One of my loyal readers, Tony, sent through an article he received on the “grapevine”. This monkey was impressed by its down to earth common sense, and I reproduce it below, with some expletives deleted. Perhaps you will pull out of the nosedive you are currently in. I hope so for the sake of my zoo! This is quite a long article but well worth the read.

Gibber! Gibber!

Chugley

The Patriot Chimp

Tom Marland – food for thought and thought for food

 

“Our tomorrow started yesterday”

Once the remnants of Covid-19 slowly scatter, 2020 will always be known as the year of the China virus.

It’s not surprising that a country like Taiwan – an arch annoyance for China – managed to survive the plague virtually unscathed.

How does a country with 23 million people, 180 kilometres away from the mainland of China, jammed onto an island half the size of Tasmania get through with only 450 infections and 7 deaths?

The simple answer is the Taiwanese aren’t afraid of shutting down trade and access with China.

They have belief in their own systems and own nation whilst others flee from theirs.

Covid-19 aside – the world has been affected by the China virus for years.

The huge economic growth of a nation with 1/5 of the world’s population and their insatiable requirement for natural resources and their phenomenal output of cheap plastic rubbish – like $40 colour printers – has conned us all.

But we are all part of the spread.

We have shut down our manufacturing industries on the basis that we can buy it cheaper and nastier from overseas.

Countries like Australia, blessed with heaps of barren dirt filled with iron ore and coal have shirked the process of actually doing anything with it -other than putting it on large boats and selling it to China, then buying the proceeds back with a 10,000% mark up.

It’s made a few people very rich.

The masses are appeased with cheap trinkets imported from mass overseas sweat shops all fueled by our undervalued and under priced inheritance.

Don’t dare ask the question of where the China virus actually came from – for fear of economic retribution.

Just ask the beef exporters who have recently had a billion dollar export market shut down on a whim.

The brutal reality for us all is this – we now need China more than they need us.

Right wing ineffectual political nobodies will hark anti-China sentiment. That gets them some attention and some cheap votes but doesn’t solve the problem.

The solution is unravelling 50 years of government policy that has told us we don’t have to work hard if we can hitch a ride on the growth of China.

We are now just a small pimple on their very large back. Don’t complain when we get squeezed.

But Covid-19 might actually be a blessing in disguise.

We might actually work out who our true friends really are.

We might actually realise that the great China dream is nothing but a slow, unrelenting and unforgiving nightmare.

We will awake in cold sweats, in our cheap Chinese manufactured sheets and doona covers, and ask – what have we done?

The cold hard truth we must all contemplate, as we drink our coffee from a Chinese made mug filled from a Chinese made coffee machine, is – how do we fix this situation, and how much cheap worthless stuff can we go without to solve the problem?

If I hear one more moron say, “We will just stop selling them food,” I’ll start swearing in Cantonese.

If you think China, or more accurately the Communist party of China, isn’t willing to let a few million people starve or survive on cats and bats, to make a political and economic point – you are delusional.

We have focused trade negations with China because it’s an easy target.

We have bypassed smaller yet more accessible markets in South-East Asia because we have been infected with the China virus of the: “Get big or get out!” mantra.

But Australia loves a good sugar hit without having to actually do the hard work to build the hive.

We defer our own ingenuity and know-how to someone we think is bigger and better than us.

No amount of political crow calls for national sovereignty will last until we all bite the bullet and realise we need to lift our game – the extraction will be slow and painful.

We have become a society that has forgotten, actually never known, what it’s like to go without.

We think a slow Netflix connection is an affront.

We think the money that our government hands out for “free” came from someone else.

We think that we are entitled to live life without actually having to work for it.

We take without caring who gives.

We complain without willing to sacrifice.

We have forgotten the hard fought principles that our forebears made the ultimate sacrifice for – help your mate, self-sacrifice and common pursuit.

The China virus isn’t the problem – it’s our own weakness that allows us to be infected.

There is no vaccine.

We need to rebuild our immunity.

We need to rebuild our community.

We need to stop leaning on the pillars of our society and start standing up for those pillars that support us all.

There must become a day when all our false beliefs and false securities are revealed.

There must come a day when we value more that what we grow not just that which we can harvest.

There must come a day when we decide that giving is more important than receiving, that making is more important than taking and sharing is more important than what we can individually retain.

There must come a day when we as a people are larger than us as a person.

There must come a day when our common pursuit is larger than individual gain.

That day must be today.

Otherwise our tomorrow will just be like the one we endured yesterday.

China is not the problem.

Our blind reliance on China is.

We need to remember what makes this country strong – ingenuity, creativity and taking care of our mates – against all odds.