dieter

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.

As does Morrison: An Article published yesterday in The New Daily, Dennis Atkins. All politicians lie. Some do it as easily as most of us draw breath and others struggle to avoid telling the truth but find it necessary for altruistic reasons or a matter of white-knuckle survival. Within this general group there’s a special class of political liars, and our Prime Minister Scott Morrison, is as practiced and accomplished as any in this top tier of fabulists. Morrison’s untruths transcend the usual, seen as the trademark of very good liars like John Howard and Peter Beattie – a Liberal prime minister and a state Labor premier. While Beattie and Howard knew they were telling lies – often because it was easier than telling the truth or a habit born of a need to hide misdeeds and unpleasantness – politicians like Morrison are able to transcend the truth. John Howard was a good liar, but Scott Morrison takes it to the next level. Photo: AAP This characteristic is described wonderfully in Robert A. Caro’s majestic, still unfinished, multi-volume biography of former Democratic US President Lyndon Johnson. Caro says Johnson’s predilection for untruth was part of his towering self belief. “Where Lyndon Johnson came to believe in something, moreover, he came to believe it totally, with absolute conviction, regardless of previous beliefs, or of the facts in the matter,” the biographer writes. Caro quotes Johnson’s trusted media aide George Reedy as saying Johnson had a “fantastic capacity to persuade himself that the ‘truth’ which was convenient for the present was the truth and anything that conflicted with it was the prevarication of enemies”. Reedy says Johnson “literally willed what was in his mind to become reality” while another senior adviser, Joseph Califano, observed that the former president could “quickly come to believe what he was saying even if it was clearly not true”. It’s quite a skill and can be mesmerising, not unlike the effect of those happy-clapping preachers who peddle the prosperity gospel that Morrison’s evangelical church holds dear. When he was inspecting fire damage on Kangaroo Island in January he sought to comfort people by saying “well, thankfully, we’ve had no loss of life”. When he was reminded that two men had died, he quickly dissembled, adding “yes, two – I was thinking about firefighters firstly”. Despite the fact the two men who died had perished defending their property, Morrison kept insisting he’d been correct in what he meant as a reference to designated firefighters. He clearly believed he had been absolutely correct in what he said. No one else did. Pause Mute Loaded: 100.00% Remaining Time-0:07 Picture-in-PictureFullscreen The biggest set of untruths is found in Morrison’s contortions around aged care and whether it had its funding cut, and just which level of government carried ultimate responsibility for it. Morrison gave a nod to the undeniable fact that aged care was a Commonwealth responsibility but, under the heat of the all too glaring failures exposed during the Melbourne second wave of pandemic infections and deaths, he dodged any ownership of events. Morrison started by seeking to bury the whole issue of aged care failures in a word salad about “shared responsibilities” and finished with a breathtaking flourish which picked up aged care and dumped it into a basket marked “someone else’s fault”. The full quote should be used in journalism and political science classes: “Well public health, we regulate aged care, but when there is a public health pandemic, then public health, which, whether it gets into aged care, shopping centres, schools or anywhere else, then they are things that are matters for Victoria.” Morrison shut down further discussion with one of his favourite linguistic devices to have the last word, chiding the questioner for being “too binary”. Morrison’s skill at dissembling can be mesmerising, not unlike the effect of prosperity gospel preachers. Photo: AAP When he was Treasurer, Morrison handed down a Budget which snipped $1.2 billion in projected spending from the aged care portfolio. At every turn since he has flatly denied he cut any money from aged care, insisting there was a $1 billion nominal increase in spending. This is true, but the $1.2 billion the sector didn’t get was ear-marked for projected growth in specific needs by service providers. It was sold as an “efficiency dividend” although the “doing more with less” demand resulted in many operators in the sector putting the squeeze on activity. Morrison loves to shape-shift reality by smothering conversations and explanation in jargon, whether he’s talking about government activity having to “wash its own face”, the need to avoid “burning platforms” and/or coaxing private sector capital “out of its cave”. There’s a delightful technical term for this – gish gallop. It is a technique, named after a creationist, Duane Gish, who argued his fragile case by deploying a torrent of varied “half-truths and no-truths” in quick succession, leaving an opponent helpless when trying to combat any particular point at a single moment. The sad reflection from this pandemic year, when the public has been more forgiving of politicians, their misdeeds and foibles, than ever before, is that Morrison not only kept practicing his trademark dissimulation but kept doing it when he didn’t need to.

His suitability and 'structural' problems set in when Mister Jacovich arrived. It meant they couldn't play Bennet at Full Forward.

As usual, quite a scientific analysis of the MFC. Not!. In the period 1954 - 1964 when MFC won 6 Flags, played in 2 losing grand finals, here is the list of the leading goalkickers: 1954: Noel Clarke 51 ( Grand Final loss after finishing last the year before. ) 1955: Stu Spencer 34 1956: R. Johnson 43 1957: A. WEbb 56 1958: Barassi, Webb 44 1959: Barassi 46 1960: Ian Ridley 38 1961: R.Johnson 36 1962: Mithen 37 1963: B.Bourke 48 1964: J. Townsend 35. The Coleman Medal winners for this period: Jack Collins 1954 Footscray 73 Noel Rayson 1955 Geelong 77 Bill Young 1956 St Kilda 56 Jack Collins (2) 1957 Footscray 74 Ian Brewer 1958 Collingwood 67 Ron Evans 1959 Essendon 69 Ron Evans (2) 1960 Essendon 67 Tom Carroll 1961 Carlton 54 Doug Wade 1962 Geelong 62 John Peck 1963 Hawthorn 69 John Peck (2) 1964 Hawthorn 68 For the record, only two teams won the Flag and the Coleman simultaneously: Footscray, 1954. Collingwood 1958. Collins kicked 73 goals for the Dogs, Brewer kicked 67 for the E Coli Wobblers. Also, as you can see for that 10 year period, the closest to 100 was Rayson with 77. So, I put it to you, Mister whoever you choose to call yourself these days, having 100 plus a year goalkickers in the overall scheme isn't a symptom of anything much at all. There are always contexts. I also put it to you that Lockett, Dunstall, Hudson, Quinlan, Ablett, Taylor, Roach, Wade, McKenna and Franklin were/are freaks. Also, from the period 1968 until now only five teams have won the flag when their F/F kicked over 100; 1971: Hudson, Hawthorn. 1980:Roach, Richmond 1988: Dunstall, Hawthorn 1989: Ditto 2008: Franklin, Hawthorn. It would therefore seem, that it's mainly been Hawthorn since 1968 who have actually benefited from having guns kicking their goals. They've also won many other flags, especially the most recent ones, without the Cohuna Goalkicker.

I don't believe I've ever argued that; I'm pointing out that Mr.Sols saw through the bulldust of the West pretty quickly. When he 'defected' he was under the illusion he had entered Utopia. He soon saw Utopia was mainly Hollywood bullsh..t. And, have a good look at the USA: Disneyland for the rich and white and privileged, in essence, a Lunatic Asylum run by gun-bearing lunatics.

Souvlaki muncher! Washed down with Retsina, no doubt. ( Retsina is proof that Greeks lost all contact with civilisation a long time ago.?????)

There are other takes on that. It involves the origin of Socialism, and, as Mister Solz. noted, the communists who took over Russia weren't mainly not actually the Rus. In the meantime, there is only a schismatic difference between so-called Western Christianity and its Constantinople based 'rival. Do you, for example, see the Greek Orthodoxians as 'Western'?

Can't agree more. Thanks for the tip.

Wouldn't that be nice! As Scomo and his conga line of clowns and goons dismantle our Education system.

Yep, and look at the state of the world. Look at Trump and his attitude to 'Science'.

Criticism of the West[edit] Once in the United States, Solzhenitsyn sharply criticized the West.[101] In his commencement address at Harvard University in 1978,[62] Solzhenitsyn said: "But members of the U.S. antiwar movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there?"[102] Solzhenitsyn criticized the Allies for not opening a new front against Nazi Germany in the west earlier in World War II. This resulted in Soviet domination and control of the nations of Eastern Europe. Solzhenitsyn claimed the Western democracies apparently cared little about how many died in the East, as long as they could end the war quickly and painlessly for themselves in the West. Delivering the commencement address at Harvard University in 1978, he called the United States spiritually weak and mired in vulgar materialism. Americans, he said, speaking in Russian through a translator, suffered from a "decline in courage" and a "lack of manliness." Few were willing to die for their ideals, he said. He condemned both the United States government and American society for its "hasty" capitulation in the Vietnam War. He criticized the country's music as intolerable and attacked its unfettered press, accusing it of violations of privacy. He said that the West erred in measuring other civilizations by its own model. While faulting Soviet society for denying fair legal treatment of people, he also faulted the West for being too legalistic: "A society which is based on the letter of the law and never reaches any higher is taking very scarce advantage of the high level of human possibilities." Solzhenitsyn also argued that the West erred in "denying [Russian culture's] autonomous character and therefore never understood it".[62] Solzhenitsyn was critical of NATO's eastward expansion towards Russia's borders.[103] In 2006, Solzhenitsyn accused NATO of trying to bring Russia under its control; he claimed this was visible because of its "ideological support for the 'colour revolutions' and the paradoxical forcing of North Atlantic interests on Central Asia".[103] In a 2006 interview with Der Spiegel he stated "This was especially painful in the case of Ukraine, a country whose closeness to Russia is defined by literally millions of family ties among our peoples, relatives living on different sides of the national border. At one fell stroke, these families could be torn apart by a new dividing line, the border of a military bloc."[97] Solzhenitsyn criticized the 2003 invasion of Iraq and accused the United States of the "occupation" of Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.[104]

Certainly not since Lenin rode his chariot to the Kremlin. Russia was Christian enough before that: In 1914 in Russia, there were 55,173 Russian Orthodox churches and 29,593 chapels, 112,629 priests and deacons, 550 monasteries and 475 convents with a total of 95,259 monks and nuns.

I beg to differ that it doesn't mean their work is biased or wrong: they are the mouthpiece of the organisations which feed their brain cells, which pay their wage. Surely you're not naive enough to believe that any organisation partly funded by the US State Department and various bomb manufacturers is going to have independence???? And, in my life, I've learned that a little cynicism is necessary. I agree wholeheartedly about prejudice. And, it's hard to judge things on their merits when you are constantly lied to.

Regarding the 'Mind your Tongue' article, please keep this in mind about the Australian Strategic Policy Institute: Funding[edit] ASPI was established by the Australian Government in 2001 as a company limited by guarantee under the 2001 Corporations Act.[5] ASPI receives partial funding from the Department of Defence "with other sources of revenue including sponsorship, commissioned tasks, a membership scheme, sale of publications, advertising and event registration fees".[6] The share of ASPI's funding provided by the Department of Defence decreased from 100 per cent in the 2000-01 financial year to 43 per cent in the 2018-19 financial year. Other government entities are the next-largest source of funding, and it receives funding from a large number of private companies for specific areas of analysis or individual reports. ASPI also accepts sponsorship from companies. ASPI's 2018-19 annual report stated that it received some funding from the Embassy of Japan and Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Australia, as well as from state governments and defence companies, such as Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, Thales Group, and Raytheon Technologies.[7][8] It is also funded by the Australian and foreign governments such as the United States State Department as well as by military contractors.[9][8] Reception[edit] ASPI has been described[by whom?] as one Australia's most influential national security policy think tanks.[11] Its work has been described as impressive by the Australian Financial Review[8] and groundbreaking by the Australian National Review.[12] The institute has drawn praise and criticism from serving and former Australian politicians. In February 2020, the ASPI was criticised by Senator Kim Carr for taking funding from the United States Department of State to track Chinese research collaborations with Australian universities. Former foreign minister Bob Carr said it had a "one-sided, pro-American view of the world".[8] It[who?] also said that the institute had many supporters in the Australian parliament.[8] ASPI responded by saying that it "doesn’t have an editorial line on China, but we have a very clear method for how we go about our research".[13][14] In October 2018, the Australian Digital Transformation Agency criticised an ASPI report on the Australian Government's digital identity program. The Agency stated that the report "was inaccurate and contained many factual errors", which "demonstrate a clear misunderstanding of how the digital identity system is intended to work".[11] The author of the report responded to the criticism, saying his concerns were acknowledged in private despite being publicly rejected by the agency.[15][clarification needed] I

Most of those who flee - like Solzhenitsyn - agree that we are way worse than them because we pretend we are free and democratic. Mister Gulag actually returned to Russia cleansed of his illusion that we had a better system.

The West is 'Christian', and all of its catalogue of atrocities, Christian Russia included. Where's your sense of history, man?

Indictment? How many clubs landed a Coleman, Lockett, Dunstall, Longmire etc? It's the luck of the draw. Melbourne won premierships in 1955, 56, 57, 59, 60 and 64 without one major goalkicker. Look at the past 10 premierships, name one that had a high scoring Full-forward.

NNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOO: Warren was always injured. A very fine footballer, I loved watching him play, but don't curseMIster Rosman!

Yes, indeed, and I say this sincerely, it does bother me. But just as you think I only highlight Western horror, I also believe you try to overlook it and almost justify it because we are free to talk about our horror. In the meantime, you keep pointing the finger - and this does get to me a bit - at the misdeeds of Mongols, Persians, and all the other Barbaric invasions from the East. What bothers me about this is that the last so-called Barbaric atrocity - Genghis Khan etc - happened many centuries ago. In the meantime, because he came and conquered via the East and because he was Greek, Alexander he is revered as 'Alexander The Great.' ( Some people also revere Napoleon, for that matter.) You may also wish to keep in mind, that post Christopher Columbus, what can only be described as the rape of the Americas, of Asia , Africa, the INdian sub-continent and Australia by Colonial powers, and the slaughter has been massive and one-sided. In the US, historians - those who can be bothered - are still coming to terms with the final death toll on its Native Population. How often do you hear about this? How often do you hear about the real death toll on the Indian Sub Continent under British rule, of the death toll of the Chinese during the so-called Opium wars. And if you want to bring up The Red Guards, do you want to talk about the US torture camps in Iraq and Guantanamo? So, yes, things are crook in Talarook and Qatar, as they are in Yemen - two so-called 'allies' which the West arms to the hilt - but we also have a desperate need for amnesia about our crimes. So, for example, Westerners love to point the finger at Tiananmen Square: I didn't see Bob Hawke weep when US troops opened fire on students at Berkely: 'On 4 May 1970, the Ohio national guard shot at hundreds of students protesting against the invasion of Cambodia, wounding eight and killing four. Kent State was seared into the national consciousness. The US government had authorized the killing of its own (white) children.' And, by the way, Russia has always been a so-called Christian country. Lenin and Co sent it underground for a few years, but the Orthodox Church is still big in Russia.

No, he played two games before he kicked his bags. You can look it up on Demonwicki - Season 1991.

He was: in 1991 he kicked 25 goals in six games, then, like a shooting star, fell to earth and disintegrated.

Genghis and his type learned their trade from Alexander the so-called Great. I include Russia as a 'western' so-called Christian country. I have studied the A Bomb issue at length. It ranks with the most cowardly, atrocities in history. That it stopped the war is a lie. That we are so smug about being able to propose the most preposterous nonsense points not to how 'free' we are, rather, it points to how we delude ourselves by saying, How free are we! It doesn't seem to bother you that a millimetre behind this veneer of freedom - why, in the USA I am free to own as many guns as I like - are the war machines which have encircle the globe, the war machines which point the finger constantly and declare, How virtuous am I. There are no mirrors in their universe, it is always 'the other' who is at fault.

I've not come across a Jewish Mad as a Cut snake FAST BOWLER WITH A KILLER INSTINCT before. And I played a few games against Elsernwick ...

Descended from Joseph, so I hear...Father of jesus, after all....

Whatever. Let's agree to disagree.