9 hours ago, Jara said:

Left and right, they're both just political stances, they've both got a role to play in creating the reasonable society we enjoy today (my own pointless generalisation, for what it's worth, is that the Right tends to create wealth, the left ensures that it doesn't all accrete to people like Rupert Murdoch. So you can thank the left that you've got an eight-hour day, the right that you get well paid for it.)

Why does it bother the left how much wealth one person (Rupert Murdoch in your example) accumulates?  Wealth is not a finite commodity.

I don't work anywhere near an eight-hour day because I choose to run a business and spend time with my daughter during the day. I'll thank free markets and the right for that. 

13 hours ago, dieter said:

 

Why does no-body on this site discuss our Terrorism, USA terrorism, etc etc?

 

Why don't you start a thread on it and stop trying to hijack threads you are incapable of contributing to?

Reading some of the 'political'posts on this site is like sitting in on a Ku Klux Klan board meeting. Or even worse, a One Nation Party Room conference. I'm sure Pro Dee is really Pauline Hanson, a closet Demon supporter because of her imagined notion of the traditional ties of the Melbourne Football Club to The Establishment. And Biffen is code for Bolt, Andrew Bolt. Oi weh, I'm getting out of this boat, I vant to save my life, as my mother used to say.

14 hours ago, Wrecker45 said:

Why does it bother the left how much wealth one person (Rupert Murdoch in your example) accumulates?  Wealth is not a finite commodity.

I don't work anywhere near an eight-hour day because I choose to run a business and spend time with my daughter during the day. I'll thank free markets and the right for that. 

I suppose it depends on whether you're happy to live in a society where some people have huge amounts and others starve to death. I thought we developed democracy to get rid of that.

 

You're welcome to thank the free market for your ability to run a business; if I were you, I'd also be thanking the progressive side of politics for the old-age pension, public schools and hospitals, disability support, public transport, etc. You may be healthy, wealthy or independent enough to be able to choose not to participate in such things - of course that's your right - but I'd say their existence  goes a long way towards explaining why we live in the kind of relatively stable society that enables small businesses like yours to prosper. (I've no idea what your business is, but I dare say a lot of your customers enjoy those public benefits)

16 minutes ago, Jara said:

I suppose it depends on whether you're happy to live in a society where some people have huge amounts and others starve to death. I thought we developed democracy to get rid of that.

 

You're welcome to thank the free market for your ability to run a business; if I were you, I'd also be thanking the progressive side of politics for the old-age pension, public schools and hospitals, disability support, public transport, etc. You may be healthy, wealthy or independent enough to be able to choose not to participate in such things - of course that's your right - but I'd say their existence  goes a long way towards explaining why we live in the kind of relatively stable society that enables small businesses like yours to prosper. (I've no idea what your business is, but I dare say a lot of your customers enjoy those public benefits)

no-one starved in socialist russia or socialist china then? just love revisionist history.

i don't think the starving person stopped to consider whether it was for the good of the state or for the good of rupert murdoch

Not sure what you mean. Who's revising anything? Where did I defend Russia or China? I've spent long periods in both countries - both shitholes. Not defending them at all. If anything, I'm defending our pluralist democracy in which there's room for both conservative and progressive sides of politics. I reckon we need em both. 

8 hours ago, dieter said:

Reading some of the 'political'posts on this site is like sitting in on a Ku Klux Klan board meeting. Or even worse, a One Nation Party Room conference. I'm sure Pro Dee is really Pauline Hanson, a closet Demon supporter because of her imagined notion of the traditional ties of the Melbourne Football Club to The Establishment. And Biffen is code for Bolt, Andrew Bolt. Oi weh, I'm getting out of this boat, I vant to save my life, as my mother used to say.

Dieter - I'm sure it went over your head last time when i said you are everything that you hate.

Andrew Bolt, uncle Sam,Pauline Hanson you obsess about them without fully understanding you are self loathing.

I've never met you but answer me this are you white, male, colonialist? (Everything you hate?)

4 minutes ago, Wrecker45 said:

Dieter - I'm sure it went over your head last time when i said you are everything that you hate.

Andrew Bolt, uncle Sam,Pauline Hanson you obsess about them without fully understanding you are self loathing.

I've never met you but answer me this are you white, male, colonialist? (Everything you hate?)

Actually, I'm a black dyke. Does that answer your irrelevant question?

5 minutes ago, dieter said:

Actually, I'm a black dyke. Does that answer your irrelevant question?

I also hate tripe.

5 minutes ago, dieter said:

Actually, I'm a black dyke. Does that answer your irrelevant question?

Yes. You are consumed by indentity politics but when called out on it you lie about yourself.

On 6/18/2017 at 2:35 PM, daisycutter said:

no-one starved in socialist russia or socialist china then? just love revisionist history.

i don't think the starving person stopped to consider whether it was for the good of the state or for the good of rupert murdoch

Did anyone starve or die in Ireland during the potato famine? Did anyone starve or die in English concentration camps during the Boer War? Did any Iraqis starve or die during the post uranium depleted boycott on Iraq after the first so-called Gulf War? You guys seem as obsessed with presenting a squeaky clean narrative of so-called western 'culture' - read obsession with AND USING weapons of mass destruction - that you don't see the real picture. Just ask any refugee from the Middle east or Afghanistan about the reality of being the victims of USA produced bombs and uranium depleted ordinance.

10 minutes ago, Wrecker45 said:

Yes. You are consumed by indentity politics but when called out on it you lie about yourself.

No, Wreck, I really, really hate tripe.

2 hours ago, dieter said:

No, Wreck, I really, really hate tripe.

c.mon, didi, you're just a sour kraut 

8 hours ago, Jara said:

I suppose it depends on whether you're happy to live in a society where some people have huge amounts and others starve to death. 

Murdoch's wealth is seperate from people starving to death. Again wealth is not finite. Murdoch does not drink penfolds grange so that a street kid cannot eat. A streat kid cannot eat on the back of a series of choices and bad luck.

Most people in acapalist society get dragged up.

What the left fails to understand is while the rich get richer so do the poor.

10 hours ago, Wrecker45 said:

Murdoch's wealth is seperate from people starving to death. Again wealth is not finite. Murdoch does not drink penfolds grange so that a street kid cannot eat. A streat kid cannot eat on the back of a series of choices and bad luck.

Most people in acapalist society get dragged up.

What the left fails to understand is while the rich get richer so do the poor.

Maybe. I personally find it repulsive when I see people living in dire poverty while others around them are dying. That's one of the many things I've never understood about the Middle East; people there are always banging on about Crusaders, Muslim solidarity etc  But you've got all these countries with the most unbelievable amount of wealth, while their brothers down the road (in Gaza etc) are living in terrible conditions. I admire Bill Gates much more than I do Murdoch. What's the point of amassing so many billions? Was the guy born with a shrivelled willy or something?

Also Wrecker - sure I take your point about people in capitalist countries. I'm fully aware that I enjoy a standard of living that most of the world can only dream of. That's why I was saying I tend to see the benefits of both the conservative and progressive approach to politics. 

 

But we do need to be careful about unbridled capitalism. Was it you who talked about China and Russia earlier? (Actually it was Daisy, but I'll respond here) I spent a year or so living in China when I was a student (in the mid eighties - studying Chinese) - spent a lot of time wandering around the country. Everybody was very poor. Been back numerous times since. The thing I've noticed is that their economic boom has dragged a lot of people out of poverty. Great. But when I travelled out of the big eastern cities - out around the north-west, Xinjiang, Tibet etc., - the vast majority seemed to be living no better than I saw them thirty years ago - worse, in some cases- e.g. no more cheap health care or education. I got the impression that a bunch of spivs - usually connected to The Party - are making a fortune - at the expense of a bunch of virtual slaves. The other thing that worried me was that China was getting rich by exporting its troubles to - and ripping off - the rest of the world. What they are doing to Africa beggars belief. It's terrible sad. When I was a student in China I really admired the way they'd bring in all these African students and give them an education; now - alas - I suspect it was all a big con job, and that a lot of those students I knew have been co-opted by corrupt regimes who are cosying up to the Chinese to rip off their own people. 

20 hours ago, dieter said:

No, Wreck, I really, really hate tripe.

Dieter - I have asked you a few times now why don't you start your own thread on everything you hate? i.e whites, uncle sam, colonisation etc...

I'm sick of you diverting in other threads.

On 6/18/2017 at 2:19 PM, Jara said:

I suppose it depends on whether you're happy to live in a society where some people have huge amounts and others starve to death. I thought we developed democracy to get rid of that.

 

You're welcome to thank the free market for your ability to run a business; if I were you, I'd also be thanking the progressive side of politics for the old-age pension, public schools and hospitals, disability support, public transport, etc. You may be healthy, wealthy or independent enough to be able to choose not to participate in such things - of course that's your right - but I'd say their existence  goes a long way towards explaining why we live in the kind of relatively stable society that enables small businesses like yours to prosper. (I've no idea what your business is, but I dare say a lot of your customers enjoy those public benefits)

I'm happy for a history lesson but were public schools, hospitals and transport exclusively progressive projects? I doubt it.

 

13 minutes ago, Wrecker45 said:

Dieter - I have asked you a few times now why don't you start your own thread on everything you hate? i.e whites, uncle sam, colonisation etc...

I'm sick of you diverting in other threads.

I'm sick of reading your Pauline Hanson, Ku Klux Klan- like anti Muslim monologues.I'm also sick of you repeating MSM propaganda. I'm sick of the way people of your ilk capitulate their brain cells to a narrative of lies and nonsense invented by your masters 

2 minutes ago, dieter said:

I'm sick of reading your Pauline Hanson, Ku Klux Klan anti Muslim monologues.

Calling me names doesn't divert from your inability to stay on topic. Please start another thread about whatever it is you want to write about.

33 minutes ago, Wrecker45 said:

Calling me names doesn't divert from your inability to stay on topic. Please start another thread about whatever it is you want to write about.

What's the topic then? That all Muslims are terrorists who want to impose Sharia law and make us all walk around in hijabs and if we don't Manchester will inevitably recur repeatedly?

Well, pardon me for trying to propose a different proposition. Pardon me because I recoil from this facile, racist nonsense.

1 hour ago, dieter said:

What's the topic then? That all Muslims are terrorists who want to impose Sharia law and make us all walk around in hijabs and if we don't Manchester will inevitably recur repeatedly?

Well, pardon me for trying to propose a different proposition. Pardon me because I recoil from this facile, racist nonsense.

You don't seem to get it. If you want to start a thread on all muslim's being terroristist's and wanting to impose sharia law do it.

Perhaps in that thread you can divert the attention to andrew bolt, the kkk and white supremacists.

Your imaginary world knows no bounds.

3 hours ago, Wrecker45 said:

I'm happy for a history lesson but were public schools, hospitals and transport exclusively progressive projects? I doubt it.

 

Uh ...god. I'm not up to a history lesson myself, and I'm sure you're right - of course none of them are attributable exclusively to progressives. But a quick search of Wikipedia suggests to me that progressives led the way in such things. For example, the article on Compulsory  universal  Education says that it was resisted for a long time because the elites wished to hold on to their priveliges. 

 

Hang on - dinner on the table. Will finish reply later. 

30 minutes ago, Jara said:

Uh ...god. I'm not up to a history lesson myself, and I'm sure you're right - of course none of them are attributable exclusively to progressives. But a quick search of Wikipedia suggests to me that progressives led the way in such things. For example, the article on Compulsory  universal  Education says that it was resisted for a long time because the elites wished to hold on to their priveliges. 

 

Hang on - dinner on the table. Will finish reply later. 

What's for dinner? I'm sure we could solve the worlds problems over a couple of beers and a of bottle of red.

15 minutes ago, Wrecker45 said:

What's for dinner? I'm sure we could solve the worlds problems over a couple of beers and a of bottle of red.

probly we could too...

On second thoughts, pwobwabwy not. We'd probably start arguing straight away about what bottle of red. You'd nominate a Shiraz, I'd nominate a Barolo. And, I don't drink beer.

Anyway, the bottom line is that most of the world's woes are directly related to the behavior of your ilk.  We wouldn't solve anything. We'd be even more twain than Mark at the end.