Australia takes high moral ground as China expels journalists
Multiple Chinese media sources now claim the ASIO raided four Chinese journalists in Australia. Given the focus on Chinese espionage in Australia at the moment this may be true — and could possibly tip the problem on its head — but the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade would not confirm or deny it.
Australia takes high moral ground as China expels journalists
My thought for the day “The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages … It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom or our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.” (Robert Kennedy, 1968).(John Lord)
Money matters – » The Australian Independent Media Network
If wealth continues to concentrate at the top, no one will be able to contain the corrupting influence of big money on the American system and the anger it unleashes. As Justice Louis D Brandeis once said, “We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”
Robert Reich (Labor Day 2020: The Power Shift)
Having reported the long, epic ordeal of Julian Assange, John Pilger gave this address outside the Central Criminal Court in London on September 7 as the WikiLeaks editor’s extradition hearing entered its final stage.
JOHN PILGER: Julian Assange’s Stalinist trial mocks democracy
If wealth continues to concentrate at the top, no one will be able to contain the corrupting influence of big money on the American system and the anger it unleashes. As Justice Louis D Brandeis once said: “We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”
On Labor Day, remember this: Trump’s America works only for the rich | Robert Reich | Opinion | The Guardian
Donald Trump is a pathological liar. According to documented reports he has told more than 20,000 lies and distortions since he has been president. This is, obviously, deeply disturbing behavior for anyone who is president of the United States.
When one writes satire, it’s sometimes hard to write something serious and have people realise that you’re actually just writing what you actually think, particularly if one is simply describing the political situation in countries where people like Scotty, Boris and Donald are leaders. However, I felt that I should note the passing of Dave Graeber, the writer of two of my favourite non-fiction books, Debt: The First 5,000 Years and Bullshit Jobs: A Theory.
Vale Dave Graeber – » The Australian Independent Media Network
President Donald Trump’s longtime lawyer and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, alleges in a new book that Trump made “overt and covert attempts to get Russia to interfere in the 2016 election” and that the future commander in chief was also well aware of Cohen’s hush-money payoff to adult-film star Stormy Daniels during that campaign.
Trump a ‘cheat’ who idolised Putin, mocked Nelson Mandela: Cohen book
Warning of the very real chance of a “nightmare scenario” in which President Donald Trump misleads the American people over the results of the November election—or refuses to leave office voluntarily if voted out—Sen. Bernie Sanders is raising the alarm and mobilizing his army of supporters to be aware of just how dangerous a game the president is now playing.
‘Nightmare Scenario’: Sanders Warns Nation That Trump Is Laying Groundwork for Election Result Mayhem | Common Dreams News
Our former PM has not only made deeply sexist remarks, he’s also inept – and unsuited to be anyone’s trade envoy
Brits, take it from an Aussie: If Tony Abbott is your solution, you’ve got big problems | Van Badham | Opinion | The Guardian
My thought for the day We can sometimes become so engrossed in our own problems that we can easily overlook the enormity of the suffering of others. (John Lord)
A damming report on aged care the government cannot ignore – » The Australian Independent Media Network
PRIME MINISTER: Well the bus is going all the way up to Rockie and that’s where it was always planning to go. I mean, it’s a big state and I need to cover as much of it in four days as I can. So we were never planning to take the bus to Townsville, we’d always planned to take that last leg up to Townsville by plane because that was the most effective way to get there and to spend the most time there with people on the ground. I mean, these visits aren’t about sitting on a bus. They’re about actually engaging with small businesses and our supporters and the people of Queensland and listening to them.
JOURNALIST: Then why have the bus?
PRIME MINISTER: Because it gets me from A to B.
JOURNALIST: Will you be taking the bus to Rockhampton from here?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes. The bus will be going to Rockhampton from here. That’s right.
JOURNALIST: With you on it? PRIME MINISTER: I’ve got to get there earlier than the bus tonight.
The Important Thing Says Scotty Is That The Wheels on The Bus Go Round And Round… – » The Australian Independent Media Network
“Doing it Tough”: Defence spending spin belies deluge of dollars for multinational contractors
THE REAL NEWS
Scott Morrison spins defence spending and says contractors are “doing it tough”. The numbers show big dollars going to weapons makers from the US, France and Britain, while locally, lawyers, accountants and management consultants are in the frame. Marcus Reubenstein reports. The Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his Defence Minister Linda Reynolds trumpeted the announcement: “A $1 billion investment package to boost Australia’s defence industry and support thousands of jobs across the country.” As is de rigueur under current government/media arrangements, all the political correspondents of the mainstream media had been handed the story on a platter the day before the announcement. Moreover, the ABC’s report included the inexplicable statement that “Australia’s defence industry was struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic”.
“Doing it Tough”: Defence spending spin belies deluge of dollars for multinational contractors
Privatisation of child care laid bare: women pay high price – Michael West
Why isn’t this a not for profit industry after all it’s a service for our most valuable assets (ODT)
Despite huge government subsidies of more than $8 billion a year, parents still pay an arm and a leg for this essential service. And the women who mostly do the caring and educating receive pittance wages while the landlords, developers and investors make a mint. Lisa Bryant reports.
Privatisation of child care laid bare: women pay high price – Michael West
My thought for the day For the life of me I fail to understand how anyone could vote for a party who thinks the existing education, aged care and health systems are adequately funded and addresses the needs of the disadvantaged. (John Lord)
Newspoll: 50/50 – Will it get any better? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The real threats to American law and order are Trump’s craven enablers | Robert Reich | Opinion | The Guardian
Since Trump promised he would hire ‘the best people’, 14 Trump aides, donors and advisers have been indicted or imprisoned
The real threats to American law and order are Trump’s craven enablers | Robert Reich | Opinion | The Guardian
Dr Lisa McKenzie Dr Lisa McKenzie is a working-class academic. She grew up in a coal-mining town in Nottinghamshire and became politicized through the 1984 miners’ strike with her family. At 31, she went to the University of Nottingham and did an undergraduate degree in sociology. Dr McKenzie lectures in sociology at the University of Durham and is the author of ‘Getting By: Estates, Class and Culture in Austerity Britain.’ She’s a political activist, writer and thinker. Follow her on Twitter @redrumlisa.
The teachings of Marx are the best hope for UK’s beaten-up working class — RT Op-ed
This year’s RNC was predictably a circus, while the DNC was largely pitched to a relatively small sliver of affluent professionals and suburban conservatives. While conservatives are pulled ever rightward by an increasingly radicalized fringe, liberal elites discipline their base into accepting a message crafted for someone else.
Given everywhere we’ve been over the past four years, there’s almost nothing interesting about this week’s Republican National Convention. The race-baiting. The allegations of a rigged election. The apocalyptic vision of an America under the Democrats awash with criminals and no guns to keep them in check. The idea that all that makes life good (especially in the suburbs) is under grave threat. And the insistence that only Donald Trump – “the bodyguard of Western civilisation” – can save the world. We’ve seen all these moves before.
Donald Trump’s strongman routine has finally failed him
The notion of a “common good” was denied after the 70’s and the idea of ‘we’ was thrown overboard for ‘me’ and we certainly have felt it today. The common good was increasingly stamped out smothered by the pollution of the idea that self interest is what improves the world we live in. I may have been a lucky one but at 74 that can’t be said of the majority of my generation and for the ones that came later. Luck, good or bad, merit good or bad had little to do with the patterns of institutional behaviours and so called irrational economic systems we created. Short term benefits maybe have been come about but long term pain a certainty when maintaining the SYSTEM. Today you will see massive money being bet on the stockmarket against Australia’s overvalued retail Malls not for them. Money against Private Aged Care and yet this government insists on privatising everything and handing the barbarians oligarchs the key to the nation.(ODT)
The Federal Government will continue to deny Australians the right to clean air as long as it stays partnered with the fossil fuel industry, writes Dr David Shearman.
Clean air is a human right our government chooses to ignore
Is ASIC a poodle for Rich Listers and big business or a serious corporate regulator? In their seven years in power the Liberals have appointed all the key personnel. The decision on whether to appeal the loss it suffered in the court case it brought against advertising mogul Harold Mitchell will be a key test. Stephen Mayne makes the case for an appeal.
ASIC grandly slammed by Harold Mitchell mates, must appeal Tennis Australia case
When Politics is just a game it’s no longer of use or entertaining just an expense to us all The IPA don’t mind that as long as progress isn’t achieved .(ODT)
With Federal Parliament about to reconvene after a nine-week break, the PM met with his ministers to plot strategy.
Scotty and Co’s new ‘Blame Dan Andrews’ policy
If one considers the LNP to be better fighters because they have the IPA, Murdoch and money behind them does that mean they are better governors and organizers than the ALP? Australia would still be a backwater nation corporately owned more than it is now if it weren’t for the ALP. Unfortunately the privatization of everything has resulted in the dysfunction we are witnessing to day in our institutional inability to deal with eithet COVID and Climate Change. The battle for the common good is weakened by the neoliberal institutions we have inherited. (ODT)
August 25, 2020 — 11.59pm View all comments Branch stacking is one of the most unedifying, if not sordid, features of Australian politics. It is a fundamental tool of the factions evident in both Labor and the LNP. Labor has been at it longer, and is better at it. Indeed, Labor factions are more structured, disciplined and effective – LNP factions are more amateurish and aspirational.
Liberal and Labor leaders must respond to ‘cancerous’ branch stacking
The Coalition Government favours fossil fuels at the expense of renewables, but Australia needs to get off coal to save both lives and money, writes Professor John Quiggin.
Every day, coal is killing us
These times are financially stressful for many Australians, but not everyone. Alan Austin examines indicators showing the sectors still dining out.
The economy is still booming for the rich despite the pandemic
It’s possible to disagree – but still engage – with friends or fellow citizens who evaluate the benefits of test and tracing policies for COVID-19 differently, but how do we communicate with someone who – armed with the same public information – concludes that there is no pandemic?
How in the World did Americans make even a Pandemic Partisan? The Virus doesn’t Care
Microsoft is currently in talks with TikTok to buy out operations in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Considering Bill Gates and Microsoft’s massive failure with the Windows phone and in the battle with Android, they would be absolutely salivating at the prospect of owning a mobile app with over a hundred million young consumers. But will they protect private data? That prospect is highly doubtful. In early August, the Washington Post reported that Microsoft could use the data from TikTok for research and development in artificial intelligence. The only way forward is legislation that is both national and global in application and places democracy and the protection of privacy ahead of corporate interests and invasive security measures. Though with the governments of Trump, Scott Morrison and Xi Jinping, I don’t like our chances of that.
TikTok furore exposes data privacy hypocrisy in Australia and the U.S.
At the parliamentary hearing, he said: “From my perspective, creating jobs for people is much more important than preserving the credit ratings. I have no concerns at all about the state governments being able to borrow more money at low interest rates. The Reserve Bank is making sure that’s the case.” At one level, this is a sign of the momentous times we live in. Governments around the world are borrowing massively as the only way they can think of to overcome the coronacession. With interest rates on long-term government borrowing at unprecedented lows, what have they go to fear?
Coronavirus: Pandemic could kill off governments’ credit rating bogeyman
Liberal party powerbroker Marcus Bastiaan resigns after being accused of organising staff to recruit members
PM must sack Michael Sukkar over Liberal party branch-stacking allegations, Labor says | Australia news | The Guardian
The US Left has shouted itself blue in the face chanting, “no war for oil!” Usually it is hard, though, to know why exactly Washington launches its wars. In this case, nothing is hidden.
Trump admits War Crime in Syria as Damascus Slams US ‘Oil Theft’
How the race to develop treatments and a vaccine will create a historic windfall for the industry — and everyone else will pay the price
Big Pharma’s Covid-19 Profiteers – Rolling Stone
- What does science stand for;
- what does it try to accomplish, and what are its limits?
What is science?
Progressive leaders worldwide should look at the excellence of Michelle Obama’s speech. Here are just a few extracts:
Seeking the Post-COVID Consensus: Is the Biden-Harris Team Energising a Cautious Global Progressivism? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The Democratic Party is basically a governing party, organized around developing and implementing public policies. The Republican Party has become an attack party, organized around developing and implementing political vitriol. Democrats legislate. Republicans fulminate. In theory, politics requires both capacities – to govern, but also to fight to attain and retain power. The dysfunction today is that Republicans can’t govern and Democrats can’t fight.
Unlike Republicans, Democrats Can Govern. But Can They Fight? | The Smirking Chimp
My thought for the day Our lives should be subject to constant reflection, otherwise the way forward is locked into the constraints of today’s thoughts. PS: On concluding this piece I note that the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has apologised “unreservedly” to anyone affected by community transmission resulting from the disembarkation of the Ruby Princess.
When ‘sorry’ seems to be the hardest word – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The Great SchMo, laughingly labelled by a sycophant as the father of the country in a Trumpian inversion of reality is no hero. He’s a scheming serial avoider of accountability – a Duck Dodgers in a footy scarf.
The Great SchMo – Duck Dodgers in the 21st Century – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Trump has been more direct. Back in March, he blasted a different coronavirus rescue package from Democrats, telling Fox News, “The things they had in there were crazy … levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” The equation was pretty simple: More votes equals fewer Republicans.
via Donald Trump Is Committing A Crime Against Democracy | HuffPost Australia
Wage growth has recorded its lowest growth since records were kept. Illustration: Greg NewingtonCredit:
Wage growth is the key to recovery because wages are the greatest single driver of economic activity and employment. But rather than thinking of ways to get wages up, both sides are working on ways to slow them further.
Not that private sector employers will need any help. They always skip pay rises during recessions because, afraid of losing their jobs, workers know they’re in no position to argue.
But, while as individuals, firms benefit from cutting the real value of the wages they pay, especially when all of them do it at the same time, they all suffer because the nation’s households have less money to spend on the products of the nation’s businesses.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul ain’t stimulus
olddogthoughts 
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