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Free School Athens Raphael image

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Oligarchies have been around for a very long time in modern terms. The word itself comes from the ancient Greeks, like many of our words for social structures and types of government. What can we do about the oligarchs? Oligarchy versus democracy was first billed as a clash of governing systems some 3 millennia ago in Athens. The original Greek oligarchies were based on class and wealth, as the two most often went hand in hand. Democracy came about as a means to break the grip of noble families on governing Athens, the city state. This new expansionary form of government spread to other Greek city states.Continue Reading

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white bus on road near in high rise building during daytime

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Do you know who is driving the bus? By this I mean, who is leading our societies and who is making the important decisions that we all follow? It is not the obvious candidates and by this I refer to the politicians. Business leaders make the decisions which effect our lives and livelihoods. These profit driven CEOs are laser focused on the bottom line for their companies and shareholders. A major shift has occurred over the last 35 years, where workers and consumers have been shunted to the back of the queue and shareholders have become everything to companies under the guidance of their boards and CEOs.Continue Reading

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Imagine if Charles Darwin was still alive today and how his groundbreaking scientific work on evolution would be treated by neocons and MAGA types. Social media would light up like the site of an atomic bomb explosion. Don’t check the facts: Inconvenient scientific truths. We have got to the stage where people are choosing which facts they will acknowledge, as if they are choosing from a range of colours for an item in an online store. Terms like ‘alternative truths’ have been invented to describe the current situation. If we cannot agree on what is fact and what is not we are in big trouble.Continue Reading

urban scene with american and brand flags

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For better or worse American culture is foisted upon the world. Hollywood and American celebrity churn out product that is distributed globally. Streaming services, Big Tech, and a host of other US corporations do business everywhere they can. The United States is seen as the military and economic superpower. Leadership, however, comes with scrutiny and is American culture too dishonest? Most in your face, of late, is the whole Donald Trump circus and this has done America no favours internationally. The fact that those Americans who voted have opted to return Trump to the Presidency is quite something.Continue Reading

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America Matters book cover Robert Sudha Hamilton

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Historians have to be interested in truth. The facts matter to those endeavouring to decipher things that have happened. Historians, then, tell us stories about the things that occurred and what were the motivating forces likely to have inspired them. It is an inexact science, as much of life and the accounts of its people often are. Historians might scour the media for the reporting and op-eds, which appeared at the time, to shed light on the matters being examined. If the time frame is fairly recent, they may well interview first hand sources – those who witnessed directly the events in question. Primary sources are the gold for any historical account worth its weight and wishing to be counted as factual.Continue Reading

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Welcome to Neoliberalism. Bienvenida. Here in downtown Neoliberalis there is a new kind of freedom. You are free to pay for everything. User pays, you see. There are no evil socialist  institutions, none left anyway. No universal healthcare. No social security, no welfare from the government. Indeed, we are doing away with the whole concept of government. Business can do it better. Business can do it cheaper and much more efficiently. Then, we don’t need public servants, do we? Non, monsieur. Only honest, salt of the earth billionaires to run the show. Welcome to Neoliberalism: Be free to pay forever.Continue Reading

close up of solar panels on a roof of a house

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Professor Martin Green and his team from UNSW developed Passive Emitter & Rear Cell (PERC) technology, which graces the billions of solar panels transforming the energy grids around the world. Australian science paved the way for the solar revolution. A solar revolution has been happening globally and it is only going to get even bigger. Despite this Peter Dutton has nothing good to say about solar power in Australia. New Corp, who owns much of the media in this country, likewise, rarely, if ever, has anything positive or even balanced to say about solar and renewable energy in Australia. This strikes me as unAustralian. I wonder why the LNP Coalition and Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers and networks are in lockstep over deriding free energy from the sun? Could it be ideological? Indeed, could it, also, be about propping up the fossil fuel sector, and all those multinationals? Those campaign donors and mates in the neoliberal boys club, which likes to think it runs Australia?Continue Reading

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Bite and Smile book cover

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Do you know why humanity has so much trouble with its teeth and gums? It is a sweet betrayal that has engendered centuries of pain. Take a moment to feel the sharpest strike of the exposed nerve of a dying tooth inside your mouth. Tooth ache is such an inadequate term for this throbbing agony. You cannot even bloody eat; it has stripped that basic pleasure away. A drink of water can bring on waves of pain that last for too f****** long. We all have to bite and smile in the face of the sugar conspiracy.Continue Reading

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red framed eyeglasses on newspapers

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I do not want Australian tax revenue to prop up News Corp. The Albanese government’s plan to incentivise Meta, Google, Apple, Tik Tok and other big tech platforms and corporations to fund the Australian media sector is, as it stands, a bad idea. Do Not Prop Up News Corp, Please.Continue Reading