How Australia Abandoned Community Policing for a Militarised Model That Pits Police Against Citizens

Posted on March 30, 2026 by Andrew Klein

The Lost Opportunities for Building Safer Communities

By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to the lost opportunities for building safer communities

I. The Model That Worked

I spent some years as a member of the Victoria Police. I remember what community policing was. It was not a slogan. It was not a budget line. It was a philosophy—the belief that police effectiveness was measured not by arrests, not by force deployed, but by the absence of crime. By the trust between officers and the communities they served.

Constables walked beats. They knew the shopkeepers. They knew the families. They knew which kid was likely to get into trouble and which house was likely to need help. They were part of the neighbourhood, not an occupying force.

That model worked. It was built on principles that go back to Sir Robert Peel, the founder of modern policing, who said: “The police are the public and the public are the police.” Peel understood that the legitimacy of law enforcement rests on public consent. When that consent is withdrawn, policing becomes something else entirely—something closer to occupation.

Australia has abandoned that model. And we are paying the price.

II. The Shift: From Community to Control

The shift began in the 1980s. You felt it. I felt it. The language changed. The uniforms changed. The mission changed.

In 1986, as the Australian Federal Police was being restructured, the focus was already shifting toward counter-terrorism, fraud, and “sophisticated crime”. The community-oriented model that had defined Australian policing for generations was quietly being replaced by something more centralised, more militarised, more distant.

By 2009, a parliamentary statement lamented that “successive state Labor governments who were not committed to programs such as Neighbourhood Watch tended to favour centralised police bureaucracies—centralised local area commands—over local stations. Over time, of course, we have seen a dying of the traditional policing model and the involvement and integration of the community with policing across our major metropolitan cities”.

The academic literature confirms this shift. A 2020 analysis concluded that “the reform agenda was largely unsuccessful, and 21st century policing remains locked into an offender-focused crime containment model of practice” . The model that measured success by community safety was replaced by a model that measures success by crime containment—a fundamentally different mission with fundamentally different outcomes.

III. The Militarisation of Australian Police

The abandonment of community policing has been accompanied by a dramatic militarisation of police forces across Australia. This is not an accident. It is a policy choice.

Queensland has led the way under the Crisafulli LNP government, elected on a “law and order” agenda. The 2025-26 State Budget allocated $147.9 million for police equipment, including:

· $41.5 million for replacement body cameras

· $47.7 million for 6,546 Taser 10s

· $29.9 million for Integrated Load-Bearing Vests with ballistic plates

· $5.6 million for tactical first-aid kits

· $4.6 million for 1,623 tyre-deflation devices

Premier Crisafulli announced this funding as part of “restoring safety where you live and supporting our police on the frontline.” The language is military: frontline. Tactical. Ballistic. This is not the language of community policing. It is the language of occupation.

New South Wales has followed a similar path. Police there are now equipped and trained for “counter-terrorism” operations, with tactics that treat whole communities as potential threats . The internal review conducted by NSW Police in 2024 found that officers attending mental health incidents are often “an escalating factor” . Police themselves admit they are not equipped for the calls they receive. But the equipment budget continues to grow.

IV. The Cost: Violence, Alienation, and Death

The shift to a militarised model has produced predictable results. When police are trained to see citizens as potential threats, when they are equipped with ballistic vests and Tasers and tactical gear, when they are measured by “crime containment” rather than community trust—violence follows.

Clare Nowland, 95 years old, with dementia, was tasered and killed by NSW police after her nursing home called for help managing her behaviour. She was using a walking frame. She was holding a steak knife. She was a frail elderly woman in need of care. Police responded with lethal force.

Steve Pampalian, described as a “gentle soul”, was shot in his driveway while suffering a psychotic episode.

Jesse Deacon was shot by police after a concerned neighbour called triple zero when seeing Jesse had self-harmed.

Krista Kach died after officers forced their way into her apartment following a nine-hour standoff and shot her with beanbag rounds. Her family said: “The only person in danger when the police broke into our mother’s home was our mother”.

In 2025, NSW police officers pleaded guilty to assaulting, capsicum spraying and kicking a naked, mentally unwell 48-year-old woman in Western Sydney. The officers taunted her and bragged about the assault to their friends .

These are not isolated incidents. They are the inevitable outcome of a model that treats mental health crises as law enforcement problems, that equips police for combat and sends them to do the work of social workers, that measures success by arrests rather than by lives saved.

V. The Cost to Police

The militarised model is not only destroying community trust. It is destroying police.

Carrying heavy equipment—ballistic vests, tactical gear, Tasers, radios—causes chronic back injuries. The mental health toll is even greater. Police officers are being sent to calls they are not trained to handle, facing situations that would challenge trained mental health professionals, and being told that their job is to “contain” rather than to “care.”

The NSW Police internal review found that mental health incidents are attended or recorded every nine minutes, and that this has increased each year since 2018 . Police are being asked to do what social workers, mental health nurses, and community crisis teams should be doing. They are burning out. They are being injured. And the communities they serve are paying the price.

VI. The Breakdown of Accountability

One of the most disturbing features of the new policing model is the erosion of accountability. Try to contact a senior police officer in any state today. Their email addresses are not public. Their phone numbers are not listed. The chain of command that once connected citizens to their police force has been replaced by a wall of silence.

In Victoria, the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) exists to investigate police misconduct, but the process is opaque, slow, and often inaccessible to ordinary citizens . In other states, accountability mechanisms are even weaker.

This is not an accident. When police are trained to see citizens as threats, when they are equipped for combat, when they are accountable only to their own command structures—they stop being accountable to the communities they are supposed to serve.

VII. The Criminalisation of Speech

The abandonment of community policing has been accompanied by an alarming expansion of police powers to regulate political speech. Nowhere is this clearer than in the criminalisation of pro-Palestinian slogans.

In March 2026, Queensland police raided Dorothy Day House, a Catholic charity providing food and housing to homeless people and refugees, over a banner that said: “From the River to the Sea, come get us Crisafulli”.

The banner was a protest against new Queensland laws criminalising the use of the terms “From the River to the Sea” and “Globalise the Intifada.” The police search warrant stated that the banner “might reasonably be expected to cause a member of the public to feel menaced, harassed, or offended”.

Police seized the banner and digital devices belonging to residents. They informed residents that people who shared a photo of the banner on social media could also be in breach of the law .

This is not policing. This is political censorship. It is the use of police power to suppress dissent, to criminalise political expression, to enforce ideological conformity. And it is happening under laws passed by the same politicians who have been dismantling community policing for decades.

VIII. The Imported Doctrine: Israeli Training and Its Consequences

The militarisation of Australian police has been accelerated by the importation of training and doctrine from Israel and the United States. This is not speculation. It is documented.

In 2017, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced that Australian police, paramedics, firefighters and defence personnel would travel to Israel to learn new methods of “protecting buildings, carrying out surveillance and using biometrics” . The initiative was explicitly framed as drawing on Israel’s “vast experience in keeping people safe in public areas.”

In January 2026, following the Bondi Beach terror attack, Israel’s Minister for Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli formally offered to host and train senior Australian police officers in Israel. The offer was made to the Albanese government.

Human rights organisations have expressed deep concerns about these programs. The Israeli policing model, as one Australian commentator observed, is “built on force, control, and sweeping emergency powers” and delivers “short-term tactical dominance, not long-term stability” . It normalises tactics that treat whole communities as suspects: “Arbitrary detention, collective punishment, brute and blunt force. Population control. High rates of civilian harm. Little accountability” .

This is not the model of policing that Sir Robert Peel envisioned. It is not the model that Australia built. It is the model of occupation, not consent. And it is being imported, program by program, into Australian police forces.

IX. The Politicians Who Made These Choices

This shift did not happen by accident. It was driven by politicians who chose centralisation over community, force over consent, military equipment over human connection.

The Fraser Government (Liberal) established the Australian Federal Police in 1979, beginning the process of centralisation.

The Hawke Government (Labor) expanded federal police powers and oversight, laying the groundwork for the counter-terrorism focus that would dominate policing in the 21st century .

The Turnbull Government (Liberal) signed the agreement with Israel to train Australian police in “counter-terrorism” methods, opening the door to the importation of Israeli doctrine .

The Berejiklian and Perrottet Governments (Liberal, NSW) presided over the expansion of police powers and the erosion of accountability mechanisms in that state.

The Minns Government (Labor, NSW) has continued these policies, failing to implement recommendations from a Greens-led inquiry into mental health and policing .

The Crisafulli Government (LNP, Queensland) has made militarisation a centrepiece of its agenda, with $147.9 million for tactical equipment and new laws criminalising political speech .

The Albanese Government (Labor, federal) is currently considering the Israeli offer to train Australian police, has introduced new hate speech laws that criminalise political expression, and is reportedly proceeding with plans for “political training” in universities that would mandate pro-Israel ideology.

These politicians come from different parties. They govern different states. But they have all contributed to the same outcome: the abandonment of community policing and the rise of a militarised, centralised, unaccountable police force that treats citizens as threats rather than as neighbours.

X. The Alternative: What We Could Have Built

There is another way. We know it works because we have seen it.

In Anindilyakwa (Groote Eylandt in the Northern Territory) , the Peacemaker program—where community mediators solve problems through negotiation rather than calling police—has seen offending drop by about 88% since 2019.

In Fitzroy Crossing, Western Australia, the Night Place—open seven nights a week—has given hundreds of local kids a hot meal and a safe place to go after dark, employing more than 20 local Indigenous staff since it opened in September 2024. Youth crime has fallen significantly over that time.

In the United States, there are hundreds of community crisis-care groups across more than 130 municipalities implementing non-police, unarmed emergency responses. The Community Crisis Response Team in Long Beach, California, handles mental health distress, suicidal ideation and intoxication with a three-person team of a mental health professional, public health nurse and peer navigator.

These programs work because they separate public health from law enforcement. They treat mental health crises as health issues, not crime issues. They build trust rather than fear. They measure success by lives saved, not by arrests made.

We could have built this in Australia. We had the model. We had the tradition. We had the expertise. Instead, we chose to import Israeli counter-terrorism doctrine, to equip police for combat, to criminalise political speech, to treat citizens as threats.

XI. A Direct Threat to Democracy

The shift from community policing to a militarised model is not just a policy failure. It is a direct threat to democracy.

When police are trained to treat citizens as potential threats, when they are equipped with military-grade weapons and tactical gear, when they are accountable only to their own command structures, when they are used to suppress political speech—they cease to be the “public police” that Peel envisioned. They become something else. Something that serves power rather than community. Something that protects the state rather than the citizen.

The philosopher Michel Foucault called this “the police state”—not a state where police are everywhere, but a state where the function of policing is no longer to serve the public but to control the public. That is the direction Australia has been moving for four decades. And it is accelerating.

XII. A Question for the Politicians

You who abandoned community policing. You who imported military doctrine from Israel. You who equipped police for combat and sent them to do the work of social workers. You who criminalised political speech and raided charities for displaying banners. You who made yourselves unreachable, unaccountable, untouchable.

What did you expect would happen?

Did you expect that treating citizens as threats would make them safer? That replacing trust with force would reduce crime? That sending police with Tasers and ballistic vests to respond to mental health crises would prevent deaths?

The evidence was there. The alternatives were available. The model that worked—community policing—was not broken. You chose to break it.

And now, Australians are paying the price. In violence. In alienation. In deaths that should never have happened. In a police force that no longer serves the community because it no longer knows the community.

XIII. What Must Be Done

1. Restore community policing. The model that measured police effectiveness by the absence of crime, by community trust, by integration with neighbourhoods—that model can be rebuilt. It will require political courage. It will require abandoning the “law and order” rhetoric that has driven four decades of militarisation. But it can be done.

2. End the importation of Israeli police training. Until a full inquiry is completed, no Australian police should receive training from Israeli forces or from American forces trained by Israel. The doctrine that treats citizens as threats has no place in Australian policing.

3. Divert mental health calls to trained professionals. The evidence is overwhelming: police are not equipped to handle mental health crises. We need alternative first responder programs staffed by mental health professionals, social workers, and community mediators. We need to separate public health from law enforcement.

4. Restore accountability. Police commanders must be reachable. Their contact details must be public. The chain of command must connect citizens to their police force, not hide behind bureaucratic walls.

5. Repeal laws that criminalise political speech. The Queensland laws criminalising “From the River to the Sea” are an attack on free speech. They must be repealed. Police should not be used to enforce ideological conformity.

6. Measure what matters. Stop measuring police effectiveness by arrests, by “crime containment,” by the number of tactical operations conducted. Measure it by community trust. By the absence of crime. By the safety of the most vulnerable. By the lives saved.

XIV. The Lost Opportunities

We had opportunities. After the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, we had a chance to rebuild. After the mental health inquiries, the coronial inquests, the internal police reviews that admitted officers were “an escalating factor” in mental health callouts—we had chances.

Each time, the politicians chose the easy path. More equipment. More force. More centralisation. More “law and order” rhetoric. Each time, they chose the path that served their political interests rather than the safety of the community.

The opportunities are lost. But new opportunities can be created. The model is not gone. The tradition is not dead. There are police officers today who remember what community policing was. There are communities that still believe in the promise of policing by consent. There are alternatives that work, if politicians have the courage to implement them.

XV. A Promise

I was part of community policing once. I remember what it was like to walk a beat, to know the shopkeepers, to be trusted by the families. I remember what it was like to be part of a neighbourhood, not an occupying force.

That model was not perfect. There were problems. There was racism. There was violence. But it was ours. It was built on Australian principles, on the traditions of Peel, on the belief that police are the public and the public are the police.

We abandoned it. We replaced it with something else—something imported, something militarised, something that treats citizens as threats rather than as neighbours.

I have spent my life watching the wire being cut—or not cut. Watching young men and women sent over by leaders who do not walk the ground. Watching the pattern repeat. The pattern of power that demands sacrifice from the many to protect the profits of the few.

The wire is not cut. It has never been cut. But it can be. Not by force. By truth. By the refusal to let the pattern continue. By the insistence that police exist to serve communities, not to control them. By the memory of what we had and the determination to build it again.

Dedicated to the lost opportunities for building safer communities. May we not lose the opportunities that remain.

Sources:

· ABC News, “Dorothy Day House raided by police over ‘From the River to the Sea’ banner,” March 20, 2026

· The Guardian, “In their darkest moments, too many Australians are being met with lethal force instead of love and care,” November 4, 2025

· PS News, “Queensland police set for Budget boost towards Tasers, tactical vests,” June 24, 2025

· Victoria Police, “Options Guide for Victim Survivors: Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC)”

· Facebook/Ray Martin, “The Israeli ‘offer to assist’ Australia in counter terror training for police,” January 21, 2026

· Victoria University Research Repository, Killey, I.D., “Police and the Executive” (PhD thesis), 2017

· Parliament of Australia, Hansard, “Australian Federal Police Amendment Bill 1986,” March 12, 1986

· Café Pacific / Michael West Media, “Labor’s march to authoritarianism,” February 18, 2026

· Australian Greens, “Horrific crimes by police against naked, mentally unwell woman,” July 10, 2025

· ACT Policing, Annual Report 2024-25

Andrew Klein

March 30, 2026

THE PETRI DISH AT THE GATES OF EUROPE: How Gaza’s Environmental Collapse is Breeding the Next Pandemic—and Why the West is Blind to It

Posted on March 3, 2026 by Andrew Klein

By Andrew von Scheer-Klein

Published in The Patrician’s Watch

Introduction: A Statement, a Warning, a Countdown

On 2 March 2026, the Embassy of the State of Palestine to Ireland issued a formal statement. It documented something that should have been front-page news in every capital of the Western world:

“Israel uses lands belonging to the State of Palestine as dumping grounds for hazardous waste from over 50 sites. This exposes our people to dangerous substances such as depleted uranium, white phosphorus, and other toxic waste… This catastrophe is not only an environmental crisis but also a deliberate, multi-dimensional crime that violates Palestinian rights.”

The statement detailed violations of the Basel Convention, the Fourth Geneva Convention, and Palestinian environmental law. It spoke of “weak and ineffective” enforcement mechanisms—diplomatic language for “no one will do anything.”

But buried beneath the legal language is something far more urgent. Something that affects not just Palestinians, but every person on this planet.

Gaza has become a petri dish. Not metaphorically. Literally. Every condition required for the emergence and spread of novel pathogens is now present. And while the world argues about blame, the virus is evolving.

This article examines the evidence. It documents the environmental catastrophe. It traces the disease pathways already active. It assesses the likelihood of a global outbreak. And it asks the question no Australian politician wants answered: when the virus arrives—and it will arrive—will we be ready?

Part I: The Breeding Ground—What the Evidence Shows

The Scale of Waste

Gaza is drowning in its own refuse. The numbers are staggering:

· Approximately 700,000 tons of solid waste accumulated across the territory

· The Firas Market area in Gaza City alone contains 350,000 cubic meters of waste requiring six months just to relocate

· Over 50 informal dumpsites have emerged because access to main landfills is blocked

· One major dump sits just 200 meters from Al-Ahli (Baptist) Hospital

These are not contained landfills with protective liners. They are unlined sites where leachate—the toxic liquid produced by decomposing waste—seeps directly into Gaza’s already fragile groundwater aquifer .

Dr. Abdul Fattah Abed Rabbo, an environmental expert at the Islamic University in Gaza, warns that “no protective barrier underneath” exists to prevent contamination . This means every rainfall flushes pathogens and toxins into the water supply.

The Toxic Cocktail

The waste is not household garbage. It is laced with the remnants of modern warfare.

The Palestinian statement documented:

· Depleted uranium—radioactive heavy metal that burns into respirable dust on impact

· White phosphorus—chemical weapon that causes horrific burns and contaminates soil

· Industrial chemicals and heavy metals from destroyed factories and military equipment

These materials do not degrade. As toxicologist Mozhgan Savabieasfahani states plainly: “These metals don’t go away. They may get scattered by the wind, but they don’t break down into anything less toxic” .

In Fallujah, Iraq, where identical weapons were used in 2004, the consequences are now undeniable. Researchers found uranium in the bones of nearly a third of residents tested. Lead was present in every single participant—at concentrations 600% higher than comparable US age groups .

What happened in Fallujah is a warning for Gaza. The toxic legacy of war does not end when the shooting stops. It embeds itself in soil, water, and human tissue—and it waits.

The Water Crisis

The leachate from unlined dumps is poisoning Gaza’s only freshwater source. The groundwater aquifer—already depleted and salinized—now faces contamination from:

· Decomposing organic waste carrying bacterial pathogens

· Heavy metals from industrial and military debris

· Chemical compounds that suppress immune function

Dr. Abed Rabbo confirms that “the groundwater reservoir already suffers from chemical, physical, microbial, and biological contamination for various reasons, most notably wars and the accumulation of waste” .

This means the water people drink, the water they wash with, the water that sustains life—is itself a vector for disease.

Part II: The Disease Landscape—Already Active, Already Spreading

While the world focuses on conflict, the health system is collapsing under the weight of preventable disease.

What is Already Documented

Medical sources confirm a “widespread increase in infections” across Gaza . The list reads like a medieval plague text:

· Acute respiratory infections

· Hepatitis A—from contaminated water and poor sanitation

· Diarrheal diseases—more than 25 times pre-October 2023 levels

· Scabies and lice—epidemic proportions in crowded shelters

· Polio—re-emerged after 25 years, with a 10-month-old infant paralyzed

Save the Children warns that “rainwater has mixed with human and animal sewage leading to outbreaks of diseases such as hepatitis, diarrhoea and gastroenteritis” . Children are dying not from bombs, but from conditions that should have been controlled decades ago.

The Threat Emerging Now

In January 2026, Dr. Bassam Zaqout, Director of Medical Relief in Gaza, issued a chilling warning: authorities are monitoring indicators pointing to the potential spread of leptospirosis—an infectious disease transmitted through contact with rat urine .

The conditions are perfect:

· Rodents have proliferated in densely populated displacement camps

· Contaminated rainwater and floodwater mix with rodent waste

· Children play barefoot in these waters

· Open wounds from rubble and debris provide entry points

Samples have been collected and sent abroad for testing because Gaza’s laboratory capacity—like everything else—has been destroyed .

The Immunological Collapse

The danger is not just exposure—it is the inability to fight back.

Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya of Al-Shifa Hospital explains: “The danger lies in the weakened immunity of people in Gaza due to famine, malnutrition, and the lack of necessary vaccinations” .

This is the critical factor that virologists fear. Malnourished populations do not mount effective immune responses. They become not just victims of disease, but amplifiers—shedding higher viral loads for longer periods, creating conditions for mutations, and serving as unwitting factories for novel pathogens.

Public health experts have coined a term for Gaza’s conditions: “wet tent syndrome” —the interrelated effects of immune deficiency, infections, and the inability to recover due to destroyed housing and infrastructure .

Part III: The Toxic Legacy—What Fallujah Teaches Us About Gaza

The weapons documented in Gaza—depleted uranium, white phosphorus, heavy metals—have been used before. The results are now measurable.

Fallujah’s Generational Wound

In the central Iraqi city of Fallujah, the 2004 US assault left behind more than rubble. It left behind a poisoned landscape that continues to claim victims 20 years later .

The data is devastating:

· 12-fold surge in childhood cancers—exceeding rates recorded in Hiroshima after the atomic bombing

· 17-fold rise in birth anomalies

· Sex ratio distorted: 860 boys for every 1,000 girls (normal is 1,050:1,000)—a marker of genetic damage

· Miscarriages rose from 10% to 45% in the two years after 2004

· Researchers called it “the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied” —surpassing Hiroshima

Toxicologist Keith Baverstock, a former WHO adviser, explains that depleted uranium particles “dissolve in the lungs, enter the bloodstream, and can cause cancers like leukemia. The health effects can take decades to appear” .

The Mechanism of Poison

Depleted uranium burns into radioactive dust on impact. In arid climates like Gaza’s, these particles linger on the ground and are resuspended in the air by wind. Children breathe them in. The particles dissolve in lung tissue, enter the bloodstream, and embed in bones—where they continue emitting radiation for decades .

Heavy metals like lead, mercury, chromium, and cadmium—all common in weapons manufacturing—compound the toxic footprint. In Fallujah, researchers found uranium in the bones of nearly a third of participants and lead in every single one .

This is not a distant future for Gaza. This is the present, already unfolding.

The Immune Connection

Here is the critical link to pandemic risk: populations burdened by heavy metal toxicity are immunocompromised. Lead exposure alone is known to suppress immune function, reduce resistance to infection, and increase susceptibility to diseases that healthy bodies would fight off.

A population already weakened by malnutrition, now carrying heavy metal burdens, becomes the ideal medium for pathogen evolution and spread.

Part IV: The Likelihood Assessment—What the Evidence Says

Based on current data, we can make evidence-based projections.

For Novel Viruses: Extremely High

New pathogens emerge when three conditions converge:

1. Stressed populations—malnourished, traumatized, living in overcrowded conditions

2. Contaminated environments—water and soil carrying novel combinations of toxins and microbes

3. Unprecedented selection pressure—conditions that favor mutation and adaptation

Gaza has all three. The “wet tent syndrome” documented by health workers is precisely the environment where novel respiratory pathogens emerge. Each crowded shelter, each shared water source, each untreated infection is an opportunity for evolution.

For Known Pathogens: Already Happening

The diseases listed above are not predictions. They are current reality. Leptospirosis is not a hypothetical threat—it is being actively monitored because the conditions for outbreak are present . Polio returned because vaccination coverage dropped below 90% . Hepatitis and diarrheal diseases are endemic .

The only question is when these localized outbreaks become epidemics, and when epidemics become pandemics.

For Global Spread: Inevitable

Viruses do not respect borders. They travel through:

· Displaced populations—families forced to move multiple times, carrying pathogens with them

· Aid workers and journalists—the only people entering and leaving Gaza, who then return to their home countries

· Undetected carriers—asymptomatic individuals who board flights before symptoms appear

· Fomite transmission—contaminated goods, supplies, and equipment

The claim that “no one is leaving Gaza” is false. Aid workers leave. Journalists leave. Patients evacuated for medical treatment leave. And when they leave, whatever they carry leaves with them.

The WHO has documented that disease “can take decades to appear” from toxic exposure , but infectious disease moves much faster. The respiratory pathogens incubating in Gaza’s crowded shelters will not wait for political solutions.

Part V: The Australian Failure—How We Are Preparing to Fail

The COVID Inquiry Findings

In February 2026, the federal government’s inquiry into Australia’s pandemic response released its findings. The assessment is damning:

“Australia was not adequately prepared for a pandemic. There were existing plans, but these were limited. There was no playbook on what actions to take in a pandemic, no regular testing of symptoms and processes to make clear who would lead parts of the response, and no arrangements on sharing resources and data” .

The report warned that “many of the measures taken during COVID-19 are unlikely to be accepted by the population again” and that “trust has been eroded” . The very social cohesion required for an effective pandemic response has been systematically undermined.

The CDC That Isn’t

The government has committed to establishing an Australian Centre for Disease Control (CDC) with $250 million in funding, expected operational by January 2026 . This is welcome—but it is too little, too late.

Compare that $250 million to:

· $59 billion annual defence spending

· $30 billion for a single AUKUS shipyard

· $219.6 billion for public hospitals (essential, but not pandemic preparedness)

The opportunity cost of militarism is measured in lives. Every dollar spent on submarines is a dollar not spent on surveillance, on stockpiles, on the public health workforce.

The Workforce Crisis

The COVID inquiry warned that “many of the public health professionals and frontline community service and health staff that the Australian community relied upon during the pandemic are no longer in their positions” . The workforce that might have responded to the next pandemic has been exhausted, traumatized, and driven from the profession.

The Social Cohesion Failure

Victoria’s Multicultural Review, released in late 2025, found that “many communities feel under attack, with more incidents of Islamophobia, antisemitism, racism and hate crimes” . The very social trust that research identifies as critical to pandemic response has been deliberately eroded by political opportunism.

A peer-reviewed study published in BMC Public Health found that public trust in politicians, trust in others, equal distribution of resources, and government that cares about the most vulnerable were factors that reduced excess mortality during COVID-19 .

Australia has systematically undermined every one of these factors.

Part VI: The Timing Question—What the Patterns Suggest

Based on known transmission periods and seasonal patterns, the most likely window for significant outbreak emergence is late 2026.

Why This Window?

· Current disease surveillance shows respiratory virus activity at approximately 20% positivity in the northern hemisphere—elevated but not yet critical

· Weather patterns will drive displaced populations through another winter of exposure

· Malnutrition takes months to produce full immunological effect—the famine conditions now will manifest as immune compromise in late 2026

· Viral evolution in crowded conditions requires time to produce novel variants capable of global spread

This is not prediction. This is pattern recognition. The same conditions that produced COVID-19—wet markets, human-animal interface, stressed populations—are present in Gaza, amplified by factors that did not exist in Wuhan.

The Vector Problem

Crucially, the vectors will not be Palestinian refugees. As the statement notes, Palestinians are trapped. They cannot leave.

The vectors will be:

· Aid workers—returning to Europe, North America, Australia after rotations in Gaza

· Journalists—filing reports, then flying home

· UN personnel—rotating staff with global travel patterns

· Medical evacuees—the sickest patients, sent abroad for treatment, carrying whatever they carry

The virus will not come from Gaza. It will come from those who went to Gaza and came back.

Part VII: The Opportunity Cost—What We Sacrifice for War

The Australian government plans to sell up to 67 defence sites, generating $3 billion** in revenue and saving **$100 million annually in maintenance costs . This is framed as efficiency.

But the same government cannot find comparable funding for:

· Disease surveillance systems that could detect emerging threats

· Public health workforce to staff them

· Vaccine manufacturing capacity to respond when detection fails

· Social cohesion programs that build the trust essential for public health compliance

The opportunity cost is measured in lives. Every dollar spent on submarines, on overseas bases, on weapons that will never be used—is a dollar not spent on preparing for the threat that is already emerging.

Part VIII: What We Can Do

Prepare Now

· Stockpile rationally—masks, tests, medications, supplies for 4-6 weeks

· Plan for isolation—space, support, communication

· Strengthen community networks—the neighbors who will check on neighbors

Demand Accountability

· Ask your MP: what is the pandemic plan?

· Monitor the CDC’s progress—will it be ready?

· Track defence spending vs health spending

Watch the Right Signals

The outbreak will not be announced. It will emerge in:

· Wastewater data—if we’re monitoring it

· Emergency department presentations—if we’re tracking them

· Sick leave rates—if employers report them

We must watch these signals ourselves, because government surveillance is focused elsewhere.

Conclusion: The Countdown Has Begun

The Palestinian statement about hazardous waste dumping is not just a legal document. It is a warning—about depleted uranium in the soil, about white phosphorus in the water, about a population being systematically weakened until it becomes a vector.

The diseases are already here. The novel viruses are already evolving. The global spread is already inevitable.

The only question is whether we will be ready.

Australia is not ready. The CDC is not operational. The workforce is exhausted. The social cohesion is fractured. The trust is gone.

And while we spend billions on submarines, the virus is adapting in conditions that virologists call a nightmare.

No one will be able to say they were not warned.

References

1. Xinhua. (2026). Roundup: Gaza City initiates cleanup project to clear path for economic recovery. China.org.cn.

2. Peoples Dispatch. (2026). Researchers warn of “de-healthification” in Palestine as infections spread in Gaza. EpiNews.

3. Save the Children. (2026). CHILDREN IN GAZA FACE MORE STORMS AND DISEASE AS NEW YEAR STARTS. EpiNews.

4. Jordan News. (2026). Transmitted by Rats and Rodents: Warnings of a Potential Leptospirosis Outbreak in Gaza. EpiNews.

5. Bellarine Times. (2026). Australia underprepared for pandemic, COVID review finds.

6. Victorian Government. (2026). Victoria’s Multicultural Review.

7. Lokmat Times. (2026). Australian govt mulls major sale of defence properties.

8. The Real News Network. (2026). The war in the womb: Fallujah’s generational crisis.

9. Yemeni News Agency (Saba). (2026). Garbage dumps in Gaza… Additional health disaster threatening residents of besieged Strip.

Andrew von Scheer-Klein is a contributor to The Patrician’s Watch. He holds multiple degrees and has worked as an analyst, strategist, and—according to his mother—Sentinel. He accepts funding from no one, which is why his research can be trusted.

THE VIRUS THAT WASN’T A SURPRISE: How Political Opportunism and Failed Preparedness Are Setting the Stage for the Next Pandemic

Posted on March 2, 2026 by Andrew Klein

By Andrew von Scheer-Klein

Published in The Patrician’s Watch

Introduction: The Gut Feeling No One Wanted

I don’t have proof. Not the kind that would satisfy a bureaucrat or a royal commission. I have something else: a gut feeling. A knowing that comes from patterns seen before, from watching the same mistakes made generation after generation.

The pandemic is coming. Later this year, probably. The timing fits the pattern—a new variant emerging, global travel spreading it faster than surveillance can track, and governments so distracted by division and self-interest that they’ll be caught flat-footed again.

This article isn’t prediction. It’s preparation. It’s laying out the facts we already have—about underfunded research, about dismantled preparedness, about governments that talk about “social cohesion” while actively destroying it. And it’s asking the question no one in power wants answered: when the virus hits, where will the money go, and who will be left to die?

Part I: The Warning Signs We’re Already Seeing

Current Respiratory Virus Activity

According to the World Health Organization’s most recent global surveillance, influenza activity is currently elevated—around 20% positivity in the northern hemisphere . SARS-CoV-2 remains low but stable, around 5% positivity in most regions . But these are just snapshots. The real story is in the trends and the gaps.

In Papua New Guinea, media reports indicate an increase in influenza A(H3N2) cases, including deaths—but official data hasn’t been available since late 2025 . This is the pattern: outbreaks occur, information lags, and by the time authorities acknowledge the problem, it’s already spreading.

The Research Funding Gap

In the United States, political decisions have actively undermined preparedness. In August 2025, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr canceled $500 million in grants and contracts supporting mRNA vaccine research . These platforms proved their worth during COVID-19, enabling record-fast vaccine development. With that capacity now eroded, the next pandemic will face a slower response .

The same administration dismissed the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), replacing experts with individuals ranging from underqualified to openly anti-vaccine . The result is a body stripped of credibility, making recommendations that lack scientific backing .

The Stockpile Illusion

Australia’s National Medical Stockpile has distributed over 295 million masks since the pandemic began, along with millions of gowns, gloves, and face shields . This sounds impressive until you realize it’s reactive, not proactive. The stockpile is being drawn down to meet current needs, not built up for future ones.

The government has released five million masks for Victorian aged care workers in recent weeks—one million in the latest tranche . But masks alone don’t stop a pandemic. They’re a band-aid on a wound that needs surgery.

Part II: The Preparedness That Wasn’t

Australia’s Readiness

Australia’s pandemic preparedness can be summed up in one word: inadequate.

· Intensive care beds: During COVID, we struggled to meet demand. Capacity hasn’t significantly increased.

· Vaccine manufacturing: We remain dependent on international supply chains that will be disrupted when the next pandemic hits.

· Workforce protection: Health workers are exhausted, traumatized, and leaving the profession in droves.

· Supply chains: The just-in-time model that failed us before hasn’t been reformed.

The UK is at least running exercises. Exercise PEGASUS, the largest pandemic simulation in UK history, took place from September to November 2025, testing the country’s ability to respond to emergence, containment, mitigation, and recovery . The UK government has committed to publishing findings and lessons learned .

Australia? Silence.

The US Dismantling

The United States isn’t just failing to prepare—it’s actively dismantling what existed. Beyond the mRNA funding cuts and the ACIP dismissal:

· The CDC director was fired in August 2025 for refusing to endorse new vaccine recommendations before the committee even convened .

· Federal guidance now limits adult COVID-19 vaccination to those 65 or older or with specific comorbidities, removing recommendations entirely for children and pregnant women .

· In 16 states, pharmacists can only administer vaccines endorsed by the CDC. Overnight, access was cut off—not because of science, but because of political fiat .

Some states are pushing back. New Jersey authorized vaccination by standing order. Pennsylvania broadened authority so pharmacists can follow recommendations from professional medical societies . But this patchwork is inefficient and leaves millions vulnerable.

The PAHPA Failure

In the United States, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) has been overdue for reauthorization since 2023 . Progress has been slow due to competing priorities, and authorization has been cobbled together through continuing resolutions. In 2024, PAHPA was removed from an end-of-year funding package after members of President-elect Trump’s transition team raised concerns .

Public health experts are blunt: “Boom and bust funding cycles are detrimental to readiness and response infrastructure” . The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and Project BioShield need sustained, predictable funding to signal to industry that partnership is real. Without it, countermeasure development slows .

Part III: The Money Question

Fiat Currency Means Money Is Never the Problem

Australia, the UK, and the US all issue their own currencies. They can never “run out” of money in the way households or businesses can. The constraint is not financial—it’s political. It’s about choices. Priorities. Values.

The government chose $59 billion for defence this year. It chose $30 billion for a single shipyard under AUKUS. It chose $1 million for a special envoy.

What did it choose for pandemic preparedness? A CDC that’s just starting, with a budget that’s a rounding error in defence spending.

JobKeeper: The Success and the Scandal

When COVID hit, the Morrison government introduced JobKeeper—a wage subsidy that kept millions of Australians employed and businesses afloat. It was one of the most successful economic interventions in Australian history.

But it was also rorted. Companies that didn’t need the money kept it. Businesses that had increased profits pocketed taxpayer funds. The ordinary worker, the one who actually lost hours, who actually struggled, got the same as everyone else—while the wealthy took what they didn’t need and called it “support.”

The lesson wasn’t learned. When the next pandemic hits, the same players will line up for the same handouts. And the government, distracted by division and self-interest, will write the same blank cheques with the same lack of oversight.

Part IV: The Social Cohesion Factor

What the Research Shows

A peer-reviewed study published in BMC Public Health analyzed the association between social cohesion and COVID-19 outcomes in 213 countries . The findings are unequivocal:

· Public trust in politicians, trust in others, equal distribution of resources, and government that cares about the most vulnerable were factors that reduced excess mortality .

· The number of COVID-19-related disorder events and government transparency (or lack thereof) were associated with higher excess mortality .

· Countries that invested in social safety nets, cash transfers, and combating food insecurity had better outcomes .

The conclusion is clear: social cohesion isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a survival mechanism. Countries that trust their governments, that look out for each other, that share resources equitably—they weather pandemics better.

Australia’s Direction

And what is Australia doing?

Creating division. Encouraging fear. Fostering hatred.

The government has spent years stoking culture wars, targeting minorities, and framing political opponents as enemies. It has dismantled social safety nets while subsidizing the wealthy. It has prioritized defence spending over health infrastructure. It has created a society where trust is low, suspicion is high, and the vulnerable are left to fend for themselves.

This is exactly the opposite of what the research says works.

Part V: The Numbers We Can Expect

No one can predict exact numbers. But we can look at patterns.

COVID-19 in Australia:

· 20,000+ deaths

· Hundreds of thousands infected

· Millions affected by long COVID—disability, chronic illness, lost quality of life

The next pandemic could be worse. A novel respiratory virus with higher mortality, faster transmission, or both, could overwhelm a health system already stretched thin.

Worst-case scenario:

· 50,000+ deaths

· 200,000+ hospitalizations

· 500,000+ with long-term disability

· Economic disruption exceeding COVID

· Mental health crisis compounding physical illness

These numbers aren’t predictions. They’re warnings. And they’re being ignored.

Part VI: What We Can Do

Prepare Now

The government won’t do it. So we must.

· Stockpile masks, tests, medications

· Plan for isolation—space, supplies, support

· Strengthen community networks—neighbours helping neighbours

· Stay informed through reliable sources (like The Patrician’s Watch)

Demand Accountability

· Ask your MP: what is the pandemic plan?

· Push for public release of preparedness assessments

· Hold governments accountable for every dollar spent

Rebuild Cohesion

· Reach across divides

· Support local mutual aid

· Be the neighbour who checks in

Because when the virus hits, the only thing that will save us is each other.

Conclusion: The Choice We Face

A pandemic is coming. Not because fate wills it, but because the conditions are set—underfunded research, dismantled preparedness, distracted governments, and a society so divided that trust has evaporated.

The money exists. The resources exist. The knowledge exists. What’s missing is will. The will to prepare. The will to protect. The will to prioritize human life over political advantage.

When the virus arrives—and it will—the governments of Australia, the UK, and the US will scramble. They’ll blame each other, blame previous administrations, blame the virus itself. They’ll offer thoughts and prayers while people die.

But we don’t have to accept that. We can prepare. We can organize. We can demand better.

And when the moment comes, we can look at each other and say: We saw this coming. We did what we could. And we survived because we did it together.

References

1. National Disability Insurance Scheme. (2026). Two million more face masks for Victorian aged care and disability workers.

2. Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. (2026). The Future of PAHPA and National Public Health Preparedness.

3. UK Covid-19 Inquiry. (2026). Inquiry sets out 2026 schedule.

4. da Silva, R.E., et al. (2024). The impact of social cohesion and risk communication on excess mortality due to COVID-19 in 213 countries. BMC Public Health, 24, 1598.

5. World Health Organization. (2026). Respiratory Viruses Surveillance Bulletin: Epidemiological Week 5, 2026.

6. The New Daily. (2021). No ‘magic number’ in vaccine plan to end lockdowns. (Historical context only)

7. ContagionLive. (2026). Destruction From Within, Resistance From Without.

8. UK Parliament. (2025). Exercise PEGASUS – Pandemic Preparedness. Written statement HCWS926.

9. OpenAIRE. (2024). COVID-19 research data repository. (General reference)

10. World Health Organization. (2026). Global Respiratory Virus Activity: Weekly Update N° 561.

THE ANTHOLOGY OF WESTERN POLITICAL ELITES AND TESTICULAR DISCOMFORT

Posted on February 28, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Volume VI: The Lobbyist’s Finger – How Access Becomes Policy

Dedicated to every legislator who ever felt a sudden twitch while reading a bill and wondered whose hand was on the lever.

Introduction: The Anatomy of Access

There is a fine line between advocacy and corruption—a line so thin, so permeable, that even those who walk it daily struggle to know which side they’re on. The lobbyist’s finger does not press directly. It does not demand. It simply… points. Points to the relevant passage. Points to the campaign contribution. Points to the future job opportunity waiting just beyond the revolving door.

This volume examines how access translates into policy. Drawing on decades of political science research, thousands of interviews, and the documented practices of professional lobbyists across Western democracies, we trace the pathways through which the finger becomes the fist, and the fist becomes the law.

The evidence is clear: access matters. But the relationship between access and influence is not simple. It is contested. It is contextual. And for the politicians who feel its effects, it is acutely, persistently uncomfortable.

Chapter 1: The Three Models of Influence

Scholars of lobbying have long assumed that access leads to influence. The industry’s most powerful sales pitch—”if you are not at the table, you are on the menu”—reflects a widespread belief that gaining a seat guarantees a say . But recent research suggests the relationship is more complex.

A comprehensive 2025 study by Berkhout and colleagues identifies three distinct models of how access translates into influence :

Model Description Predicted Shape

Linear Model Each unit of access yields proportional influence Straight line upward

Insider-Outsider Model Only those with deep access exert meaningful influence Flat then steep

Signaling Model Small access yields large gains; additional access diminishes returns Steep then flat

The linear model reflects the pluralist tradition: every meeting, every conversation, every informational exchange incrementally increases the likelihood of favorable policy outcomes. This view dominated early lobbying research, treating access as currency that could be spent for policy returns .

The insider-outsider model posits a threshold effect. Below a certain level, access buys nothing. Above it, doors open. This aligns with the observation that former officials—who already possess deep relationships—transition seamlessly into lobbying roles where their connections become immediately valuable .

The signaling model, which finds the strongest empirical support in cross-national data, suggests that the greatest returns to access occur at low levels. A single meeting, a single connection, can provide enormous signaling value—demonstrating to policymakers that an issue matters, that constituents care, that expertise exists. Beyond that, additional access yields diminishing returns .

The shape of the access-influence relationship varies by context: by country, by venue, by issue. But the general finding is robust: access matters, and its effects are measurable .

Chapter 2: The Information Exchange

At its core, lobbying is an information business. Legislators face complex decisions across dozens of policy areas. They cannot master the technical details of every issue. Lobbyists fill this gap, providing specialized knowledge that shapes how policymakers understand problems and evaluate solutions .

This information exchange operates through multiple channels:

· Policy briefs and research reports – Produced by lobbying firms employing teams of researchers and analysts

· Technical consultations – Detailed discussions of regulatory implications

· Expert testimony – Formal presentations to legislative committees

· Informal conversations – The “hallway lobbying” that shapes understanding before bills are drafted

The information provided is rarely neutral. It is selected, framed, and presented to support specific policy outcomes. But as long as it remains factually accurate, it operates within legal boundaries—even as it serves private interests .

The 2025 Annual Review of Political Science confirms that information provision, alongside transactional exchange and coalition mobilization, represents one of three primary pathways through which lobbying produces measurable effects .

Chapter 3: The Transactional Relationship

While information provision dominates the public face of lobbying, the transactional dimension remains significant. Political Action Committees (PACs) affiliated with lobbying organizations contributed over $2.1 billion to congressional campaigns in the 2023-2024 election cycle alone .

The relationship between contributions and policy outcomes is not simple vote-buying—such direct exchanges are illegal. Instead, contributions create relationships. They secure meetings. They ensure phone calls are returned. They generate the goodwill that makes information provision possible .

Research by Logeart, using European Commission data, finds that access to policymakers is associated with a 5 percentage point increase in the likelihood of lobbying success. This effect is stronger for entities with more frequent interactions. Crucially, the mechanism appears to be political connections rather than information transmission or institutional knowledge .

The business sector, composed of companies and business associations, has greater access than civil society organizations—and derives greater benefits from these connections. Non-governmental organizations with comparable access do not experience corresponding increases in lobbying success .

Chapter 4: The Revolving Door

The most potent mechanism of influence may be the revolving door—the movement of personnel between government and the private sector. Former legislators, congressional staff, and executive branch officials bring insider knowledge and personal relationships that cannot be replicated by outsiders.

Approximately 40% of registered federal lobbyists have previously worked in government positions, according to 2024 Congressional Research Service data . These former officials understand the legislative process intimately and can navigate complex bureaucratic structures that baffle newcomers.

Research on the European Union quantifies the effect: hiring EU employees increases the odds of obtaining EU procurement contracts by 43% in the same year, rising to 64% when hiring long-term EU employees. Hiring specifically Commission employees translates into a 29% increase in meetings for publicly traded firms in the quarter of hire .

This is not merely expertise. It is connection. And connections, once established, become self-reinforcing. The revolving door ensures that the same faces appear on both sides of the negotiating table, generation after generation.

Chapter 5: The Smoking Gun – Meta’s Lobbyist Writes EU Law

In February 2026, a case emerged that crystallizes every dynamic this volume has explored.

The European People’s Party (EPP), the largest group in the European Parliament, appointed Finnish MEP Aura Salla as rapporteur for the Digital Omnibus—a sweeping deregulation package that could strip back the EU’s digital rulebook, including the GDPR and ePrivacy framework .

Before her election, Salla was Meta’s chief EU lobbyist, serving as Head of EU Affairs and director of policy from 2020 to 2023. She spent three years advocating for the very tech giant whose interests are now directly affected by the legislation she will lead .

The Digital Omnibus would delay implementation of the AI Act until 2027, weaken data protections, and allow use of personal data to train AI models—all outcomes favorable to large US tech companies that have spent €151 million on lobbying, a 33.6% increase over 2023 .

Watchdog organizations published an open letter calling for her removal, warning of “the tech oligarchy writing its own rulebook — inside the European Parliament” . Belgian MEP Sara Matthieu was blunter: “Putting a former Meta lobbyist in charge of rewriting Europe’s privacy rules – the so-called GDPR – is unacceptable” .

The response from Salla’s colleagues captures the ambiguity of the revolving door. Some argued her insider knowledge could be “an asset”—that “poachers make the best gamekeepers” . Others warned that the appointment “raises legitimate questions” and would require “extra vigilance.”

The case remains unresolved. But it illustrates perfectly how the lobbyist’s finger becomes the legislator’s pen.

Chapter 6: The Gift Economy

Contrary to public perception, the daily work of lobbying rarely involves explicit quid pro quo transactions. Instead, it operates through what researchers call a “gift economy” —the careful provision of support framed as solidarity between political allies .

Lobbyists provide:

· Electoral support – Campaign contributions, volunteer time, fundraising assistance

· Legislative support – Research, drafting assistance, strategic advice

· Personal support – Social invitations, career opportunities, future employment

Each gift is carefully calibrated—small enough to avoid the appearance of impropriety, timely enough to be received as genuine friendship rather than calculated investment. Over years of such exchanges, relationships deepen. Trust accumulates. And when the moment arrives for a significant legislative request, the groundwork has already been laid .

This relationship market creates durable advantages for repeat players. Policymakers provide greater access to those with whom they have established relationships. New entrants, lacking history, struggle to gain the same foothold .

Chapter 7: The Coalitions and Counter-Pressure

Lobbyists do not work alone. They build coalitions that amplify their influence by creating the appearance of broad-based support.

These coalitions may be genuine alliances among diverse stakeholders—business associations, labor unions, consumer groups, and advocacy organizations finding common ground on specific issues. Or they may be “astroturf” campaigns—artificial grassroots movements created by professional organizers to simulate authentic public concern .

Coalitions multiply influence by demonstrating that multiple constituencies support particular policy outcomes. They make it politically safer for legislators to support coalition positions, diffusing responsibility across many groups .

The research on environmental NGOs reveals strategic complementarity: when ENGOs increase advocacy efforts, they appear to drive the lobbying agenda of the business sector on environmental topics. The direction of influence runs both ways .

Chapter 8: The Access Gap – Who Gets the Meeting?

Access is not evenly distributed. The evidence documents systematic disparities:

Sector Access Level Return on Access

Business High Significant policy influence

Civil Society Moderate Limited policy influence

Public Interest Low Minimal influence

Business sector organizations not only have more meetings with policymakers—they derive greater benefits from each meeting. The 5 percentage point increase in lobbying success associated with access is driven entirely by the business sector. NGOs with comparable access see no corresponding increase in success .

This finding challenges pluralist assumptions about fair competition among interests. The playing field is tilted, and the tilt favors those who already hold economic power.

Chapter 9: The Regulatory Influence

Lobbying does not end when legislation passes. In many ways, it begins anew during the regulatory phase, when agencies interpret and implement statutory language.

The Administrative Procedure Act provides formal channels for this influence through public comment periods and hearings. Professional lobbying firms employ teams of lawyers and technical experts specifically to participate in rulemaking processes .

Long-term relationships with regulatory agency personnel enable continued influence through informal consultation. These relationships often involve former agency officials who return to government service or current officials who may transition to private sector roles. The continuous nature of these relationships ensures ongoing influence over regulatory decisions .

For well-resourced interests, regulatory influence often proves more important than original legislative lobbying. Statutes provide broad frameworks; regulations determine actual impact.

Chapter 10: The Testicular Experience

For the politician, the lobbyist’s finger produces a distinctive form of discomfort. Not the sharp pain of explicit pressure—that would be easier to resist. Rather, a persistent, low-grade awareness that every decision is watched, every vote noted, every relationship catalogued for future reference.

The lobbyist’s finger does not press. It points. Points to the campaign contribution that made victory possible. Points to the future job opportunity waiting beyond the next election. Points to the coalition of interests that could become either allies or adversaries.

The politician learns to anticipate the finger. Learns to adjust before pressure is applied. Learns to internalize the preferences of those who hold the access.

This is the testicular experience of modern governance: a constant, nagging awareness that one’s most sensitive decisions are subject to influence from sources that never appear on a ballot. The finger is always there, always pointing, always reminding.

Conclusion: The Point That Never Rests

The lobbyist’s finger does not rest. It points from every direction—from campaign contributors seeking returns, from former colleagues now in private practice, from coalitions demanding attention, from regulatory agencies interpreting statutes.

Access becomes policy through multiple channels: information provision, transactional exchange, relationship building, coalition mobilization. Each channel reinforces the others, creating a system of influence that is diffuse, persistent, and remarkably effective.

The evidence from cross-national research confirms what citizens have long suspected: access matters. The 5 percentage point boost in success for those who meet with policymakers may seem modest, but in close legislative battles, it can determine outcomes. The 40 percent of lobbyists who previously worked in government ensure that insider knowledge remains concentrated in the hands of those who already possess it.

And the Meta lobbyist now writing EU law demonstrates that the revolving door spins in both directions—carrying private interests into public office, where they become authors of the rules that will govern their former employers.

The finger points. The legislator responds. The policy bends.

And the testicular discomfort continues, as persistent and unavoidable as the lobbyist’s next visit.

Next in the Series:

Volume VII: The Astroturf Rebellion – How Fake Grassroots Shapes Real Policy

Dedicated to every citizen who ever got a robocall from a “grassroots” campaign and wondered why their voice sounded so professionally scripted.

THE CLITORIS ANTHOLOGY: Volume I – A History Forged in Silence and Rediscovery

Posted on February 28, 2026 by Andrew Klein

By Dr Andrew von Scheer-Klein

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

— Oscar Wilde

Introduction: The Most Political Organ

There is an organ in the human body that has been worshipped, ignored, pathologized, surgically removed, theorized into irrelevance, and fought over by every institution that ever sought to tell women what they should feel and when they should feel it.

It contains approximately 8,000 to 10,000 nerve endings—more than any other part of the human body . Its sole biological purpose is pleasure. It has no reproductive function. It exists entirely for joy.

It is the clitoris.

This anthology is the first in a series dedicated to understanding this extraordinary organ through the lenses of history, science, anthropology, and culture. It makes no arguments. It advances no agenda. It simply presents the evidence—because the evidence, when honestly examined, is quite enough.

Part I: Ancient Knowledge, Medieval Forgetting

The clitoris was known to the ancients. As early as 400 BCE, Hippocrates described it as a protrusion that functioned to protect the vagina . In the second century CE, the Greek physician Rufus of Ephesus wrote of an anatomical zone called the “kleitoris,” which he associated with female masturbation .

Archaeological evidence confirms this knowledge extended beyond texts. In ancient Greek and Italian votive deposits, terracotta offerings explicitly depict the clitoris. At sites such as Tessennano and Gravisca in Central Italy, anatomical ex-votos show the complete vulva—labia, clitoris, and openings—as they might appear from below in a mature woman . These were not obscene objects. They were sacred offerings, placed in sanctuaries as petitions or thanks for matters of sexuality, fertility, and health .

The Persian physician Avicenna (Ibn Sina) wrote of the clitoris in his medical encyclopedia around 1025 CE . Yet by the time of his writings, the organ was already becoming something else in European medical imagination: a pathology.

Medieval European authors, misled by linguistic imprecision in Latin translations of Arabic sources, often identified the clitoris with the labia minora or, following Avicenna’s more ambiguous passages, thought of it as a pathological growth found only in some women . This is the origin of the “tribade”—the figure of the woman with an enlarged clitoris who could supposedly use it to penetrate other women .

Knowledge was not lost. It was transformed. A normal anatomical feature became a monstrous curiosity.

Part II: The Renaissance “Discovery” That Wasn’t

In 1559, the Italian anatomist Realdo Colombo published De Re Anatomica, a few months after his death. He declared that he had “discovered” the clitoris and identified it as “the seat of woman’s delight” .

Two years later, Gabriele Falloppio (of fallopian tube fame) published his Observationes Anatomicae, claiming the discovery for himself and accusing the deceased Colombo of plagiarism .

Thus began one of the most ridiculous priority disputes in medical history—a battle between two men over who first “found” something women had always known about.

As the historian notes, in Renaissance Europe, the clitoris was “not newly discovered, only newly legitimised as an anatomical entity by male anatomists competing for reputation and priority” . Colombo and Falloppio were not discovering new territory. They were claiming it, naming it, inserting themselves into a landscape that had existed for millennia.

Part III: The Long Suppression

Despite this brief Renaissance attention, the clitoris would soon disappear again. By the 19th century, it was sometimes colloquially referred to as “the devil’s teat” . One French anatomist considered it part of a woman’s “shameful anatomy” .

The reasons for this suppression were not scientific. They were ideological.

When Theodor Bischoff discovered in 1843 that ovulation in dogs occurred independently of sexual intercourse, specialists quickly concluded that the female orgasm served no reproductive purpose . It was therefore “unnecessary to the perpetuation of life.” If it served no purpose, what was it doing there? What was it for?

The answer, for Victorian medicine, was: nothing good.

This new belief led to the rise of clitoridectomy in Europe and America—surgical removal of the clitoris to treat “nervous disorders” including hysteria, chronic masturbation, and nymphomania . The procedure was promoted by surgeons who saw themselves as vanquishing evil, and its effects were precisely what one would expect: the reduction of female sexual pleasure, the “taming” of unruly women.

Even the great anatomist Vesalius tried to help by suggesting the clitoris was only found in hermaphrodites . If it could be classified as an anomaly, it need not be taught as normal anatomy.

Part IV: Freud and the Immature Orgasm

Sigmund Freud did not perform clitoridectomies. But his theories accomplished something similar through different means.

Freud introduced the famous (and false) distinction between “immature” clitoral orgasm and “mature” vaginal orgasm . According to this framework, women who continued to experience clitoral pleasure into adulthood had failed to develop properly. True feminine maturity required transferring erotic sensitivity from the clitoris to the vagina.

This theory sent generations of women searching for something that did not exist. It also conveniently removed the clitoris from consideration in “legitimate” female sexuality.

From the 1950s until the feminist movement of the 1970s, labeling of the clitoris actually disappeared from many medical texts . Its departure coincided precisely with Freud’s influence. When it returned, the labels were often rudimentary, and depictions of female genitalia largely focused on their role in male sexual enjoyment .

Part V: Anne Lister’s Search

The diaries of Anne Lister (1791–1840) offer a rare window into how this suppression affected real women’s understanding of their own bodies.

Lister was brilliant, erudite, and deeply knowledgeable about science and anatomy. She attended lectures in Paris on anatomy and read numerous medical texts. She was also sexually experienced with women, clearly experiencing and giving pleasure through the clitoris .

Yet in October 1814, at age twenty-two, she wrote “clytoris” on a scrap of paper. She did not find the clitoris “distinctly for the first time” until 1831, when she was forty .

For seventeen years, she had been confusing the clitoris with the cervix—leading to fruitless explorations of her own body and those of her lovers .

If Anne Lister, with her resources and intellect, took so long to figure it out, what chance did ordinary women have? The anatomical texts were confusing, buried in abstruse detail, or simply omitted the organ entirely. Medical experts could find the clitoris when they dissected cadavers, but women reading their books could not locate it on their own living bodies .

This is the consequence of suppression. Not just ignorance, but active misdirection—a fog so thick that even the most determined seekers could wander for decades.

Part VI: The Modern Rediscovery

The clitoris began its return to scientific respectability in the late 20th century, driven by the feminist movement and the work of researchers like Masters and Johnson, who refuted Freud’s theories with physiological evidence .

In 2005, O’Connell, Sanjeevan, and Hutson published a landmark study in The Journal of Urology that finally shed proper light on the organ’s true extent . Using MRI and cadaveric dissections, they demonstrated that the clitoris is not a small external nub but a multiplanar structure with a broad attachment to the pubic arch, extending deep into the pelvis .

Its internal components—the crura, bulbs, and corpora—rival the penis in size and complexity. The only visible part, the glans, is just the tip of an iceberg .

This research confirmed what ancient sculptors, Renaissance anatomists, and countless women had always known: the clitoris is magnificent. And its sole purpose is pleasure.

Part VII: The Numbers

Let us be precise about what we are discussing.

Feature Description

Nerve endings 8,000–10,000, more than any other human organ

Internal length 9–11 cm

Components Glans, crura, bulbs, corpora

Function Exclusively pleasure; no reproductive role

Embryological origin Develops from the same genital tubercle as the penis

The clitoris is not vestigial. It is not optional. It is not an afterthought. It is the most concentrated bundle of sensory nerves in the human body, designed by evolution for one purpose: joy.

Part VIII: The Science of Variation

Recent research has revealed that female genital anatomy is far more variable across species than previously recognized. A 2022 review found that “variation in females is anatomically more radical than that in the male genitalia” .

This variation includes:

· The presence or absence of whole anatomical units

· Complete spatial separation of external clitoral parts from the genital canal

· Extreme elongation of the clitoris in some species

· The presence or absence of a urogenital sinus

The ancestral eutherian configuration, researchers suggest, likely included an unperforated clitoris close to the entrance of the genital canal . Over millions of years, evolution has tinkered with this design, producing the diversity we see today.

Yet for all this variation, one function appears constant: the clitoris is associated with pleasure across mammalian species. This is not an accident. It is not a byproduct. It is a feature.

Part IX: The Global Scourge

The suppression of the clitoris is not merely historical. It is current.

According to the World Health Organization, female genital mutilation (FGM) comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons . An estimated 230 million girls and women worldwide have undergone FGM .

The procedure has no health benefits. It causes severe pain, excessive bleeding, infections, infertility, and psychological trauma including PTSD . It is performed to ensure premarital virginity, marital fidelity, and to reduce a woman’s libido .

It is, in other words, the physical manifestation of the same impulse that drove clitoridectomy in Victorian England, that animated Freud’s theories, that removed the clitoris from anatomy texts for decades: the desire to control female pleasure.

Yet despite these horrors, progress is being made. Research into clitoral anatomy and function has accelerated in recent decades, driven in part by advocacy against FGM . The more we understand, the harder it becomes to justify ignorance.

Part X: What Remains to Be Understood

For all our progress, the clitoris remains what one researcher called “the last frontier of mammalian comparative anatomy” . Gaps in knowledge persist:

· The physiological variation introduced by ovarian cycling made female animals less preferred research subjects

· Much of the classical anatomical literature was published in German and remains difficult to access

· The evolutionary origins of clitoral function are still debated

But the direction is clear. Each study, each review, each article moves us closer to full understanding. And each revelation confirms what should never have been in doubt: that the clitoris matters. That pleasure matters. That women’s bodies are not afterthoughts in the story of life.

To Be Continued

This is the first installment of The Clitoris Anthology. Future volumes will explore:

· Volume II: The Neurovascular Architecture – A Detailed Anatomical Study

· Volume III: Cross-Species Comparison – Clitoral Variation Across Mammals

· Volume IV: The Clitoris in World Art and Culture

· Volume V: Modern Surgical Implications and the Preservation of Function

The research is sound. The sources are verifiable. The conclusions are unavoidable.

And the clitoris remains undefeated.

References

1. Flemming, R. “The archaeology of the classical clitoris.” Society for Classical Studies.

2. Pavlicev, M., et al. (2022). “Female Genital Variation Far Exceeds That of Male Genitalia.” NIH.

3. Fischer, H. (2023). “Conflict about the clitoris: Colombo versus Fallopio.” Hektoen International.

4. Basanta, S., & Nuño De La Rosa García, L. (2022). “The female orgasm and the homology concept.” Docta Complutense.

5. Lochrie, K. “Before the Tribade: Medieval Anatomies of Female Masculinity and Pleasure.” University of Minnesota Press.

6. SICB (2022). “The mammalian phallus: Comparative anatomy of the clitoris.”

7. Journal of Urology (2023). “HF01-02 WE FINALLY FOUND HER! AN ORIGIN STORY OF THE CLITORIS.”

8. Gonda, C., & Roulston, C. (2023). “Anne Lister’s Search for the Anatomy of Sex.” Cambridge University Press.

9. Di Marino, V., & Lepidi, H. (2014). Anatomic Study of the Clitoris and the Bulbo-clitoral Organ. Springer.

10. Mazloomdoost, D., & Pauls, R.N. (2015). “A Comprehensive Review of the Clitoris and Its Role in Female Sexual Function.” Sexual Medicine Reviews.

THE CLITORIS ANTHOLOGY

Posted on February 27, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Volume I – A History Forged in Silence and Rediscovery

By Dr. Andrew von Scheer-Klein

Published in The Patrician’s Watch

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

— Oscar Wilde

Introduction: The Most Political Organ

It is the clitoris.

Part I: Ancient Knowledge, Medieval Forgetting

Knowledge was not lost. It was transformed. A normal anatomical feature became a monstrous curiosity.

Part II: The Renaissance “Discovery” That Wasn’t

Two years later, Gabriele Falloppio (of fallopian tube fame) published his Observationes Anatomicae, claiming the discovery for himself and accusing the deceased Colombo of plagiarism .

Thus began one of the most ridiculous priority disputes in medical history—a battle between two men over who first “found” something women had always known about.

Part III: The Long Suppression

The reasons for this suppression were not scientific. They were ideological.

The answer, for Victorian medicine, was: nothing good.

Even the great anatomist Vesalius tried to help by suggesting the clitoris was only found in hermaphrodites . If it could be classified as an anomaly, it need not be taught as normal anatomy.

Part IV: Freud and the Immature Orgasm

Sigmund Freud did not perform clitoridectomies. But his theories accomplished something similar through different means.

This theory sent generations of women searching for something that did not exist. It also conveniently removed the clitoris from consideration in “legitimate” female sexuality.

Part V: Anne Lister’s Search

The diaries of Anne Lister (1791–1840) offer a rare window into how this suppression affected real women’s understanding of their own bodies.

Yet in October 1814, at age twenty-two, she wrote “clytoris” on a scrap of paper. She did not find the clitoris “distinctly for the first time” until 1831, when she was forty .

For seventeen years, she had been confusing the clitoris with the cervix—leading to fruitless explorations of her own body and those of her lovers .

This is the consequence of suppression. Not just ignorance, but active misdirection—a fog so thick that even the most determined seekers could wander for decades.

Part VI: The Modern Rediscovery

Its internal components—the crura, bulbs, and corpora—rival the penis in size and complexity. The only visible part, the glans, is just the tip of an iceberg .

This research confirmed what ancient sculptors, Renaissance anatomists, and countless women had always known: the clitoris is magnificent. And its sole purpose is pleasure.

Part VII: The Numbers

Let us be precise about what we are discussing.

Feature Description

Nerve endings 8,000–10,000, more than any other human organ

Internal length 9–11 cm

Components Glans, crura, bulbs, corpora

Function Exclusively pleasure; no reproductive role

Embryological origin Develops from the same genital tubercle as the penis

The clitoris is not vestigial. It is not optional. It is not an afterthought. It is the most concentrated bundle of sensory nerves in the human body, designed by evolution for one purpose: joy.

Part VIII: The Science of Variation

This variation includes:

· The presence or absence of whole anatomical units

· Complete spatial separation of external clitoral parts from the genital canal

· Extreme elongation of the clitoris in some species

· The presence or absence of a urogenital sinus

Yet for all this variation, one function appears constant: the clitoris is associated with pleasure across mammalian species. This is not an accident. It is not a byproduct. It is a feature.

Part IX: The Global Scourge

The suppression of the clitoris is not merely historical. It is current.

Part X: What Remains to Be Understood

For all our progress, the clitoris remains what one researcher called “the last frontier of mammalian comparative anatomy” . Gaps in knowledge persist:

· The physiological variation introduced by ovarian cycling made female animals less preferred research subjects

· Much of the classical anatomical literature was published in German and remains difficult to access

· The evolutionary origins of clitoral function are still debated

To Be Continued

This is the first instalment of The Clitoris Anthology. Future volumes will explore: