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ACHTUNG
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Anybody with half a brain knows that Donald Trump is a compulsive liar. You would have to be living in a cave or on Mars not to have picked up on the vast amount of stuff written and talked about Trump over the last decade or more. What does that say about America that half of the voting population would still vote for this guy despite the masses of evidence as to his bad character? It says something profound about many Americans and their culture. They just don’t give a shit about anyone else but themselves. Me me me. It’s all about me and mine. Dog eat dog and they see Trump as the big dog in the fight.
Crime Fresh Politics
Trump is like the parent of a raped daughter who blames her rather than the perpetrator for the rape. Trump blames Ukraine for being invaded by Russia. Donald Trump is a disgusting human being. The Americans who voted for Trump should hang their heads in shame. We can only hope that someone with the courage can end this shameful chapter sooner rather than later. What the world needs now is not ugly Americans in charge of a corrupt and morally bankrupt administration. Stupid is as stupid does. Trump 2.0 is making America smaller not greater.
Crime Fresh Politics
American’s voted in Donald Trump as their president for the second time. What did someone famous once say about ‘once can be forgiven as a mistake but twice is no excuse’, or words to that effect anyway. Yes, Trump only won by 1.4 points but considering he was a convicted felon and well known conman it was a travesty. Americans have only themselves to blame on this score. Therefore, Trump’s America is the enemy. The enemy of those who believe in law and order. The enemy of those who value democracy. The enemy of those who oppose white supremacists, sexual offenders, and blowhard bullies.
Economics Fresh Politics
The recent popularity of right wing media in Australia and the United States has seen the emergence of new platforms and networks. Unfortunately, these are not being staffed and fronted by actual journalists in the main. Op/eds have become the product of choice in the media over the last couple of decades. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp publications and shows have led the way in this populist approach to current affairs and the news. Sky News Australia and Fox News are chock full of former right wing political hacks and staffers. Objectivity has become an arcane idea laughed about at editorial and production meetings in search of eyeballs and ratings. Therefore, you cannot trust the right wing media.
Donald Trump is a bully. The bully America elected as President. A whole lot of fearful Americans want Trump to play the strongman. The Republican party has demonised scapegoats so that Trump can bully them. Illegal immigrants, who are most often desperate vulnerable people, have been painted as violent criminals. This political pantomime with ICE agents rounding up dark skinned women, children and men will cost lives. Ethnic cleansing is the pursuit of fascist regimes. The richest country in the world is savagely stripping away social services for poor people. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, is attacking the poorest people in America and globally. He is denigrating them and the civil servants who work with them. Demonising prior to purging.
Culture Economics Fresh Donald Trump is a bully. The bully America elected as President. A whole lot of fearful Americans want Trump to play the strongman. The Republican party has demonised scapegoats so that Trump can bully them. Illegal immigrants, who are most often desperate vulnerable people, have been painted as violent criminals. This political pantomime with ICE agents rounding up dark skinned women, children and men will cost lives. Ethnic cleansing is the pursuit of fascist regimes. The richest country in the world is savagely stripping away social services for poor people. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, is attacking the poorest people in America and globally. He is denigrating them and the civil servants who work with them. Demonising prior to purging.
Culture Economics Fresh
Donald Trump is a bully. The bully America elected as President. A whole lot of fearful Americans want Trump to play the strongman. The Republican party has demonised scapegoats so that Trump can bully them. Illegal immigrants, who are most often desperate vulnerable people, have been painted as violent criminals. This political pantomime with ICE agents rounding up dark skinned women, children and men will cost lives. Ethnic cleansing is the pursuit of fascist regimes. The richest country in the world is savagely stripping away social services for poor people. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, is attacking the poorest people in America and globally. He is denigrating them and the civil servants who work with them. Demonising prior to purging.
Culture Economics Fresh
The recent popularity of right wing media in Australia and the United States has seen the emergence of new platforms and networks. Unfortunately, these are not being staffed and fronted by actual journalists in the main. Op/eds have become the product of choice in the media over the last couple of decades. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp publications and shows have led the way in this populist approach to current affairs and the news. Sky News Australia and Fox News are chock full of former right wing political hacks and staffers. Objectivity has become an arcane idea laughed about at editorial and production meetings in search of eyeballs and ratings. Therefore, you cannot trust the right wing media.
Crime Culture Politics
Electing a compulsive liar as your leader present’s Trump supporters with a number of challenges going forward. Up is down and black is white during time of Trump. In Ukraine, the invading Russians are now the true victims and Zelenskyy the dictator. Putin is no longer the bad guy but the hard done by virtuous leader. This is the gospel according to Donald Trump, despite it flying in the face of ‘so-called’ reality and dozens of other nations and their leaders. America now marches to the beat of a different drum.
Culture Fresh Politics
Peter Dutton, the Opposition leader, traded in bank stocks when the Australian government was bailing out the banks during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). A politician, with likely insider information, profiteering at this time says something about the character of a man putting himself forward as Australia’s potential Prime Minister. Dirty Dutton revealed as profiteer during Australian crisis. Looking out for oneself when millions were losing their jobs and savings is not the character reference than many in the electorate would be welcoming. Indeed, it casts aspersions upon the whole body of men and women supposedly serving their country.
Crime Fresh Politics
Have you ever dealt with really pushy salespeople? You know, the kind that just will not take No for an answer? A lot of them are trained in this way to never accept a negative response and to keep re-presenting their sales pitch endlessly. American sales people are particularly like this. After all, America has perfected the sales pitch psychology. I mean, all this death of a salesman crap is just that – crap. Buying Trump in the land of the sales pitch. Donald Trump comes from this background. You know, the art of the deal and all that. Trump and the GOP have gone back to the American people and presented their promises and pitch once more. The population is so used to this behaviour, living in this sales orientated land, that they have bought the same bunch of baloney again.
President Joe Biden has warned Americans in his outgoing speech about the dangers of the oligarchies in America today and the parallels with the Gilded Age and their Robber Barons. President Hoover was in charge back then and his administration was about to usher in the Great Depression. Lessons from the Gilded Age and what it can teach us today. Early in the 20C, a number of great things were built in America and the Gilded Age is often remembered for them. Interestingly, it was a high tech time back then too with the telephone, typewriter, gramophone, and Kodak camera coming into being. It was gilded by the gold trim on the mega mansions being built for the oligarchs of the day. Steel and railway oligarchs with vast fortunes directing the American economy via their wheeling and dealing.
I suspect that many of the people that voted for Trump would struggle to spell oligarchy let alone grasp its meaning. Hey, those Big Tech bros are cool guys and wouldn’t it be great to be like them. This sentiment may well capture the popular mood among many younger Americans. President Joe Biden’s outgoing speech to the nation was highlighted by warnings about oligarchy. It seems, warnings about oligarchy fall on deaf ears at the moment. Explaining about the importance of having a separation between government and big business should be fairly nondescript. The general American ignorance about how government works is pretty disturbing.
Revisiting the National Broadband Network (NBN) tells us a lot about how politics undermine government in Australia. The NBN debacle is a perfect example of Coalition ineptitude. A constant theme in federal politics in Australia is the LNP Coalition appealing to short term populist positions within the electorate. Most prominent is on anything to do with climate change, as head in the sand business as usual attitudes prevail. Wind power turbines affecting the views of property owners is one example, as the LNP rallies around these disgruntled voters. The idea that technology will save us from global warming without any behavioural changes is very popular among right wing voters.
I was listening to the radio whilst driving my car and I was scanning stations for something that took my fancy. The 5pm news came on and I was on a Queensland station that I knew to be owned and run as a Christian radio station. Their news announcer reported that Facebook was now allowing greater free speech on their platforms. This struck me as a strange way to report that Facebook has ditched independent fact checking on their social media platforms of Instagram, Threads and Facebook. I suppose I should not be surprised at this interpretation of facts by a Christian mouthpiece in Queensland.
A little thing called the Internet. Social media platforms on smart phones and their algorithms are winding folk up. Most things you watch on your feeds are slanted toward generating outrage. Video makers want eyeballs on their product so they title them with words designed […]
You are probably seeing a lot more self service checkouts when you go to the supermarket, airport, banks, and other stores. What are the economics of self service? First up, there are less jobs for human beings in your community because the machines are taking their employment. So, if you care about this fact it is a good idea to take note of this. The next economic question is whether you are saving money because you are now doing the work of what used to be done by a checkout operator paid by the store? There is no guarantee of this and I have seen no dedicated savings based on this in my own experience.
Queensland is a different state. Peter Dutton, the leader of the Opposition, comes from and represents Queenslanders. The bad cop on the political beat downunder. Many of its sons and daughters are proudly proponents of a white Australia. Especially in regional Queensland, where there is blatant racism expressed by townsfolk toward those not cut from the same cloth. The banana bending state:
“Queenslanders voted against the Voice to Parliament — more than any other state or territory in Australia”
Donald Trump, the President elect, has picked cabinet appointees as compromised as himself. I mean, nominating Matt Gaetz for Attorney General was an attempt at putting the sleaze in place early. Gaetz, like Trump, is a serial sexual abuser of women and these are the people Americans want in charge of their country. Low lifes put in charge by Trump. The Gaetz nomination failed early but it set the tone for the next Trump administration. Trump wants others around him who are as compromised as himself, as it is easier to manipulate those who owe you something. The nomination of Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary is another clouded in similar issues around the treatment of women.
Why do we have wars and the mass killings and destruction they engender? Men. Power hungry men who see violence as a means to an end. An end they desire, with their cabal in power. Why do we have wars? A current example of this is the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where Mr Putin’s trying to take control, by force, of a neighbouring country. There is no valid justification for killing people, whatever the political situation. Many of us shrug our shoulders and say, well, that is how the world has always been. Perhaps, but it is not good enough and we should never stop striving to progress beyond this reversion to violence and brute force.
