The international right is cynical and dangerous. It is crucial we look beyond the surface rhetoric to understand what it represents because Australia is not immune.
Source: The right is now lies and bigotry: what next for conservatives? – Pearls and Irritations
Let’s get this out of the way quickly because it’ll allow me more time to be as obnoxious as I can possibly be. I was extremely correct about the Victorian election being a casual stroll in the park for the sitting Premier, unlike, mysteriously, nearly all of my journalistic brethren. The odds-on heavy favourite Daniel Andrews won his third term with a predictable majority no one else in the media seems to have predicted. 🤷♂️
Source: Why everyone (except me) was wrong about the Victorian election | The Shot
The Minerals Council of Australia has duped Energy Minister Madeleine King into repeating its highly inflated claims of how much taxes its mostly foreign multinationals members pay. Callum Foote reports on an $85 billion PR scam.
Source: Mining lobby tricks government with its big taxpayer fairytale, swaps Deloitte for EY – Michael West
But what I really want to talk about today is something quite different from charitable giving, although often confused with it: It’s called “effective altruism.” Known as EA to its practitioners, effective altruism urges people to give away a large share of their incomes.
Fine as far as it goes. But EA has been going much further.
One of EA’s most influential proponents is the Oxford philosopher William MacAskill, who has urged young people to seek high-paying jobs in finance (or wherever else they can make gobs of money) on ethical grounds, because they can then donate a large portion of their earnings to worthy causes. For example, by becoming a hedge-fund mogul, MacAskill says, you can donate large sums — and create far more good — than you can as a social worker.
Source: A Grotesque Distortion of Philanthropy | The Smirking Chimp
That’s my real worry: A presidential candidate who would welcome Nick Fuentes and Kanye West to dinner at his home is a candidate without sound advice, a candidate who has no one around him to tell him no, or he’s a candidate who doesn’t give a damn.
Whatever the reason, that presidential candidate is untethered. He is surrounded by people as crazy as he is. Which means he’s even more dangerous.
Source: The Crazies Are Now in Charge of Donald Trump | The Smirking Chimp
The myth of Silicon Valley touts the grit and flair of its tech bro champions. But the chaos of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover has revealed that there’s no genius or elaborate game of multidimensional chess behind the curtain: just garden-variety capitalists.
Source: Elon Musk Is Destroying the Myths of Silicon Valley in Front of Our Very Eyes
Since capitalism’s dawn, power stemmed from owning capital goods; steam engines, Bessemer furnaces, industrial robots, and so on. Today, it is cloud-based capital, or cloud capital in short, that grants its owners hitherto unimaginable powers.
It is now possible to quantify accurately the death toll from the destructive Trump regime, as Alan Austin reports.
As Trump gears up his campaign to return as U.S. President, we can calculate the number of Americans who have died needlessly since his first announced run in mid-2015. The number is 548,800, more than half a million.
Source: Half a million needless deaths under Trump’s regime of anger, fear and hate
Joe, please don’t run. (But if you do, I’ll be 100 percent behind you.)
The Model of LNP Promises
What’s a promise or, more specifically, an election promise? Is it a guilt-edged set-in concrete commitment made during an election campaign? What if the circumstances change after the campaign making it impossible to fulfil? Is a promise a legal commitment? Is it nothing more than just a proposal? Tony Abbott said this about promises
Tony Abbott said this about promises before the 2013 election
“It is an absolute principle of democracy that governments should not and must not say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards. Nothing could be more calculated to bring our democracy into disrepute and alienate the citizenry of Australia from their Government than if governments were to establish by precedent that they could say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards.”
That is an unambiguous promise that one couldn’t take any other way than how it is written or spoken.
Yet:
“The day before the 2013 election, Tony Abbott said there would be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to the pension, no changes to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS,”
Source: Promises, Promises, Promises – » The Australian Independent Media Network
My thought for the day
The ability of thinking human beings to blindly embrace what they are being told without referring to evaluation and the consideration of reason never ceases to amaze me. It is tantamount to the rejection of rational explanation. ( John Lord )
Source: A view of Trump from Down Under – » The Australian Independent Media Network
One thing you can be certain of it’s not ANTIFA. However the Usual Suspects are hiding in plain sight!!
The concerted attacks against comedian Friendlyjordies are simply not funny.
Jordan Shanks-Markovina, known as Friendlyjordies, is a funny man and a popular YouTuber but his incisive investigative videos, which reveal embarrassing truths about politicians and powerful corporations, are ruffling too many feathers, it seems.
Source: Friendlyjordies’ dangerous work met with firebombing attacks
If social trust is good for society, and for the economy overall, why is such a decline in trust occurring? The simple answer is because some businesses make money from distrust.
Source: The biggest threat to capitalism? Purveyors of mistrust – Pearls and Irritations
History Repeats. Lessons Unlearned,
It’s the same vicious cycle: Corporations achieve monopolies that shaft consumers while pulling in big money, a portion of which is used to bribe politicians to look the other way.
This is not solely a Republican problem. The Ticketmaster Live Nation merger was approved by the Obama administration. FTX and Bankman-Fried were major contributors to Democrats. Republicans are more dependent than Democrats on big money, but far too often both parties are drinking from the same trough.
Source: Who’s Hurt When Monopolies Crash and Burn? | The Smirking Chimp
Of course The Australian republished Andy Kessler’s ridiculous Wall Street Journal column, “The decline of work in a spoiled society.” Those News Corp bedfellows continue to miss that they are at the core of the problem.
The pandemic drew back the curtain for the workers of the West, casting a glaring spotlight on the fact that they were cogs in a machine churning profit for the power brokers. Billionaires took off on joyrides to space, in rockets built of the workers’ stolen wages. Emergency workers received mere thanks for dying in excessive numbers to keep the upper echelons safely serviced in their beach home escapes. Nurses saw that their dedication had been exploited for unfair pay as their shifts ballooned. Teachers learnt they were actually childminders to allow capitalism untrammelled access to parent workers.
Source: Greed and a spoiled society: workers are not the problem – Pearls and Irritations
Two lessons here.
First, corporations that regard employees only as costs to be cut rather than as assets to be nourished can make humongous mistakes. Elon Musk is Exhibit #1.
Second, where corporations view employees as costs, the traditional way for employees to flex their muscle is to strike, thereby temporarily closing factories and stopping the machines.
But where employees are a corporation’s key assets, workers’ greater power comes in threatening to — or actually — walking out the door. Elon Musk is Exhibit #2.
This certainly isn’t new Catholics and Jews were kept out of politics in the 40s and 50s when it was considered an area exclusive to members of the English churches. Loyalty to Rome and Israel was considered dangerous and un-Australian. Some consider it should continue today and are fully-fledged monarchists and cultural assimilationists with a slightly broader attitude to the definition of Christianity and Western culture. Like Andrew Bolt who though born here claims he’s Dutch and who wouldn’t want to be excluded or return to the days when the English had no time for the Dutch whatsoever.
Victorian Liberal candidate Renee Heath is a lifelong senior member of an ultra-conservative church that has been secretly directed by its global leader to infiltrate Coalition politics, is opposed to gay, trans and reproductive rights and has left some former members traumatised.
An investigation by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes has unearthed fresh evidence of disturbing conduct within City Builders and closely affiliated churches in Victoria that are part of a global network of Pentecostal churches.
Source: Liberal candidate Renee Heath ‘agent’ for ultra-conservative church, family says
The honeypot of vast pools of government money inevitably attracts flies, from the two-bob rorters to billion-dollar corporates.
What they have in common is adding the expense of a profit margin needing to be skimmed between the taxpayer, the actual care provider and the client.
We’ve seen this movie before with every government service that has been privatised/outsourced/flogged off to the for-profit sector, from tertiary education to aged care to employment services to child care.
And now the NDIS.
Source: Michael Pascoe: NDIS honeypot inevitably attracting fat flies
To get to where they are, imperial powers will deceive, dissimulate and distort. The US imperium, that most awesome of devilish powers, has tentacled itself across the globe, often unbeknownst to its own citizens.
In a report released by the New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center of Justice titled Secret War: How the US Uses Partnerships and Proxy Forces to Wage War Under the Radar, there is little to shock, though much to be concerned about. The author of the report contends that the list of countries supplied by the Pentagon on US military partnerships is a savagely clipped one. The list is so wrong that 17 countries have been omitted.
Source: The Secret Wars of the US Imperium – » The Australian Independent Media Network
But if Republicans prevail in the House, even by one or two votes, Democrats’ senate bills won’t go anywhere, anyway.
Perhaps that’s what Americans have opted for. After years of tempest and tumult, it may be that most of us want nothing more dramatic than a competent government that acts reasonably and carefully — and doesn’t make any waves.
Source: Keeping the Senate! Woo-Hoo! (Almost) | The Smirking Chimp
Events in the USA suggest the Trump era may be ending, but not before hundreds of thousands of Americans have died unnecessarily, as Alan Austin reports.
What only the Left has done for this Nation
Gough Whitlam made his election policy launch 50 years ago, but it reads today as an address to the Australians of 2022. Mark Sawyer looks at the enduring changes and the enduring challenges wrought by the reforming Labor leader.
Source: Rebooting a nation: how Gough Whitlam crafted the Australia of 2022 – Michael West
One thing is for sure Trump didn’t start the swing away from the centre that wave started long ago and he jumped on board for the ratings. And boy, did he get a shock?
What it proves you can’t turn 180 degrees on a whim. It took generations to arrive and now it will take generations to change again. The Dems need to dump their old and non-progressive leaders and pass the reign to those futurists like AOC who listen before they speak and who think in terms of “human values”. Like Bernie Sanders, she’s far more representative of the Nation and not just a minority part who can’t see past their individual interests.
Anyone worried about the direction this nation is heading still has much to be worried about. But we should find some solace in the young people who are committed to redirecting it toward social justice and democracy.
To Me, the Most Encouraging Thing of All | The Smirking Chimp
and
Wake Up Australia
We are being led in our anti-China hysteria by the United States which is not concerned that China will attack us, or even the United States, but is concerned that its world hegemony is being challenged.
Source: China has neither the intent nor the capability to attack us – Pearls and Irritations
A world population milestone of 8 billion. An exploitative economic system that assumes infinite growth on a finite planet that’s getting hotter. You do the maths, writes Michael Bayliss.
Source: Population almost 8 billion: Pressures on the planet? Countless
“There needs to be a differentiation between an individual decision and a record and a pattern.”
Source: AOC on Political Mistakes and the Left’s Growing Pains
Like the Medibank ID theft Scammers UNKNOWN or UNIDENTIFIED
Joshua Watt, one of the lead researchers on the University of Adelaide team that conducted the landmark study, summed it up. ‘In the past, wars have been primarily fought physically, with armies, air force and navy operations being the primary forms of combat. However, social media has created a new environment where public opinion can be manipulated at a very large scale.’
‘CNN brought once-distant wars into our living rooms,’ another stated, ‘but TikTok and YouTube and Twitter have put them in our pockets.’
We are all carrying around with us a powerful source of information and news media – and also, most certainly, disinformation that’s coming relentlessly at us from influence operations run by ‘bad actors’ whose aim is to deceive.
Source: The Secret Wars: anti-Russian bot army exposed by Australian researchers – Michael West
The schism between the lifters and leaners in corporate Australia has deepened. BHP, Rio and the banks are tipping in massive tax while tax paid by fossil fuel giants remains paltry, abjectly failing to merit a social licence to operate in Australia. Callum Foote peruses the latest tax data.
It’s a Sports Rorts whitewash. Scott Morrison’s former chief-of-staff and top bureaucrat Philip Gaetjens fortuitously found “no evidence” of pork barrelling by Senator Bridget McKenzie. Rex Patrick on how disappearing documents and political double-speak converged for an artful cover-up.
The strategy of the current Coalition in Opposition is to continue its campaign of deliberate malicious falsehoods, as Alan Austin reports.
Source: New Parliament, new Coalition leaders, same old lies
The political writer’s life was much easier when the previous government was in power – almost a scandal or some form of corruption every day. We didn’t have to think much about what to write. Now with a more sensible government in power, we have to think more deeply about what keys our ever-sensitive fingers hit.
But that is not to say there isn’t anything to write about; here are a few examples.
Source: There’s always something to write about – » The Australian Independent Media Network
We are so fortunate in Australia to have compulsory voting as a duty required of every Australian citizen. America doesn’t require its citizens to vote. If that is the case why not allow all American “residents” to vote citizens or not? Republicans want neither as they command the votes of the wealthiest minority in the nation and while their numbers are shrinking their proportion of voters remains high despite the fact they have been captured by MAGA Trumpists.
My friends, we owe it to generations before us who fought and died for democracy and the rule of law, and to generations after us who will live with the legacy we leave them — to get out the vote next Tuesday, to vote out the traitors and liars, to renounce the party that has forsaken the precious ideal of self-government, and to vote in people who are dedicated to making our democracy stronger and better.
Source: The Biggest Question of the 2022 Midterm Election | The Smirking Chimp
Something you don’t find in Australia’s Mainstream Media
“Among the 1.2bn people who inhabit the world’s liberal democracies, three-quarters (75%) now hold a negative view of China, and 87% a negative view of Russia,” the report reads. “However, for the 6.3bn people who live in the rest of the world, the picture is reversed. In these societies, 70% feel positively towards China, and 66% positively towards Russia.”
Source: New study finds the rest of the world supports China and Russia – Pearls and Irritations
What in the intellects of seemingly reasoned people would render them incapable of rational thought? It is a question I have constantly asked myself over the past decade as we slowly descended into the consequences of an overheating planet. Inevitably, I do so more often as I approach my final years.
As one day seeps into the next, the world as we know it weeps in protest, fighting the pains of its rape by nations uninterested in saving it.
Source: We have gone beyond the point of no return – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Just three days after Elon Musk bought Twitter, he posted a tweet advancing the baseless allegation that Paul Pelosi, the husband of the Speaker of the House, who was assaulted Friday at the couple’s home, had been drunk and in a fight with a male prostitute.
Figures in last Tuesday’s Budget Papers show the Coalition has cost Australians more than 400 billion dollars in waste and rorts, as Alan Austin reports.
Since the 1980s, workplace law in Australia has crippled the union movement. Today, it’s a finely tuned machine that exacerbates inequality in order to enrich a small minority of bosses.
Source: Australia’s Industrial Relations System Is Designed to Enrich Capital at Workers’ Expense
Bogeyman politics tends to be flatly unimaginative. The image of the nuclear-mad Russian President, counting his diminishing options, has caught the imagination of press and propaganda outlets across the West. Will Mad Vlad go the distance and deploy a nuclear weapon in Ukraine?
Source: Tactical Nuclear Fantasists – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The stakes in the midterm election, now just 12 days away, could not be higher. In many ways, these midterms will determine the future of American democracy.
It’s budget time under a new Albanese Labor Government and never will there be a better time to gauge the media reset from pro to anti-government than now.
A few recent examples of the media gang – unfortunately all from the national broadcaster – going into mass hysteria with their “analysis” over Labor’s first budget include:
David Speers to Jim Chalmers: “You can’t keep blaming the Coalition.”
Andrew Probyn to Sarah Ferguson: ‘One clear winner … and millions of losers.’
And the current front-runner in baseless and nonsensical beat-ups, Stan Grant, to no one in particular:
‘The dirty secret at the heart of the Federal Budget…’
The latter is the title of an article by ABC’s Stan Grant, in which he discovers a sudden and most compelling urge to consider Australia’s poor and disadvantaged. It is a new and shocking experience that has clearly eluded Grant and most of his media mates for the past decade.
One of the key tasks of the media – for any younger readers who may never have experienced it – is to hold governments to account. But this, like the key function of governments being to govern, seems to have been AWOL for over nine, very long and dysfunctional years under Coalition reign.
Source: The really big dirty secret at the heart of the budget: The media hate Labor
Most of us don’t have paychecks that automatically increase to cover the rapidly-increasing costs of just about everything. As a result, inflation is making most of us poorer.
Source: Whose Pay Keeps Up With Inflation? | The Smirking Chimp
I saw the following words on Facebook and noted that the author was unidentified. However, further perusal revealed that they were highly sage in content. As my enquiring mind would dictate, I decided to digest the words and see if they were sympathetic to my journey. I separated their thoughts and married them to quotations from my writing. My thoughts are in quotes and I haven’t attempted to expand on the person’s writing; instead, I have allowed my quotes to speak for themselves.
Source: If you believe in God… – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Rather than ignore him, we must demand that Trump be prosecuted. Instead of pretending the poison he released into the American system is behind us, we must acknowledge that it is spreading.
As opposed to dismissing him, we must deal with him and the lawmakers who are enabling him head-on — and stop him, and them, through every non-violent means possible.
My thought for the day
A conservative outcry: Poverty is the victim’s fault, but wealth comes from virtue, and both are the natural order of things. ( John Lord )
Source: The loneliness of a long-term Opposition Leader – » The Australian Independent Media Network
olddogthoughts 
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