The Lord works in mysterious ways his miracles to perform. So I'm told. I've never researched the source material and in the interests of full disclosure, I don't give a fuck. But I do wonder how Brother Scotty Morrison rationalises his Sky Guy's purpose in the creation and deployment of this latest virus .
A bigger question of course is the divine purpose for all previous pandemics. The Black Death for instance where the omnipotent creator of the universe and all the viruses contained therein decided that several million of his most precious creations should perish in a pestilential apocolypse. If the intent was to free the victims from their dreary, earthly lives with an early pass to the celestial first class lounge then OK, but what's with the festering boils, pustules and rotting gums? Surely that's unnecessary and a bit off-putting to the others who were already browsing the heavenly buffet - the stench of suppurating bowels would overpower the piquancy of the mustard and aoli dressing on the lamb rack in the Jospeh & Mary Carvery.
Why the gratuitous cruelty? Very puzzling. If there is a Big Guy then he shares some uncomfortable traits with domestic abusers - "look what you made me do!"
BroSco and the brethren from the Church of the Holy Profit & Yacht Club seem cool with this - even joining in with a slipper to the nuts of any down & outer whose fraught circumstances are simply a result of their own lack of righteousness. Scotty and the chosen ones do, however, have the sense to manage the risk of hanging out with their ethereal CEO with anger management issues - by paying protection money.
This tithing business (and i do mean buiness) may be paying off for BroSco. Ten percent of the PM's salary is more than 50 large p.a. (pre-tax). Scooter, up to his arse in rorting alligators, may believe that such contributions entitle him to an early, pre-Rapture return on his investment, i.e. ASAP.
And lo, another miracle.
Mr 38%, the creepy uncle forcing handshakes on the unwilling, has shot up to Mr 68% according to Newspoll. It seems the country is relieved that SchMo didn't entirely fuck up this time. I suspect expectations were low and people dreaded the prospect of a smarmy twat mugging to the cameras while pointing at maps, so by not being SchMo, SchMo's ratings went up.
Does he perhaps see the mysterious workings of his deity in all of this? A god-given opportunity to redeem his image from that of an opportunistic grub, a man devoid of integrity whose talents have proven to be elusive beyond political assassination and pissing his trousers, now supposedly morphed into a bloke you might consider buying a Mr Whippy from (but still check the change).
Morrison may not suffer from the malignant narcissism of his covfefe confrere from Mar a Lago but he's the same solopsist he always was, a believer in devine intervention that won an election for him. He's said as much. If his god was prepared to engineer his return to office despite his misappropriation of $100M in sports rorts, his rent-an-MP business model and the racketeering infesting his party is he going to be inclined to change? Is he really handing out ice creams?
What we have is a scorpion and frog scenario (hint: we're the frog). Morrison cannot resist his inclinations - with him on our backs we won't reach the other side. He'll try to sneak through his neo-liberal agenda under the cover of Covid, and yet again, an opportunity will be lost to zombi Tory ideology.
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In his panic as the virus took a hold because of his initial apathy ScoBro floated the notion of herd immunity. But figuratively throwing grannie down the laundry chute as the Tory economy-first knee jerk response was not embraced beyond the typing monkeys of the IPA and Murdoch's rabid eugenisists so a longer game is called for.
He's already teed off with pending legislation to further erode workers' rights, flagging the slashing of "red tape" to let loose the environmental vandals and tax breaks to non-tax paying corporations - all so predictable and all so self-defeating; a return to a "normal" that collapsed when faced with a stress test. When the next virus hits, perhaps just as virulent but more deadly, when the climate fights back even harder we will all be truly fucked. Despite Orange Donny's advice, sticking a bug-zapper up your arse and sucking on your washing machine's drain hose will be of no use, nor will Scotty's god be getting us to the other side.
Tories stand by their convictions. Stupid, ignorant, world-destroying convictions based on disproven economic fantasies and ancient books full of primitive morality and magic people. But convictions, nonetheless. Paraphrasing Bill Maher