One of the best ways to do that is by making adversaries believe they are not regarded as adversaries at all.
Addressing problems associated with adversaries, and other forms of adversity, can sometimes be achieve by spending large amounts of money on advertising and other forms of propaganda.
Another, much more effective method, is by duping adversaries into believing they are allies.
The Australian Political Reform Club is a highly sophisticated and suitably democratic organisation. That is evident as a consequence of the fact that the club spends no money whatsoever on advertising and other propaganda.
If you are seeking to become a member of the club, how do you currently define adversary and adversity, particularly in relation to politics and its reform in the Australian context?
Australia currently has an adversarial legal system and an advertising-based political system.
Australia occasionally has an opposition-based parliamentary system.
Even so, there are many occasions upon which Australian politicians, from any of the domineering, advertising-based parties, agree with one another, even at the expense of the public.
Indeed, politics in Australia is often at the expense of the public, directly and indirectly.
Political reporting through the Australian media has often highlighted adversarial posturing and ignored the truth about political advertising.
Reporting upon democracy as though it is an adversarial political stance has never been in the public interest.
Such reporting has, instead, turned public perceptions of democracy away from sensible discussions about various policy options. It has turned politics into a drama.
That contemptuous narrative has contributed to considerable mental health problems in Australian society.
Improving Australian political journalism has so far proved fruitless. The public is not interested in supporting quality journalism directly, whether financially or otherwise.
Whether you currently regard yourself as a journalist, a politician, a political reformer, a policy analyst, a public interest advocate, a public prosecutor, or as an adversary of anti-democratic persons and entities, had do you know who is trustworthy and who is not?
Everything about the Australian Political Reform Club is associated with the assessment of trustworthiness.
You are welcome to begin the self-assessment process as soon as possible.
Perhaps you do not trust yourself at present.
Perhaps you are an adversary towards yourself.
All members of the club are expected to behave like real world leaders, not adversaries.
When journalists report differences of opinion as though they are analogous to physical attacks upon a person and/or society, how do you respond?
How do you respond to all inappropriately aggressive analogies?
What is political pleasantness in the context of democracy?
When do you regard adversaries as enemies, and why?
How do you prefer to assess values, particularly in terms of necessary ethics?
How do you assess the political influence of bad journalism?
How do you assess the political influence of money, or at least access to money?
How do you assess the political influence of your rivals and your allies?
If you are seeking to achieve an alliance with and/or within the Australian Political Reform Club, what are your reasons for doing so, and what are your intentions in relation to those reasons?
How have you assessed the basis of your ideology, if you have one?
If yu do not have an ideology, what is the basis of your political reasoning?
How do you assess your own biases?
How do you acknowledge gaps in your knowledge, and in your memory?
If you usually regard people with differing opinions to your own as though those people are your opponents, and possibly even your rivals and/or antagonists and/or enemies, why do you do so?
Perhaps you regard yourself as a hero and/or protagonist rather than as a leader.
Perhaps your idea of political leadership is associated with dictatorial attitudes and grandiose expectations.
Perhaps you do not regard differing opinions are opportunities through which to learn to improve your own thinking, and your communication skills.
Perhaps you experience paranoia when feeling threatened, even when the perceived threat is merely a reasonable point of view.
All members of the Australian Political Reform Club are highly skilled in the art and science of strategic management. They know that political dissent is perfectly reasonable whenever incompetent persons are in positions of leadership.
Of course, good leadership is only one aspect of good management.
Only competent leaders are permitted to become members of the Australian Political Reform Club.
How do you usually assess the qualities of your leadership?
How do you usually assess your other management abilities?
How do you usually assess the purpose of parliamentary opposition?
How do you usually assess the purpose of any sort of political opposition?
How do you know when someone is a charlatan or otherwise deceptive?
How averse are you to untrustworthy persons, and from whose point of view?
What do you believe to be the point of view of the public interest?
How do you know when a point of view is adverse to the public interest?
How do you know when an opposing point of view is reasonable and therefore legitimacy?
Perhaps you do not always regard political legitimacy in terms of reasonableness.
Perhaps you regard all people, groups and organisations you regard as your opponents as though they are evil, however reasonable their points of view may be from an objective perspective.
How do you assess the quality of attempted objectivity?
Trust is absent in any adversarial situation, including within groups and organisations.
Who do you currently trust, and why?
Perhaps you only trust people if their beliefs, tastes, values and opinions apparently match your own.
Yet charlatans often pretend they are compatible with other people. They do so for ulterior motives, not intrinsic reasons.
As all power corrupts, how do you attempt to prevent yourself from having too much of it?
And how do you prevent other people from having too much power, and too little?
The primary goal of the Australian Political Reform Club is to help you make the world a much better place than it would be without you, regardless of your current abilities as a leader and manager.
How have you already attempted to improve various organisations if not by improving the self-awareness of people within those organisations?
What have been your prior experiences of pitting reformers against charlatans in the public sphere, and in various organisations, and in relatively private circumstances?
How peaceful or confrontational is your usual approach to that important task?
How do you usually attempt to manage disagreements and conflicts?
How do you know when a disagreement is being ignored or denied rather than understood and addressed?
The Australian Political Reform Club delights in receiving counterarguments to its proposals.
Yet no-one has so far presented a satisfactory reason as to why the club should not exist.
Even so, very few eligible persons have sought to join the club.
Any club may exist only in name if it does not exist mainly through the activities and achievements of its members, with or without the existence of physical and legal structures.
What are you seeking from the Australian Political Reform Club, and why?
And what are you offering in return?
What do you know about political disasters and political diamonds?
The lack of political reform in Australia is disastrous not only for Australian democracy but for democracy everywhere.
Whenever democracy is weakened in one part of the world, it is weakened in the entire world.
How much do you value democracy, and how do you define that democracy?
There are many obligations on members of the Australian Political Reform Club, particularly regarding the ethical expression of peace and the ethical expression of power.
If you remain a non-member of the club, even if eligible to join, you will initially be regarded as an adversary of the club until evidence to the contrary becomes available.
How have your contributions to political reform processes in the past informed your current approach towards preparing for elections?
All activities officially associated with the club are immensely peaceful.
That is probably why those activities have been ignored by the Australian media, and by the international media, and by persons in various parts of the world, including Australia, with an antagonistic attitude towards democracy.
How do you intend to be involved in raising funds for the club and its various activities over the next few days and weeks, and for which purposes?
How much are you willing to pay towards experiencing the assessment processes associated with becoming eligible for one type of membership or another?
How do you prefer to assess political links, and for what purpose?
How do you know whether a link is political or not?
Please be aware that the Australian Political Reform Club is not the Bullingdon, of anything like it.
Nor is the Australian Political Reform Club a bank or any other type of financial institution.
Club members, and prospective members, are expected to provide enlightened patronage towards the improvement of democracy.
Club members, and prospective members, are also expected to provide political philanthropy of the highest quality wherever and whenever necessary, within reason.
How do you support public interest journalism through your memberships, your patronages, and your philanthropy?
How are you practicing the enlightened being of political kindness?
How do you locate very necessary news?
How does your questioning of people help you to manage their adversarial attitudes without being manipulative or otherwise abusive?
How do you attempt to understand such attitudes if not in terms of perceived threats and perceived entitlements?
