. It is time his well-meaning supporters acknowledge that and put their values above their politics.

Maria Cardona is a longtime Democratic strategist andwas co-chair of the Democratic National Committee's rules and bylaws committee for the party's 2020 convention. She is aprincipal at Dewey Square Group, a Washington-based political consulting agency, and a CNN/CNN Espaol political commentator.Follow her on Twitter@MariaTCardona.

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When will Trump's supporters see him for who he is? | TheHill - The Hill

THE most sinister aspect of the lockdown in Victoria and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere in Australia and overseas is the corruption of the role of the police in civil society. Well before the pandemic, we had already seen the British police become somewhat akin to the Stasi. Seemingly unconcerned with catching the perpetrators ofthe sexual exploitation of young girls in Rotherham,to cite but one example, they have been zealously trawling the internet to catch those expressing politically incorrect opinions, following up with intrusive visits and arrests. It seems astonishing that mainstream politicians, including Conservatives, and an acquiescentmedia have scarcely deigned to notice the attack on the foundations of a free society.

With the role of the police already compromised, Boris Johnsons purportedly Conservative government was happy to unleash a police state on its subjects when the coronavirus arrived. Truly, governments in Britain and here now see themselves as the masters, not the servants, of the people. The totalitarians of yesteryear would commend our notionally democratic governments for making progress in the right direction.

But, I hear you cry, didnt we win the Cold War against the Soviet Empire? I seem to hear a low chuckle from the totalitarian Left.

And so to Victoria to witness Premier Daniel Andrews, leader of his partys social Left faction and lord and master of his domain, happy to sign up to theChinese Communist PartysBelt and Road initiative and a new world order, led by the paramount leader for life Xi Jinping. Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, if Wuhan could be ruthlessly locked down by edict of the CCP, why not lock down the put-upon subjects of Melbourne? If Premier Andrews has not yet ordered that the doors of troublesome citizens be welded shut it is only because he has been too busy inflicting other manifestations of authoritarian asininity on his subjects.

Victorian Police are now Daniel Andrewss goons. The members of the force are no longer citizens in blue, pledged to protect fellow citizens from the bad guys. Instead, they enforce restrictions and a mindless curfew not mandated by any professional concern about health. We have seen the chief health officer, Dr Brett Sutton, deny that he recommended such a drastic assault on personal freedom. Premier Andrews has likewise denied being responsible for making it illegal to leave ones home after 8pm. In Victoria, traditional freedoms are stripped on the orders of no one, apparently. One doesnt need to be in the terminal stages of clinical paranoia to mull the unhappy explanation that the pandemic is providing cover for a far Left attack on our civil society.

We have witnessedthe spectacle of a young and pregnant mother being handcuffed in her own home,another internet protester having his front door bashed in by heavily armed police, an elderly woman sitting quietly on a park bench with her companion being accosted by a police posse (one of whom snatches her companions phone), and the spectacle of a journalist from Rebel Media, (good heavens, what a dangerous individual!) being crash-tackled by a gaggle of just-following-orders goons that brought to mind First Beast Napoleon setting the dogs onAnimal Farms dissenters. As in Orwells classic, blatant inconsistency must be ignored, as in the video below which contrasts Premier Andrews rationalisation for not proceeding against Black Lives Matters demonstrators with Deputy Commissioner Luke Cornelius vowing that anti-lockdown demonstrators will be given no quarter.

Can we not see the terrible danger to the future of our democracy? We need a strong police force, but that strength, that moral authority, can be tapped only by operating within the confines of a liberal democracy. The defund the police movement in the US, spurred on by the far-Left fringe of the Democratic Party and led by Antifa and Black Lives Matter (BLM), threatens to plunge large parts of urban America into a murderous and anarchic abyss. Does any sane person want this?

The terrible danger is that the police, especially in Victoria, will be delegitimised in the eyes of ordinarily law-abiding citizens. Below, another scene from the state where, 120 years ago, the very first Parliament was convened. Once again, the officer known derisively by rank-and-file cops as Planet Cornelius provides a dictionary illustration of political policing.

Indeed, the police will become the enemy of the people the longer this lockdown continues. Being branded as batshit crazy for expressing concern that a once-great state is led by a liar and policed by brass-encrusted apparatchiks is hardly likely to restore confidence in a force that fell on its face after framing a cardinal and, as the Lawyer X Royal Commission has uncovered, debased the law by activating a lawyer against the best interests of her clients. (If there is reason to see any improvement in Victoria at the moment it is in Assistant Commissioner Corneliuss memory and command of language, which has lifted markedly since his three turns earlier this year in the royal commissions witness box, where I dont recall wasa much-heardresponseto questioning.)

Meanwhile, as Victoria accelerates down a Himalayan gradient to economic ruin, a man is arrested for being a guest on his neighbours front lawn.

In a Melbourne park on a sunny day, two elderly ladies are surrounded by police, one of whom sleazes about behind the duo to grab one of the seniors phones which is then examined, presumably for evidence of geriatric hooliganism.

In his home, an Andrews critic has his door stoved in.

Civil disobedience and civil disorder could become the order of the day, with dire consequences. We dont want this to happen, just as we dont want to see another heavily pregnant woman being harassed in a park for the crime of sitting down to catch her breath.

This is the final opportunity for Daniel Andrews and his minions to change their ways. If common decency is beyond them, perhaps mere common sense will be enough.

There are many things that a half-decent Liberal Opposition should commit itself to. Not least is the restoration of civil society and the bedrock principle that government is the servant of the people, not their master.

An essential element in any roadmap a popular word these days charting the return to decency must be a purge and cleansing of Victoria Police.

This article was first published on the Australian website Quadrant on September 12, 2020,and is republished by kind permission.

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Police goons are the bad guys now - The Conservative Woman