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Hey Australia, America Just Rejected Far Right Trump Regime

Americans have had enough of the chaos, cruelty and corruption of Donald Trump. Pay attention and shop early, Australia – don’t go down the One Nation far right route. Don’t make the same mistake. Billionaires, racist and authoritarian political leaders and policies, do not make for good government. Hey Australia, America just rejected far right Trump regime. Enough is enough. Every Far Right regime in history has been corrupt. Name one that has not? Trump is a liar and a crook. Fox News makes its money out of pandering to right wing lies and prejudices.Continue Reading

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Hitler, Racism & In The Blood

Adolf Hitler’s conception of the Jew and the effects of that cultural contagion upon the German volk was pretty crazy. His idea of the negative reach of this Jew problem included almost everything he considered weak and non-German. Christianity and the church were at their root part of the Jew influence in Hitler’s view. Bolshevism was a Jewish conspiracy in Hitler’s mind too. Hitler’s idealised conception of what it meant to be a pure Aryan German was located in the blood in his pseudo-scientific belief about this. Eugenics was all the rage in the 1920s and 30s. Social Darwinism was a part of this pop cultural misunderstanding of the emerging biological information coming to the fore. Hitler, racism and in the blood. The German medical and scientific establishment were proponents of ideas about selective breeding and culling of perceived bad stock. So, were many doctors and scientists in Europe and the United States. The human beings they called Negroes were considered lesser than those classified as Caucasians, as were Asians and others with different coloured skin tones. Nazism was not alone in its hierarchical judgements and evaluations of human beings. The fact that under the Nazi regime these German doctors and nurses would oversee the state sponsored murders and sterilisations of hundreds of thousands of disabled and mentally deficient human beings from 1933 to 1945 is the key difference. The Nazi gas chambers would cut their teeth on this early work of the Third Reich. Diesel, a French/German invention, would play a role in this killing machine.Continue Reading

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Government By Autocrat Is Far Worse Than The Alternative

It is patently obvious that government by autocrat is far worse than the alternative. Even those of us largely ignorant to this kind of history would be familiar with the excesses of Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Too much individual power, most often, results in murderous results. And now we have Trump. A president who rules by decree and has little need for congressional support. The right wing narrative has been one of embracing the strongman leader. I mean, whoever thought that re-electing Donald Trump to a second term in office was a good idea must have rocks in his or her head. The abuse of power is worse via the tyrant than the committee.Continue Reading

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An Absence Of Political Vision For Australia

Australian political leaders and their parties offer little in the way of a real vision for our futures. There is an absence of political vision for Australia. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is predominantly an American invention, as is the entire digital economy. PM Anthony Albanese in his unmitigated support for the uptake of AI by Australian businesses and society appears to have no comprehension of the consequences of this. If all of our businesses and institutions are contracted to American AI companies, where is our independence and sovereignty in that position? If AI is essential and that AI is controlled by US Big Tech corporations, where does that leave us all? Under the thumb of big brother, of course. Already, the digital economy, in the form of Visa and Mastercard, largely control the money matters in our lives. Australia has effectively lost its sovereignty in all but name in the 21C. There is a vacuum of leadership downunder.Continue Reading

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Why You Are Feeling Poorer?

GDP is up, but most of us are still feeling that we have less than we want or need. Why are you feeling poorer? No less an economic boffin than Alan Kohler puts the onus on moribund productivity within the Australian economy. Now, that does not infer that you are not working hard enough, rather it is due to lack of investment by the companies at the heart of our economy. Why is this so? Have a look around at the markets making up our economy. They are largely controlled by one, two or a few giant corporations. Monopolies, duopolies and oligopolies abound. The distinct lack of competition in most sectors in Australia translates as neutered consumer power in the market place. These companies have no market driven need to innovate, as they have massive market shares already. Little to no innovation means they are not investing and that means productivity gains are not happening within the Australian economy.Continue Reading

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Stupid Right Wing Culture War’s Behaviours

Look around at the evidence of stupid right wing culture war’s behaviours in Australia. Those on the Right champion fossil fuels like diesel and coal, despite the economic savings now available via renewable energy and batteries. Australia has spent the last 30 years facilitating the investment and development of LNG. During that same time frame, successive governments subsidised diesel use to the tune of billions every year. Australia is one of the largest exporters of LNG globally, but our transport trucks run on diesel and not on gas. Australia imports oil and diesel. Predominantly right wing federal governments have overseen the energy policies followed in Australia during this period. The trucking industry itself has long been content to stick with what it knows rather than open its eyes to realities like global warming. Surely, it would be smarter to use our own resources rather than run our essential trucking transport infrastructure on imported energy.Continue Reading

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The Danger Of Land Ownership

Land property has become majorly expensive in Australia. The housing shortage crisis has impacted upon prices and land values across the board. Until very recently, property investment in Australia was a rolled gold investment and this has contributed to the sustained growth in prices over many years. The great Australian dream has been narrated around owning your own home and for many this has seemed unaffordable on the basis of the high prices for land and housing. Alan Kohler has shown us that home ownership now demands up to x13 years of average annual incomes in places like Sydney. The danger of land ownership is not only economic, however.Continue Reading

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Digital Imperialism: The New Colonialism

Have you been getting the message that machines do it better? That AI is smarter than you? Have you been replaced at work by some sort of artificial intelligence program? Digital imperialism: The new colonialism is here. Now, you get to experience what plenty of Indigenous peoples have had to deal with over the journey. The clear and present inference that you are not good enough and too dumb to matter. Your culture thrown on the scrapheap of progress and advancement. This time, however, it is humanity per se copping it in the neck via a form of Social Darwinism. Only a small group of investors matter, those who are shareholders in the Big Tech companies overlording the rest of us.Continue Reading

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Pauline Hanson

These are the things that Pauline Hanson said at her National Press Club speech recently.

Australian workers are lazy! Always on their phones rather than working. No more pay rises for them under One Nation. No paid parental leave for any workers, either.

51.5% of the Australian population were either not born here or their parents weren’t. Despite this, Pauline Hanson wants an end to multiculturalism and a return to a white, Anglo-monoculture. Talk about pipe dreams in a population of 28 million Australians. This is neither feasible or realistic. In line with this, Hanson wants an end to SBS and the ABC, as government funded entities. The white supremacist racist wants to cancel any media in opposition to her reactionary agenda. A vote for One Nation means her way or the highway.Continue Reading

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Australia Needs To Ensure Its Sovereignty

The European Union and Canada are both reducing their reliance on US financial systems like the Visa and Mastercard credit card sector. This has controlled upward of 90% of their digital payment arrangements and the realisation has sunk in just how vulnerable they could be to having the plug pulled on this. Obviously these moves are in reaction to President Donald Trump and his regime’s threatening stance on everything from tariffs to NATO. Australia is in the same boat on this score and is it time to take control of our own digital money sector. In Brazil they have PIX which is a feeless digital payment system not dependent upon American multinationals. Australia needs to ensure its sovereignty around its financial sector and stop being so dependent upon American corporations.Continue Reading