Australia - you're standing in it
"Qantas 737’s back from maintenance in the Middle East - 3 of four bolts holding the 9th stage bleed duct on, plus the seal missing, [they] fell out the bottom of the cowl". Source: Qantas pilot.#auspol pic.twitter.com/4uWgGqgPGY
— 💧Michael West (@MichaelWestBiz) September 7, 2023
How long are the wheels going to stay on at Qantas?
Was going to post that up. Relatives were pilots, and they would be able to stop the plane, go and find and replace a part that had failed - and they did so in the course of their careers. Knew the planes backwards. Good to see the source is reputedly a Qantas pilot. But yeah, always put it back together the way you disassembled it.
Qantas is an awful airline. I would only fly it as a last resort option. I did around 40 flights this year and only one was with Qantas as there was no other option available.
Totally agree, two weeks ago i used my 'credit 'up from the cancelled flights i had during covid and they still managed to slug me an extra $600... .for the same trip..........1 hour before i am leaving kalbarri to drive to gerro and i get a text saying flight to sydney has been cancelled...........got home and joined the class action against qantarse........used to be a great airline ....once apon a time
John Hewson
The war on woke https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/comment/topic/2023/09/09/the-war-woke
Supafreak wrote:John Hewson
The war on woke https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/comment/topic/2023/09/09/the-war-woke
Good piece. Imagine if we'd had Hewson instead of Howard, I wonder where we would all be now?
It’s very true that the woke agenda is driven by socialists hiding behind the thin veil of the progressive left.
In Australia we are all equal under the law and have equal access and opportunity to employment, education, political participation and representation, etc. There are no disadvantaged, discriminated against or oppressed racial, gender, etc groups. A person’s lot and outcomes in life are due to their own decisions and actions. We are victims only to ourselves. The woke agenda literally has no basis in reality in Australia.
But the communist left in Australia has latched onto and hijacked the whole woke agenda as part of their own agenda of tearing down the very institutions that make Australia and more generally western civilisation great and the most prosperous, successful and well off civilisation with the highest living standards and quality of life, such as
- a free, equal, liberal and open society, including free speech
- a balanced, mixed market economy with a strong role for government
- a liberal, parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy open to participation by all
- a multicultural society in which no particular group is favoured or given special treatment, including political representation
- equal treatment of all under the law
and replace them with socialism.
It’s a complete disgusting disgrace that the ALP has dragged Australia down to be balls deep on communist, woke social justice culture wars, and has decided that our parliamentary democracy is defective and particular racial groups need special treatment.
More socialism, please.
You’re completely out of your mind if you’re not just taking the piss
https://m.
Nice trolling gsco.
In any case, Australia could definitely do with some more socialism.
Far out, there’s actually living, breathing socialist believers in Australia. That’s completely insane.
flollo wrote:Qantas is an awful airline. I would only fly it as a last resort option. I did around 40 flights this year and only one was with Qantas as there was no other option available.
Yeah I have over one Million points but lucky if it equates to 10 k in flight credits.
gsco wrote:You’re completely out of your mind if you’re not just taking the piss
Au contraire, I think you are the one that's out of your mind if you can look towards the poster boy of neo-liberalism - America - and say 'that's how I'd like Australia to be in twenty years', as opposed to a country that leans more towards retaining public services and keeping wealth inequality in check.
Of course there's many flavours of socialism, like any political system it exists on a spectrum, but I'd like to see it tilted away from the direction we're heading. Not for my generation's sake but for those to come.
Gsco surely you've heard that democratic socialism tends to work very well?
In any case the shift to the left is already happening, you only need to look at the long-term shift away from the two majors and their right wing economics.
The last federal election was further proof.
People want a change and they're rejecting neoliberalism.
No style of socialism, communism, Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism ever worked or ever will. It’s all a fantasy and illusory utopia that people read in books but never actually occurred in reality. What actually occurred were the biggest disasters of human suffering in all of history.
Xi'ism?
gsco wrote:No style of socialism, communism, Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism ever worked or ever will. It’s all a fantasy and illusory utopia that people read in books but never actually occurred in reality..
Hey GSCO, Sweden is calling. And Finland, Iceland, and Norway too - all have 'styles' of socialism in their make up.
You also missed calls from the UK, France, Belgium, Israel, and India, who also once had styles of socialism and were peaceful and prosperous.
The socialists rebuilt England after the devastation of WW2. Didn't last long, I'll grant you that, but fuck it worked well for a while.
Maybe we'll just wait till neoliberalism tears us apart, eh?
Just coming back to this, fully off the scale fear mongering GSCO. Take a bex and have a good lie down. Sky after Dark will still be there for you tomorrow.
gsco the OG red under the bed.
https://m.
gsco wrote:No style of socialism, communism, Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism ever worked or ever will. It’s all a fantasy and illusory utopia that people read in books but never actually occurred in reality. What actually occurred were the biggest disasters of human suffering in all of history.
100%. Hopefully that evil never comes to life in Australia.
flollo wrote:gsco wrote:No style of socialism, communism, Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism ever worked or ever will. It’s all a fantasy and illusory utopia that people read in books but never actually occurred in reality. What actually occurred were the biggest disasters of human suffering in all of history.
100%. Hopefully that evil never comes to life in Australia.
So Medicare, public education, social safety nets like Centrelink payments are all a socialist plot? Truly pathetic thinking
man, now this thread has gone weird.
I swear, some people are just not ready to have organised religion gone from their societal reality, mental though that is. At least it was a vessel through which dualists could publicly exorcise their internal night-time fairy-mutterings and disseminate their primal need for dot-joiny abstraction in a safe space.
;)
https://m.
&pp=ygUQdGhlIGRlYWQgd2VhdGhlcg%3D%3D GuySmiley wrote:flollo wrote:gsco wrote:No style of socialism, communism, Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism ever worked or ever will. It’s all a fantasy and illusory utopia that people read in books but never actually occurred in reality. What actually occurred were the biggest disasters of human suffering in all of history.
100%. Hopefully that evil never comes to life in Australia.
So Medicare, public education, social safety nets like Centrelink payments are all a socialist plot? Truly pathetic thinking
??? What’s that got to do with anything? I’m not against any of these things.
gsco - “In Australia we are all equal under the law and have equal access and opportunity to employment, education, political participation and representation, etc. There are no disadvantaged, discriminated against or oppressed racial, gender, etc groups. A person’s lot and outcomes in life are due to their own decisions and actions. We are victims only to ourselves.”
I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry….
I’ve got it all… but what’s it for ?
https://m.
&pp=ygUIaWdneSBwb3A%3D flollo wrote:GuySmiley wrote:flollo wrote:gsco wrote:No style of socialism, communism, Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism ever worked or ever will. It’s all a fantasy and illusory utopia that people read in books but never actually occurred in reality. What actually occurred were the biggest disasters of human suffering in all of history.
100%. Hopefully that evil never comes to life in Australia.
So Medicare, public education, social safety nets like Centrelink payments are all a socialist plot? Truly pathetic thinking
??? What’s that got to do with anything? I’m not against any of these things.
Then you don't understand the conversation.
I think what gsco means is...
the fake left revolutionaries (redistributionaries) like our resident one man, many aliases, clown troupe - you know the guy... they... them...
are willing (in every sense of the word) to tear the whole system down, in search of some utopian dream that just doesn't exist
a strong public health, education system, and even public utilities are most desirable. and are very very different from what the contemporary marxist mind virus clowns are both advocating and seeking...
neoliberalism is a scourge, the problem is, when the left adopted it with their 'third way' bullshit - they threw out any economic arguments and credibility they might have had, with the bath water, for a handful of ip peanuts
it worked for a while... any change brings about opportunities, ...for some... for a while...
but now the division and gaps in distribution of wealth have grown way too broad. hence the current instability
sadly, there is virtually no one advocating for sensible change
just your facto speedwagon, stuart dicksplitter, whiteman scream, bumpkin, dale cooper dickheads, trying to bring the whole system down, for his handful of ip peanuts...
it's fucken dire
gsco wrote:No style of socialism, communism, Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism ever worked or ever will. It’s all a fantasy and illusory utopia that people read in books but never actually occurred in reality. What actually occurred were the biggest disasters of human suffering in all of history.
GuySmiley wrote:flollo wrote:gsco wrote:No style of socialism, communism, Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism ever worked or ever will. It’s all a fantasy and illusory utopia that people read in books but never actually occurred in reality. What actually occurred were the biggest disasters of human suffering in all of history.
100%. Hopefully that evil never comes to life in Australia.
So Medicare, public education, social safety nets like Centrelink payments are all a socialist plot? Truly pathetic thinking
It's the icing on the cake, not the cake.
A little bit of icing is fine it even compliments the cake, but yeah making the cake out of just icing never works.
BTW. Countries like Stu mentioned are still capitalist countries with free markets, they just have thicker icing than our cake, at some stage too much icing and not enough cake, ends up making you really sick.
https://m.
some people are waking up...
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https:...
but the squeakiest wheels drown out any possibility of a sensible conversation
ID and sypkan are right, again.
The countries during the periods you mentioned Stu were/are all market economies (what people also call capitalist) with varying degrees of government intervention as prescribed by stock standard first year modern economics textbooks. None are/were socialist.
The Nordic/Scandinavian countries are stock standard western civilisation countries in all their glories: market economies, liberal democracies, predominately Christian, free and liberal societies, strictly upholding the rule of law, strong welfare systems and safety nets, free and open international trade and capital flows, highly developed and modern, a focus on scientific and technological progress in particular economic and productivity growth, a focus on the scientific method and reason as guiding progress and development, multicultural and tolerant, etc. Socialism is nearly none of these things.
Things like:
- Stu: retaining public services and keeping wealth inequality in check
- GS: Medicare, public education, social safety nets like Centrelink payments
- sypkan: a strong public health, education system, and even public utilities
are all stock standard prescriptions in stock standard first year modern economics textbooks. None of this stuff is socialism or communism - it's just basic modern economics.
Economically, China is not communist/socialist. Its living standards and quality of life started improving when the country adopted market based economic policies in the 1980s under Deng Xiaoping. Indeed, the main thing the west is currently pissed off with China about is Xi Xinping is moving away from these market based policies and back towards socialist ones again, as well moving away from socially/politically liberalising and back towards communist control and oppression of the Chinese people, creating a Xi'ism personality (more like religious) cult around him basically by force, and engaging in an unnecessarily huge military buildup that countries typically only engage in if they are preparing to go to war.
The US, Aus, UK, NZ, etc have indeed tilted too far to thee neoliberal right. The solution is for people to sit down and actually read an economics textbook to recall the stock standard modern economic prescriptions about the role of government in a market economy.
Instead, the fake left, which includes our ALP, tries to divide society along racial, gender, identity, etc, lines by trying to present entire groups of people as discriminated against and oppressed by the "capitalist system", and puts entire countries balls deep in culture and identity wars in order to try to "overthrow the system". The fake left also rejects all of economics as neoliberal propaganda and conspiracy designed to entrench the standing of the wealthy elite, and starts pushing socialist and communist ideas.
A true, valid and reputable left would simply focus on modern economics and shift their country back towards the centre economically. And doing this has nothing to do with socialism - it's just basic economics.
I can't tell if it's your typical struggle with perspective or the hyperbole pills have worn off?
Many of the above posts mentioned "styles of socialism" - which were your words - forwarding elements of a socialist system. Universal health care is not a given in a liberal democracy, it is a system that leans heavily on socialist theory. It even acts 'to each according his need'.
Our Medicare was based on the NHS which was built with socialist principles by a government that also nationalised coal, railways, road transport, the Bank of England, civil aviation, electricity and gas, and steel - does that sound familiar?
Sure, it was post-war, they were trying to rebuild a country, but that's besides the point. It's socialist, it still exists, and it's so popular as to be a tenet of our modern life.
Then there's also the social democracies currently in action - which no-one said didn't have market economies - but which have retained many other elements of socialism such as nationalised utlities and industries, which were so on the nose but which are now being toyed with as a salve to the squeeze of late-stage capitalism.
Styles of socialism, yeah?
Anyway, it's early Monday morning and it feels like I'm having a late Friday night 'debate'.
‘ …. Things like:
- Stu: retaining public services and keeping wealth inequality in check
- GS: Medicare, public education, social safety nets like Centrelink payments
- sypkan: a strong public health, education system, and even public utilities
are all stock standard prescriptions in stock standard first year modern economics textbooks. None of this stuff is socialism or communism - it's just basic modern economics.‘
And yet all of the above social safety nets are hotly contested in the US either at national level by the Republican Party (Obamacare was considered socialism and even recently the RP demanded reductions to welfare benefits in a deal to increase the debt ceiling) or at a state level where these programs are subject to the vagaries of funding allocated verses the ideological opposition to taxes or using taxes in this manner all again driven by the right …. a country many in the right of politics here would have us emulate if they had their way.
The UK is a basket case now when it comes to the NHS because of funding cuts each successive year since the Tories took power and their public housing and education systems are in crisis …
Opposition to welfare safety nets also saw Australia introduce and for years tolerate the LNPs Robodebt, a scheme Morrison still refuses to accept responsibility for … and we have had the inane debate over taxes for decades about how low taxes and small government is good from the right!!!
Slippery slope to the right …
Yes GS, that's the issue here.
These things (universal healthcare, public ownership of utilities, etc) Stu and others mentioned are not based on socialist theory but are just basic economic theory, which has been ignored in the Anglo-sphere in its slippery slope movement towards neoliberalism.
These things are presented by socialist believers as examples of socialist policies that work in an attempt to prove that socialism works, and they are also derogatorily labeled as socialism by the far right nutjobs and their scare campaigns.
There are no successful social democracies currently in action and there never has been. Again, socialist supporters try to twist and bend various countries into appearing that they are socialist (and democracies...) in order to try to peddle the idea that socialism works.
But this new modern push for socialism and communism that's occurring in western civilisation, particularly the Anglo-sphere countries, is nothing new. It's a stock standard reaction to when a country slides too far to the economic right, and this has occurred endless times in recorded history.
Smart countries simply shift their economies back towards the centre.
Dumb countries get caught up and bogged down in flirting with socialism and communism and shift their entire political, economic and social systems towards this way. These dumb countries have all failed historically by becoming impoverished and backwards economic, political, social and human rights disasters.
Socialism and communism have never and never will work.
gsco wrote:Socialism and communism have never and never will work.
The one big reason it has and always will fail, is it comes down to what types of animals humans are, we dont think and act like bees or ants, we are individuals with different thoughts, wants and needs.
We are driven by individual motivations and success, and those most driven and smart are the ones who achieve, you basically get what you put into life, especially in the west were we have so much opportunity and all can become whatever we want if really aim for it.
The good news is we all have benefited from these individuals that are high achievers and have made us humans what we are today, imagine a world without a Einstein, Newton, Galileo, Da vinci etc
Even today like it or not we benefit from those high achievers, this phone or PC we are typing on was developed by great minds.
“ Socialism [has] never and never will work.”
That’s patently untrue.
indo-dreaming wrote:gsco wrote:Socialism and communism have never and never will work.
The one big reason it has and always will fail, is it comes down to what types of animals humans are, we dont think and act like bees or ants, we are individuals with different thoughts, wants and needs.
We are driven by individual motivations and success, and those most driven and smart are the ones who achieve, you basically get what you put into life, especially in the west were we have so much opportunity and all can become whatever we want if really aim for it.
The good news is we all have benefited from these individuals that are high achievers and have made us humans what we are today, imagine a world without a Einstein, Newton, Galileo, Da vinci etc
Even today like it or not we benefit from those high achievers, this phone or PC we are typing on was developed by great minds.
Indo,
the bees and the ants, who are renowned for their collective work ethic, have survived and flourished magnificently. All for one and one for all apparently. Humanity has been known to operate in a slightly different manner. Survival of the fittest, or most ruthless: they make TV shows about it and call it entertainment.
Yes, the driven and smart ones achieve, but much of it is on the back of a large, endless and very expendable supply of cheap labour. The pyramids are a good example of that. Today however, we just load that labour into a sweatshop, doing “overtime hours for bullshit pay” to build that phone you’re using and tell them “trickle-down economics” will be their reward. That means of course they can buy an umbrella, to try and avoid being pissed on from a great height.
Yes, we’ve been the beneficiaries of the work of people like Einstein, Newton, Galileo and Da Vinci.
The difference is those high achievers didn’t do it for the money.
In other related news (i.e. late stage capitalism Australian-style), ABS stats suggest that Australia’s population swelled by 626,500 in the year to June – easily the largest increase in history.
Watch GDP go up while per-capita GDP goes down.
Personally I'd prefer more socialism and less neoliberalism.
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2023/09/australias-population-growth-su...
There’s no such thing as ‘late stage capitalism’. That’s a Marxist theory of historical determinism. Many countries have swung either side of the economic and political centre all throughout history. Sorry to dash your hopes but communism will never come to Australia no matter how hard the socialist left is trying to make it happen.
You're a classic hystericist, hey GSCO?
The mere mention of one thing causes you to rush to the extreme of it.
No-one in this comment thread has said, either directly or indirectly, that they want Communism; no-one has even said they want all facets of socialism, but your fear-mongering mind just can't help going there and accusing people of wanting to murder 20 million Russkis.
"Your Commie has no regard for human life, not even his own. And for this reason, men, I want to impress upon you the need for extreme watchfulness. The enemy may come individually, or he may come in strength...
Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war? [...] He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."
—General Jack D. Ripper, Dr. Strangelove
‘ … We are driven by individual motivations and success, and those most driven and smart are the ones who achieve, you basically get what you put into life, especially in the west were we have so much opportunity and all can become whatever we want if really aim for it. …’
Soooo, how has the privatisation of public utilities and for that matter the public sector itself gone then using the above simple/naive criteria?
I would argue very poorly because the fundamental human flaw of greed and the willingness to engage in corrupt behaviour and especially so when these privatisations have all been executed without the required checks and balances under the ‘rights’ mantra of ‘cutting red tape’.
I’d say the main reason in the case of utilities is that these assets are too close to being natural monopolies.
Basic orthodox economics talks at length about these and many other kinds of market failure and the appropriate government response.
It’s a good example of a political ideology (neoliberalism, prob more accurately described as a religious cult) ignoring basic economics, resulting in suboptimal outcomes for society.
But state ownership of natural monopolies is not socialism, just basic orthodox economic science.
Socialism is just another religious cult ignorant of orthodox economic science, but “in the other direction” to the neoliberal cult.
Mostly agree but my point was about greed’s overwhelming negative impact on the ‘pureness’ of the capitalist model as glossed over by @info or to put it another way could capitalism exist without it along with the other hugely destructive effects on the environment, 3rd world economies etc? Rhetorical question
And maybe capitalism’s shelf life is just longer than socialism’s, let’s reconsider in 50 or 100 years
gsco wrote:But state ownership of natural monopolies is not socialism, just basic orthodox economic science.
Yep. This is exactly what I studied in uni and observe in practice.
Anyone got a solution for this, a solution apart from blaming (insert name here) group?
The "I can't believe it's not politics" thread.