words matter
ON SALE AT APPLE BOOKS &
GOOGLE PLAY BOOKS
AUDIOBOOKS
There are those that blog and those that don’t. I would posit that there are many more non-bloggers out there than the dedicated and diligent keyboard artists. Here are 5 top reasons to blog. Writing is for many an undiscovered joy and a challenging chore, when they are forced to record their thoughts on screen in print. Many owners of websites outsource all the boring bits to poorly paid writers, who are, often, located in the third world. Now, of course AI can do all that too. Communication via the written word is, somehow, seen as arcane and not worth the effort. Which means that we have a lot of bad writing and poorly constructed sentences adorning the pages of the world wide web. However, despite this, blogging is the new medium for the essay.
Culture Fresh Life Media Writing
We use the terms Right and Left as shorthand for political persuasions. So, what are 8 things that mean you’re right wing? In the current climate, this is likely to indicate that this person shares exclusionary cultural attitudes, which could be categorised as racist, maybe white supremacist, supports the ‘trad wife’ gender positioning, doesn’t like much government regulation, is anti-immigration, and wants to pay as little tax as possible. Whereas those on the left may support socialism, which is more and better government regulation, wants to see greater respect for diversity in all its forms, an expansion of power sharing beyond the white male cohort, and wealth being taxed to create real equity among more of us.
Culture Democracy Economics Fresh Media Politics Power Religion
We do not have a progressive national news platform in Australia. We have a rabid right wing News Corp, which controls most of the nation’s newspapers, has a national radio network and produces Sky News Australia and Fox News. Nine Fairfax and Seven West Media can be comfortably described as corporate legacy media on the right of centre, politically speaking. The ABC, our only truly national broadcaster, follows the News Corp lead in what it sets as the daily news agenda. This was not always the case, as a couple of decades ago the ABC contained the most intelligent and passionate journalists working around the nation. How the ABC lost its progressive soul? Is a question well worth asking.
Culture Democracy Fresh Media Politics Power
The Trump regime is attacking boats from Venezuela, blowing them up in international waters. Why this focus on a South American nation? Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves. The US has a great tradition of going after countries with lots of oil and administrations that don’t bend over backwards for them. Donald Trump is a firm believer in fossil fuels. His administration has already reversed much of the good work that was done under Joe Biden, when it came to renewables and the transition away from climate damaging fossil fuels. Trump is the ultimate head in the sand guy, when it comes to global warming.
Do you find reading stuff to be a bit of a drag? Are you always on the look out for an easy hack? The bad news is that if you don’t exercise your brain function you will pay for it later on. Use it or lose it! Technology may seem great and so convenient, but it is dumbing us down and charging us for the service at the same time. Reading utilises different parts of the brain than watching videos. Processing the meaning of words and sentences makes you smarter and not the machine. Ruminating on important stuff via reading essays will make you wiser. Here are 5 good reasons why reading will save your brain.
We use the terms Right and Left as shorthand for political persuasions. So, what are 8 things that mean you’re right wing? In the current climate, this is likely to indicate that this person shares exclusionary cultural attitudes, which could be categorised as racist, maybe white supremacist, supports the ‘trad wife’ gender positioning, doesn’t like much government regulation, is anti-immigration, and wants to pay as little tax as possible. Whereas those on the left may support socialism, which is more and better government regulation, wants to see greater respect for diversity in all its forms, an expansion of power sharing beyond the white male cohort, and wealth being taxed to create real equity among more of us.
Indigenous Australians make up just under 4% of the population; and right now they are in the national spotlight. The coming October 14th referendum about amending the Australian Constitution to recognise First Nation’s peoples and the creation of an advisory voice to parliament on issues directly effecting them has thrust many into uncomfortable places. Not everyone feels at home being a spokesperson for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs. In light of this, it is not easy being black right now.
ON SALE AT APPLE BOOKS &
GOOGLE PLAY BOOKS
AUDIOBOOKS
Here is an interesting fact. Support for One Nation is highest in areas where there are relatively few migrants living. Regional areas and outer suburban electorates, where the vast majority of populations are white bread. Why then do they go on about the issue of high levels of immigration in Australia? It is not actual lived experience. Could it be because they watch Sky News Australia and listen to reactionary shock jocks on the radio? Blaming immigrants, refugees and foreigners, more generally, is a right wing populist saw. Combine this with a general underlying racism inherited down through generations and you probably get what is really going on here. Pauline Hanson has been banging on about her white supremacist views for decades and now has Gina Rinehart to bankroll her hate speech infected perspective downunder.
Culture Economics Fresh Government Politics Power Here is an interesting fact. Support for One Nation is highest in areas where there are relatively few migrants living. Regional areas and outer suburban electorates, where the vast majority of populations are white bread. Why then do they go on about the issue of high levels of immigration in Australia? It is not actual lived experience. Could it be because they watch Sky News Australia and listen to reactionary shock jocks on the radio? Blaming immigrants, refugees and foreigners, more generally, is a right wing populist saw. Combine this with a general underlying racism inherited down through generations and you probably get what is really going on here. Pauline Hanson has been banging on about her white supremacist views for decades and now has Gina Rinehart to bankroll her hate speech infected perspective downunder.
Culture Economics Fresh Government Politics Power
Here is an interesting fact. Support for One Nation is highest in areas where there are relatively few migrants living. Regional areas and outer suburban electorates, where the vast majority of populations are white bread. Why then do they go on about the issue of high levels of immigration in Australia? It is not actual lived experience. Could it be because they watch Sky News Australia and listen to reactionary shock jocks on the radio? Blaming immigrants, refugees and foreigners, more generally, is a right wing populist saw. Combine this with a general underlying racism inherited down through generations and you probably get what is really going on here. Pauline Hanson has been banging on about her white supremacist views for decades and now has Gina Rinehart to bankroll her hate speech infected perspective downunder.
Culture Economics Fresh Government Politics Power
PM Anthony Albanese was never going to stand up to the gas industry downunder. Weak leaders follow the power elite. They are content to see inequity and inequality flourish in this time of zombie neoliberalism. Nero fiddled whilst Rome burned or so the story goes. Governments do little these days but talk and let the markets run the show to the detriment of the working poor. We have a severe housing crisis and it is not getting any better. What is the government doing about it? Talking about it, but talk is cheap. They are not actually getting their hands dirty and getting into the game by building houses themselves. No, they are ineffectually encouraging private interests to do something about the housing crisis. The figures do not stack up in terms of meeting the challenge of new housing stock being built at the required rate.
Democracy Economics Fresh Government News Politics Power
I thought that it could be useful, in light of the apparent rise in the populist politics of grievance, to ask, so, what does it mean to be Australian? Anti-immigration is the flag waving vanguard theme of One Nation and the remnants of the Liberal party. Blame it on the immigrant appears number one on the political grievance charts downunder. Therefore, it provokes the question – what does it mean to be Australian? If it is not out-and-out racism, as those on the Right deny it to be, who, then, qualifies to be considered an acceptable Australian?
Culture Democracy Fresh Government Politics Power
We have seen a spate of one-size-fits-all welfare payments and subsidies. You know, instead of governments helping the most needy they make stuff free for all. This is done for political purposes in attracting votes at elections. All this does is increase wealth inequality. Well off property owners should not be receiving government assistance in maintaining their lifestyles. This brings us to the Alan Kohler call for free childcare downunder. While I support the general idea, I question why wealthy Australians should qualify for these types of assistance. How about a carve out for those over a certain income and capital asset threshold? We need to reverse the widening wealth divide after decades of American style neoliberalism funnelling riches to a select few in Australia.
Democracy Fresh Government Politics Power Workers
I want to start this article by acknowledging the wonderful speech given by John Longmire at the Sydney Swan’s Club Championship dinner. That speech inspired me to write this piece. Sydney and the Black Swan Grand Final event. Hands up who knows what a black swan event is?
If 40% of the American voting age population actually support Donald Trump and intend to vote for him in the coming presidential election what criteria are they basing that on? Donald Trump, in his first administration, fired most of those individuals he chose to work closely with.
I have a confession to make. My football team, the one I support and have done so for the last 30 years, was cruelly smashed in the Grand Final. This, unfortunately, is a repeat performance, as it happened also in 2022. Getting to a GF is no mean feat in and of itself – it is a heck of an achievement. This, paradoxically, makes the experience of seeing your team get thrashed in the ultimate game even worse. Not to make a fist of it but to be wiped off the stage so utterly is a devastating feeling, even for the fan. A gloom descends over one’s life and you feel like wearing a black arm band following such a build up and such a comprehensive defeat.
We measure ourselves against our peers. Australia is a wealthy nation raising little tax revenue, which is revealed by OECD economic research. It is important to state we are not talking about income tax exclusively here but all revenue raising taxation. Considering Australia is in the top 10 wealthiest countries globally it is surprising that we trail our peers like Canada and New Zealand in raising tax revenue annually. Taxes pay for our public services like Medicare, education, our military, and law and order to name a few important of these essential services.
Big congratulations to the Swans for their victory over the Giants at the SCG. It did not look like happening for much of the afternoon, as GWS were on top for three quarters. The Sydney Swans Qualifying Final win report card must pay the ultimate […]
I am sitting there in my armchair trawling through movie possibilities on streaming services. There are a lot of films featuring guns, just in case you have been living in a cave for the last 25 years and may have missed this. Mostly dumb American movies featuring actors brandishing weapons like they are magical talismans. The biggest guns attracting more attention from an adolescent audience that seemingly never grows up. Lots of guys watch flicks with actors playing with toy guns pretending to be baddies and tough hombres. Imagine if they banned guns from the movies – a lot of stupid stuff would never see the light of day.
Productivity in Australia has been on a downward trend for decades. The latest moribund GDP figures for this quarter are not anything particularly new. Yes, interest rates are hurting the economy, as they are supposed to be according to monetary policy in the Reserve Bank’s inflation beating crusade. The greater diminishing productivity trend is, however, an indication of a much deeper problem facing our economy. Successive governments have overseen the concentration of ownership in nearly all of our business sectors. Duopolies have replaced any real competition in our markets and this damages productivity. Capitalism works optimally when there is competition between businesses operating within sectors of the market. These corporate giants have circumvented this by gobbling up their competition via take overs and mergers. The ACCC and ASIC have been asleep at the wheel in preventing the overconcentration of corporate power in Australia.
Heaven help us and let it burn. If the sector is so moribund that it has come to this, I do not think that governments should prop it up. Australians do not want to be assailed morning and night with ads from largely overseas owned corporate bookmakers. What kind of country are we living in? Aussies lose $25 billion a year gambling! That is a lot of money, to state the obvious. Do we have too much money and are we too dumb to care? If free to air TV is dependent upon gambling ad revenue? Surely, something is wrong with the business and, perhaps, it has reached its use by date.
The culture wars can be divided down the gender divide in Australia. It is white men versus the world of women. Kerry Stokes sits atop his pile and directs his media shock troops to beat up on the hopes of his female employees. Four Corners exposed the facts that Channel 7 champions misogyny and misery. Then, they buy their silence with NDAs. Who else is famous for NDAs? Oh yeah, the convicted celebrity rapist Harvey Weinstein. Perhaps, Harvey is a hero of the upper management at Seven West Media. I mean, let’s look at the evidence.
Paul Keating tells us that Australia is on its way to becoming the unofficial 51st state of America. The former PM is not being complimentary in his assessment of our current defence policies when saying this. No, Keating is issuing a warning about our docile behaviour in this space. The truth is that Australia does follow the Unites States in many ways when it comes to economic and political trends. Especially, the conservative side of politics are constantly looking to take our country down well-trodden American roads. Financialization and zombie neoliberalism is where the US finds itself with private equity investment firms gobbling up all areas of life and business in America.
