What's what?
I hate to continue my reign as chief of the blowin fanclub, but I reckon that post at 15/12/17 7.05pm should be published in newspapers across australia as a good description of what is currently happeing in oz and across the world. But it would never happen, as it would not serve the current vested interest's malicious machine.
And, I hate to criticise blindboy again, because I really do respect what you do and your passion. But, I think the baby boomer conglomorate is hanging on tooth and nail to ideas and dogma that did serve the post WW11 generation well, and endeavoured to make the world a better place, however times, and the world, have changed significantly in recent times, not least due to the internet and improvements in transport, changing the rules, and the whole game all together.
While it has become common place for nearly everyone to now bag neo-liberalism. As blowin points out, a key part of neo-liberalism is the liberalisation of trade and free movement of people to enable the trade of goods, labour, and services. Be it for good or ill is open to debate. What people like blindboy appear to be overlooking, or conveniently ignoring in their zeal for high migration, is how much a key part high migration is to the neo-liberal machine. You are feeding it.
I'm definitely no expert, and I may be stating the bleeding obvious, but it seems a key part of the initial post war 'liberalism' (before the neo bit ramped everything up significantly) was to unite people across a wartorn europe, by entangling them through commerce and the mutual benefit of distribution of resources, ideas and wealth.
This all worked rather well initially, culminating in the european union. The neo bit has endeavoured to do the same on a global scale, engaging asia and other regions in a model that did work pretty well the first time around, cue globalisation.
However, this second go at it failed to recognise the already gross inequality between and within regions. Inequality well beyond anything post WW11, and has just exacerbated inequality, both between and within regions, especially with the uneven distribution of access to technologies. At the same time, utilising developing countries as factories for the west's consumption has just increased environmental degradation tenfold with devastating outcomes.
It is well accepted that gross inequality only leads to destabilisation of societies. While globalisation may have had good intentions, it appears to have been a massive failure, as it has only widened the gaps across the world between the rich and poor. One could argue this widening would have happened anyway, considering this unique time where technogies are developing so fast. Either way gross-gross inequality is what we now have. With societies too hungry, too competitive, too dispensible, too desperate, and too under developed to ask for cleaner environments. It's a long long way off before they find that place japan found circa 1970s where they said enough is enough! we need to breathe, and we want clean waterways.
So, we are at this weird place where liberalisation of trade and movement of people isn't really working at all, it's just exacebating the gaps between the haves and have nots. Both in terms of wealth, and access to the means to generate it, whilst destroying the planet in this time of supposed environmental awareness.
I really don't know where I'm going with this, but it seems the leaders of the baby boomer generation (both the nasty capitalists and those hoping for a better world) are desperately holding onto the ideas and methods that were the zietghiest of their time for a better world, and their millenial children have just fallen into line, hoping all will be well if we are all just a little bit nicer to each other. Whereas, it seems, gen xers can see that shit ain't going so well, and we're inheriting a bit of a mess.
As I said, I'm not sure where I'm heading with this, but I do know, there's a lot of people not overly happy with the way things are, and where they are heading. And it seems, we are bogged down with the idealism of the boomers time, with the left fighting petty battles that really don't seem that important anymore in the bigger scheme of things while the world turns to shit.
You might be happy to wait for full meltdown to evoke change blindboy but I am not. The left needs new ideas and methods now!! not when we're on the cusp of disaster!
And on top of all this, gen xers kids have buckleys of affording the australian dream in their own country due to the leaders of our time literally selling off the farm, along with anything else that isn't nailed down.
Joy, pleasant times ahead.
Without reading recent earlier comments I agreed with most of that Sypkan but wonder about the last 2 paragraphs.
To me neo-liberalism is much more than trade liberalisation; the theory is largely about government not getting in the way of people and business organising the (so-called) efficient use of resources and labour. I repeat the theory not the practice. Government and taxes under neo-liberal principles must therefore be as small as possible. Neo-liberalism is a product of the right of politics not the left - Reagan, Thatcher, Howard (here).
In a neo-libeal world taxes are typically viewed as bad and they need to be lowered as much as possible because the theory says governments waste or inefficiently spend it and further high taxes lower the reward for individual effort (sound familiar? we got this a lot from Hockey and Abbott - i.e. the right). What neo-liberalism fails to see about tax is people expect government to provide properly funded services like education, health and, importantly in terms of wealth distribution, welfare payments for people who fall in the cracks. Again, in theory how can you have low taxes and properly funded services? well you save money by getting private enterprise to do it don't you e.g. the dismantling of the TAFE system here ... well that didn't work so well did it!
The importance of a properly funded welfare system is mostly lost in neo-liberalism. As you point out correctly it is failing and wealth distribution in and between economies around the world highlight glaring inequity. There are studies plotting income gaps and community satisfaction and unsurprisingly communities are most (dis)satisfied where the gaps are large or small. The happiest "developed" countries are those that are relatively high taxing, have well funded services, value their teachers and nurses and pay reasonable welfare for those that cannot work ... e.g. the Scandinavian countries. Unsurprisingly, countries like the US where private enterprise is king and initiatives like publicly funded health care is seen by those with wealth as socialism the communities are recording very high dissatisfaction levels ........
and so in the rust belts of the US we saw high support for change, any change, so they voted Trump and in the UK most areas outside the (relative) prosperous London vote for Brexit.
I agree neo-liberalism has failed to deliver for people (there's been no trickle down) but politically this failure is fracturing the right as evidence by what has and is happening inside the Republican Party in the US and even in the LNP here ... should we go further to the right or back to the centre? that debate is raging in conservative parties right now.
I also believe the left has been suckered into go to the right of there natural centre left policy positions and they do need to return back to the ideological "happy place" but I disagree its the left's natural historical position to have high migration.
On immigration both sides need to listen to what people are saying but its been decades of lazy economic policy, an easy way to increase demand and productivity and business LOVE it so it will be a hard practice to stop, but stop it must ... because just like in the US or in the UK it will be the one issue that will unite voters from the right and the left.
I have to mention Picketty again as he nails the fatal flaw in neo-liberalism and how it leads to greater inequality within nations. That said, global poverty has fallen dramatically. Anyone who has been visiting Indonesia over the last 4 decades would have seen that first hand. Then there is China. Globalisation has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of deep poverty. This is a simple undeniable fact. To condemn it for the problems it has caused in developed economies therefore has no ethical standing. Globalisation has failed only in its inability, to this point, to maintain and enforce a fair tax regime on wealthy corporations and individuals as shown in the Panama Papers. The inequalities that exist within nations are the consequence of poor governance, not globalisation. Big contradiction in there sypkan, you mention the free movement of people in the context of free trade. Money, goods and services move freely aroun the globe. It is only people who are restricted, justify that if you can.
"The millennials have been raised on the false premise that infinite immigration equals never diminishing returns."
I'm not sure I would agree with that blowin, but otherwise agree with you. The millennials were certainly fed it, but I'm not sure they are still buying it, and I can tell with some experience that the generation behind them are completely over the neo-liberal experiment, except for that very small club of young liberals, surely the saddest of all human life forms.
There is hope in the young un's, I tells ya.
" the theory is largely about government not getting in the way of people and business organising the (so-called) efficient use of resources and labour."
Guy, that is a fundamental belief that drives so much of neo-liberalism and you are right to say 'so-called'. The last 10 years has shown clearly that people and business are actually the worst places to find efficiency, and the reason is based in the profit motive. The electricity market in Oz, and the NBN debacle are poster examples of the inefficiency of relying on the profit motive to deliver essential public services.
Cheers gents.
Blowin invites the Labor Party and religious organisations to go procreate themselves on the basis of some award deal yet votes One Nation who voted with Turnbull to end weekend penalty rates for some of the economy's poorest paid, yeah you will need to explain the logic of that.
.
"EXAMINE ALMOST ANY CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PROBLEM, FROM AUSTRALIA’S GROWING ECONOMIC INEQUALITY TO THE DECLINING PERFORMANCE OF OUR SCHOOL STUDENTS RELATIVE TO THE REST OF THE WORLD, TO OUR DYING CORAL REEFS, AND YOU WILL FIND THE FINGERPRINTS OF JOHN WINSTON HOWARD."
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2017/12/23/its-all-joh...
The alleged declining standard of education is because a significant percentage of the students either don't have English as their first language or they've had to learn it as they progress through the school system.
These kids aren't stupid , it's just that a language barrier is a temporary yet inconvenient impediment to learning.
As a result it makes the statistics that describe our international ranking on education standards look bad. That doesn't mean that the standard of education being provided for Aussie kids is worse than what it previously was but if you misread the statistics then it's an easy claim to make for those that way inclined.
Unless John Howard has been eating their homework it's not his fault.
Unless you want to establish why there are such large numbers of children of recent immigrants in the school system in the first place and then you are correct , it is partly John Howard's fault.
Good article in your link though. I agree with a lot of it.
well in fairness he did start the beginnings of a soverign wealth fund...but unfortunately he sold telstra to do it, and look where we are now with that problem.
the SMSF generosities were well beyond proportional fairness. just ridiculous.
Great article Sheepdog, summarises beautifully what I have thought of Howard for years. History ought to judge him and his prime ministership very poorly. Oh the irony of Costello's "have a baby for the nation" - those babies have just had $2.2 billion ripped out of their university funding.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/rupert-murdoch-and-donald-trump-a-friends...
It makes sense ... Trump likes grabbing them and Murdoch is the biggest one I know!
http://www.theage.com.au/world/rupert-murdoch-and-donald-trump-a-friends...
It makes sense ... Trump likes grabbing them and Murdoch is the biggest one I know!
The population of Hobart every year -
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-22/wages-stall-as-population-soars/92...
Guysmiley : You never justified your Labor vote !
Labor's big Australia = worsening standards of living for traditional Labor voters.
Blowin, I'm not a rusted on Labor voter but I strongly disagree, as you do, with their approach to big immigration numbers. No different to the LNP nor the Greens. Lazy economics. I see it as part of the malaise that has seen politics skank to the right. We do need an open debate about this issue but I cannot see that happening as its highly emotive and votes can be won or lost on how politicians appeal to the lowest common denominator.
I'm pretty conservative when it comes to citizenship meaning we shouldn't hand it out too easily as we do now across the whole range of programs that see people come here. The numbers we do accept, whatever that number is, ought to be sustainable - infrastructure and environment.
I also see this issue linked to foreign aid, we should spend more overseas helping people lift their living standards in their own homelands.
Where we differ is I don't see Hanson as the answer, the answer rests in the sensible middle and she's neither sensible or in the middle.
Happy New Year
did you see the SBS doco on the Cronulla riots the other night? Catchup TV if you missed it, well worth a gander.
This is pretty huge, I reckon.
Kelly Slater : Best surfer to ever walk the Earth who ascribes his lazer focus and utter uncompromised literality as the secret to his dominance of the surfing world.
Totally opposed to drugs . Preaching them as the obvious and sad down fall of several of the sports greats.
Now watch him reeling from his first trip and see how easily he could morph into a Lennon spectacled , afghan walking drug guru .
http://beachgrit.com/2017/12/slater-find-god-via-psychadelics/
Reinvention....it's evolution man !
geeze i wouldn't mind trying it judging by the look on his face.
but here is a bit more about the experience
Jeez , imagine how he’s gunna surf now with the zen force of the cosmic universe shunting him through turns . Tomo might have to step up a notch.
Sheepy, little johnny should have been into bat at yorkeys that day. We would have used corkies and had the stupid bastard ducking for cover. May 2018 be wonderful for you.
Thanks for the link Blowin. Who would have guessed that colonic irrigation could be a life changing experience? Still, probably not for me!
Colonic irrigation changed my life.
I'll never make the mistake of having a delicate parquet flooring feature at the entrance to my bathroom again , that's for sure.
@Blowin,
"worsening standards of living for traditional Labor voters." What would you have said to Hawkey when he was proposing his great reforms? They would, prima facie, have appeared terrible for Labor voters, no? And yet they brought unbridled prosperity to Australians of all classes.
Not saying Labor's Big Australia thing is necessarily good, just that...well, shit can be complicated.
Which of Hawkes reforms ?
Privatising Commonwealth bank etc ? I'd say they're as garbage now as they were then .
I'm not talking about the potential for worsening standards of living. I'm describing the very real current and ongoing worsening standards of living.
Lowest wages growth in 60 years coupled with the highest pricing of housing at the bottom of the interest rate cycle ? Nice combination.
Unbridled prosperity because of China mainly. But how can one truly prosper when air is your most valuable commodity and your neighborhood is polluting the fuck out of it because of your get rich quick schemes? All our main problems are due to our failure to see our interconnected relationship to each other and biosphere earth.
Happy new year Dave the biscuit boy rave. Hey tell Morky I left a birthday message on his fb, AND emailed him.... But he's gone missing...
Probably at 1/2 moon bay pounding the flesh.
Cheers mate :)
And they went and built a marina there those pillocks. Fb and me in rocky relationship, I told zuckafucka he was selling my privacy and was a criminal. Hence it is a nightmare to use. May be doing tour, the raver's at a venue near you in 2018. St kilda to make the eight with the mighty hawks.
Great piece on Russian hacking and Putin.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/putins-game/546548/
Laugh or cry as you see fit. Farce and tragedy so closely interwoven!
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/michael-wolff-fire-and-fury...
Blowin you might even agree with a lot of this.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n01/jackson-lears/what-we-dont-talk-about-when...
Yes , I do agree with virtually all of it.
Don't you ?
I agree with the idea that the Democrats are using the Russian issues to hide their unwillingness to address the real problems facing the US. I have said all along that the Clinton nomination was appalling and this piece supports that view. Despite that I think the piece under states the significance of Trump's links to Russia which, it seems to me, are far beyond justification and will cause him to be impeached or forced to resign before his term is up.
What links to Russia ?
And if he indeed has any , how is that a defineably bad thing ?
You don't think that private USA business has inextricable links to Russia ?
In the words of none other than Steve Bannon, and uttered less than 24 hrs ago: "they [the Russians] are duplicitous, cunning and not our friends."
But you believe everything else Steve Bannon says.....not.
And of course the same is indelibly true regarding China's relationship with the USA yet the financial ties between the countries couldn't be thicker.
I am reading a biography of Kruschev at the moment who tried unsuccessfully through-out the 1960s to engage the US in serious disarmament talks. Eisenhower and Kennedy both had opportunities to build constructive relations with the Soviet Union but did not take them. In my judgement the fundamental cause of the hostility between Russia and the US rests in the constant expansion of US military power and its willingness to use it. Russia's strategy in surrounding itself with client states is a rational response to the perceived US threat, as is North Korea's determination to build a nuclear arsenal.
So why would any real or imagined positive interaction by a US president be considered a bad thing ?
Blowin I think the main issue is that Trump accepted a Russian offer to provide Clinton's emails. This has not been conclusively proved nor is there any great certainty that it was technically illegal. What it was, without a doubt, was spectacularly unwise, for reasons that should be obvious. Trump, like Nixon before him, has aggravated the problem by trying to cover it up. Then there is his failure to distance himself from his investments which is a clear conflict of interest. Given his desperate attempts to stop the Mueller enquiry, the suspicion must arise that he has more to hide than has yet been suggested. All this before the issue of compromat is considered. So we have a US President who has clearly behaved unwisely in his relations with an unfriendly foreign power, in whose country he has sought to do business. He has then blatantly attempted to block a legitimate enquiry into these issues. All this while there is the suspicion that the Russian government has video evidence of unsavoury sexual activity. Is that enough for you? I could go on.
No, you've just rehashed the same completely unsubstantiated rumours and innuendo that your link addressed.
His desire for the investigation to go away isn't necessarily indicative of guilt. It's a major distraction , it undermines his authority and it creates a level of stress that you wouldn't need if you were trying to be President of the USA.
Especially if you're as limited as Donald Trump.
Disagree Blowin. For a start if these are unsubstantiated rumours why are Trump team members pleading guilty and doing deals with Mueller? I know we often go to different sources for our information so you might provide a link to support your position because, as it stands, I just can't see why you would make that assertion
I thought the Trump members were charged with unrelated garbage such as perjury ?
Nothing that would even hint at collusion to influence electoral outcome ?
They were probably pleading guilty because they were guilty. And they'd try anything to lessen a sentence.
Here you go Blowin. 100 pages of rumour and innuendo that detail pretty much everything up until October. I rest my case. What have you got?
I don't have anything .
For news I read the SMH and guardian.
I don't watch any news at all except the flash they show every 30 seconds on one of those morning shows ( the Kochie one ) that I have to briefly endure during breakfast.
All I've got is what I've read there .....and the fact that despite 14 (?) months of allegations, beat up and a failing Mueller led investigation there is still not a SINGLE shred of anything more substantial than vested interest bullshit.
BB - That long winded legalese report you linked was still more unrelated garbage.
Sure they're drawing the longest bow possible by trying to impeach a Trump on obstruction but the ENTIRE saga only reinforces your previous link relating to the total mistruth behind the Trump/Russia collusion garbage.
"According to the charge sheet, Michael Flynn is accused of:
falsely telling FBI agents that on or about 29 December 2016 he did not ask Mr Kislyak to "refrain from escalating the situation in response to sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia that same day"
failing to recall that Mr Kislyak had later told him Russia was moderating its response to the sanctions as a result of his request
falsely saying that, on or about 22 December 2016, he did not ask Mr Kislyak to "delay the vote on or defeat a pending United Nations Security Council resolution". The discussion came a day before the Obama administration decided not to veto a resolution asserting that Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory "had no legal validity"
making false statements about the Turkish government's involvement and supervision of a project that his intelligence company was taking part in."
Can you point to these charges laid on Flynn and show where there is any evidence of Trumps colluding with Russia ?
Of course you can't.
There is NO evidence whatsoever. It didn't happen. That's the entire point of your first link.
As it stands there is bullshit rumourmongering that has led to parts of the US intelligence community with a vested interest to stage a witch hunt .
And when Trump denies the allegations and calls out the whole deal for the farce it is then people take this as implied guilt ! Whatever happened to innocent till proven guilty ? Have you chosen not to extend such a fundamental human right in this instance because you don't like the man ?
None of this would have been out of place in the Spanish Inquisition.
Blowin, a little philosophy for you. A useful analogy is the map/territory analysis of our thinking habits. The map is our existing knowledge, the territory is reality. In general a close fit between the map and the territory is seen as healthy. We all have our blind spots but even with them it is not advisable to let your map become too far divorced from the territory. Now adjusting a map you have clung to for a long time is painful but the pay off is that people really respect you for doing it. So the time is here Blowin. Adjust your map of US politics so that it aligns more closely with the evidence. It must have taken an enormous mental effort to read the SMH and Guardian regularly and persist in your opinions. Relax a little, accept the obvious. Trump may or may not have colluded with the Russians but he has, beyond reasonable doubt, attempted to obstruct justice by intefering with Mueller's investigation as shown by the document I provided a link to, which is 100 pages of detailed analysis with every statement referenced. If that does not count as substantial, then you are beyond help on this issue. I had some fun tiny waves this morning, against the odds!
Pages 10-14 detail the evidence that there was collusion.
I don't think we'll find consensus here.
I have no interest in seeing Trump succeed or fail. I am an impartial observer and all I see is farcical attempts by vested interests to remove him from office by any means necessary .
I think the whole impeachment scheme employed diminishes the standing of the USA political system even more than the rock bottom I'd assumed it'd found.
Glad you got some waves . I went for a brief swim in the Pacific and I swear I left the water 10 degrees cooler and 10 times more relaxed than when I entered.
Inland ....Why would you ?
Enjoy!
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LIKE POLITICAL LIFE, PARTICIPATION IS WELCOME, ENCOURAGED EVEN, BUT NOT NECESSARY.