words matter
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Americans have a funny idea about democracy if their behaviour around voting is any indication. If you look at the current situation and at the history of voting in the United States there is a greater push to keep people from voting than any encouragement for them to do so. More eligible American adults didn’t vote in the last presidential election than voted for either main party by about 20 million voters. The prevention of voting in the US. American men in power prevented women getting the vote unilaterally in the US for around a century. Of course, racist America stopped black women from voting until the civil rights movement in the middle of the 20C. New Zealand gave women the vote in 1893. Russia in 1917.
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Since the 1980s the way big companies in the United States do business has poisoned the well for the rest of us. The sick American corporate culture ruthlessly focusses on shareholder returns in return for enriching the executive to obscene levels. Stock options and company stock buybacks have become key ingredients in the billionaire factory churning out the super wealthy. This manipulation of the fabric of how companies do business has come at the expense of other stake holders like employees, consumers and the nations where these corporations do business. Downsizing, outsourcing, and profit shifting are all means by which companies have increased profits, reduced costs and avoided paying their fair share of tax. At the same time, these actions have reduced community engagement and care in return for outlandish levels of wealth for a few at the expense of the many.
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In the land of billionaires and oligarchs did the wealthy really need another tax cut? You know at the beginning of the 1960s the top tax rate in the US was up there around 90%. It is now all the way down to 37%. Think about that for a few moments, a reduction close to 60%. That is a heck of a lot. Americans have been rewarding themselves at the top for 60 years with huge reductions in tax. Now, under Trump they are coming after social security and Medicaid for the poor and sick. You know where this is going to end, Social Darwinism and killing off the weak and the needy.
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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.
The AFL has created a game that human bodies cannot actually cope with. How do we know this? Take a look at the number of soft tissue and knee injuries on the playing lists of AFL clubs. AFL a game unfit for human bodies. The evolution of the game has AFL players running at top speed, suddenly stopping, turning, twisting and being tackled. No bloody wonder that human joints and muscles cannot cope with the stress being applied to them under this kind of duress week in and week out. The physical conditioning experts employed by the clubs would know this but their well paid jobs encourage them to stay silent on this issue.
The release of a trove Epstein emails has revealed Jeffrey Epstein agony aunt to billionaires and other elites. Prominent Americans sought both financial and dating advice from Jeffrey Epstein. Money and sex, it is like these two hot topics use the same hole or parts of the brain. Larry Summers, the economist and former President of Harvard University, is featured in these email conservations with Epstein, even after Epstein’s conviction for sex trafficking. It seems that the billionaire financier and sex trafficker had a reputation as an expert in both these areas of life.
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.
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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.
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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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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The internet is here to stay and it is time to lock up trolls and online abusers. These cowardly bullies hide behind anonymity on social media and heap filthy abuse on women in particular. The legal framework around trolling is completely inadequate. The e safety commissioner is another toothless tiger in a streak of toothless tigers in Australia. The conservative governments have consistently delivered impotent human rights laws to Australians. It is time to recognise that these unsolicited comments in the online space should be treated in the same manner as libellous statements in the eyes of the law.
Many of us are doing it tough downunder. Stagnant wage growth over the last twenty years and now, rampant inflation is screwing the ordinary Australian. Is the Reserve Bank of Australia economically out of touch? Is Governor, Philip Lowe, who is instigating the fastest rise of interest rates on the cash rate ever seen in the nation’s history doing more harm than good? His warnings about the dangers of a wage-price-spiral are rooted in the experiences of the 1970s and not relevant to the causes of inflation in 2022-23. The RBA’s primary role is to protect the Australian currency and beating inflation is paramount to that function. If the governor, board, and bank’s economists do not properly grasp what is going on in today’s economy aren’t we flying blind?
The Queensland police declare Trains’ domestic Christian terrorists following an investigation into their murderous shooting in Wieambilla. Stacey Train and Nathaniel Train were school principals until recently and their conversion to mass murderers could not have happened overnight. This highlights the dangers of religious belief and how extremism is only an unknown distance away. If you believe in invisible supernatural entities then the sky is the limit when it comes to making up your own rules on planet earth. The thing about religion is that ultimately its adherents do not recognise governments over their gods.
Thirty years ago the average person didn’t worry about their digital footprint. They didn’t have a social media profile or a website in most cases. Individuals were footloose and fancy free without the ever present digital shadow hanging over them. Digging into your digital footprint can reveal how our cultural concerns are changing. Young people previously had lives which didn’t demand constant documenting via technological devices. Human beings had identities outside of the pixels and bytes forming shapes and images on screens. None of these things are possible today unless you are willing to swim against the current in 2023 and beyond. Kids are constantly checking their phones for updates re-their on-screen lives. Many cannot commit to things like watching a movie without reference to the small screen in their palm. Concentration levels have been diffused into a multiplicity of intermittent calls upon their flickering attention spans.
We all want to be free of torturous desires and anxieties that unsettle our lives. Here are 5 tips for inner peace and tranquility from the Stoic Golfer. One of the core beliefs of Stoicism is that individuals have little control over external events, but they have complete control over their own thoughts and reactions to those events. The Stoics emphasized the importance of accepting what is beyond our control and focusing instead on developing our own character and inner peace.
The murder of Carol Clay and Russel Hill in the Wonnangatta Valley are gun deaths. Greg Lynn is accused of the murders and will stand trail in the Victorian Supreme Court. Gun deaths in Australia: The murder of two campers in Victoria is worrying for a number of reasons. There are 2.6 million registered firearms in Australia. If licenced gun owners are travelling with their guns it makes for dangerous travelling. Disputes over camping sites may turn into life threatening situations, as, it seems, was the case in this instance.
Rupert Murdoch has been a scourge across this nation and around the globe. Publishing right wing broadsheets and tabloids to peddle influence in western Anglo democracies. Fox News has been his nadir in terms of journalistic standards and any pretence of objectivity in reporting the news. You would have to say that he has made his many fortunes out of giving stupid people what they think they want. The neoliberal shonky manipulation of the ordinary man and woman in the street. Appealing to their prejudices and their short shrift for anything beyond their ken. The anti-woke campaign is writ loud across the right wing playbook to rile up a response from the largely apathetic majority. News Corp publications and networks jump on this bandwagon day and night.
Content marketing is the name of the game, when it comes to strategies designed to attract the attention of your market. Best practices for content marketing include a raft of exciting and interactive techniques you can take advantage of for great outcomes. Getting eyeballs on your websites and social media platforms will take your digital marketing to the next level. Video is the new lingua franca online, with the proliferation of YouTube video presentations continuing apace. AI is making video production and editing much more accessible to businesses. If you are not enhancing your content with video you are falling behind in both audience expectation and SEO terms.
Dominic Perrottet, the Nazi premier of NSW, is under attack from Clubs NSW over reforms to pokie gambling in his state. The introduction of a cashless card is seen as the death knell for all the illegal money laundering going on via pokie machines. This is at the root of the whole “I dressed up as a Nazi for my 21st Birthday” shaming of the Premier. It is a dirty underhanded campaign to remove Perrottet from office and so kill off the reforms to pokie gambling in NSW. The millions and billions of dollars surrounding pokie machines in clubs and pubs in NSW is manna from ill gotten sources for a bevy of businesses, pollies, and hangers-on. Organised crime is heavily invested in this reform not going ahead. Premier Perrottet under attack over pokie reforms in NSW.
The Trump years were desperately unfunny despite the stupidity of the man and what often came out of his mouth as President of the United States. The laughable state of American politics is reaching new highs of absurdity with the most recent discovery of classified documents in Biden’s possession, from his time as Vice President during the Obama years. Firstly, Trump was under investigation by the DOJ for filching boxes of top secret classified documents when he left the White House. Who knew that Presidents weren’t allowed to souvenir such stuff upon their departure? Some folks steal stuff from their hotel rooms and slip it into their luggage prior to checking out.
