Interesting stuff

"Vic, I didn't disprove anything, I asked if I had to disprove it? Did you read what I wrote?"
Zenagain this is what you wrote in the first place. "Or is it up to me again to dis-prove it?"
AGAIN AGAIN. Did you even read what you wrote? Geez mate, I can only go by what you post.
PS "I think you should give Aussies more credit, You're jumping at shadows (that hate crime isn't a big problem)"
I reckon I could find 50 families in Christchurch who would really really disagree with you..

I was referring to the other day when you said I had to prove that the cattle stations reverting back to Australian hands was good for Australia.

I so knew you were gonna mention Christchurch. No person of sound mind would think that moron is anything but a complete monster, the Norwegian bloke too. But, I don't exactly see this tsunami of hate crimes washing over this world and imo your links don't exactly convince me either.

I'm not gonna argue with you Vic, you've got your view, I've got mine. I've been around a bit too, travelled a lot and not for surfing. There has and always will be prejudice and to use Oz as an example, just by sheer numbers of foreign born people and how the vast majority are doing just fine, leading relatively content and productive lives, in my OPINION does not point to huge increase in hate crimes.

" I don't exactly see this tsunami of hate crimes washing over this world"
That's because you're not paying attention.
Have a genuine read of this article to see if you're comment above stacks up.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/world/white-extremist-ter...
By the way, I do agree with your comment, "the vast majority (of Australians) are doing just fine, leading relatively content and productive lives". We just need to be vigilant to keep it that way.

No thanks.

I've stated my point of view.

Really zengain? That article cataloguing white extremist crime is really thorough, very factual. It's not an opinion piece. It's straight up reporting of actual events.
Are you scared of reading something with hard evidence that contradicts your opinion?
Here you go mate. I will make it super easy for you and repost the link.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/world/white-extremist-ter...

Great story Mike. Cheers.

Unlike you, I'm not scared of having my opinion contradicted. I've stated my position. There always has and always will be prejudiced bigoted racist people in this world and sadly you can blame it on human nature and I believe with the advances in information technology, this 'wave' of hate speech/crime is magnified. Conversely though, I think the same tech enables right minded people to counter it.

If we stick to Australia, I think you are doing the vast majority of Aussies a great disservice by tarring them with the one brush. I would argue Australia is safer and friendlier than it ever was.

I haven't read your link and don't think I will, the NY Times is hardly the shining beacon of all things righteous and pure and I hardly need to be educated on white extremist crime while conveniently disregarding extremist crime of any other persuasion.

Now, if you'll excuse me i'm going to continue enjoying my beer and Youtube surfing on my massive t.v. because my lovely Asian wife has gone to bed early.

We've had a busy day.

Good night to you Sir.

Yes, btw, agreed- cool story Mike.

I wonder if there's been anything interesting or at least different on here this fine Mother's day...yeah? Naaaah.

Blowie still scurrying (though at least China has been given a rest for 5 minutes).

He's now onto our first nations people!

AGAIN.

And 'cos he scored a job (voluntary? Specific mission? Or just one that happened to be going?) as a maintenance man slash builder slash personal ambassador "helping to bridge the cultural divide between our cultures" (what's your personal culture again?) in "the middle of bumfuck nowhere" or the "shithole" that is South Hedland, well, how dare anyone impugn his sterling humanitarian tendencies by, you know, quoting him directly and shit.

Nothing to see here. EVER.

AGAIN.

Tragically hilarious. Hilariously tragic.

AGAIN.

(Cue Blowie's CV comparison call/shriek. Anyone wanna take the bet? Blowie has provided a lot of beer for me in the past)

Actually, I was wrong.

Cool story, Mike Hunt.

Other island tales would be interesting too. The waves, the boards, the locals, the greenery...

About stimulating the economy when the time is right yes getting tourists back to our towns is vital

Yeah I’d be keen to hear more about your North Shore tales Mike.
Your mate that ended up in a sticky situation?
Can you elaborate or will that mean no more trips to Hawaii for mr hunt?
Btw is Perry Dane still alive?

Lets put Vic Local's article into perspective.

It's between 2011 and 2017

Now let's remember in USA there is about 36,000 deaths a year from guns and in last ten years 180 school shootings alone, basically the place is pretty fucked up.

Spin over to Europe and you have countries being swamped by migrants causing all types of social issues and you also see a dramatic increase in terrorist attacks between 2011 and 2017 over 60 islamic based terrorist attacks and atleast 370 deaths.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_terrorism_in_Europe

Obviously nothing goes one way so the result is a rebound effect.

"Obviously nothing goes one way so the result (white supremacist killing sprees are) a rebound effect."
WOW Indo Dreaming,
You're willing to right off a fucking massive list of white supremacist hate crimes, where people have been gunned down at places of worship, youth camps, community centres etc as "a rebound effect". That's fucked up.
And blowin, still linking nutter sites I see. This time it's to back up a crackpot conspiracy theory about Clinton. Mate, were you at one of the Sydney or Melbourne cooker rallies on the weekend? You know the ones about 5G, anti-vaxxers, Bill Gates, etc.

...context is important...

it's kinda ridiculous that you throw around ridiculous figures about 'hate crimes' and 'hate speach' increasing, when these little buzzwords weren't even a thing just a few years ago...

then you constantly ask for proof and evidence, whilst constantly citing sources like nyt and the guardian...

hilarious

then you write off the federalist as a nutter site, yeh they're a bit nutty...

but only one of those three sources has been consistently correct for the last four years...

and it ain't the nyt!

the democrats are currently in so much shit it's fucken scary, for the whole world...

but you wouldn't know about that ...it's impossible to, ...from a bubble as impervious as yours...

'hate speech'

I feel a little nausea everytime I see it

a lot actually, in other forums it's a massive redlight for me

do not engage

nutter alert

...and speaking of nuts..

south headland is nuts!!!

Hey VL you cockwomble care to enlighten the world on why you’re so fucking right here 100% of the time, how you can speak with such authority in judging the words, lives and motives of others.

Cockwomble (noun)A person, usually male, prone to making outrageously stupid statements and/or inappropriate behavior while generally having a very high opinion of his own wisdom and importance.

"care to enlighten the world on why you’re so fucking right here 100% of the time".
It's because I back my statements up with evidence from reliable sources and academic studies.
Whenever I call "bullshit" on others, and request evidence for their claims, they come up with sweet FA or links to nutter conspiracy theory sites. Go back through all my postings and show me where I got the facts wrong. Go back to all the times I called "bullshit" on others, and show me where they backed up their claims. Fuck, I've even given them officials statistics proving they were completely wrong, and they still won't admit it.
Everyone has a right to their own opinions, but nobody has the right to make up their own facts.

...but facts are so subjective... it seems...

dismissing everything as 'conspiracy theory' for the last four years hasn't panned out well for the left

(left wing) conspiracy theory?

all sounds like a reasonable assessment of events

...to me...

https://amp.smh.com.au/national/it-would-be-unwise-to-dismiss-donald-tru...

Kinda related...

I was watching Episode 4 season 2 of 'Mars' on Netflix, produced in 2018 for National Geographic. It is a really good docudrama about the realities of humans establishing a colony on Mars with a view to terra-forming. Actually 2 colonies, one by the scientists, and a newer one by a corporation, and the various 'issues' that emerge from their differing 'missions'.

In this particular episode they tackle the scenario of a contagious virus being unleashed in their colonies. In the doco part they specifically mention 2 actual events on earth and how they were handled/cover-ed up. The first is the mysterious death of people in the Arctic which was due climate change melting greater areas and releasing 'anthrax' into the atmosphere as thousands of dead animal carcasses once buried in ice and snow were now thawed by the the warmth. The other situation was how China tried to cover up the SARS virus when it broke out.

[Spoiler Alert] - The crew on Mars had returned some drilled rock to their lab for the first time. Like on earth, because it had been in icy cold for so long, when it was brought to the lab it came to life due to the warmth and grew like an algae. It was analysed by a scientist who soon became ill with a respiratory illness, and soon died. Highly contagious it started spreading through both colonies (due to an intimate interaction between 2 colonists from the 2 different colonies)

Anyways, it looked like they were going to be wiped out as they had no idea how to make a remedy. Eventually they do discover that the one thing that can cure them all, penicillin, was not part of their medical supplies on Mars.

Fortunately for those on the ground, there was a space station already orbiting Mars. Guess who operated this space station and who also had supplies of penicillin?
The Chinese.

Sweet Lord, the 'Hillary alarm' must've gone off.

Seppo's in the house!

And you must be doing something right, Vic Local.

You've stirred up a real nest of 'murder hornets'!

See them swarm and attack! Attack!

Even Guy Smiley?!

Iso = loco.

"Obviously nothing goes one way so the result (white supremacist killing sprees are) a rebound effect."
WOW Indo Dreaming,
You're willing to right off a fucking massive list of white supremacist hate crimes, where people have been gunned down at places of worship, youth camps, community centres etc as "a rebound effect". That's fucked up."

It might be fucked up, but thats how humans nature works, people don't always turn the other cheek.

fuck yeah. more like it. cheer up cunts

"people don't always turn the other cheek."
Wow. Fucking hell Indo. Gunning down innocent people in revenge for some completely unrelated nutter bombing innocent people, is now just someone who isn't prepared to "turn the other cheek" and is "human nature".
Let me reword your statement to make it sane. "Killing people because of the colour of their skin, their religion, or their cultural background is fucked up." FULL STOP. DON'T ADD A "BUT".

Hey, hey, HEEEEEEY! I'm not racist...

but...

Youse are all rooted.

"It's because I back my statements up with evidence from reliable sources and academic studies ......"

No you don't so I'm thinking you're also delusional.

Calling the comments of others bullshit, harshly judging people and calling them racist is one hell of a way to win an argument, yep proven 101 technique in the Oxford debating manual. Never once have I see you ask someone to clarify what they saying, no no why waste time just yell out bullshit and racist. Wot you hiding VL?

You just get here, Guy Smiley?

No.

Of course not.

So what the actual are you gabbling about and who for?

You know the stooges' form on here.

Leopard, spots etc etc

Hang on...

'Thanks Jack Mundey'

Heartfelt tributes are pouring in for legendary Australian communist, trade unionist and environmentalist Jack Mundey, who died on Sunday, aged 90. Twitter has seen statements from the ACTU and Australian Conservation Foundation, a string of Labor heavyweights including former Labor leader Bill Shorten, Greens leader Adam Bandt and many others. As leader of the NSW Builders Laborers Federation in the early 1970s, Mundey and his fellow “BLs” Bob Pringle and Joe Owens had a truly global impact. They launched the green bans movement, which stopped bulldozers from clearing remnant scrub on Sydney Harbour at Hunters Hill, then known as Kellys Bush, in 1971. It was the first time a union anywhere had stopped work on a project for environmental reasons – well outside normal pay and conditions – and the green bans unionists went on to save much of Sydney’s built heritage in The Rocks and Woolloomooloo, and places like Centennial Park, holding up developments worth billions in the name of environmental amenity or social justice. It also embraced causes from gay rights to public housing. Peace and anti-nuclear activist Petra Kelly came to Sydney in the late 1970s and, inspired by Mundey, went home and formed the German Greens, which in turn inspired the formation of Green parties around the world.

But the significance of the green bans – a term coined by Mundey in a 1973 interview – wasn’t just that they saved a few precious bits of Sydney during the early 1970s property boom. The green bans recognised that the environment and heritage mattered to working people, that gay rights mattered to working people (hence the first pink ban, as the ACTU’s Sally McManus acknowledged today), that public housing mattered to working people. And the green bans could not have happened without the earlier black bans, in which the radical BLs stood up and stopped dangerous work practices like “riding the hook” in the very early days of high-rise construction, and insisting labourers should not die at work. And the green bans unionists were not about self-glorification or entrenching themselves in the hierarchy. They believed in grassroots democracy, with everything decided on site by the unionists themselves in stop-work meetings that would often drag on for hours – as long as it took, with many labourers from multicultural backgrounds. They also believed in limited tenure; Jack Mundey himself went back on the tools after his first stint as state secretary. 

In short, Mundey and his fellow unionists saw at the outset that the jobs-versus-environment debate is a sham construct. Workers can have both, if they only insist on it. Consider how radical the green bans seem now, when the CFMEU (the successor to the Builders Laborers Federation) colluded with the far right against Stop Adani protesters at the last federal election, and national president Tony Maher tells The Australian [$] his union will never oppose a new coal mine that creates jobs. Yet new coal projects will literally make the planet uninhabitable for kids, not just those of the inner-city greenies, but the kids of regional coal miners as well – a much more serious threat than anything the BLF stared down 50 years ago. The CFMEU could, if it wished, stop the Adani project dead tomorrow. Unions the world round could, if they wished, stop new fossil fuels forever. 

When I interviewed Mundey for my recent history of the Greens in Australia, he criticised the union movement for failing to move with the times: “The union movement now could be a real, important instrument in the whole ecological struggle, because the whole question of global warming, the whole question of the environment, is on the agenda forever more.” Could a green ban be slapped on the Adani mine, I asked Jack? “First of all, it’s convincing the workers themselves. I think there is a need for that sort of action to take place. And if workers could be motivated along those lines, I could see there’d be a great benefit to the whole workers’ movement.” 

As one Twitter user pointed out today, former ACTU president Bob Hawke saw Mundey as a “menace” – the 70s green bans represented exactly the kind of industrial unrest which, as PM, he stopped using the accord and union amalgamations. In his fifth vision speech today, Labor leader Anthony Albanese soft-pedalled on the policies that the Opposition would take to the next election, but has signalled that the party will dump ambitious policies on franking credits or negative gearing, for example. Last week, he was taking flack for committing to an entirely uncontroversial zero emissions by 2050 emissions target. Let’s hope that in the spirit of Jack Mundey – a true giant of the Australian Labor movement – the ALP does not go to water on everything. 

That my friends is called integrity.

A good write-up and post, Stunet.

And yes, "let's hope that the Australian people give the Kool-Aid a miss."

There. Fixed it.

One thing leads to the other.

Nek Minnit...

Are you saying that Jack Mundey is a part of a psyops Dale?

What are you saying?

From 'The Monthly Today' by Paddy Manning'.

That photo! Someone's done their research.

stunet. If you want to see a hilarious take on the Melbourne protest check out Tom Tanuki's YouTube summary. Absolute Gold.

Andy, that sweet imported Kool-Aid is irresistible to some.

Most?

Dilute to taste.

Are you going to actually be specific and say what you mean?

The way you're expressing yourself isn't really doing it.

Not late to the party at all just getting increasingly cranky at the way people with reasonable points to make get shouted down.

As a related aside John Brumby former Victorian Labor Premier and current head of Latrobe University was on the radio today lamenting the loss of income from the 275,000 foreign students that the State usually plays host to.

That's worth repeating 275,000 in Victoria alone.

Brumby was singing the success of the university sector as an export industry and as a means to foster soft diplomacy but not once did he mention what the first and foremost role of Australian Universities is, that is, the education of Australian students/citizens.

Now I don't mind the idea of foreign students nor the soft diplomacy bit but that number is out of control and certainly there needs to be a way of decoupling Australian study with citizenship because like others I believe immigration is out of control. It needs to return to pre Howard levels to put it on a more long term sustainable basis.