Some Australians claim the honor of being the “world’s greatest multicultural success story”. It makes us sound more like Trump using’ a hollow advertising slogan at best in the eyes of the rest of the world. The LNP has been saying it while hiding our indigenous past from the eyes of others. Gough Whitlam was right!
A few days after coming to power in 1972 Gough Whitlam declared that ‘Australia’s real test as far as the rest of the world is concerned is the role we create for our own Aborigines’. More than foreign aid programmes, more than any role the country plays in agreements or alliances, treatment of the Aborigines will be the thing upon which the rest of the world will judge Australia and Australians ‘not just now but in the greater perspective of history.’
But speaking of mysteries, there’s been quite a few pop up this week:
I carry with me the fuzzy cognitive dissonance of a white man educated in a settler colony, an old land with new rulers, an Imperial outpost trying to be better, more inclusive and kinder but refusing to go to therapy, refusing to listen, refusing to admit there might indeed be some unreconciled structural hurt surrounding a certain genocide-and-dispossession situation – Australia’s “wHaT rAcIsM?!” brigade only ever a dog-whistle away from the Culture War’s frontlines.
A nation asking itself whether it wants to start listening to its First Nations Peoples on matters that concern them is not at risk of losing its non-existent egalitarian nature, the purity of its constitution, of its democracy – it is simply at risk of understanding itself for the first time, and when you exist in denial nothing is more terrifying.
It was in the 1970’s I witnessed a paid consultant do a report for a local Australian Council. He was an American and had done a study and report for Los Angeles. Here in Australia, the work he was submitting was simply substituting and retyping the local council’s name where Los Angeles was written. The rot was already present.
Last year the NSW Education Department paid almost $10 million to Deloitte Consultants for ‘expert’ advice, not to mention how much of tax-payers revenue went into the pockets of the disgraced PWC for similar nonsense. This reliance on outside know-how is a ‘logical’ step up from the failed policy of governments employing experts in leadership to head up their departments. What return did we get? After all this time, NSW school system is on life support evidenced by the abject failure of this experts’ approach.
Source: $10 Million for consultants: a further step from reality – Pearls and Irritations
While the hunters are in full tally-ho mode pursuing the PwC fox finally flushed out of the Canberra thicket, there is a whole colony of rabbits quivering in the long grass, awaiting dogs picking up their scent.
Source: Michael Pascoe: Waiting for other PwC shoes to drop in Canberra
, Democratic lawmakers and the Biden administration should seek legislation that puts more of the onus of fighting inflation on big corporations. Such legislation would:
— Allow the Justice Department to bust up monopolies (and prevent further consolidation through mergers and acquisitions) when three or fewer corporations have more than half the sales of a particular market.
— Direct the Federal Trade Commission to find that any such corporation has engaged in unlawful price gouging whenever it has raised prices higher than the rate of inflation, and impose a fine that would claw back those unlawful gains.
— Permit the Treasury Department to impose a windfall profits tax on large corporations, above a specific reasonable rate of return or profit margin.
If Republicans won’t go along, Biden and the Democrats should make this a major campaign issue for 2024.
They should ask the public: Do you want more jobs and higher wages, or do you want large corporations making fatter profits by raising prices?
Greed is not good, and it has harmful effects for all of us. It is a sick disease that needs full medical attention and needs to stay outside of policy making. What is the point of fighting if we don’t know what we’re fighting for? I’m not advocating for a communist revolution by any means, but a total rethink is needed in day-to-day life and economically. We can’t keep going the way we are with endless pollution, increasing population, and spending resources we just don’t have. We need to conserve our resources for tomorrow and future generations. Or else there is no future not just for the labour movement but all of us.
Source: We need to change how we think and act – » The Australian Independent Media Network
In the 1980s, then Prime Minister Bob Hawke told us we should try to become the clever country. Instead, we have become the stupid country. We now have the trade pattern of a poor developing nation. It is obvious that the decade of Coalition government has moved us away from that goal, giving us instead a country that is less caring, less fair, less focussed on community and less able to respond to accelerating climate change.
Source: Australia: The clever country? – Pearls and Irritations
There is a powerful prima facie case, which I will outline in this article and the below video, that Scott Morrison and his office oversaw a government conspiracy to cover-up the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins since 2019.
They’ll bow and scrape to the monarch of a foreign land, they’ll profess “humble affection” and “obedience” to the head of England’s special breeding program for hooray-Henries, chinless wonders, lords and nobles, they will prostrate themselves before inherited privilege who “cannot be other than a member of the Anglican Church, can never be other than British and can never be an Indigenous person.” They’ll listen to lobbyists, they’ll hear the rent seekers, they’ll take note of the carpet baggers and grifters but they’ll continue to ignore those most deserving of a sympathetic hearing.
The most obvious question in American politics today should be: Why is the guy who committed treason just over two years ago being allowed to run for president?
Answer: He shouldn’t be.
What is not amusing is Spud’s response to the proposed referendum for an Indigenous Voice To Parliament. Just as Donald Trump gave permission for the worst of American society to be open and proud about how stupid and ugly, they really were Spud’s “No” campaign has given permission for the racists to be openly racist – albeit clothed in the pretense that they actually give a fuck about the welfare of our Indigenous fellow citizens.
Source: The Abominable No Man – » The Australian Independent Media Network
One might argue the separation of the State and Media exists but from the Voters
It’s a safe bet the U.S. would be a completely different country if separation of media and state and separation of corporation and state were enshrined like the separation of church and state is, writes Caitlin Johnstone.
And in fact, we do not have to do it in our day, either. We don’t have to do it in any day. The only reason we’re being pushed toward a profoundly dangerous conflict with China is because it’s the only way for Western imperialists to maintain their hegemonic control of this planet, but their hegemonic control of this planet has brought us to a point of endlessly escalating nuclear brinkmanship and looming ecosystemic collapse. It hasn’t exactly been working out great, is what I am saying.
Source: Caitlin Johnstone: The West’s Long Plan to Crush China
Below is a list of 3 key issues that show the Anthony Albanese government is not much better than the Scott Morrison government when it comes to openness and transparency.
1 The Albanese government is continuing with it charges against whistleblowers David McBride who exposed war crimes and Richard Boyle who exposed corruption at the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
2 The Albanese government is abusing FOI laws just as much as the Scott Morrison government and that is set to be exposed in detail in a Senate Inquiry that the Albanese government voted against holding. (Click here to read more)
3 While campaigning for the May 2022 federal election Anthony Albanese promised public hearings for the new National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC). But after being elected Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did a dirty deal with opposition leader Peter Dutton so the NACC will only have public hearings in exceptional circumstances. (Click here to read more)
This is a talk Chris Hedges gave on April 6 at a protest at Princeton Theological Seminary demanding the removal of hedge fund billionaire Michael Fisch as chair of the seminary’s trustee board.
Source: Chris Hedges: The Hypocrisy of the Christian Church – scheerpost.com
The Athenian citizens were the controllers and the engine room of their own democracy. They made laws, administered them and decided when they had been breached. No one, irrespective of wealth or power, had any more influence than anyone else.
One of the many, many signs that Australia is nothing more than a US military and intelligence asset is the way its government has consistently refused to intervene to protect Australian citizen Julian Assange from political persecution at the hands of the US empire.
Source: Australia isn’t a real nation, it’s a US military base with kangaroos – Pearls and Irritations
if we’re being honest, is that not what the housing market has become – little more than a racket to grift money out of those unlucky schmucks not already in on the game? Or more accurately, a cartel.
Source: Australian housing is a cartel, and it’s time to break it up | The Shot
A viral tweet decrying the idea of work became a TikTok meme celebrating individualist influencer culture and the lives of the idle rich. But real freedom from the drudgery of labor requires collective action — and building a world beyond capitalism.
Source: If You “Don’t Dream of Labor,” You Should Organize for Socialism
2 of Trumps alleged co-conspirators for inciting the January 6 Capital Attack are global criminals Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch who utilised their Fox News channel to promote lies that the 2020 election was rigged. The Murdoch’s business and propaganda interests in Australia could be impacted if they were charged along with Trump for inciting the January 6 Capital Attack which is the main focus of this article.
But a quick overview of Trumps legal issues:
Trump’s presidency was trivial, having no accomplishments but one give-away of billions to his cronies in the form of a tax cut. It was so predictable. He seems to have sat around all day in his pajamas watching Fox Cable News and spewing out nonsensical tweets. He spent a third of his time playing golf, and went out on the hustings telling his 30,000 trivial lies. The evil my title is because of the real damage Trump has done. But trivial little mosquitos can give people malaria.
Source: Trump and the Triviality of Evil
Is Chris Hedges siding with Trump and saying the charges against him are all “political? That both Dems and GOP moderates are out to get rid of him? Is Trump really the victim he says he is?
Chris Hedges: The Donald Trump Problem Donald Trump is not being targeted for the misdemeanors and serious felonies he appears to have committed but for discrediting and undermining the entrenched power of the ruling duopoly.
Source: Chris Hedges: The Donald Trump Problem – scheerpost.com
There is a fundamental human right and it differs from wrong. Politeness isn’t the distinguisher it’s merely an error in equivalence.
On some level, it is straightforward for a Neo-Nazi protest to be easy for police to handle. As we saw on the streets of Melbourne last weekend, and repeatedly over recent years, a high five for white supremacist protesters is an easy gesture for some police officers.
When anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull visited Australia recently, most media outlets refused to give her hate speech a platform, writes Dr Victoria Fielding.
Why, if naval security was its objective, did Australia choose an iffy nuclear submarine agreement with the U.S. over a sure-shot supply of French submarines? This is a question that Malcolm Turnbull and Paul Keating, the Australian Labor Party’s former PMs, asked. It makes sense only if we understand that Australia now sees itself as a cog in the U.S. wheel for this region. And it is a vision of U.S. naval power projection in the region that today Australia shares. The vision is that settler colonial and ex-colonial powers—the G7-AUKUS—should be the ones making the rules of the current international order. And behind the talk of international order is the mailed fist of the U.S., NATO, and AUKUS. This is what Australia’s nuclear submarine deal really means.
Source: The U.S. and UK’s Submarine Deal Crosses Nuclear Red Lines with Australia – CounterPunch.org
The department admits that the storage and disposal of such waste and spent fuel will require necessary facilities and trained personnel, appropriate transport, interim and permanent storage facilities and “social license earned and sustained with local and regional communities.” But it also notes that the UK and the US “will assist Australia in developing this capability, leveraging Australia’s decades of safely and securely managing radioactive waste domestically”.
That’s mighty good of them to do so, given that both countries have failed to move beyond the problem of temporary storage. In the UK, the issue of disposing waste from decommissioned nuclear submarines remains stuck in community consultation. In the US, no option has emerged after the Obama administration killed off a repository program to store waste underneath Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. The reasons for doing so, sulked Republicans at the time, were political rather than technical.
Source: Spent Matters: The AUKUS Nuclear Waste Problem – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Australia’s old media are now being exposed daily for their biased reporting and failure to declare their conflict of interests which has to mean their days are numbered. The evidence for that statement and reasoning for writing this article is that I noticed that the last 3 videos I have published on YouTube are all…
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has just committed Australia to spending $368 billion on somewhere between three and five second-hand US Virginia Class submarines, and a follow on build of eight next generation British AUKUS nuclear submarines. It’s a strategic blunder, writes former submariner Rex Patrick, and it’s not even going to happen the way the PM has suggested.
Source: I just want a Ferrari, sorry, a nuclear submarine, no matter the cost – Michael West
Michael West | Mar 13, 2023 There will be no better opportunity than now for Anthony Albanese to ask US President Joe Biden for the release of Julian Assange. Michael West reports on the Belmarsh Tribunal and calls for the release of Australia’s number one political prisoner.
Source: Michael West Media – investigative journalists – always independent
Peter Dutton’s response to the tweaking is deeply, terminally flawed. It speaks to a darkness at the heart of the modern federal Liberal Party, a darkness that seeks to double down rather than save itself.
Source: Michael Pascoe: Peter Dutton’s venality and other tax jokes
Eleven years ago I gave the speech below. I was then pessimistic about our understanding of Asia. The situation has got markedly worse since then, writ large in the unremitting attacks on China stemming from ignorance and parochialism, particularly in our White Man’s Media.
Source: The Australian retreat from Asia is becoming a rout – Pearls and Irritations
The lying of Fox News and its damages to Dominion are significant. But the real damage is much deeper and more dangerous. And no lawsuit—not even manifold legitimate indictments of Donald Trump—can stop it. Only the decisive defeat of the Republican Party, and a Democratic Party empowered and committed to addressing the real problems plaguing American democracy, can stop it. That is a very tall order. And everything hangs in the balance.
Source: Opinion | Dominion, Tucker Carlson, and the Very Big and More Dangerous Lie | Common Dreams
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age just produced an immense example of conflict-of-interest journalism. A former prime minister called it “the most egregious and provocative news presentation” he had ever witnessed in over 50 years of public life.
Joseph Stalin died 70 years ago today, having stamped his indelible mark upon the Soviet system. Stalin’s legacy continues to haunt the post-Soviet landscape, right up to the present war with Ukraine.
Sydney is now one of the most tolled cities in the world. Every time you pay a toll, much of the money now flows oversees. Some people now pay hundreds of dollars a week in tolls, these pseudo taxes. It wasn’t that long ago that governments borrowed money to build this kind of infrastructure. The Harbour Bridge and Snowy Hydro come to mind. Sure, we were paying it off through our taxes for many years. Now we do it by paying tolls. But the taxes we paid for our infrastructure were far cheaper per person than the tolls.
We have been conned.
Source: We’ve been taken for a ride – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Time magazine hailed the “new south” on its cover, saying Carter had triumphed over the south’s “demagogic past” and Confederate ghosts. Now, thanks to the likes of Trump and Greene, we’re back in the toxic soup.
Source: Jimmy Carter: How Marjorie Taylor-Greene is damaging his legacy
The good news for the Murdoch media is that it’s not the most distrusted brand in Australia – despite the efforts of its journalists.
The bad news is that – according to the Roy Morgan Research Most Trusted and Distrusted Brands research – it is the fifth most distrusted behind Facebook, Optus, Telstra and Amazon. It just edges out Harvey Norman, whose ads in newspapers provoke much irritation, which rated sixth.
There are probably many reasons for the rating but the main ones are probably its unrelenting attacks on anything vaguely progressive; its rabid commentators; and, it is attempts to re-frame any debate so as to favour the LNP, attack the ALP and wage war on the woke.
Message to The LNP
Australia has no formal recognition of government and religion. Would you approve or disapprove of a constitutional amendment to formally separate government and religion?
Australia wide, around 53 per cent were in favour of a constitutional amendment to separate government and religion federally, 13 per cent were opposed and 33 per cent didn’t know.
Reducing the risk of Australia becoming trapped in an American war in Asia, again, requires the Australian government to give notice now to the United States that it wishes to withdraw from the FPA.
Source: The Abdication of Australian Sovereignty to the US – Pearls and Irritations
Australia must not allow our politicians and “thought” leaders on the right to push us down the destructive path being pursued by the Republicans.
The American right is waging war on modernity. The radicalised right alliance is sacrificing empirical evidence and truth for theocracy, tribal games and lies. It is determined to reverse the achievements of the Civil Rights era: white Christian man will return to his rightful place as delineator of truth. The contingent is destroying America’s standing to achieve it.
Since the Establishment of the East India Company, the very first Corporation the planet has been witness to a system of private interest, greed, government bailout, and sponsorship. The separation of powers and good governance are totally corrupted. Nothing has changed in 2023 other than the greater influence corporations have over governments today and publicly flaunted by the the likes of Murdoch and Musk while bigger whales don’t surface.
Society must make the necessary shift from a society that prioritizes wealth accumulation and economic growth to one that puts personal and societal well-being above profits.
Economically, conservatives serve the big end of town. Socially, they serve tradition. They do not seem to understand that arguing from tradition leads to some very dark places. Or perhaps they do know. It is unclear which is worse. Much like the already rich arguing for Libertarian economics, only those already privileged could argue from tradition. Why is Conservatism? It is a millstone around the neck of humanity.
Source: Why is Conservatism? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The failure to prosecute American officials and other powerful nations for war crimes has created a jurisdictional mess.
It seems clear at this point that the Biden administration’s position is that increasing Ukraine’s military capacity is a win-win scenario: Even if Kyiv does not expel Moscow’s forces and retake of all of its territory — including Crimea — as Zelenskyy has stated is the central objective, the proxy war will nonetheless deliver a series of potent punches to the vital organs that constitute Vladimir Putin’s reign. Russia will continue to sacrifice the lives of its soldiers and deplete its economic and military capacity — and Putin will be weakened internally and internationally. The goal is that one way or another, Putin loses without having to sacrifice U.S. or NATO lives.
But what if none of that happens? What if Putin survives this brutal war with his grip on power intact? What if Gen. Mark Milley, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was right when he said last November that a Ukrainian victory “is maybe not achievable through military means”? What if Ukraine is forced to accept a negotiated solution where it formally concedes the loss of its territory? What type of accountability could then be brought to bear for Putin’s decision to invade a neighboring country?
Referendum- Does the Constitution need to be changed? Or remain racial?
Peter Dutton and his media cabal notwithstanding, The Voice is a well-considered and “detailed” proposition put forward by Indigenous Australians — just respect it. Managing editor Michelle Pini provides the “detail”.
Source: Pipe down on The Voice, your White privilege is showing
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