In a political world full of harmful ideologies, Kyle Mervin explains how to spin them to the masses and make them work.
Lie number one: Make out that you are more popular than you are
Lie number two: If you don’t have an actual enemy, you have to create one
Lie number three: Create your enemy’s arguments for them
Lie number four: If you do find yourself under attack for your ideas, guide your argument away from the detail and argue your right to say it
Category: LNP Government
If you encourage the banning of branded opioids or benzo you might be prosecuted under Morrison’s new laws. BDS, Sleeping Giants calling for a boycott on Helloworld will be made illegal. Encouraging boycotts against Israeli settlement goods, Alan Jones or Sky News after dark could land you in jail. The government wants to become an open and visible arm of Corporations Mussolini would be pleased. You can’t boycott News Corp (ODT)
Kelly is welcomed on Sky but Morrison bans him from the ABC (ODT)
Scott Morrison banned Liberal MP Craig Kelly from the ABC’s Q&A program
I am proud of her willingness to be active in highlighting the failure of governments to accept the fact of the climate emergency and take action – for a start in Australia by setting a carbon price! – to ensure that our grandchildren have a viable world to enjoy.
Conservatism puts a brake on progress and, at this point in history, the only brake we need is on global warming.
As the Kurds defend democracy first against neighbouring countries in the region, ISIS and now Turkey, the West once again abandon their supposed allies. Behrouz Bouchani, a Kurd and journalist fleeing from Iran has been imprisoned on Manus and now PNG for the past 6 years, since 2013. He has become the offshore absent conscience of Australian politics. He is one of Australia’s many political prisoners and yet he has committed no crime, broken no law, there has been no charge, no lawful detention or justice. All he ever wanted was to report the abuse, to tell the truth, to live, to be free. He is one of the many. Morrison and Dutton look on.
We like to watch our TV, we witness, we gloss over and we allow this injustice to continue on all fronts, even in our own country, in the absent halls of our own conscience.
Cash was swepthunder the carpet (ODT)
via Michaelia Cash, invalid union raids and ‘Ensuring Integrity’ legislation
It’s a principle of stability in a parliamentary democracy that, while you may be elected by a slim majority, you must govern for everyone. If you start rewarding those who gave you power at the expense of everyone else, you invite disorder on the state.
via Return of Coalition Government threatens Australian values
Would Dutton have retained his seat if Get Up and the Greens hadn’t treated his constituents as idiots? (ODT)
Anne Ruston and Peter Dutton stand out among their Coalition colleagues, since both stand out as seeming to be supremely incapable of seeing life as it really is. Their blindness to the fact that the majority of people forced to be dependent on Newstart are not drug addicts or malingerers and that the children – AND adults – who took part in the School Strike4Climate marches, are genuinely concerned about their future, is ignored in favour of vilifying fellow citizens less wealthy – or blind – than they themselves appear to be!.
I am one of many grandparents and great grandparents who accept the science on climate change. After all, the oil companies did their own research over 30 years ago and were well aware of the climate damage which would result from the escalating use of fossil fuels. And time has proved their predictions were spot on!
via Empathy. They have none. – » The Australian Independent Media Network
That meeting has gained a new lease of life. Australian prime minister Scott Morrison, recently in the United States, was called by Trump as part of Barr’s effort to marshal cooperation in investigating the workings of US law enforcement and intelligence behind the 2016 campaign. The New York Times did not miss the humour of this. “In making the request – one of many at Mr Barr’s behest – Mr Trump was in effect asking the Australian government to investigate itself.”
via The President Did It: Donald Trump’s Phone Around – » The Australian Independent Media Network
In industries propped up by temporary migrant workers, underpayment of workers is so widespread, it’s said to have become a business model. #TheDrum reporter @rubycornish takes a look at widespread wage theft in Australia
via Coalition’s workplace laws to diminish unions, not wage theft
Prime Minister Scott Morrison intends a national roll-out of the cashless debit card as part of a self-described “compassionate conservative” welfare agenda.
Only 20 per cent of the benefit will be accessible as cash with 80 per cent quarantined, preventing expenditure on alcohol, gambling or drugs.
His assumptions about those in need of welfare assistance reflect those of nearly 200 years ago in Britain.
via The poor worse off while companies profit from cashless welfare card
Trade with Australia has been boosted by the recent global boom. But how much of this record export wealth is staying in Australia? Alan Austin reports.
Every war we went to in the past 60 years we lost and the LNP took us there. They are equiping us for more as the LNP promised to follow America anywhere and they already have 800 bases ready to go. We even have more overseas bases than China outside our borders and are proud of it. 24 mill people expected to play deputy in a global world telling people to jump at our will. Hardly makes us a friendly nation in the eyes of the world. Cuba sends its forces around the world to assist in disaster zones we heard our conservatives demanding we do nothing when the Ebola emergency hit. Wake up Australia Oi Oi Oi (ODT)
In international circles, Australia is unashamedly promoting the use of its coal, writes Michael Mazengarb.
Despite a record three years of surging exports, Australia’s economy is the stand-out failure in the developed world. Alan Austin reports.
via Morrison flukes greatest export boom in history, but still can’t increase pensions
And how right the PM was, a man of undoubted perception, seeing in Craig Kelly something that had eluded the rest of us. Namely his grasp on climate science and his ability to understand and explain to the uninformed the vagaries of climate change.
I give you the honourable member’s speech to our parliament as recorded by Hansard :
Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (13:55): I understand how persuasive peer group pressure can be for teenagers, with their desire to conform and fit in with the crowd. However, I would say to any student considering joining the so-called climate protest: don’t be a sheep; think for yourself. You are being used and manipulated, and everything you are told is a lie. The facts are: there is no link between climate change and drought. Polar bears are increasing in number. Today’s generation is safer from extreme weather than at any time in human history. There is no 97 per cent consensus. Such claims are a fraud. Crop yields have increased remarkably. Wildfires have declined 25 per cent over the past two decades. We are seeing fewer cyclones, not more. Cold weather kills many times more people than hot weather, including here in Australia. The sea ice is not melting away; in fact, where the ill-fated Franklin expedition sailed in the year 1845 is blocked by thick sea ice this year. Renewables ain’t renewables, and they certainly don’t make electricity cheaper.
Someone is not getting their funding cut. It’s the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Quiet Australians! It has been a week, and nobody seems to have noticed, but the front page of the GDP release has been doctored, sorry … enhanced. In a happy coincidence for Josh Frydenberg, a spot of rounding and seasonal adjustment have delivered the Treasurer another 0.3 per cent for his next GDP.
Looking behind those GDP numbers
via Smoke and Mirrors: how the ABS tarted up the numbers for Josh Frydenberg – Michael West
Policies not working for the majority
Clearly, this Coalition Government is serving the big, foreign corporations first and foremost, careless of the welfare of most Australians.
Now, what are the scores again in the cricket?
via Australia’s financial report card: Worst performance in the developed world
Pity their clients aren’t (ODT)
via Australian nursing homes off to Bermuda as Brookfield swallows Aveo – Michael West
Look who’s advising Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on tax. The Australian Government’s “High Level Advisory Panel” is stacked with five tax types from EY, three from Deloitte, five from KPMG and seven from PwC. Michael West reports.
For the uninitiated, the reason this High Level Advisory Panel is funny is because a key activity of the Big Four accounting firms is advising their multinational clients on how to skive out of paying tax in Australia, a task which they undertake with flair, and by the billions.
via Josh’s Shark Pool: meet the Treasurer’s tax advisors – Michael West
The rest of the media is catching on to the fact that there is a paradigm shift underway in economics.
This won’t be a surprise to you if you are a regular reader of Independent Australia. I’ve written about two dozen articles on the main challenger to the old paradigm, which is modern monetary theory (MMT). Others have also written on this topic for IA. If you’ve been relying for news and current affairs on the usual suspects, however, the current controversy might have crept up on you.
For the most part, the rest of the media has been asleep on this one, even if they are latterly waking up.
olddogthoughts 
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