dieter

Yes, Grr, pull out another ace from a"a fully paid-up member of the neo-imperialist gang", a supporter of the Iraq War. I don't buy anything he says. He is as smug as a bug in a rug. More to the point, when he rails against so-called Big Government getting more money to handle Covid, he doesn't seem to have a problem with the unlimited and ballistically insane amount of money US governments spend on weapons of mass destruction. I am beginning to get a full grip on where you are coming from.

Yep, Massey was a mighty drop kick, no pun intended!

2020 was shall we say an interesting year. Three days before a scheduled Knee replacement in February, we discovered that despite 25 years of Private Health Cover, Knee replacements were 'off-side'. In the meantime, our one year old Swiss White Shepherd began its journey into some kind of urban sanity, our daughter, despite being put off from her part-time job at Laurent, had a good year at Uni, and from April onwards my Wine Agency business went uphill instead of treading water. And, most importantly, I managed to get my tally of Short Stories from 14 at this time last year to 43. In the meantime, my wife has found a UK publisher for her Novella and I started an exercise regime which alleviated the pain of my severe case of Double Knee-monia. If there are any publishers in this readership group, I assure you that my stories are Nobel Prize quality. Ha Ha. All the best to the lot of you, friends and jousters alike, and though I have learned to not anticipate much, I have a feeling the Demons might be onto something bonzer in 2021.

Sorry to hear that. All the best to you. I just want 2021 to be 'Nice'.

Just watched most of the 2020 podcast on you tube, same dudes. I love Murray's thoughts about Rilke. The bottom line is that I don't connect with the Left, the Right, or any other (in)doctrinaire philosophy or weltanschauung. I have never studied Politics, failed Matric Economics, and have never been interested in any Political or Economic Theory in my life. My observations are my own, I have never conformed and if you knew the details of my post-Australian arrival as a six year old, you would hardly even consider that my observations conform to any school or religion, apart from the firm belief that, as I have stated, you and I are all the same, all of us are. Yet somehow our history is one of division and the art of the conqueror. In the end, both Coleman and Murray, have developed their own concept of ways of looking at the world and while I agree with some, I still don't get that they don't get that the most essential part of the development of any entity entails not gazing at their own navels, but, most importantly, examining and accepting that their position of privilege is descended from rape, a concept which - judging by the so-called threats to world peace today, are centred on their definition of 'The enemy'. The enemy according to the [censored] called Trump is China. To Obama and Bush and Co, it was North Korea, China, Russia and Iran. Before that, the axis included Libya, Syria and Iraq. All I'm trying to say is that the peril the world faces is not to do with definitions of ideologies, it's to do with total refutation of sense and reason and compassion. .

Thanks for your reply. Most of all, I respect the tone and gist of what you and AF have brought to the table. I think you have perhaps exaggerated some of my views, maybe even misrepresented them. That's okay, because I get the feeling that your position is one of respect as well. For the record, I was born in 1950, I'm the son of a refugee mother and a father who was conscripted into the German Army in February 1941 when he turned seventeen. My mother spent from October 1944 until April 1947 in a bauxite mine in the Ukraine where she worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week. She and her fellow slave laborers were given one day off a month when they could walk to town and spend the pittance they were paid by the Soviet Authorities. She never forgot the generosity of many Ukrainian peasants families who got to know and feed her during those occasions. She was an Ethnic German, had just graduated as a Kindergarten Teacher. Most of her fellow inmates died from malnutrition and exhaustion and lice-ridden diseases. We came to Australia in 1956 where I learned the Anglo/US version of history. I was also sent to Catholic schools, hence my hatred of Catholicism. I never finished a BA majoring in Creative Writing, but I am a well-read man and most of all, a humanist who has a keen ear and eye for bulldust in all its many forms - a little like the man Hannah Arendt took up with when she lived in the US. So, just for the record, whilst I acknowledge your first hand experience of living in Non-Western countries and cultures, I simply point to the savagery and continual need for war and conquest which our 'civilisation' almost needs as a prerequisite for its existence. I simply point to the Colonial wars, some of which are ongoing. This proclivity for war and slaughter is not the hallmark for great civilisations, in my view. So, I hear you say, what about Genghis Kahn and Pol Pot and all the other heathen monsters you seem to know so much about. So, sure, they were bad. But, and this is where I disagree with you wholeheartedly, to simply point at the thuggery of these events is total bulldust simply because the West coins bulldust notions like Bernard Lewis's 'The Clash of Civilisation' to justify its own continual and wanton carnage. That China, India, Pakistan, various African tribes are just as brutal should not stop us from facing our very large catalogue of havoc and mayhem - Hiroshima, the Nazi Persecution of Jews, Slavs and others, the death toll in INdia/Pakistan under British rule, the nigh-complete extinction of god only knows how many million native American tribes, the rape of Iraq, Libya, the continued Colonial war in Afghanistan etc etc. So, in summary, no, I've not said or ever said all Western Politicians are bad. Yes, to throw stones at houses made of glass when your house is fragile is the height of casuistry/chutzpah, call it what you like. I have never said or considered or thought other civilisations are essentially different from and better than the West. I have said, we have much to learn from them, however. With regard to billionaires, the dude they called Jesus hit the nail on the head when he talked about the eye of the needle and camels with regard to these people who basically derive their wealth at the expense of most of the world. I wouldn't give a toss if they were excluded from the 'Brotherhood'. And, ask Julian Assange and the dudes who Mccarthy and his looney gang of J Edgar Hoovers Woke up in the middle of the night about the illusion of freedom we live under. Not to mention the countries the US and Britain took over via their Shahs and Pinochet's. You may also need to become aware of what the Peter Duttons have in storage for you. We won't talk about the refugees Australia still incarcerate, or the way our Governments have and still treat our Aboriginal population. I first entered this discussion because I believe that Neo- Liberalism is just one symptom of the sickness which is consuming our world. I stand by my view that we need to address our real history first. It's not an academic game anymore, it's not about intellectual paradigms, our whole way of life is sick. Things are very crook in Talarook.

However, I believe the Western World was crippled way long before the Neo Liberals raised their ugly heads...

I agree with you 100%.

Dear Mr GRr-owl. I have tried very hard to engage with the argument, as you put it, and all I've done, I believe, is bring a different perspective to it. In the end, economics, and concepts like Neo-Liberalism are stand alone entities which are part of much broader issues, issues to do with Colonialism, Neo-Colonialism, the concept that it's okay for the US to surround all of its perceived enemies with armed to the teeth military bases, that when China constructs islands in the South China it is seen as a great and massive crime. If you think that's simplistic, fair enough. I do however believe that until the world escapes from this farcical notion of us and them - the same binary notion of good versus evil as propagated by the Judeo Christian religions - nothing will change. Governments might change, but the turbines running their economies are based on weapons of mass destruction. In other words, until there are men and women capable of thinking outside the binary square, we are all basically phucked. That area outside the square acknowledges that we can't continue to rape the planet, it acknowledges the total obscenity that in countries like ours and the Us there are multi billionaires and people who can't afford housing or basic health care. Most of all, it acknowledges that in essence we are all the same, made from the same flesh and blood, you know, the concept called The Brotherhood of Man. Brothers and sisters don't need enemies, they can fight and bicker enough as we all know every time we gather for Christmas Dinner. On those occasions, at least, while brothers bowl bouncers at brothers on backyard cricket pitches, they don't have the time or energy to throw rocks at the glass houses their neighbours have built. The neighbours are also too busy deciding which beer they'll drink next to throw rocks at the glass houses the cricketing brothers have built. In other words, I guess, my point of view is a Humanistic one, it sits in areas of the brain and heart which are beyond the realms of policy or dogma. So we can argue till we're blue in the face about economic and foreign policy 'concepts', the bottom line is we need to change our axis drastically cos we are well and truly on the road to nowhere. As though Biden and Co are going to change anything in the faux democracy called the US. As though Albo and his bunch of well-meaning clowns are going to change anything - though I much prefer them to their evil-minded, greedy and insane alternatives, I.E. Trump and Scomeo. The age of Binary is bulldust, it always was. We need to change much more than our economic superstructures.

He scored one after half time, as I recall.

Yes, P2J, I am quite specifically the enemy of just about everything you represent. I'm rather proud of that.

You obviously don't rate turning a country with a population over a billion into a viable economic entity after it had been raped by countries like Britain? It is a country which does things, unlike countries like Australia where there is a lot of talk and not much action. B: All one hears in Western Countries is about the sins of the Communists. Mr or Mrs P2J is an example of this. I don't see or hear much reflection from the US, Britain, France, Australia and other Colonial oppressors about their own sins or shortcomings, it's all about pointing the finger. Implicit in this finger-pointing is that we are pure and innocent. So sure, China is not pure and innocent either - but I have come to value the real meaning of the concept that people in glass houses should not throw stones. C:Yep, that's what Democracy is supposed to be about. That it's possible to fool so many people all the time in so-called Democracies ought to make you reflect that quite possibly, the term Democracy is basically a platitude. Remember too, that the constitution of the so-called bastion of world democracy, the USA, was written by slave owners.

Some of my best friends are Wongs.?✌

All of your posts - which I admire and largely agree with - point out that Neo Liberalism is a dead duck taking us to Armageddon. I would argue that Confucianism may very well not be the problem. You seem to underestimate the sheer magnitude of effort and planning and infrastructure it takes to make a country of 1.5 billion people viable. Is there also, I wonder, beneath your assessment of the inherent massive difficulties in making a place like China a viable and livable place a sense of Two Wongs don't make a White? For example, to make Australia economically and culturally viable entailed a total suppression of the true history of our Native Inhabitants. It also entailed massive attempts at genocide and Stolen Generation methods to ethnically cleanse them from our consciousness. In the end, rose colors are just that: the bottom line is that we live in the grim reality that we are simply not all equal, and the Neo-Liberal nightmare is simply proof of that. In the end, we have many, many things to learn from China. We refuse to do so at our Peril- we used to call it the Yellow Peril. Nothing has changed. In other words, we live in a country which is ruled by the USA, a country in which clowns and brain dead liars and Trump imitators think they can fool most of the people most of the time by sloganising lies and propaganda. Witness the latest: NSW is the Gold Standard about controlling Covid, despite the Ruby Princess fiasco, and I'm here to tell you that we ain't seen nothing yet. Signing off on so-called Western 'Civilisation' Cassandra.

Sorry, jnrmac, on the day the Demons capitulated a final final's chance in Geelong at the end of 2016 I saw Weidemann take 6 pack marks in a game against Box Hill. He had six goals up by half time.The lad can mark. It's about confidence, and, unfortunately, in our case, [censored] delivery.

Am I wrong in questioning whether it's better for us if one brand of 'neo-liberalism' wins? In other words, I read and hear that anything China does is 'Communist' and therefore bad, yet it's doing precisely what the US has been doing since the false flag war with Cuba etc. With one major difference - it has not dropped one bomb, or invaded anybody. Ideology always confuses me. The Catholics in my upbringing - an upbringing I have totally refuted - were totally against anything to do with the 'C' word, yet they had no problem with US or British or South African atrocities, ever. I detect remnants of ideological blind spots in many of these quotes, as much as I detect adherence to various economic ideologies. Please enlighten moi.

A quote from my brother: That's how bad things are under Dictator Dan - you have to watch Andrew Bolt to get the truth!

I'm still waiting for someone to make Australia great again...

Today's Crikey: How could 71 million Americans vote for a bozo? Here’s what you need to understand… BY: PRUE CLARKE Yes nearly 71 million Americans voted for the vulgar conman, but Joe Biden nevertheless handed him an outstanding electoral rebuke. For many Australians, last week’s US election felt personal. We’re steeped in American culture. We think we understand the place. How then could nearly 71 million Americans have voted for a man who doesn’t believe in democracy? How could it have been so close? Let me comfort you. Joe Biden’s election was a resounding rejection of Trumpism. In fact this election was not very close as American elections go. Nate Silver, of FiveThirtyEight, projects Biden’s winning margin in the popular vote will be north of four percentage points and possibly as high as six. Since 1996 only Barack Obama’s 2008 win has been larger. Biden is only the fourth challenger since World War II to unseat a one-term president. Democrats also flipped two Republican strong-hold states — Georgia and Arizona — and made Texas competitive. These changes would have been unthinkable two decades ago. As electoral rebukes go, it doesn’t get much bigger. Yes, Donald Trump’s behaviour has been so monstrous, so destructive of democratic norms and institutions that it seems unthinkable any Americans would have voted for him, let alone 71 million. But Americans, especially Republican Americans, are more different from Australians than you think. In 2002 I was part of an Australian 60 Minutes team that interviewed Trump — then a failing casino-owner and buffoonish fixture on the social pages — in his offices in Trump Tower, New York. We were reporting on New York’s recovery from the 9/11 attacks six months earlier. Trump was bankrupt and eager for attention. The hair was an architectural marvel, but the man was unremarkable — until the camera turned on. Then we got the show, the charismatic conman who would go on to dupe millions. I mused that Trump exemplified the difference between Americans and Australians. He was the personification of “Big Time Barry”, the term my father uses for people who have more regard for themselves than their achievements merit. Sceptical by nature, Australians are suspicious of such braggadocio. Trump would have been laughed out of the office of every prospective lender in Australia. But in America he was not only credible, he thrived. His poor business record didn’t stop large banks lending him millions. And then — astounding those who knew the truth — he became the face of corporate America for 12 million viewers of The Apprentice. Americans are not sceptical. They believe in Hollywood stories. They are not disposed to be suspicious of a character like Trump. Republican voters are particularly vulnerable to his con. For years, evangelical preachers in red states have taught congregants wealth equals morality. Their gospel of prosperity has convinced voters that conspicuous riches, like those of Trump, are God’s reward for creating wealth and jobs. Republican voters also live in information ecosystems that resemble those of an authoritarian state. Right-wing media disinformation campaigns have exploited the deep fear of communism instilled in Americans during the Cold War. Many Trump supporters fully believe Biden will turn America into a socialist state. Any media that says otherwise is seen as part of the conspiracy. From an Australian lens, Republican leaders have always had repugnant policies. And yet about half the American electorate always votes for them (43% of Americans did not think Nixon should be removed from office after the Watergate scandal). Trump had some way to go before he caused as much destruction to lives and personal liberties as the last Republican president, George W Bush. Bush, a C student, was deluded by neocons [censored] Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld that toppling Saddam Hussein would install a democracy that would “send forth the news, from Damascus to Teheran, that freedom can be the future of every nation”. That ludicrous notion underpinned the US-led Iraq invasion, giving birth to Islamic State and the death and displacement of millions of people across Iraq and Syria. More than a million returned servicemen and women from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan struggled with physical and mental health injuries that became burdens on families and communities. The Bush administration forced all men in the US from Muslim countries — including some of my journalist friends — to register with authorities. The unlucky ones were detained without charge or recourse. At least 136 Muslim men were snatched and transferred by “extraordinary rendition” to secret black sites where they were tortured out of reach of international law. A vast state surveillance was secretly established to monitor Americans. And Bush’s parting gift to incoming president Obama in 2008 was an economic meltdown that wiped out the wealth of large swathes of Americans and sparked a global financial crisis. Every Republican leader in three decades has opposed badly needed reforms that would provide health insurance for all Americans. They routinely lower taxes to corporations and the rich while cutting the social welfare net and defending obscenely low federal minimum wages (currently $7.25 an hour). Republicans spend 15% of the government budget on the military, deny climate change and oppose reforms to address entrenched racial and gender inequities. And yet every time, roughly half of Americans vote for them. With his vulgarity and disregard for democracy, Trump offended our sense of our selves. But Americans are different. The backlash against Trump represented by Biden’s win last week is as good as it gets. Prue Clarke is an Australian journalist who has lived in the US for most of the past 20 years.

This one's for you and Dante:

I get your point: agree entirely.

Donald is a teetotaler. He brews nothing. If you are alluding to the possibility of brewing in the area which is meant to contain brain cells, well, he knocked and there was nobody home. That's why he always talks gibberish and everything associated with anything he's ever done is the greatest in history. He sure is talented, got to give you that. Why he is talented enough to have invented a US Air Force during the War of Independence.

Maybe, maybe not...

So where do we start on the road to sanity and recovery? I heard a programme on Radio National where a British writer pointed out that Climate Change-wise, we are on the brink of Armageddon. He pointed out that Climate Change Policy is in the hands of Politicians whether it be in their four or three year election cycles, whose main policy concern about Climate is to ensure that they tell voters what they imagine they might like to hear, and from the moment they are elected, they go back to ground Zero, which is based on 'Growth' and ecological suicide. It often occurs to me that the Climate debate in this country needs to picked up by the scruff by a government with balls and brains, a government which can distinguish the forest from the trees. It would seem to me that if ever there was/is a country which has all the assets for renewable energy, it is Australia where sunshine hours abound. Surely, that would be the way to make the mining transition viable for all concerned, especially the workers. It would also seem to me that Solar farms along the Murray Darling Basin would be a much wiser investment that cotton farming and other 'industries' which strip our country of its main shortage, namely water. That of course would require some wise and incorruptible politicians whose main concern is not their super and post Political perks, but real human beings who are genuinely concerned for our welfare. Instead, we elect this conga line of crooks, liars and total buffoons who spend most of their time making excuses for their total ineptitude. That includes the Gillards, the Shortens, the current Opposition leader, and most of all, of course, the criminals who run this government. So,while I am interested in the history of fiscal folly, while I am impressed with the scope and breadth of your knowledge of these matters - genuinely, I stress - I'm more interested in how we can avoid the total mess the world is heading towards. It has also occurred to me - and I'm not claiming authorship of this concept, it's more a case of filtering the impressions gleaned from many voices - that the fires, the floods, the melting ice, the imminent danger of more of these events, the occurrence of plagues and superbugs like Swine Flu and Covid - are Mother Nature warning us that enough is well and truly enough.

I've just read this discussion for the first time and find it fascinating. My background and interests are to do with the so-called Humanities - history, geography, music, literature etc. My grasp of economics, and the finer dimensions of politics are shall we say, very fundamental. What I do have is a good Bulldust Detector and a sense of compassion for the underdog. So that, for instance, in Australian politics I admire Whitlam and Keating, and despise Morrison, Turnbull, Abbott, Howard, and Bob Hawke. Which is a long-winded way of asking both Gr-owll and AF why the issue of Climate Change has not been mentioned once in your excellent discourse. It seems to me that sorting this issue out is both part and will have to be a very big factor in any solution to the quagmire of greed, stupidity and rigid finger-pointing school playground farce which has become the norm in Western Political Debate. Also, as far as I can see, there has been no mention in your debate about the simple fact that the biggest economy in the world, at the moment at least, is based on producing, selling and the 'deployment' of weapons of mass destruction. In other words, I think your economic discourse needs to address and embrace some very fundamental sources and cause of disaster in our world, because until the world addresses these issues, there won't be many economies left to worry about.