words matter
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In a land chock full of guns hatred has become a currency. A young American man, from a Mormon family in Utah, who grew up around guns, I mean the family embraced a love of guns, used that weapon of choice to kill another man. This is an American story. Guns and hatred. The culture worships guns. Every movie and video game is packed with automatic weaponry. Why did Tyler Robinson kill Charlie Kirk? It’s pretty bloody obvious. The why was Kirk’s expressed and implicit hatred of non-white and different folk in America.
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Charlie Kirk, it appears, was murdered, allegedly, by someone further to the Right, a Groyper. Unfortunately for Donald Trump, who longs to blame those on the Left – the nutjobs with the guns are predominantly on his side. A Groyper is a follower of Nick Fuentes, who is basically a Neo-Nazi in his professed views re-antisemitism and white supremacy. Charlie Kirk was murdered, allegedly, by someone further Right than himself. Trump has normalised racism, white supremacy, antisemitism, belittling women, and demonising Democrats in America.
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America voted Donald Trump back into the White House. This tells us Trump supporters are on-board with sex trafficking and abuse. You cannot have your cake and not eat it, in this instance. Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump were best friends for 20 years. Rich men buying and selling young girls and women to flaunt their wealth and power is the cream of American elitism writ large. Americans worship money and elect billionaires to run the country. Everything is about money in this culture. Justice is determined by wealth and status. Power is bought by these very wealthy men.
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Day 3 of having no power due to a storm. No service: Profitability is the new power. Yes, this post is written under the duress of being cut off from electricity in my home and work. We live in a time, where being connected to the grid is more essential than ever before. Everything now runs on electricity. My gripe is that despite this clear and present reality, we are still dependent upon outdated and fragile infrastructure. 50 years ago, as I was growing up, I heard about the plans to put the power lines underground. Indeed, this has been achieved in many new suburbs. I do wonder why in this wonderful new world of privatised utilities how so many more established suburbs and towns have not been transformed in this subterranean fashion. Storms wreak havoc to power lines on poles.
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.
British royal, the former Duke of York, Prince Andrew has now become the most prominent Epstein enemy of the people. Why is this so? Prince Andrew firms as No 1 Epstein target. Andrew appears to be a complex character. On the one hand, he seems none too bright and has not managed to amass any sizable fortune. If he had a few billion, he could avoid the public scrutiny, like plenty of other powerful men on the Epstein list who have managed to do so. Andrew is fastidious about the arrangement of his large teddy bear collection on his bed, according to confirmed reports from royal staff. WTF?
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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American Congressmen and women regularly trade on the stock market during their terms in office. This is despite the fact they may have crucial information about corporations and companies which affects their stock price. The American political set up is a bad joke in terms of any separation between civics and commerciality. The committees that these members of Congress sit upon directly impact upon the fortunes of American companies. The fact that members of Congress or their families can happily trade on the stock market during their terms of office is outrageous. No wonder they have to carry them out in wooden coffins and they hardly ever leave office until they reach the ripe old age of Methuselah. Talk about being on a good wicket.
A phalanx of politicians announced the completion of the Robodebt Royal Commission and that the federal government would be accepting all its 50 something findings. This disgusting policy initiative by the previous Coalition government went after 500, 000 Australians accusing them of fraudulently taking social […]
The radicalisation of the Republican Party in America under the aegis of Donald Trump continues to present disturbing new realities. Domestic Terrorism by the Right. Election officials are being threatened and now sent letters with white powder, which could be Fentanyl and other deadly substances. Domestic terrorism is a right wing phenomenon. Extremists on this side of the political spectrum are happy to threaten violence, brandish weapons, and do bad stuff. Trump has ushered in a new level of domestic terrorism into the United States. The ex-President who wouldn’t accept defeat has role modelled this kind of extreme behaviour for others to follow.
Money originated from blood money, wergild, how appropriate when you think about it. This was a payment that had to be made to the family of who was killed or hurt. The price of blood, usually, the monetary value determined of the injury done. Now, when you think about the bastards you have done business with and their morally repugnant behaviour it all makes sense somewhere (LOL).
My heart feels for the forgotten Australians. For those who missed the advantages of well heeled parents and private schools. For those who never quite managed to save up enough for a deposit on a home. For those who rent their residence in an ever shrinking market but now pay through the nose. My heart goes out to the third of Australians forgotten by governments and swept under the rug of their lost concerns. Are we returning to an age where money and property determined your rights in the world? Perhaps, we never really left that unfair realm.
Government budgets are not like household budgets. They do not work in the same way. Nations like Australia with a sovereign currency, like the Australian dollar, cannot run out of money. Therefore, all this tut tutting about government deficits and spending is misdirection. If you print your own currency you can always print more. Yes, there are other economic constraints like inflation, but worrying about going bankrupt is not one of them. Governments are better off running deficits than being in surplus. In a national economy the role of government is to spend to further the wealth and wellbeing of its citizenry when required. Understanding money is not the same for the state and its citizens.
Bruce Lehrmann goes to a strip club in Toowoomba in 2021, where he hooks up with a woman who later claims he raped her. He is now charged with allegedly raping this woman and the matter is before the courts in Queensland. Mister Lehrmann has been on our TV screens via Channel 7’s Spotlight, where he is portrayed as a victim of political and judicial skullduggery. Bruce Lehrmann was able to walk free after the Brittany Higgin’s rape trial collapsed due to juror misbehaviour and the decision was made not to have a retrial on the basis of the dangers to the mental health of the alleged victim Brittany Higgins. He was not cleared of the alleged charge of rape, however.
Renters don’t matter in Australia if the current situation is anything to go by. The available rental stock nationally has fallen to 1.1%. This is the lowest figure on record in the history of the nation. So, let’s talk about the rental crisis in Australia. Rents in the capital cities have been going up 12% year on year on average. Of course, for some their rent has gone up way beyond that in the 20% to 30% stratosphere. At the same time in Australia wages have not gone up anywhere near this. Indeed, for most wages have not risen at all. This means that poorer Australians are going backwards economically at a serious rate of knots.
Conservative politicians and their backers are inviting Australians to embrace their worst selves. Peter Dutton in his successful campaign to defeat the Indigenous Voice referendum has galvanised the downward envy gripping this nation. Too cheap and nasty to do the right thing and redress the constitutional wrongs which have defined this country the Australian people have let themselves down. Expediency always costs much more in the long run. The limited vision expounded by the No campaign and Dutton will come back to bite us on the bum make no mistake. Denying recognition and a say about the things that impact their own lives is a serious slap in the face for First Nations people.
Thank Adele Ferguson for shining the spotlight on this alleged blatant exploitation by a Sydney podiatrist of vulnerable Australians. ABC reveals podiatrist ripping off veterans and the evidence is stacks up. This illustrates the malfeasance by medical professionals occurring within the Medicare system and other government schemes. We know that billions of dollars are being rorted by some within the medical fraternity in a betrayal of the trust put in them by the Australian public. The 7.30 Report shows the complete lack of oversight present in so many government-funded schemes in Australia. The idea that all doctors are good guys and worthy women is being shown to be a costly fallacy for tax payers down under. Thank goodness for investigative journalism.
