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Why Are We Getting Poorer?

Why is everything so expensive now? What price life? Why are we getting poorer? First and foremost, the entire economy is set up to greatly favour owners over all other parts. Investors are owners, of course, and the company executives operate on their behalf. Shareholders are king and everyone else runs a poor second. Thus, profitability is always the prime consideration and profits have to constantly increase to satisfy the shareholders. Plus, executives manipulate the stock price through buybacks to enrich themselves wildly. This is where we get all the billionaires from. Elon Musk is a prominent illustration of this, the richest man in the world.Continue Reading

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man waving flag

The fact that private property has been damaged and graffiti daubed on walls in a couple of Australian cities means these are law and order issues. Australia does not have an antisemitism problem on this basis. Talk about political manipulation and overreach. We have police forces capable of adequately dealing with these relative few instances of criminal damage. Most Australians know that there is a protest movement engaged in drawing attention to the genocide being committed by Israeli forces in Gaza, where more than 50, 000 Palestinians have been killed by the IDF. Passions are high among the Australian Arab population and younger Aussies more generally – this is understandable in light of what is going on.Continue Reading

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It is incredible to ponder on how obsessed America has been with one individual for the last decade. This republic, this land of the free, has been messed up in the Trump cult of personality. Hundreds of millions of Americans have had their lives upset and f***** with by one, fairly sordid, son of a second rate property developer. Celebrity is the weakness of this people. Their unhealthy fondness for the faux familiarity of celebrity. So much for progress, for the democratic journey over decades and centuries. So much for the American Experiment.Continue Reading

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America Matters image Robert Sudha Hamilton

As I sit here, awaiting Cyclone Alfred to hit, my mind is more taken up with the destructive influence of Donald Trump upon the world. I am, like many around the globe, deeply disgusted by Trump and his decision to betray Ukraine in its fight to stave off Russian aggression. It is hard to fathom the thinking behind this and the global effects the US policy reversal will have. I suspect Trump’s motivation on this is narcissistically personal to achieve a cessation to the conflict and to damage Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s reputation and position. Aligning the US with Putin and naked Russian aggression after 3 years of supporting a global coalition of nations in the defence of Ukrainian sovereignty is a major international betrayal.Continue Reading

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Free School Athens Raphael image

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

The Albanese Prime Ministership So Far

Australia is one of the most secretive democracies in the Western world, according to those in the know. International experts have deemed our governments more secretive than the United States in the way we go about the business of government. In my estimation it is career politicians killing democracy, which is at the heart of this problem.  Careerism invariably puts the interests of the exponent over that of the community when it comes to cutting the mustard. Politicians in Australia like to stay in their comfort zone when it comes to governing the country or the state. Avoiding the glare of the media and the voting public, whenever possible, is always high on their agenda.Continue Reading

eagle on a beach

Freedom is a word with a lot of baggage in America. Think about free speech! The land of the free. The free market. Kris Kristofferson, who died this week, famously sang – “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” Americans are inundated with this term and have been since the inception of their country. What is freedom? According to the Oxford Dictionary:

1. The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants. “we do have some freedom of choice” Similar: right to entitlement to privilege prerogative due

2. the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved. “the shark thrashed its way to freedom”Continue Reading

Tucker Carlson

Vladimir Putin has been actively engaged in manipulating the USA through the dark arts of digital disinformation for at least a decade. Russia manipulating American democracy via social media and having bought Trump some time back is going swimmingly. A brief look at the state of the Republican Party and the Trump candidacy for President can confirm that. America has been split down the middle with progressives on one side and the MAGA led conservatives on the other. The cosy coalition between MAGA and Putin’s Russia would strike cold warriors from the 1950’s as completely bizarre. Americans backing the military aspirations of an eastern demagogue and his police state is what we appear to be seeing. WTF?Continue Reading

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hands holding an american flag

Democracy has long been lauded in the United States of America – Home of the Free etc etc. The reality of the situation, however, has been revealed over the last 5 years during the Trump ascendancy. The American political framework is full of holes, which have been effectively exploited by the Russians and local vested interests. The idea of democracy endures as something wonderful but in practice falls way short. The real state of democracy in America is only partially subscribed to by the country’s population.Continue Reading