group of women holding banners supporting donald trump during the election

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Rich people in the United States tell poor people, especially poor black people, that their poverty is their own fault. The American ethos celebrates the self-made man. The great American delusion is that every individual has the opportunity to make something of themselves. To achieve greatness by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. That this analogy represents something physically impossible and that it was originally coined as a joke is, perhaps, more telling about America than anything else. Especially as the white folk have rigged the game in their favour a long time back. The real America is a moral maelstrom.Continue Reading

feminist placard with a cat face and a slogan

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The truth is that governing is a mixture of boring details and long hours – it essentially involves a lot of deal making. The truth is too boring. To engage the voting public in the political system those charged with the task make up a bunch of contentious stories. They craft a narrative where a group of people are to blame for many of the frustrations that the dominant cohort experience in their lives. Exaggeration is the order of the day when it comes to pinning the tail on the donkey or scapegoat. Emotive issues are called upon to rile up sections of the electorate. Gay people or the more collectively referred LGBTQIA are often in the crosshairs of the conservative minded parties. Gender identity and sexual preference are Rubicon’s not to be crossed in the minds of many. Therefore, these folk get the blame morally and, also, economically because diversity costs money according to the straight and narrow batting for the social conservatives. This all appeals to the very un-Christian like hardline Christian groups who maintain an exclusive door policy as to who gets into their idea of heaven.Continue Reading

flag of australia

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Dear Australia, I don’t want to be negative but fear you are in the grip of vested interests. A letter to Australia to warn you about stuff. Ever since the days of the squattocracy some hard white men have been having their way with your resources. Never minding about the Indigenous blood they carelessly spilt upon your red earth. These determined settlers disregarded British instruction about allowing Aboriginal people to access their waterways and hunting grounds, preferring to slaughter them expediently instead. The British overlords were piss weak in this regard, it must be said.Continue Reading

serious man reading book in dark room

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Formless, genderless, and yet, a teller of stories. A narrator to the nation but anonymous. The Ghostwriter rides the apostrophes and semicolons like a grammarian hustler. Tipping her, or his hat, to the invisible mores of our cultural inclinations. A wordsmith without peer on the frontiers of our literary appreciation. Now you see him and now you don’t. Can you hear the inflection of the author? Do you perceive the true voice of your hero? Do you know the difference between an allusion and a lie? Wherefore art thou Romeo? Who is stirring your pot on the stove in this reading hour?Continue Reading

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Following the failure of the Voice to Parliament referendum for Indigenous Australians some folks are wondering why. Why wealthy white people won’t share? I mean, after all these many years why keep the boot on the throat? Why deny constitutional recognition to First Nations people? Well, it is always about money and power. It is not mere racism alone but that in combination with their pragmatic interests. Certain wealthy people, many of them involved in the mining industry did not want any more power vested in Aboriginal voices in this nation. Treaties and things like this invariably cost money for those doing business in Australia.Continue Reading

Killers Of The Flower Moon movie

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Everybody is talking about Killers Of The Flower Moon because it is now a Hollywood movie. The book, written by David Grann, was published some 6 years ago in 2017. This is a great story and more importantly a true story. It tells us about the nature of human beings and how white people have treated those who have come before them. It is an American story involving native Americans and their displacement by European settlers. It is an American story, also, because it is about money and get rich quick schemes at any cost. It has something to say about how First Nations people were treated by white colonising powers in the creation of the New World.Continue Reading

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Some commentators have referred to the current clime as a post-truth world. Influential leaders like Putin and Trump have spent years casting gazillions of fake news aspersions and stories into the mix to undermine the credibility of any concepts of truth.  The importance of truth has, indeed, never been greater. In an age of convenience, many people are, it seems, happy to believe whatever fits in with their world view and political persuasion. The facts don’t matter when you have a swirling mass of contradictory stuff deflecting the importance of truth.Continue Reading

Bob Hawke

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Australia’s most popular prime minister, Bob Hawke, tried to deliver a treaty with Aboriginal people back in 1988. Bob Hawke and a promise of Aboriginal treaty. He was unsuccessful because he could not get bipartisan support for a treaty from his colleagues back in Canberra. John Howard opposed the idea of a treaty in 1988 and remains opposed to the Voice today. What is the common theme here? Liberal Party of Australia leaders opposing official recognition of First Nation’s Australians. Peter Dutton carries that conservative racist flag today. The idea that all Aboriginal people should fall into line with a modern European/British conception of what it means to be Australian is called assimilation.Continue Reading

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Australians need to ask themselves whether they want an extreme right wing media organisation intent on creating division at the heart of our media landscape. Time to get Murdoch press out of Australia. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp is the company behind Fox News, a blatant propaganda machine for right wing politics that was recently sued for peddling false information to its viewers. Fox settled for a billion dollars; money is the only measure of justice in America. Sky News Australia is modelled on Fox News and peddles the same vitriolic lies about centre-left politics downunder. The Australian newspaper, similarly, provides unbalanced editorial skewered to the hard right. Climate change deniers thrive inside News Corp’s programs and papers. Murdoch controls every tabloid newspaper in every state of Australia and they all toe the hard conservative line.Continue Reading

Sticky
flag of australia

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If institutional injustice makes you mad this episode had it in spades. Robodebt: What the Royal Commission revealed to us. A government and a bunch of ministers who saw themselves as ‘welfare cops’, with a duty to shake down the most vulnerable among us. Without fear or favour these sheriffs took on pensioners, disabled Australians, and those down on their luck. They applied income averaging to make it look like these people on the bones of their arse were rorting the system. It played well to those who are always looking for someone to blame for their own financial frustrations. Continue Reading