If I do not support the 95% of scientists, every major scientific institution and the research that is constantly peer evaluated I am obliged to accept the alternative. That is that I should take seriously the likes of Andrew Bolt (a journalist), Alan Jones (I’m not sure how you would describe his contribution to society), Lord Monckton (a discredited something who was once a lobbyist for the tobacco companies), Nick Minchin and Tony Abbott (both politicians). In fact, Minchin is on the record as saying that climate change is a left-wing conspiracy to replace communism. None of the aforementioned people has a background or expertise in climate science.
Category: Informed Comment
The most ominous danger we face comes from the marginalization and destruction of institutions, including the courts, academia, legislative bodies, cultural organizations and the press, that once ensured that civil discourse was rooted in reality and fact, helped us distinguish lies from truth and facilitated justice.
With rapidly evaporating respect Mr Turnbull, that’s crap. The rest of the world is moving to fibre whilst you have made us a communications backwater, ranking 50th in the world behind places like Thailand, Estonia, Bulgaria and Kenya. With rapidly evaporating respect Mr Turnbull, that’s crap – » The Australian Independent Media Network
flagship offerings on ABC Radio, they are unique in our broadcasting line-up and critical to our collective education. The World Today, the lunchtime wrap, and PM, in the evening, will run to just 30 minutes, down from one hour. One has to ask, where is the logic? Stop the dumbing down of the ABC
Unless you have forgotten who once ruled the country and wants to again. Why. Turnbull and the moderates must go.
Bolt’s just their hack and his son is be groomed is for want of a better word.
via Is the IPA running Australia? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The focus on multiculturalism and identity politics is anti-politics. It is accompanied by sterile reforms—such as more professionalized policing—that never challenges the underlying structures of corporate power, which has turned the workers of deindustrialized communities into surplus or redundant labor. We no longer seek to eradicate poverty; instead we applaud ourselves for not stigmatizing the poor.
Andrew Bolt.
“Whoever wants to make their own private or religious arrangements about living together can do so, provided they do not conflict with Australian law. But for the law to specifically endorse verdicts of religious groups is to give them a power and legal standing that seems at odds with not just our notion of one law for all, but with our Constitution’s insistence on a separation of church and state.”
But now we see the anti-marriage equality campaigners asking for just that – they want special laws to accommodate their religious beliefs.
Christian dominionism in Australia – » The Australian Independent Media Network
“I don’t think we can have democracies that work where most of the people are not benefiting economically, where most of the people are worried about their job security. Society can’t function without shared prosperity.”
Instead America is led by a man Stiglitz says should not be in the White House. “He is not fit to be president. He does not have an understanding of the issues, the political process. He is used to making one-time deals. You can cheat your contractors when you buy a real estate property and fix it up. Reputation doesn’t matter. For the president of the United States reputation does matter. The reputation of the United States does matter. We are dealing with countries all over the world. They want to know if your word is good. Trump’s word is not good.”
Joseph Stiglitz: ‘Trump has fascist tendencies’ | Business | The Guardian
Wages are not keeping up with inflation, well over 700,000 people are unemployed, part-time, casual and contract work are on the rise and almost 3 million people live below the internationally accepted poverty line.
Forget ‘are we there yet’ – let me outta here! – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Until we remember how much we have in common, and how cooperation, not conflict, has always been the path to greatness, we are doomed to suffer a system which divides us into winners and losers. Ironically, its beneficiaries are a small but diverse group of people who have found common cause in exploiting the rest of us.
Marriage equality: Don’t be distracted by false conflicts with natural allies
“Only in America“, we whisper.
Day to Day Politics: Looking at Trump from Down Under – » The Australian Independent Media Network
In 2016-17, corporate profit surged 21.2 percent while average wages rose only 1.8%. In the year to September 2017, trend employment increased by 335,500 persons while the labour force increased by 333,300 persons resulting in 716,600 still unemployed.
via Gaslighting arseholes – the real enemy of the people – » The Australian Independent Media Network
My thought for the day
“Sit before your televisions and watch Trump’s antics and ponder at the gullibility of the American people and say … ‘only in America’.”
via Day to Day Politics: How did it come to this? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Now let me add that there is nothing wrong with opinions so long as there is a diversity of them. But the fact is we don’t have a diversity and we would be a much better society if we took the risk of thinking for ourselves unhindered by the unadulterated crap served up by the media and self interest groups.
An observation
“Lying in the media is wrong at any time however when they do it by deliberate omission it is even more so. Murdoch’s papers seem to do it with impunity.”
Day to Day Politics: Being Conned with Bullshit – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Why is it that every time the Coalition are caught out it is a witch hunt?
To recover our mental balance we must respond to Trump the way victims of trauma respond to abuse. We must build communities where we can find understanding and solidarity. We must allow ourselves to mourn. We must name the psychosis that afflicts us. We must carry out acts of civil disobedience and steadfast defiance to re-empower others and ourselves. We must fend off the madness and engage in dialogues based on truth, literacy, empathy and reality. We must invest more time in activities such as finding solace in nature, or focusing on music, theater, literature, art and even worship—activities that hold the capacity for renewal and transcendence. This is the only way we will remain psychologically whole. Building an outer shell or attempting to hide will exacerbate our psychological distress and depression. We may not win, but we will have, if we create small, like-minded cells of defiance, the capacity not to go insane.
Source: American Psychosis
He is pretty much on the ball, and when you look at the recent history you see the similarity of events. The Government sets up the ROC, so it’s unlikely to be coincidental that the ROC is looking into the period of time when Shorten was at the union.Of course, the question that everyone wants an answer to is how did Cash’s Media Adviser find out the time of the raids? Who was his source within the AFP?Tony Abbott set up a Royal Commission into Trade Unions (or the Labor Party), and another one into the Home Insulation Program. Now we have the ROC. It has repeatedly set up bodies to dig up dirt on the Opposition Leader and the Labor Party. Remember its unrelenting pursuit of Julia Gillard for something that happened over twenty-five years ago? To the detriment of its own governance it has spent far too much time with its head buried in the scandal pit.
In so many ways, Milo Yiannopoulos is unremarkable. He is just one of a long line of conservative grifters making hay in Australia. In 1943, a time when the devil had the best poems, if not the best tunes, George Orwell could write: “By and large the best writers of our time have been reactionary in tendency.” Sadly, the West just can’t field the calibre of fascist it once did. He was talking about W. B. Yeats, and could have also called upon Ezra Pound, Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Knut Hamsun from the far right. After that lot, Milo Yiannopoulos feels like a real climb-down.
Source: Australia’s welcome mat for right-wing trolls | The Saturday Paper
In other words, manufacture a sense of crisis and you can get away with anything starting with maximum harm. Therefore, the conservatives under Abbott manufactured a non-existent debt crisis.Margret Thatcher said this (paraphrased):“There is no such thing as society. There are only individuals making their way. The poor shall be looked after by the drip down effect of the rich.”Abraham Lincoln said this:“Labor came before capital and is not related to it. Capital is what’s acquired from labour, and would never have come about if it were not for labour. Therefore, labour is superior to capital and deserves the higher significance.”Franklin D. Roosevelt said:“They who seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers…call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order.”This is one of mine:“The GST burdens the poor and those with the least capacity to pay. It discriminates against the poor and the pensioners who are living a hand-to-mouth existence and spending the bulk of their income on the necessities of life—food, clothing, rent, heating, power etc.”Before addressing the issue of social engineering I should say exactly what I think a Government should be regardless of its ideology.
“We will never truly understand the effect Free Speech has on an individual until we have suffered from the abuse of it”
Source: Day to Day Politics: Free Speech or Licensed Abuse – » The Australian Independent Media Network
2 Whilst Australia’s employment rate of 5.5% in September hit a four-year low the big concern is that full-time jobs seem to be almost a thing of the past. Sure, creating 19,800 jobs might seem fantastic but the reality is that only 6,100 were full-time. It seems that the structure of Australian jobs is rapidly changing. As good as the figures look the fact remains that for every job there are 17 people wanting it. Entry level jobs for young people we have five applicants for every job.Not to forget the number wanting more work.
those who deny Climate Change and the overwhelming scientific consensus seek to justify their belief by attaching themselves to a minority of science deniers with obscure qualifications or worse-to right-wing shock jocks and journalists with no scientific training what so ever.These people have no way of evaluating the volume of data produced by the various scientific institutions. One of the most outspoken deniers (Andrew Bolt) has, in recent times, been found guilty of deceptive lying in that he defamed some white skinned aboriginals. One has to wonder how many he has told when writing about his favorite topic climate change.Which brings me to the point of this piece: Hypocrisy.Now who said this?
The head of the misnamed Coalition backbench environment committee, Craig Kelly, has been all over the media with ever more strident calls to stop all subsidies to renewable energy. His argument, which has been adopted by that jellyfish Frydenberg, is that, if renewables are cheaper then they don’t need subsidies. On June 25, Mr Kelly…
It has to be said that if Tony Abbott was the worst Prime Minister we have ever had then Malcolm Turnbull has to be the most gutless. What kind of leader would allow some right-wing ultra-fanatics to ride rough shod over his every decision? Decisions that, when as Opposition Leader, he felt strongly about.
“Tony Abbott is the genuine article. The conviction politician who will use his muscle to cajole, bully, smash his way through. Abbott’s ability to yell from the rooftops what he believes in is his strength.”Genuine? Conviction? Strength? Surely you jest.Abbott is a politician who changes his mind depending on how the wind blows as Peter van Onselen reminded us in his article “Tony Abbott’s convictions are ever changing”.
Sunday 8 October 2017 Today I again refer back to the launch of “Incorrigible Optimist: A Political Memoir” by Professor the Hon Gareth Evans AC QC, Chancellor of The Australian National University – Launched by the Hon Bob Hawke AC GCL, 23rd Prime Minister of Australia at the National Press Club last Wednesday. “In his…
Source: Day to Day Politics: My idealism under threat, I think. – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Did you know that 10 per cent of Australians now hold more wealth than the other 90 per cent combined? Let me put it another way. The richest one per cent of Australians are collectively wealthier than the poorest 60 per cent. Or try this 62 mega-rich people across the globe now hold as much wealth as 3.6 billion of the world’s poorest. Try this. Australia’s richest person was worth $18 billion, equaling the wealth held by the poorest 10 per cent of Aussies.Here’s some more from an Oxfam report titled “An Economy for the 1%“: The world’s richest 1% now hold more wealth than the rest of the planet. The richest 10 per cent of Australians hold more wealth than the other 90 per cent combined. The gap between Australia’s richest and poorest is accelerating. In 2015, the wealth of Australia’s richest 1% outstripped the poorest 60%. Australia’s richest person is worth more than all of the wealth held by the poorest 10 per cent of Australians. Dr Szoke from Oxfam, the reports writer, said Australia must be part of a global solution to a global problem, and a renewed international focus on corporate tax avoidance would be critical to efforts to address wealth inequality.So isn’t it odd that the Turnbull Government is contemplating increasing the rate of its consumer tax in order to give the same companies a reduction in the amount of tax they pay. Figure that out.
Source: Day to Day Politics: Ideology versus the Common Good – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Considering the grave implications of their decisions, you would think that parliamentarians, who have no specific qualifications or expertise, would listen to the best advice available. But no. Experienced public servants who might suggest “that is a bad idea” are replaced by people who advise “this is how you can sell it”. Experts are ignored…
The death spiral appears unstoppable, meaning the U.S. as we know it will no longer exist within a decade or, at most, two.
Source: The End of Empire
In an article in today’s Australian, Janet Albrechtsen waxes lyrical about departing boss of the Minerals Council, Brendan Pearson, who she claims was “shoved out of his job as boss of the Minerals Council of Australia by those who prefer feel-good corporate bromides and green myths over energy facts and figures.”These purveyors of “green myths” were, among others, BHP and Rio Tinto who said they had lost confidence in Mr Pearson due to his unstinting advocacy for coal, something Ms Albrechtsen, on the other hand, considers a virtue, Source: Why are we letting the fossil fuel industry make the rules on climate change action? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
There are, and always will be, things we should be concerned about, things we should be working to improve, but they get lost in the political misinformation deliberately fed to us by a government that lacks any integrity, a government who chooses to confect crises and then boast about saving us from dangers that either…
The great Debt and Deficit Disaster that we faced going into the 2013 election has miraculously disappeared (even though the debt has more than doubled) and been replaced by good debt and bad debt. Apparently, when the Labor government invested in stimulating the economy, keeping people in work through the global financial crisis, that was bad debt, but borrowing $400 billion to spend on war machines is good debt.
Source: Fear boosts ratings – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The world has always been full of bulldust, which is why everyone should come equipped with a bulldust detector.
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