Even the most relative right-wing elements in the ALP should be relatively Left on the broader spectrum. We all need to see ourselves as part of a ‘broad Left’, and in this sense having common cause. Once we agree on this perhaps we can truly ‘move forward together’.
Source: The ALP – Arguing for a Minimum Program – » The Australian Independent Media Network
IA’S VOICE We have published extensively in favour of the Voice. Most recently, the words, studies and investigations of Ranald Macdonald, Dr Victoria Fielding and Anthony Klan have shed light on this shameful chapter in our history.
Independent Australia will continue to use our voice to publish in favour of First Nations people being actively involved in the decision-making process over their own lives and the future of their children.
We will reject arrogant attempts at solutions to problems of which non-Indigenous Australians have no real understanding.
And we will advocate for the rights of First Peoples, who cared for this land for 60,000 years before our pale-by-comparison, yet destructive, 200-year blip in time.
Source: IA’s last word on the Voice
Cannabis is a relatively harmless therapeutic and recreational drug. It has been studied more exhaustively than any other therapeutic substance on earth. In recorded history there is not a single documented case of a person dying from cannabis toxicity. Last year, in Australia, there were no deaths attributed primarily to the use of cannabis. In 2014, the year that Obama publicly observed that cannabis is likely less dangerous than alcohol, there had been no deaths solely attributable to cannabis use in the US, or Australia, or the known universe.
Moving from Enlightenment 1 to Enlightenment 2 with only a soft glow of understanding will take courage. Do we have it? In terms of change, the new Enlightenment of artificial intelligence will make the old seem placid by comparison.
If free speech’s only purpose is to denigrate, insult and humiliate, then we need to reappraise its purpose. Some say it identifies those perpetrating wrongdoing, but if it creates more evil than good, it’s a strange freedom for a so-called enlightened society to bequeath its citizens.
My thought for the day
Life is about doing things, not having things (but it’s probably too late now). ( John Lord )
Hold your fire. There’s heaps to do at home. A Voice to Parliament. Energy. Welfare. Education. Higher Education. Health. Wages. The Arts. Climate. Everything worthwhile’s been neglected under the fossil fuel muppets of the last nine years.
And do bring on the Royal Commission into Murdoch. As soon as you can.
Morrison didn’t just drive the Liberal Party into a mountain. He and his predecessors dismantled our democratic, civil society. You call yourself a builder in the election campaign. Let’s see some of that. So what’s the go, Albo?
Source: What’s the go, Albo? (Part 1) – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Murdoch won’t change his whole global business model relies on competing for money due to the imbalance of the distribution of wealth in capitalist societies. They rely on supporting those governments that maintain the system of inequity. There might be some occasional criticism of personalities and strategies but when push comes to shove at election time the world knows who the Murdochs support. Their message is certainly not to inform the electorate or support any notion or ideal of a publicly owned media.
Founder and publisher David Donovan explores the significance of the new Labor Government for Rupert Murdoch’s stranglehold over Australia’s media.
But in more recent years I’ve come around. As America has moved closer to being an oligarchy — with staggering inequalities of income, wealth, and power not seen in over a century — and closer to Trumpian neofascism (the two moves are connected), “It’s a Wonderful Life” speaks to what’s gone wrong and what must be done to make it right.
Soon after “It’s a Wonderful Life” was released, the FBI considered it evidence of Communist Party infiltration of the film industry. The FBI’s Los Angeles field office — using a report by an ad-hoc group that included Fountainhead writer and future Trump pin-up girl Ayn Rand — warned that the movie represented “rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a ‘scrooge-type’ so that he would be the most hated man in the picture.” The movie “deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money were mean and despicable characters. This … is a common trick used by Communists.”
The FBI report compared “It’s a Wonderful Life” to a Soviet film, and alleged that Frank Capra was “associated with left-wing groups” and that screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett were “very close to known Communists.”
This was all rubbish, of course — and a prelude to the Red Scare led by Republican Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin, who launched a series of highly publicized probes into alleged Communist penetration of Hollywood, the State Department, and even the US Army.
The movie was also prelude to modern Republican ideology. Since Ronald Reagan, Republicans have used Potter-like social Darwinism to justify everything tax cuts for the wealthy, union-busting, and cutbacks in social safety nets. Rand herself became a hero to many in the Trump administration.
How much did the Australian Government spend in 2020 assisting the occupation of Afghanistan?
According to a recent analysis by Lindsay Koshgarian of the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, the U.S. could cover initial resettlement costs for 1.2 million refugees with the $18.6 billion the Pentagon budgeted for the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan in 2020 alone.
But given that Trump has also been targeting other countries over trade, defense and energy security, China has company in a lot of disgruntled nations that are perplexed and disappointed by the US leader’s diplomatic unpredictability, unilateralism and meanness.
Trump’s populist willingness to upset and antagonize the whole world in the name of protecting and promoting US jobs and American manufacturers offers Beijing a unique opportunity to reset ties with several affected nations and strengthen its claim to global leadership based on peaceful intentions.
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Russian S-400 air defense system © Sputnik / Russia’s Defense Ministry ‘Sooner than you think’: Trump vows swift reaction to India’s S-400 purchase from RussiaIndia is topmost in this list. As the Sino-US trade war has escalated, Beijing has dispatched delegations to New Delhi to lobby for increased coordination on trade policy and a reduction in tensions between the two giant Asian neighbors.
via Trump’s willingness to antagonize the world triggers China-India rapprochement — RT Op-ed
Victoria will undergo “the biggest public transport building program in Australian history” if the state Labor government is re-elected, Premier Daniel Andrews will promise in a speech marking 100 days until the November state poll.
In notes seen by The Age, the Premier will also take aim at the privatisation of Victoria’s energy market and the companies reaping massive profits.
“We were promised that a privatised electricity market would lower prices,” he will say in his address to the Committee for Economic Development. “Wrong. Privatisation has not worked.”
via Victorian Labor promises biggest transport building program in Australia
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