Not Why but Who?
Climate activist Greta Thunberg possesses intelligence, articulation and integrity that many Australians should aspire to, writes Dean Frenkel.
Category: Uncategorized
We have seen various flood metaphors used to describe ways to distort and destroy the democratic project in the Trump era. Scott Morrison’s accusation that he is the subject of a “political lynching” in the Robodebt inquiry fits neatly into the paradigm.
One of the strategists at the centre of creating President Donald Trump is Steve Bannon. He encouraged Trump to escalate his firehose of lies. The concept of a “firehose of falsehood” is a form of propaganda exploited by Putin constantly. The Rand corporation identified it and gave the device that label. The strategy involves a figure or regime lying hard and long enough, echoed through various platforms, to confuse the public.
Not only does the strategy escalate way beyond the ability to fact-check, but the public’s entire sense of faith in the institution of government is destroyed. This promotes helplessness and apathy.
When the government takes centrist positions on issues that need transformative and inspirational leadership, it gets bogged down trying to defend against bad faith actors who dog-whistle ‘communism’ at anything that threatens their paymasters’ interests, instead of leading from the front on reforms and policies that rise above populist fearmongering and deliver to Australians what they unequivocally voted for.
Source: The Fordham Effect – The Shot
Why are foreign investors so attracted to Australia? Why is the ASX being hollowed out by takeovers? Why do we consumers pay too much? A UBS research report has the answers. Michael West reports.
Source: The Lucky Investor Country: if the RBA has a conundrum, spare a thought for the ACCC – Michael West
Questions
1) Was the Chamber Full?
2) Did Scott Morrison defame one of Australia’s most respected and highly qualified Judges?
3) Is he calling all those that gave evidence against him ALP ring ins or Muslims?
Scott Morrison says he has been the victim of a political “lynching” in a fiery rejection of the findings of the Robodebt Royal Commission.
While Australians pride themselves, for the most part, in having stricter gun laws than most and not being warlike in disposition, their governing officials have increasingly thought otherwise. War drums are beating. The chatter about acquiring and building armaments is getting more frenzied. As a client state of the US imperium, firmly enmeshed in the security arrangements of the AUKUS agreement, Canberra is becoming increasingly interested in militarising the population and turning the country into a garrison state.
Source: Kits for killing: AUKUS goes to school – Pearls and Irritations
It’s significant that Ministers seem to remain unnamed Morrison and Dutton obviously spring to mind. The buck seems to have stopped with Dept head M. Pezzullo a significantly vocal spokesperson when Peter Dutton was the Minister.
Dutton’s track record of incompetence in all the ministries he held stands alone as a record achievement. So much so one might wonder if he was actually the most competent of LNP politicians achieving exactly what was asked of him by his LNP leaders at the time, particularly Tony Abbott and the party’s backroom. It’s is why he believes he’s been rewarded as today’s leader of the opposition.
Australia’s Home Affairs Department oversaw the payment of millions of taxpayer dollars to powerful Pacific Island politicians through a chain of suspect contracts as it sought to maintain controversial offshore asylum seeker processing centres.
Home Affairs secretary Pezzullo told a parliamentary committee in April 2019: “We’re not aware of … any demonstrable instances of likely, possible or reasonably suspected corruption.”
Source: Paladin, Canstruct, Broadspectrum implicated in suspect payments to Pacific politicians
The quality of Australia’s mainstream media like Fordham set a tone that is bullying and impossible to believe. A tone for us all insisting we are not racist but are against The Voice. We lead the world while all other colonial nations have agreed, either in their Constitutions or by Treaty to listen to the Voice of their First peoples. These curmudgeons proudly stand with Israel, Russia China and the UK, with no Universal Human Rights Bill and even support Dutton’s wannabe LNP government that wishes to rid us of the UN’s AHRC.
Our Mainstream media is not reporting polls but interpreting them in a way to influence the public and set a mood. A mood, that is significantly less generous to what Australians want. There’s little or no attention given to the “undecided” who seem to have been cobbled together with the no voters. An easier option when forced to give a Yes or No answer when surrounded by the mis and disinformation the media has also chosen to publish.
Australia has truly become Americanised politically and with media adopting only one side. It’s certainly not the side of the Government we Australians chose in a landslide for better integrity and improved management of progress to show the world we truly are the land of a “fair go”. The media seem to be a sounding board for a U-turn back to the 50s with their moronic chant “don’t take the risk Albo”
The Indigenous Voice to parliament is headed towards a referendum defeat, with most NSW voters supporting the No campaign for the first time and just 31 per cent of Australians expecting the Yes vote to succeed.
and
Yes, Peter Costello’s The AGE puts Massola’s by-line on the front page “Yes Vote is Unlikely” to win as “News” rather than Opinion setting the mood for the No Campaign
So, yes; some individual First Nations people are against the Voice, and for widely differing reasons, but the vast majority – currently 82 per cent – are for it. Eighty-two per cent. That’s a lot of voices. I hope the rest of us can hear them.
Source: Voice to parliament: Peter Dutton’s divisive language must not derail Australia’s 1967 moment
Been there done that Abbott’s Australian Shame has been spread the work has been done
A pair of United Nations commissioners have accused the United Kingdom of violating its international human rights and refugee law obligations after the country’s Conservative Party-led Parliament approved legislation cracking down on asylum-seekers.
We did absolutely nothing when the Liberal Party in opposition refused to allow Treasury to audit their budget replies back in 2013 in preference to their “privately chosen ” auditors. It continued for over a decade of LNP government and even continues today. No doubt all this was promoted by the likes of Peta Credlin and her husband Brian Loughane in the backroom.
The big four accounting / consulting firms PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG have likely cost Australia $billions of dollars via over charging state and federal governments and aiding abetting national and foreign companies with tax avoidance which is stealing from the Australian public.
Fighting for ego, a job, and survival Morrison has nowhere to go but run OS while still on LNP’s social welfare benefits. It’s currently his personal Jobkeeper plan which is about to run out as did Stuart Robert’s and now Alex Hawke’s? Pre-selection challenges have arrived will their hats and full of the Australian public’s donations and jobs finally run out?
His closest allies won’t have that luxury as members of a faction Canberra insiders called the “Morrison club” fight for political survival.
Failing to distinguish journalism from commentary and opinion is making News Corp a danger to our society, writes Dr Victoria Fielding.
Source: News Corp’s blurring of news and views damaging society
A minority of Americas politicians are ready to take a stand against Israel more support Russia and India who behave in in much the same way.
Remarks Saturday by Rep. Pramila Jayapal may signal the end of the “liberal except on Palestine” ploy of most Congressional Democrats, who decry police brutality against US minorities but are perfectly all right with Israeli government repression of the Palestinians being kept stateless and without rights. She explicitly denounced Israel as a “racist state.”
The major umbrella for the Israel lobbies in the United States, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), may have picked this fight when it threw its campaign money behind successful attempts to defeat rising members of the Progressive Democratic Caucus, which Jayapal chairs. Game on.
Key points:
- The federal government will decide on Philip Lowe’s future as RBA governor this month
- The Treasury and Finance secretaries are two of the candidates being floated to be the next governor
- Peter Dutton says they should be ruled out of consideration given their established relationships to government
The LNP were in Government for over a decade and “established relationships” far in excess of those of the ALP who have just been given jobs.
Dutton’s LNP had “established relationships” well before 2013 they turned the practise into the “new norm”
Remember when they turned their backs on treasury and finance in order to have their prospective budgets “independently audited”. Joe Hockey was voted the “World’s Worst Treasurer” and was given the American Ambassadorship. The chairman of ABC was Maurice Newman and in their pocket. Murdochians are even on the board with Janet Albrechtsen. While Speers has replaced Probyn as Political head of the ABC news.
The LNP appointed heads of departments not according to expertise but according to their politics. They were the Party that let the foxes into the henhouse and caused the current PwC scandal. They neutered the ABC with their appointments and here is Dutton parroting on that the ALP has “established relationships” with appointees and accusing them of doing what the LNP have been doing since Christ played ruck for Jerusalem. The ALP hasn’t even a track record when it comes to the level of corrupt appointments made by the LNP.
As the government weighs whether to keep or replace Philip Lowe as RBA governor, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says two key candidates from treasury and finance should be ruled out of the running.
Source: Next RBA governor should not come from treasury or finance departments, Peter Dutton says – ABC News
America has 350M people Australia 25M. Yet we pay our Public Service heads X4 times that of America. In what world does that even begin to make any sense?
Pay rates for top executives within the federal government reflect that aversion. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has, for instance, over 80,000 employees, and the work these employees do can literally make the difference between life and death for millions of people the world over. Yet the top executive at HHS, Xavier Becerra, last year took home less than $250,000 in compensation.
Within Corporate America’s top executive suites, by contrast, $250,000 wouldn’t even rate as a decent paycheck for a mere week’s worth of labor. Last year’s highest-paid U.S. CEOs pocketed over $250,000 per day.
Source: Titanic Pay for Corporate CEOs Leaves Workers Drowning | The Smirking Chimp
The earth is getting especially hot this year, as record after record falls. Seth Borenstein at AP reports that three times this past week, the average temperature of the earth topped anything ever recorded. Thursday’s average 62.9 °F. (17.18 °C.) broke the record yet again.
the point remains. For Dutton to suggest that secretly people agree with him but they’re not prepared to say so publicly for fear of upsetting the “elites” is the sort of nonsense that we’re used to hearing from One Nation senators. Oh, and apparently Linda Burney is an elite, according to Dutton.
…, sometime after the Voice referendum, we’ll have someone put their hand up for the Liberal leadership…
Source: What The Government Is Doing Should TERRIFY You! – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Bwahahahaha, the „we love USA“ crowd tweeted the wrong flag originally (Liberia).
Is there an explanation as to why right wing parties are so incompetent so often?
Source: GOP Sends Out 4th Of July Tweet With Flag Of Liberia | Crooks and Liars
The great shame is that there are Australians like this. Our great pride is they remain ignored by the majority. The great pity while moving left from this minority we encounter and have to endure first One Nation and then Peter Dutton’s LNP before we eventually arrive at the first signs of representative politics in Australia the ALP. It at least realizes the need to rule for all Australians not just those that voted for them. Then moving further left there is a voice that even protests that Albo’s government isn’t progressive enough and needs to do more but the ALP isn’t listening.
There is no equivalence between the regression of the far-right and the protest & demand for progression in either our ideas or actions by these two extremes. They are polar opposites.
The Australian Far-Right recently targeted an LGBTQ-inclusive Rainbow Storytime event. However, this time, tactics of issuing threats until the event was cancelled didn’t work, writes Tom Tanuki.
Source: Far-Right fails to shut down Rainbow Storytime event
The only way we can avoid repeating the experience of Spain, Germany, Hungary, Russia, and Chile (among others) is to overwhelmingly repudiate — defeat — Trump’s and the MAGA Republicans’ movement at the polls.
And the first step to that is to wake up everybody we know. As Leadbelly famously said, “Stay woke!”
Source: What Would America Be Like With a “Dear Leader” in 2024? | The Smirking Chimp
Trump points to “something being done” about Jack Smith but also his “family”. Typical threats by the heads of Cartels.
“Trump is encouraging his followers, who we know have included the violent insurrectionists responsible for Jan. 6, to target the family and friends of Jack Smith,” added Norm Eisen, a lawyer and Brookings Institution senior fellow. “It is profoundly concerning.”
The West’s interpretation is significantly different to that of the Russia-phile view presented on Youtube of Putin always in full control of the Wagner group. What do you think?
In the last 18 months he has been dealt two great blows entirely of his own creation: his failed attempt to take Kyiv and bring Ukraine to heel, and now the rebellion by his own protege, with forces he enabled. The uncertainty and humiliation may make him more dangerous. While Mr Prigozhin’s uprising appears to be over, its consequences are only starting to unfold.
Source: The Guardian view on Prigozhin’s mutiny: Putin’s problems aren’t over | Editorial | The Guardian
Newspapers around the world raced to cover fast-moving events inside Russia, with many assessing what it could mean for Vladimir Putin
Mainstream media and the Federal Opposition are spreading “The-Voice-is-divisive” rhetoric — a shameless attempt to sow unnecessary seeds of division in Australian society, writes Belinda Jones.
Source: The Voice will enrich democracy says Solicitor-General: Dutton says ‘No’
An Exception or New Normal caught out? The Paradise Papers sure did nothing to change the course of history
The Senate has quickly handed down its report into the PwC scandal and it pulls few punches, causing one governance expert to declare, “The findings are game over for PwC”. What’s the scam?
Source: Senate report is out: is the “multi-year cover-up” “game over for PwC”, or not? – Michael West
When Religion, Politics and now the Weather are now inappropriate topics to talk about in public. Woke up America!!
“I take immense pride in having educated the public about the impacts of climate change during my career,” said Chris Gloninger of KCCI in Des Moines. Julia Conley Jun 22, 2023 8
Source: Iowa Meteorologist Resigns After Receiving Death Threats for Climate Coverage
The nature of Capitalism’s insanity when the media put reckless adventurism above desperation and survival to define news for sale
Those who perished on the Titan should be grieved. But the incessant coverage of their fates has shown a latent snobbery towards the nature of death. Foolhardy explorers and doomed adventurers are to be admired, their names venerated; the anonymous refugee and asylum seeker is to be judged and reviled, their rights curbed, and coverage of their fates minimised.
Source: Deaths at Sea: From the Titan to the Mediterranean – » The Australian Independent Media Network
High Court Judge Jonathan Swift — who previously worked for a variety of British government agencies as a barrister and said his favorite clients are “security and intelligence agencies” — rejected two applications by Julian Assange’s lawyers to appeal his extradition last week.
Source: Chris Hedges: The Imminent Extradition of Julian Assange & the Death of Journalism
June 23, 1971, when he appeared on CBS Evening News ten days after news broke about the Pentagon Papers that he’d provided to journalists. Ellsberg pointedly said that in the 7,000 pages of top-secret documents, “I don’t think there is a line in them that contains an estimate of the likely impact of our policy on the overall casualties among Vietnamese or the refugees to be caused, the effects of defoliation in an ecological sense. There’s neither an estimate nor a calculation of past effects, ever.
Daniel Ellsberg’s Last Message
Donald Trump’s penchant for taking advice from the shills and charlatans he sees on his television may be the thing that finally does him in, if last week’s federal criminal indictment over his handling of government documents results in legal accountability.
Source: Trump’s obsession with cable news pundits could be his downfall | Media Matters for America
Bruce Lehrmann’s barrister for his rape trial Steve Whybrow confessed in a witness statement, as per below, to aiding and abetting Murdoch propagandist Janet Albrechtsen, who writes for The Australian, with a leaked police document known as the “Moller Report” and other documents in a deliberate attempt to harass Brittany Higgins.
We all knew that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any voters but it’s still a little jarring to realize that the Republican Party is so thoroughly Trumpified that they don’t even care if he is found to have stashed nuclear secrets next to the toilet.
Source: Trump’s defenders get caught up in the corruption | Salon.com
Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty to misusing classified documents, saying he was unable to make sense of any of it, given the lack of illustrations.
Source: Trump Says He Discarded Classified Documents After Realising There Were No Pictures — The Shovel
Trump picks them and they don’t just walk do they?
Former adviser accuses Trump of running a ‘Ponzi scheme’ as he scrambles for cash to pay legal bills
Source: National Times – Former adviser accuses Trump of running a ‘Ponzi… | Facebook
In a bar hypothetically discussing blowing up an FBI building can land you in jail on conspiracy charges. Inciting violence doesn’t? What the fuck is going on?
On Instagram, Trump’s eldest son’s fiancee, Kimberly Guilfoyle, posted a photo of the former president with the words, “Retribution Is Coming”, in all capital letters.
In Georgia, at the Republican state convention, Kari Lake, who refused to concede the Arizona election for governor in 2022 and who is an ardent defender of Trump, emphasised that many of Trump’s supporters owned guns.
Source: Donald Trump charges: Supporters unleash torrent of violent rhetoric
It’s not hard given Trump’s past that he saw money power and influence in taking these documents and refusing to return them when asked like others have. Particularly Biden and Pence. Clinton who Trump demanded “lock her up” also fully cooperated with her investigation. Trump has been stand-out , and adamant refuser of any cooperation ant it’s why the DOJ and FBI were called in as a matter of national security.
Cevallos explained that Trump’s decision to string the government along ultimately led to him being charged.
We are stone throwers living in a glass house and the conservatives among us refuse self-reflection or readiness to change who we are. However, they’re so prepared to accuse others of what we have been doing for centuries. It’s the reason and justification for hypocrites not being listened to.
But before we throw stones at others, Australians should consider how our own record looks to them.
Any change to this current racial system we have had in place for 240 years Peter Dutton calls “dangerous”. He’s a real redneck. A Trumpster who treats his slaves with compassion
As we head toward the referendum on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament later this year, it is worth considering the long history of how governments have tried and failed to authentically listen to First Nations people.
Lachlan Murdoch blows it again.
“The distraction to our company, the distraction to our growth plans — our management — would have been extraordinarily costly, which is why we decided to settle,” Lachlan Murdoch said at an investment conference this month.
Source: Mistakes and miscalculations: How the Murdochs and Fox got it so wrong
The more Republican opponents Trump has the better for him. He could sponsor more himself to win the Republican nomination or even not turn up.
Republicans once warned about a repeat of 2016, when the sprawling GOP field failed to coalesce around a Trump alternative, giving him the nomination. But much of the urgency that once existed among Trump’s GOP rivals to limit the field has faded in recent months.
Source: Trump’s 2024 Calculus: The More GOP Rivals, The Better For Him | HuffPost Latest News
How the rise of China changed America – and not for the better
Source: National Times – Alan Kohler: How the rise of China changed… | Facebook
When the Head of the investigation claims his team all suffered PTSD and due to the pressure put on them were medically incapable of doing their jobs. Yes, a whole “team” and even today some can’t return to work. Now does that sound feasible or a prepared statement? They were so distraught they gave all the prosecution evidence collected to the defense by mistake!!
Note not a word from DS Moller about the pressure put on Brittany Higgins by his team’s open disbelief in anything she had said happened. Here is an example case of Brittany Higgins being judged and blamed, making the police seem the victims of rape.
In an email to DS Moller in September 2021, Mr Drumgold voiced his concerns that the brief would “become relevant to a fact in issue, as well as credibility issues”. He asked him several questions about the creation of the brief and the circumstances of its delivery. He also requested statements from the police to support this.
DS Moller told the inquiry today that these statements were prepared but, to his knowledge, were never used. When asked why he believed they were requested, he said: “I felt like … the DPP was attempting to collect evidence against the police for use at a later time … to show criticism towards the police.
Source: National Times – ‘I didn’t think there was enough evidence’ to… | Facebook
The Way Murdoch Rolls
Fox spent over an hour promoting an easily-debunked story that veterans were kicked out of New York hotels to make room for migrants. These lies were followed by death threats against hotel staff.
The descriptive “fall from grace” presumes there was “a time of grace”. There never was.
History may struggle to define the most significant factor in the demise of Stuart Robert’s political career but the ultimate end can be calculated to the minute, thanks to John Margerison.
Source: Stuart Robert’s fall from grace
Considering the States debt is less than 30% of its economy the term “disaster” as expressed by the Mainstream media and LNP is a total exaggeration and simply Abbott-like political scaremongering. An objective Fact Check shows the LNP and the media are more than just gilding the lily. Compared with other Nation States Victoria is carrying a very respectable debt level having managed Covid and being the most desired state to migrate to.
UK 95%, Brazil 93% USA 259% Japan 200% and under our Morrison LNP 132% https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-by-national-debt
Dan Andrews has actually achieved real progress in his 14 years. Much more than can be said of the federal and NSW governments. They are both in opposition now because of their disastrous records of damage, corruption done and promises unfulfilled. (Old Dog)
Mr Davis’s claim is gilding the lily. So are similar claims from Mr Guy, Mr Bach and the Liberal Party organisation. It’s important to note that Victoria’s net debt in June 2022 was $99.98 billion. It is not yet the $165.9 billion it is projected to be in June 2026, despite Liberal Party claims it has already “blown out” to similar magnitudes and Mr Davis’s claim that it will reach that level by 2025. Nonetheless, Victoria’s June 2022 debt sits head and shoulders above any other state or territory in nominal terms. But adjusting for the size of each state economy, using a debt as a proportion of gross state product as a measure, Victoria and the Northern Territory are neck and neck, with other states still far behind. Victoria’s June 2022 debt is also larger than the combined total of NSW, Queensland and Tasmania in both nominal terms and as a share of gross state product. However, the gap is larger now than it is projected to be in June 2026. The debt in Victoria in June 2026 is projected to be larger than any other single state, including the NT, on both measures. But projections for four years in advance are far less reliable than actual and estimated figures for the most recent
olddogthoughts 
You must be logged in to post a comment.