Billionaire Says His Long-Delayed 'Titanic II' Ship Will Be Antidote to 'Woke' Politics

[Nevilledog]

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/titanic-ii-billionaire-vaccine-free-1234994694/

No paywall link
https://archive.li/BWVQo

IT SEEMS REASONABLE to expect that just about anything can and will go wrong with a full-size replica of a cruise ship that famously sank on its maiden voyage, killing more than 1,500 people aboard. But Titanic II, Australian mining billionaire Clive Palmer’s proposed heir to the original RMS Titanic, hasn’t faced a disaster so far — because over the decade and change that Palmer has been pitching it, nothing has been built.

First announced in 2012 for the 100th anniversary of the Titanic‘s fateful voyage, Palmer envisions the Titanic II, operated by his company Blue Star Line, as a historically accurate tribute to its namesake, right down to the cramped steerage cabins. Of course, there will be some tweaks to ensure it reaches its destination this time: Palmer wants the ship to have cutting-edge navigation equipment, safety systems, and plenty of lifeboats. Throughout the many snags in the project — including payment disputes and scrapped plans to build in a Chinese shipyard — very little of this core idea has changed, with Palmer brushing off skeptics by reminding them that he has the money and determination to see it through.

What has changed somewhat is how Palmer, who in the past decade has served in Australian parliament and chaired a right-wing political party he founded, describes the symbolism of the Titanic(s). In a March 13 press conference at the Sydney Opera House to announce his recommitment to reconstructing the doomed ocean liner, Palmer said it would be a beacon of hope amid war in Ukraine and Gaza, bring people together after the era of Covid lockdowns, and embody traditional values as opposed to “woke” politics. Here, he talks with Rolling Stone about what he thinks Titanic II crossing the Atlantic into New York Habor would mean to the world.

This has been in the works for a long time, but how did you originally get interested in the Titanic?

It’s very topical. I originally got interested because we know how to make war — see what’s happening in Ukraine and Gaza. It’s much more difficult to make peace in the world. And the Titanic is an international symbol. It’s a symbol of love and peace, really. I mean, the movie, everyone knows the Jack and Rose story. All of us have a Jack and Rose story of our own. So I thought it’d be good to do something to promote those aspects in life. Secondly, we need to remember the people of the Titanic, and some of the values that we question in society today disappearing, such as courage and self-sacrifice. You remember the musicians on the Titanic that stood there at their station, playing “Nearer My God to Thee”? They were more concerned about the people that were with than themselves. We’re running our culture into a self-centered society, so we want to refocus on those things. We thought we could design the whole ship and have it ready in three to four years construction. But it took about five to six years to design. Originally, the challenge was much greater because we had to incorporate all the safety provisions and still keep the design of the ship the same — that was a lot harder than we thought. And we know what happened with cruise shipping and Covid, we had to stop and pause and see what was happening, but today shipping has come back. It gives us the time to pull those plans off the shelf and to get the project moving.

*snip*


Not gonna lie, I'm rooting for a 'woke' iceberg.

[Autumn]

1. It will sink too. Inanimate objects like icebergs and metal ships don't have any ability to be woke.

What a stupid dumbass dip fuck.

[Carlitos Brigante]

5. Which is why they need to accelerate climate change. To get rid of those oversensitive, woke icebergs.... Or

something. Their fucking ignorance is what seems truly "unsinkable".

[TheBlackAdder]

26. It's a fact that woke icebergs won't stay in their lane.

[Celerity]

18. In March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic was spreading in Australia, Palmer placed a prominent media advertisement

offering to personally fund one million doses of a "cure" for the disease. The medication would include hydroxychloroquine, which is established in other countries as an anti-malarial drug but is known to have serious side-effects. The Australian drugs regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), had warned that this drug and its derivatives “pose well-known serious risks to patients including cardiac toxicity potentially leading to sudden heart attacks, irreversible eye damage and severe depletion of blood sugar potentially leading to coma”.

The TGA stated that it was considering legal action against Palmer. Other experts also criticised Palmer, concerning safety as well as the ethics of potentially producing a shortage of the drug in countries where it is needed to combat malaria. However, it was later confirmed that the federal health department planned to import hydroxychloroquine for emergency use, with a written agreement for partial funding by Palmer. On 28 April, Palmer placed further prominent advertisements in News Corp media, claiming to have purchased 32.9 million doses of hydroxychloroquine.

The TGA stated that no action would be taken with respect to either set of advertisements, since they were "assessed as not intended to promote the sale of the product”. However, the President of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Harry Nespolon, warned that trials of the drug were still ongoing and were "not looking particularly promising”. He was also concerned that "people may think that a cure is imminent and be lulled into a false sense of security so that they don't exercise social distancing responsibilities”.

In June 2021, as the COVID-19 pandemic continued, a Queensland radio network stopped playing an advertisement from Palmer that had stated:

Australia has had one COVID-19 associated death in 2021. But the TGA reports that there's been 210 deaths and over 24,000 adverse reactions after COVID vaccinations. Authorised by Clive Palmer, Brisbane.

The TGA had warned the network and Palmer that this was seriously misleading to the public: the figure of 210 deaths a few days or weeks after vaccination was statistically normal; only one of those deaths could be linked to the vaccination itself. The same month, it was reported that Palmer had sent letters to households across Australia urging against vaccination for COVID-19, based on the discredited death figures. This was reported again in July, and that Palmer had disregarded a further warning from the TGA. Palmer had requested that his name and logo be printed on the doses of donated hydroxychloroquine. The Department of Health denied Palmer's request.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Palmer

[TxGuitar]

2. It's a bit, well, rich

For a billionaire to call out society as being self-centered.

[Aristus]

3. Jesus Christ. Is EVERYTHING woke with these assholes?

The Titanic sunk because of "woke"? It had survivors because of "woke"? There aren't enough people drowning, or rich shitheads preventing the poor people from getting into the lifeboats because of "woke"?

Talk about living rent-free in some rich idiots empty head...

[jimfields33]

27. He's saying that the band died due to self sacrifice.

He doesn’t believe a band would do that today. It’s really difficult to guess such a thing.

[Aristus]

28. Yeah, I know what he was saying.

I’d like to point out to this douchenozzle that every time some right-wing gunfuck starts shooting up large gatherings of people, there are always those who put themselves in harm’s way in order to save others.

And also, BTW, we also don’t see enough rich people going down with the ship, Titanic-style, to allow those with less money but more worth into the lifeboats.

Any time the rich assholes of the world want to drown themselves in a frenzy of righteous honor, they can go right ahead.

[Oneironaut]

35. They're unintelligent dipshits that can only speak in slogans.

They’re the type Trump openly mocked as idiots to their faces, and, they loved it.

[ProfessorGAC]

4. Huh?

Don't tell me; he had a crack problem in his past, didn't he?
His brain seems scrambled. None of that makes any sense.
Woke & self-centered are correlated? Only in his tiny mind.

[magicarpet]

9. Is this dude related to the Pillow Guy,...

.... he's got hair growing on his brain and sounds just like Michael Lindell.

[ProfessorGAC]

15. That Thought Did Occur To Me

That's why I made the connection to crack. Lindell's addiction sure seems to have messed up his mind.
So obviously, I agree with you.

[Walleye]

6. They love that word woke, it's much easier to say than politically correct

What it really means is deliberately hurting people’s feelings and showing no consideration or respect towards others. And they’re just so ever lovin’ proud of it

[Tommy Carcetti]

7. I just read the article, and I'm officially invoking Poe's Law.

That guy can't be real, right?

So we had to put a whole new deck in the Titanic. And it’s got a lot of the modern conveniences that you want. We’re going to make sure that in every room there’ll be a little panel that will tell you the history of the person who occupied your cabin. Did they survive, did they prevail? Everyone will get a costume so that they can come up to dinner, and it will be a real experience for them. One of the worst experiences, of course, on the Titanic was delousing. They took the third class up on deck and sprayed them in their underpants and bras. So depending on the weather, we’ll have delousing for our third class, too

.

I mean...right?

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. It gets worse - he's an anti-vaxxer

It’ll be a Covid vaccine-free environment.
Vaccine-free how?
We won’t have any. We don’t believe people should be compelled. You might be aware of it, but I recently funded a case in Queensland where we had the vaccines declared unlawful because we believe that impeded on individual choice and freedom. And the courts agreed with us as well, the superior court — so it’s the first in the world. That was another controversial thing. [Palmer put $2.5-$3 million toward a successful legal challenge brought by police and ambulance service workers who said they faced disciplinary action up to termination for refusing to comply with a vaccine mandate.]
But will vaccinated people be allowed on the ship?
Yeah, we’ve got to extend our hand in love and friendship for people being vaccinated despite the side effects. We have to look after them. And they’re all good people. We’re all the same really, like white, green, yellow, whatever it is — to embrace each other.

Followed by word salad about "canceled people" and "woke".

[Tommy Carcetti]

21. Yes, but on the upside...potatoes galore! And sharing a bathroom with 30 strangers!

And Irish dancing!

One of the big things we found in the plans as we tried to build Titanic was a big square, going down five decks — we didn’t know what it was for, but we discovered a flooring that had one word: “Potatoes.” That was the food store for all the third class: you could have sautéed potatoes, fried potatoes, potatoes, mashed potatoes, but all you had was potatoes in third class. A lot of people saying they wanted tickets at that time were New York stockbrokers stuck in a dingy office all day, talking to other people about nothing, I guess, wanting to get back to some reality, some sort of human nature. Because we will have Irish dancing, we will have one-to-one contact in the cabin, the two of you sharing together and 30 of you sharing a bathroom. That’s part of the experience that part of the Titanic. It’s not the luxury part.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

19. He will charge extra for third class S&M.

[Turbineguy]

8. Yeah, a ship designed by politicians

Not even the Soviets went there.

[Conjuay]

10. why bother?

Cruise ships are about four times the size now.
Who would want to cruise in a boat whose namesake sank?

[LiberalFighter]

11. Stupid Stupid Stupid -- a waste of resources.

[Kid Berwyn]

12. A Billionaire who worries people today don't care about others.

Also happens to be a former Australian politician who got rich off mineral extraction.

He must give a lot back to notice.

[onethatcares]

13. I'm hoping

the Orcas team up with the rest of the whales and sharks and push this thing aground.

[Torchlight]

14. I've heard the legends of Australian weed, but this is the first time I've ever seen its real strength.

I gave him a damn close run for his money when in 1993, I asserted groggily I'd one day build a solar-powered glider out of cheese whiz and Doritos, but Mr Palmer, I have to give this one to you: you are officially in first-place for the Golden Bong Award. Congrats, and here's your complimentary roach-clip.

[jimfields33]

25. Link?

[JanMichael]

29. It wasn't on the interwebs. It was 1993.

I was stoned a good part of 93 as well.

[jimfields33]

33. Thanks!

[Coventina]

17. This whole thing is so ridiculous it's almost hilarious.

I mean, wow!

[Bev54]

20. I hope his big ship drops off their flat earth

[Vogon_Glory]

22. Good Lord, how's he going to fuel it?

The original Titanic used coal and required a crew of shovelers.

I can think of other reasons not to sail on it, but the (presumed) lack of modern amenities is a stopper for me, even if I had the lettuce and was into high-end Belle Epoque Cosplay.

[pecosbob]

23. Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B

Those who refuse to acknowledge history (even fictitious history) are doomed to repeat it.

[struggle4progress]

24. Fare thee well

[Earth-shine]

30. He wants to put us in "steerage."

I learned that word when I saw James Cameron's Titanic movie.

[Prairie Gates]

31. This should go well

[Lancero]

32. A new friend for the Titanic and Titan sub perhaps?

[AZLD4Candidate]

34. Woke holding me accountable for being an obtuse, insensitive, bigoted, intolerant asshole