Interesting stuff
Almost weekly, you hook into people for things they've done in the past, how that taints any future work, so how do you resolve Onsolen's real world work with peak Neo-Liberal Howard, and APEC and free trade?
Mate, his hands are filthy. He's as implicated as any dark-hearted Liberal.
He writes things that sound enticing, rouse the disillusioned masses, but have zero chance of being realised.
Nice bit of patronisation, Stu.
How would you know what he suggests ? Do you subscribe ?
What did they say Mike?
local ABC or RN?
They’re only a slim chance of being realised because the comfy benefactors of neoliberalism sitting with their insecure employment and a huge mortgage think they’re killing it so hard that no action is necessary....unless it’s easy.
Too bad it’ll be their kids who are kicked to the kerb by this heartless situation.
Now it’s my turn to note that it’s interesting watching your transition into a conservative, Stu .
Ha ha ha ha...
I'm simply under no illusion that middle Australia wants a populist revolt. As someone on here, can't for the life of me remember who, keeps saying, Australia is a conservative country, the proof is in the vote.
You can think what you want, I can too, but subjective assessments mean squat.
Australia has been LED into this cultural quagmire through unrelenting political maouvering.
Australians aren’t inherently conservative. The LNP of past eras was far more left leaning than the ALP is now .
Under all those years of Liberal governments we still had the best working conditions in the history of man ( working man’s utopia) , women vote , free education, free medical, welfare system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gough_Whitlam
It’s called social democracy and Australia led the way until we were derailed by a collusive political campaign in which both parties forsook our natural inclination towards fairness and equality.
Our politics became truly subservient to global influences. Don’t blame the population for being entrapped in a situation of which there is a concerted effort to both exclude them from their democratic right and to ensure they remain ignorant of the process.
You do realise that Facto’s whole “ Australians have always voted LNP and this is evidence that they’ve always been conservative “ is a clumsy attempt to mask the inadequacy of the current unelectable ALP by applying specious arguments to backdate the “ deplorables “ accusation, don’t you ?
See , if he can somehow rewrite history to show that Aussie’s have always been conservative- despite every history book proving otherwise - then he can claim that the reason the ALP can’t get elected is that the fault lies with the people, not the party. It’s “ deplorables “applied to multiple generations.
He is that stupid , Stu. I didn’t think you were. I still refuse to believe it.
"Don’t blame the population for being entrapped in a situation of which there is a concerted effort to both exclude them from their democratic right and to ensure they remain ignorant of the process."
Exclude their democratic right? Mate, they're forced to vote. Penalised if they don't. No-one is excluded. And they have free choice to vote for parties that don't kowtow to the neolib agenda, but again and again and again those parties dont get the numbers.
And ensuring they remain ignorant? How do you know they're "ignorant" - maybe they got exactly what they wanted? Just cos MB says it isn't true doesnt make it correct.
We've never had more access to information, to learn about our history, to choose who we follow and advocate for. If anyone is claiming ignorance, well I'll pitch in and buy them an internet plan.
"It’s called social democracy and Australia led the way until we were derailed by a collusive political campaign in which both parties forsook our natural inclination towards fairness and equality."
Australians aren't alone here. Every single Western democracy - except for Scandavian ones, very notably - caught the neolib express. Nothing to do with patriotism or some national sense of fairness. Every country did it.
More so, Australia HAD TO DO IT...as our biggest cultural partner and trading partner were unshackling the markets and if Australia held back I've no doubt there would have been CIA intervention.
It's a moot point anyway, as we wanted it. The biggest leap in real wealth happened immediately afterwards, as did % lifted out of poverty.
If Australia had a leader with vision who chose to try and unite the nation , draw a picture of how our society could be and describe a pathway forward then it would swipe all ALP/ LNP dogshit before them.
Just because MB had a chequered past , doesn’t detract from the seeds of possibility they are sowing amongst people.
Some of the most nutritious food grows from faecal matter. Who gives a fuck where the impetus for positive change comes from ?
Never thought I’d see you on the ad hominem wagon.
It’s only the biggest leap in real wealth if you cash in your chips and walk away from the table.
The reality is a population lumbered under the second largest personal debt in the world with ever more tenuous income and job security.
Don’t drink the Kool Aid . Australians have been sold a dud.
The situation is so perversely tucked up that a young couple with the $500K mortgage and insecure employment count themselves lucky to be “ on the property ladder “. They think they’re well off cause they owe the banks a lifetimes worth of graft because.....house prices to the moon.
Australians are lacking in education about money.
That’s why they don’t teach basic financial education in schools cause if they did , if Australians had a fucking clue about wealth , then there would be an uprising tomorrow.
Hundreds of grand in debt , can’t afford to raise the kids ourselves ....got to outsource that whilst we pay off the mortgage , tenuous employment......we’re rich I tells ya !
Off topic but not really...I was re-reading a few old articles from 1999 in the wake of Seattle and Melbourne WTO S11 protests and it makes for interesting reading seeing who was on the front lines in the last ditch effort to halt globalisation.
Even more interesting is reading who was critcising the protestors.
Present were unions of course, but also Greens aplenty, refugee advocates, gays and other minorities.
Notably absent were Howard's Battlers cum Morrison's Quiet Australians, but they were well represented in the media persecuting the protestors. I imagine Leith van Onselen would fall into the latter cohort considering his consorting with Howard, Costello, APEC and all the Davos people of that age.
Howard's Battlers won that battle, smashed clean the last bulwark against globalisation, wiped the ground with Greens and minorities, belittled them in their press.
And look how the tables have turned!
So 'scuse me for being a tad cynical at a populist revolt by Quiet Australians. A real revolt was tried on twenty years ago and everyday Australians rejected it, took the filthy lucre globalisation offered instead.
You’re arguing against your own point.
The fact that the unions , the greens and the labour movement were somehow enlisted on the side of the globalists demonstrates just how effective the campaign to derail opposition has been.
Those parties should still be flat out against globalisation but now they declare anyone who is opposed as a deplorable. I hate to use a quote so debased by fuckwits , but they are the true “ turkeys voting for thanksgiving “.
The populist revolt has been subsumed in debt driven insecurity and the illusion of prosperity. How people are convinced that they’re amongst the beneficiaries of a system which enslaved them with a lifetime’s debt for the necessary shelter their parents acquired for one tenth of the cost is beyond me.
You are a perfect example. If you’ve given up hope , you of the commitment to a philosophy degree and the ability to think laterally, what chance does the average punter stand ?
A lot of average punters have a new 4wd, house and a trip to Indo every year. Might be all up to eyeballs in debt but they are (or possibly were) enjoying the current lifestyle which their folks probably didn’t have and don’t want a change.
No I'm not, I get the feeling you're not quite understanding it.
Those organisations were against globalisation, but the will of the people was FOR globalisation.
So they had two choices:
Either shrivel up and die because they no longer represent the will of the people.
Or move with the times.
They thought they were representing the people in 1999, but the people said, "we don't want that".
The people spoke, so we got globalisation.
Does that make sense to you?
EDIT: Not meaning to be patronising, just showing the order of events,
I'm not quite sure the causal arrow points that way Stu.
Probably some of it does, but it's also equally true that when you have a choice of two main courses, fish and fish.
The people end up choosing fish.
But that doesn't invalidate your observation about the lack of success of minor parties who might have some distance from the prevailing neo-lib agenda.
But what you are seemingly failing to understand is that the people never had the issue explained to them properly. When literally every single media outlet in the Western world is a globalisation mouthpiece, what chance does the average person have of gleaming the truth of the matter ?
When the education system implemented by a globalisation-driven government is reinforcing this , what chance then ?
It’s not that the people rejected neoliberalism, it’s that they never knew they’d acceded to it or even that it was being imposed.
Crew just went to work and worried about their lives within the normal scope of existence, they are kept removed from the macro by a government/ media who knows the best outcome is to keep them stupidly compliant and mired in debt.
Throw in an ever fracturing society through the premeditated sowing of cultural divisions ( gender / race / generation ( ok boomer ! ) / class ) and crew don’t know what’s up or down or where to throw their punches. They don’t even know who they’re meant to be fighting ....they just know that their kids are drowning in debt for a useless degree with little hope of secure employment and that they’re struggling to keep their heads above water financially even though both adults are working flat out.
Another thing .....how come it’s not cool to appreciate the current efforts of MB in their disavowing of neoliberalism due to history, but it’s all good to forgive the ALP / Greens/ Unions for their utter abandonment of the principles which are fundamental to their moral authority ?
Your eternal mollycoddling of the populace is touching, but it's the most patronising thing on this thread.
What gives you...gives anyone, the God-given powers to know what the populace is thinking?
Over and over and over again the people made their intentions clear via the best method democracy has come up with - compulsory voting.
That you don't think they know what's good for themselves is tipping into fascist territory.
Hahahahaha, finally some interesting stuff, Stunet.
Anyway, what old articles about S11 were you reading?
There's a particular Australian Rolling Stone article about the S11 protest in Melbourne I've been trying to track down.
Spoiler alert: I was involved.
"They don’t even know who they’re meant to be fighting ....they just know that their kids are drowning in debt for a useless degree with little hope of secure employment and that they’re struggling to keep their heads above water financially even though both adults are working flat out."
Then they vote Liberal.
lots of truth in all of those previous posts.
@Pupkin,
Follow footnotes in Wikipedia, S11 and Seattle, or use Trove.
"SCU campuses closed."
It's an interesting business model and strategy that other unis have done (don't know if SCU did it): import students around the travel bans, pay thousands to do so, be surprised when you have to shut the whole kit and kaboodle as you have an infection. Can't say I understand it.
SCU has shut campuses for the day based on a Phillipines based lecturer who spoke at seminars between 2-6 March, returned to Phillipines with mild symptoms , tested positive and is now recovered.
estimated 45 people came into contact.
Stunet, I use VDX but I need a citation. I'll continue.
The World Meteorological Organization just released their latest report card on the global climate and for those wanting a good in depth summary, it's got everything in easily digestible sections.. https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=10211
Take home points..
The last 5 years have been the hottest on record since the start of the industrial revolution.
2019 was the second hottest on record (only 2016 was hotter due to influence of El Nino).
The first graph shows the trend in global annual mean temperature since pre-industrial times.
Second graph shows the mass balance of glacial ice (glaciers with 30 years of data or more).
Carbon concentration in the atmosphere hit a new record high of 407.8±0.1 ppm
The annual increases in the three main greenhouse gases were larger than the increases in the previous year and the 10-year averaged growth rates (going backwards).
Looks like the arse is about to drop out of the student rental market in Tasmania shortly!!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-10/university-of-tasmania-cuts-degre...
Interesting vid on the numbers found on Nassim Nicolas Taleb's (author of Black Swan) twitter feed.
Good vid that one.
Excellent video!
Keep washing your hands :-)
apparently there are a couple of people in this town in quarantine.
Van Badham nails it.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/11/christian-porter-d...
https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/09/wikipedia-slashes-spanish-flu-death-...
https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-bans-face-mask-ads-to-curb-coronaviru...
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/7/facebook-and-instagram-a...
https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/28/21158276/coronavirus-covid19-tiktok-w...
https://www.worldchangesnarrativesofreeridewins10cartons.com
I made that last one up.
Taleb says it's better to panic re Covid 19
I'll tell you a story about Chilla, since Van Badham does a character assasination based on where he grew up and without knowing him. A uni party in the 1990s saw me in attendance and I think it might have been his crew having it. They were older. The night was fun, but after 12 one of the girls chipped her tooth and was in a fair bit of pain. Without pausing, Chilla organised dental work, and before dawn the tooth was fixed and she was OK. I believe he paid for it as well. My estimation of him went up many levels after seeing his actions and hearing that she was OK.
Worldwide influenza deaths for the year moved past the 20,000 mark today.
Nobody flinched.
Interesting stuff
My wife went through law school with him and has many stories that veer the other way.
Sure, we're all Whitman's multitudes, so take it all as you will. Best advice is to judge a professional person on their professional life.
37 already dead from dengue fever in east nusa tenggara province (Sumba, flores, west timor/rote) this year from Jan to March.
"Dengue fever outbreak in East Nusa Tenggara kills 37
The death toll of a dengue fever outbreak in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) province has hit 37, the local Health Agency said today, adding that a lack of immediate care of patients contributed to the fatalities."
https://coconuts.co/bali/news/dengue-fever-outbreak-in-east-nusa-tenggar...
Stunet said ....
“Your eternal mollycoddling of the populace is touching, but it's the most patronising thing on this thread.
What gives you...gives anyone, the God-given powers to know what the populace is thinking?
Over and over and over again the people made their intentions clear via the best method democracy has come up with - compulsory voting.
That you don't think they know what's good for themselves is tipping into fascist territory.”
Except for the fact that I’ve met you , Stu . And I know that our political sympathies are very simpatico . You agree with me and I agree with you .
And who do we get as a democratic choice with our compulsory voting system ?
Neoliberal X or Neoliberal Y . That’s no fucking choice at all. It’s a rigged game , a stacked deck . So don’t you fucking dare blame the regular fella in the street when he’s been subjected to the Machiavellian orchestrations of the transnational strategists. It’s fucking disheartening to hear a bloke as smart as yourself not recognise the dead end that our democracy has been cordoned into by Big Money .
Everyone i know thinks the same as both of us. People just want a fair life for a fair days existence.
Come on Stu. You agree with me on this. You were there fighting the good fight in the late ‘90s and now you expect me to believe you’ve thrown in the towel now when the grim reality of neoliberal intent of university greed has casualised your missus into unemployment.
Mate....sorry to get personal, but this attack on our society IS personal. The rich get richer and the poor get the picture.
Only in this day and age of an average mortgage of $600K no one thinks they’re poor cause they’re living in a millionaire’s house ....on borrowed money !
It’s a fucken hoax. Stop defending the fact that the people have been preyed upon. Leave that for the strange cunts like a Facto who think that a working class rebelling against this systemic bullshit are ignorant, xenophobic deplorables.
Freeride, Dr Norman Swan from Radio National reckons the mortality threat is much worse than the normal flu.
Indo ....how many people have died from dengue in Lombardo in the last 10 days ?
Dengue has been around for a thousand years. Wuhan Flu has been around for about 100 days.
How about you factor that into your comparisons ? Dengue has spread around the world at a snails pace. Wuhan Flu went from zero to 500 deaths in Italy in 12 days .
It’s called maths , Bro.....you should look into it.
VJ....Real estate is toast regardless.
#NepalesevibrantsandUberdriversborrowingmillionsLOL
Wuhan Flu??
Don’t swallow that bought and paid for WHO Covid19 politically correct bullshit.
West Nile Virus
Zika Virus
Ebola Virus
German Measels
Spanish Flu
Marburg Virus
Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever
Norovirus
Stockholm Syndrome
Lyme Disease
Wuhan Virus
Every single one predicated on a geographic point of origin.
#ChinaownsWHO
Not to mention Ross River virus and Murray Valley encephalitis for the remnant legacy Australians out there.
Yeah....you may remember Australia and Australians. Here’s a heads up you fuckwits
Couple of thoughts.
@Stu - "I'm simply under no illusion that middle Australia wants a populist revolt. As someone on here, can't for the life of me remember who, keeps saying, Australia is a conservative country, the proof is in the vote."
Disagree. From my constant conversations with anyone who will stand still and can string a sentence together, a big chunk of people do want a significant change, they just don't know how to go about it. I'm mainly talking about the "working class" but excluding tradies.
They want an Australian manufacturing industry, they want secure jobs, affordable housing either to buy or rent but in my sincere estimation they don't know how to go about it.
They've been played like cheap Taiwanese fiddles with regards to divide-and-conquer identity politics, manipulated by some mind games and a tame press.
And - "Those organisations [unions, greens and labour organisations] were against globalisation, but the will of the people was FOR globalisation."
This was/is an outcome of a devastating hatchet job lasting for decades which painted those organisations as the bad guys, the new communists if you will. The things you can do in a corporatocracy...
Also:
"More so, Australia HAD TO DO IT...as our biggest cultural partner and trading partner were unshackling the markets and if Australia held back I've no doubt there would have been CIA intervention."
No question, more to the point there's strong evidence to suggest that's exactly what happened with Whitlam for exactly that reason - at that turning point in history, Whitlam was way too left for the Yanks.
@Blowin - "It’s not that the people rejected neoliberalism, it’s that they never knew they’d acceded to it or even that it was being imposed."
Exactly, this shit is hegemonic, it's all been accepted as common sense.
"Every single one predicated on a geographic point of origin."
lol
human immunodeficiency virus
Tuberculosis
Severe acute respiratory syndrome
Whooping cough
Smallpox
Hepatitis
Diphtheria
Shall we keep going? Something tells me the list of infectious diseases that don't have a geographic location in the common name *might* be a longer one than those that do.
#notbeingracistoranythingbutijustselectivelypullshitoutofmyarsesoicanblamechinaforeverything
Andy....Stu knows this shit like the back of his hand . Situational denial.
We had a chance to run like tigers and bears .....and now we are lambs to the slaughter.
Stunet thinks that the capture of Australian politics is due to the inherent conservatism and greed of the Aussie public
“Nothing ever happens, nothing really matters
No one ever tells me so what am I to know
You wouldn't read about it, read about it.”
On another tack.
I don't know if this is kosher but this is a verbatim reproduction of an email I received from Southern Cross University today following its short Corona virus-induced shutdown. Written by the Vice-Chancellor.
"I am writing to thank you personally for your patience and understanding as we work through this complex public health issue. This is what we have done, and what we will do tomorrow.
First, we have acted swiftly from the minute we became aware of the situation. We have applied the principle of safety first and transparency in all that we have done, and as you know, this has resulted in the pre-emptive closure of our Lismore and Gold Coast campuses. I apologise for the inconvenience that this has caused.
There will be more that we can do, and if required, we will. These situations are dynamic and in concert with the NSW and QLD health departments we are actively working to ensure your safety.
We have identified a total of 47 staff and students who have had some level of contact with the affected staff member. Working closely with each respective health agency, we have spoken with each of the 47 to ensure they have a complete understanding of the situation and have all the support that they need. These staff and students will not be asked to return to campus until the completion of a 14 day isolation period concluding on 20 March 2020. This will enable them to have special, paid working arrangements – including working from home – in order to undertake all necessary family, self-care, and self-isolation requirements.
By working closely with everyone who is potentially affected, and by maximising flexibility, this will allow the University to safely reopen the Lismore and Gold Coast campuses tomorrow.
Next, all relevant areas of both campuses were comprehensively cleaned and inspected by the relevant health departments.
Finally, I want to underscore again that your safety is paramount. We will continue to receive briefings from the relevant health agencies to ensure that our response is both appropriate and timely, and we will continue to update you as the situation develops.
Sincerely,"
The language above is pretty interesting and leads me to think that there will generally be two reactions to the virus.
First, as above.
Risk averse to the point of paranoia, desperate to be seen doing "the right thing" and making lightning decisions which will potentially be a big inconvenience.
The second we already know - business comes first, last and everywhere in-between until further notice.
Unfortunately for you Vasectomy Bllotmouth , the history of naming viral outbreaks on their geographic point of origin has an originational precedent which extends further into history than the modern mental contagion which somehow considers an expansionist dictatorship of a of 1.6 billion people as an oppressed minority.
AKA Fuck you....Wuhan flu.
Aka #Donteatbatsyoustrangefuck AkA #Getoutofthedarkagesyouweirdcunts
Have it cunts