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[viciouskillersquirrel]

Tried explaining to America why affirmative action is racist against white people.

He's like an Australian Dinesh D'Souza. I respect his right to his opinions and have to admire his moxie, but goodness gracious he has some self destructive views.

EDIT: The thing is I would agree with a lot of his views if we actually lived in the collective of colour blind, gender equal meritocracies he imagines the west to be, where competition always resulted in reduced prices rather than collusion or the leveraging market power to stifle competitors and where pampered princelings who went to exclusive private schools didn't live life in easy mode.

 

[Dead Man]

He's like an Australian Dinesh D'Souza. I respect his right to his opinions and have to admire his moxie, but goodness gracious he has some self destructive views.

EDIT: The thing is I would agree with a lot of his views if we actually lived in the collective of colour blind, gender equal meritocracies he imagines the west to be, where competition always resulted in reduced prices rather than collusion or the leveraging market power to stifle competitors and where pampered princelings who went to exclusive private schools didn't live life in easy mode.

Yeah, in a truly just world his positions make some sense. But it isn't.

 

[Quasar]

With Israel apparently declaring war on NZ, I guess they will invoke the ANZUS treaty right?

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

With Israel apparently declaring war on NZ, I guess they will invoke the ANZUS treaty right?

NZ pulled out of ANZUS, if I remember correctly.

 

[Candescence]

While I was wondering "wait, Israel declaring war on New Zealand?! Since when?!" The actual context is disappointingly not nearly as literal or interesting as it implied.

 

[bobnowhere]

I think it slipped out just before Christmas but Australia's carbon emissions are still going up under Direct Action. The Carbon Tax had successfully arrested emission growth while emissions have gone up ever since Direct Action was started. No wonder Frydenberg has made himself scarce, hiding in Antarctica.

No chance of living up to our Paris commitment though I suppose since that is more than one election cycle away no one seems to care.

 

[AdventureRacing]

I think it slipped out just before Christmas but Australia's carbon emissions are still going up under Direct Action. The Carbon Tax had successfully arrested emission growth while emissions have gone up ever since Direct Action was started. No wonder Frydenberg has made himself scarce, hiding in Antarctica.

No chance of living up to our Paris commitment though I suppose since that is more than one election cycle away no one seems to care.

Australia has to have one of the worst records when it comes to carbon emissions. We also seem to be one of the worst per capita when it comes to emissions. Plus our economy has been built off mining and agriculture. Even now we're doing fuck all about climate change, few countries would be doing as little as we are. We're going to be left behind and will probably end up having to pay a lot of money to catch up.

It's also funny seeing Turnbull backflip on yet another issue. You only have to go back and read his opinion on Abbotts climate policy and stance on global warming (where he called it bullshit and said he was a climate change denier). Yet here he is doing the exact same thing because he's scared of the right wing of his party.

 

[Candescence]

Now Tony Abbott and Cory Bernardi are having a public spat over the latter's rumored "breakaway" party.

This is amazing.

 

[Elaugaufein]

Happy New Year, all. And may 2017 be better than we're expecting.

 

[legend166]

So in more "the world's upside down" business, why are Labor arguing against the completely reasonable changes to the pension?

Liberals trying to wind back some of that middle class welfare and Labor disagreeing.

Mass hysteria, cats and dogs living together.

 

[D.Lo]

So in more "the world's upside down" business, why are Labor arguing against the completely reasonable changes to the pension?

Liberals trying to wind back some of that middle class welfare and Labor disagreeing.

Mass hysteria, cats and dogs living together.

Because they're pathetic opportunists who smell a grey vote or two.

 

[legend166]

Because they're pathetic opportunists who smell a grey vote or two.

All they're doing is driving votes to the fringe right wing parties, because there's zero chance that those people are voting for Labor no matter what they say.

 

[D.Lo]

The fact that both parties are pursuing neo-liberal pro-big business, pro-rent-seeking class economic agendas, just with different social policy window dressing, is waking people up to the fact that the London Washington Canberra/Sydney elites do not care about them, only keeping their ruling class business engine going. And just like everywhere else in the whole fucking world the only ones saying 'this shit is crazy' are right wing loonies who largely direct the blame at scapegoats.

 

[Jintor]

It's a good thing our fringe right wing charletans largely have the charisma of a dead goat.

Though I suppose America proves you can't be relaxed even for a second anymore.

 

[D.Lo]

It's a good thing our fringe right wing charletans largely have the charisma of a dead goat.

Though I suppose America proves you can't be relaxed even for a second anymore.

Yes they are truly terrible here, and our system marginalises minor parties almost as much as America except in hung parliament situations (admittedly more frequent now) and the only role they can have is in approving major party policies or not, no leadership possible. Xenomorph thinks he's mr clever kingmaker but all he can really do is get a bit of pork for SA.

But a new face can rise, and it could even be someone like Cory if he got a PR coach and a savvy advisor. Literally hundreds of articles last year were titled some variation of 'the beginning of the end for Trump', yeah that worked out great didn't it elitist media.

It's all Labor's fault, just like it was the Democrats fault in the US. Parties that are supposed to be about true believers pushing ideas and ideals, stuck up their own arses in their comfortable upper class machine careers. The Lib/nats are pricks but are basically literally the business lobby party, at least they do what it says on the tin.

 

[Elaugaufein]

Yes they are truly terrible here, and our system marginalises minor parties almost as much as America except in hung parliament situations (admittedly more frequent now) and the only role they can have is in approving major party policies or not, no leadership possible. Xenomorph thinks he's mr clever kingmaker but all he can really do is get a bit of pork for SA.

But a new face can rise, and it could even be someone like Cory if he got a PR coach and a savvy advisor. Literally hundreds of articles last year were titled some variation of 'the beginning of the end for Trump', yeah that worked out great didn't it elitist media.

It's all Labor's fault, just like it was the Democrats fault in the US. Parties that are supposed to be about true believers pushing ideas and ideals, stuck up their own arses in their comfortable upper class machine careers. The Lib/nats are pricks but are basically literally the business lobby party, at least they do what it says on the tin.

The Libs are what it says on the Tin. The Nats are seriously messed up like they support small business farms / grazing over large scale stuff but then turn around and screw those people over with climate change denial and priority access to land and water for mines / CSG and mix it up with social reactionism and welfare hypocrisy (give farmers money, slow death to everyone else) but at least those parts are reflective of their votere (in fact their voters tend to think they don't do enough of it which is why PHON is so dangerous to them).

 

[D.Lo]

The Libs are what it says on the Tin. The Nats are seriously messed up like they support small business farms / grazing over large scale stuff but then turn around and screw those people over with climate change denial and priority access to land and water for mines / CSG and mix it up with social reactionism and welfare hypocrisy (give farmers money, slow death to everyone else) but at least those parts are reflective of their votere (in fact their voters tend to think they don't do enough of it which is why PHON is so dangerous to them).

The Nats are just pro-big rural business. Mines, mega farms etc. They're libs with an Akubra and a checked shirt. I was also about to make a joke about 'half the intellect', but then I remembered Dutton, Cash, O'Dwyer...

 

[Elaugaufein]

The Nats are just pro-big rural business. Mines, mega farms etc. They're libs with an Akubra and a checked shirt. I was also about to make a joke about 'half the intellect', but then I remembered Dutton, Cash, O'Dwyer...

Actually a lot of Nationals positions suck for megafarms (anti-foreign investment, pro import regulation, etc and they keep propping up businesses that would otherwise go under allowing megafarms to buy them for pennies on the dollar). But others are at the least highly beneficial to megafarms. Its one of the things that makes them so incomprehensible.

Well depending on what you mean by megafarm. I grew up on a farm that was nowhere near a megafarm but it would be considered an obscenely huge amount of property by most city dwellers. My parents were/are Nationals voters and fairly representative, if shading into the Liberal end for my mother who came from money.

Note that megafarms are terrible for the Nationals vote. They don't require the rural work forces , and small towns that form the core of the National voting base. Those people moving into cities dilutes the Nationals vote to near nothing (which is far more representative of their actual support level). They only have significant representation in the House because of what is effectively a natural gerrymander, huge tracts of like highly dedicated to Nationals and that you can't bleed into a city because there aren't any anywhere nearby. Its also why One Nation is so dangerous they have strong appeal to the some base and can win seats as a result (an especially big deal in Queensland due to its unicameral, majorotorian structure, now with 4 year terms (because we're a bunch of morons) where PHON also has a homeground advantage).

 

[D.Lo]

I actually had no idea 'mega farms' was an existing idea, I just used the term to refer to rural big businesses. Like they 'save towns' by subsidising dying businesses that employ X hundren people, maybe those don't quite fit the 'big business' definition on a national scale though.

But yes the Nats are a confused bunch with their rural-only protectionism. If they weren't so poisonously up their own arses in first-world problems the Greens have the policies that would best serve rural voters economically and environmentally by far.

 

[bobnowhere]

The likes of Bernardi, Christensen, Abetz and Abbott don't seem to understand why Trump was successful and how very little of his success translates to them.

1. Trump was the ultimate outsider never been involved in politics, the four clowns above have been insiders since university.

2. Trump has a degree of sociopathic charisma that none of them possess.

3. Trump managed to rally the forgotten, those that had given up on the system. With compulsory voting these people are already in the system.

4. Most importantly Trump is a self made man. A man that pulled himself up by his bootstraps and an oft forgotten 200mil inheritance to be one of the most successfully salesman/conman on the planet. The right in America have been training the populace for years that self-reliance is the highest goal one can have and he is the prime example in his voters eyes. Abbott with a 200k+ year job can't even manage his own finances. Howard and the Daily Terror did a pretty good job on the bootstraps story but it is a long way away from the US.

Clive Palmer would be the closest equivalent to Trump in Australia and we all know how well that turned out!


Also everyone's favourite looney Rod Cullerton got himself in more trouble today. It seems like he was in court yet again to get a restraining order against the people he owes money to and someone from the WA branch of ONP tried to serve him outside of court, a fight ensued and now Cullerton is in hospital with a broken wrist.

 

[Candescence]

Wow, the Centerlink debt stuff is practically snowballing. The government is desperately trying to use incredibly misleading figures to claim that there isn't a problem, but this is going to be such an albatross that the government is going to have to do something to save face.

4. Most importantly Trump is a self made man. A man that pulled himself up by his bootstraps and an oft forgotten 200mil inheritance to be one of the most successfully salesman/conman on the planet. The right in America have been training the populace for years that self-reliance is the highest goal one can have and he is the prime example in his voters eyes.

Well, that's the perception, anyway, when he's really the shining example of benefiting from inheritance, loans from his dad and already being in a rich family as it is, and he still is an incredibly shitty businessman who has filed bankruptcy on multiple occasions. But Trump voters are mostly idiots (it's not nice to say, and I wish it wasn't true, but it is), so none of them being aware of that is not surprising.

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

You've also got to remember that fascism (let's call it what it is) is much more a state of mind than it is a political ideology. Australian culture is different enough from American culture that the same tricks they used over there to tap into the festering bellyfeels that afflict the American White working class simply won't work over here.

Fascism starts from a feeling in your gut that you and your nation (whatever you think that is) are the first, best and only things that matter, so any action, no matter how reprehensible, is justified in advancing your interests. Followed to its logical conclusion, it delegitimises any opposition, flips traditional morality on its head to make violence a good thing in its own right while also demonising education and abstract thinking. Because fascism is a product of the age of nation states, it wraps its slimy tentacles around your national myths to appeal to as wide a section of the population as possible. This means that any fascist leader will necessarily be draped in the flag.

Trump is basically the embodiment of a bunch of deeply held American myths - the self-made man, the successful business man in a red tie, the titan of industry who shakes the world and makes things happen. An Australian equivalent will be completely different, equally unqualified and equally absurd, a battler perhaps or possibly a former athlete, knowing this country. Trying to copy Trump's playbook word for word will work about as well as Abbott affecting a little moustache under his nose or Bernardi constantly wearing a uniform.

It's also why I always thought that talking about fascist economics was always nonsense. Fascists use whatever means necessary to make their vision of national renewal happen. If that means a corporate state, laissez-faire economics or state ownership, then that's what will happen. Had the starting conditions in Italy and Germany been different during the rise of Mussolini or Hitler, we would be trying to shoehorn in a different model to try to describe fascist economic theory. How the money gets distributed to the "right" people is far less important than the fact that it does.

Make no mistake, it can happen here. The outsized importance our media already places on everything Australian when talking about international matters is already at eye-rolling levels of inane, plus we're prone to forgetting that not all Australians are Anglo-Celtic by heritage. A terrorist attack or tragedy happens and the first question anybody asks is whether any Australians were affected, and if they were and they happen to be white, it becomes national news in an instant. Michelle Corby and that model who "converted to Islam" and wore a burka into an Indonesian court were national sensations. The nerdy looking guy with Malaysian parents who was executed for the same offence at the same time, not so much.

But yes, it does have a harder hill to climb. Compulsory voting takes the edge off the combination of low general turnout and high turnout among the most susceptible voters to the fascist message that make a Trump victory possible.

 

[bobnowhere]

Well, that's the perception, anyway, when he's really the shining example of benefiting from inheritance, loans from his dad and already being in a rich family as it is, and he still is an incredibly shitty businessman who has filed bankruptcy on multiple occasions. But Trump voters are mostly idiots (it's not nice to say, and I wish it wasn't true, but it is), so none of them being aware of that is not surprising.

Yeah, exactly. The myth about his business accumen greatly outshines the actual results. I read somewhere if he'd put the 200mil in a savings account in the 70s he'd be richer now.

 

[D.Lo]

I personally find calling Trump fascist is misleading or incorrect.

On a practical level, the word is used to compare him to Nazi Germany, and apart from there being some racism involved I just don't see it. Nazi Germany used a bunch of socialist and nationalist ideas combined to to popularise and set up a war machine and prepare to dominate Europe with a very specific idealogical goal. Trump's ideas have been much smaller, vaguer, and more insular. 'We want to stay in our corner by ourselves and will be better this way'.

Secondly, I don't believe he has a driving ideology, he doesn't have a plan, he just said a bunch of vague popularist crap and was lucky the political class put a succession of washing(ton) machine losers up against him. Jeb, Rubio, Clinton were just such terrible candidates they felt like a message to voters 'you'll take the leaders and policies we say, and like it', and only in that environment a bumbling fool semi-joke candidate won, because people wanted a 'fuck you' to the ruling class.

He's a Boaty McBoatface, not a Hitler.

 

[Elaugaufein]

I personally find calling Trump fascist is misleading or incorrect.

On a practical level, the word is used to compare him to Nazi Germany, and apart from there being some racism involved I just don't see it. Nazi Germany used a bunch of socialist and nationalist ideas combined to to popularise and set up a war machine and prepare to dominate Europe with a very specific idealogical goal. Trump's ideas have been much smaller, vaguer, and more insular. 'We want to stay in our corner by ourselves and will be better this way'.

Secondly, I don't believe he has a driving ideology, he doesn't have a plan, he just said a bunch of vague popularist crap and was lucky the political class put a succession of washing(ton) machine losers up against him. Jeb, Rubio, Clinton were just such terrible candidates they felt like a message to voters 'you'll take the leaders and policies we say, and like it', and only in that environment a bumbling fool semi-joke candidate won, because people wanted a 'fuck you' to the ruling class.

He's a Boaty McBoatface, not a Hitler.

I'm inclined to agree about Trump himself he's just riding the wave to power (and he's actually good at that , the same way he used bankruptcy as a tool to create wealth for himself and screw over others). But the wave he's riding certainly is going to result in something that strongly resembles facism with an American twist. Both because part of his base truly believes in American Exceptionalism , Manifest Destiny and/or being God's Chosen and part of it a bunch of neoreactionaries and reactionaries (racists, sexists and Christian Dominionists) and because his executive are a bunch of exactly the kind of leaders that you get in Facism (corporatists taking control of the state).

 

[D.Lo]

I'm inclined to agree about Trump himself he's just riding the wave to power (and he's actually good at that , the same way he used bankruptcy as a tool to create wealth for himself and screw over others). But the wave he's riding certainly is going to result in something that strongly resembles facism with an American twist. Both because part of his base truly believes in American Exceptionalism , Manifest Destiny and/or being God's Chosen and part of it a bunch of neoreactionaries and reactionaries (racists, sexists and Christian Dominionists) and because his executive are a bunch of exactly the kind of leaders that you get in Facism (corporatists taking control of the state).

But then I think regular republicans are more facist. Bush/Cheney used 9/11 to set up an unnecessary Iraq war based on deliberate misinformation to fund the literal corporate military industrial complex. And the Israel zionists are hardcore long-termers in Washington, not really any new thing, in fact I think they were a weaker element this time.

And the base who elected him just wanted some change, any change, after being forgotten for 20 years. They're not exceptionalists, they just have seen their lives get worse while the TV claims the economy is 'improving' constantly. The wave was just 'fuck you rich people and fuck you Washington'.

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

I personally find calling Trump fascist is misleading or incorrect.

On a practical level, the word is used to compare him to Nazi Germany, and apart from there being some racism involved I just don't see it. Nazi Germany used a bunch of socialist and nationalist ideas combined to to popularise and set up a war machine and prepare to dominate Europe with a very specific idealogical goal. Trump's ideas have been much smaller, vaguer, and more insular. 'We want to stay in our corner by ourselves and will be better this way'.

Secondly, I don't believe he has a driving ideology, he doesn't have a plan, he just said a bunch of vague popularist crap and was lucky the political class put a succession of washing(ton) machine losers up against him. Jeb, Rubio, Clinton were just such terrible candidates they felt like a message to voters 'you'll take the leaders and policies we say, and like it', and only in that environment a bumbling fool semi-joke candidate won, because people wanted a 'fuck you' to the ruling class.

He's a Boaty McBoatface, not a Hitler.

I actually don't think Trump himself is a fascist. His movement, base of support and all his operatives are, however.

Fascism itself was also never a coherent ideology to begin with and all its forms were rife with contradiction. As I said, that's because unlike other systems of government, it didn't begin with a bunch of first principles that were hashed out, debated and thought over. It instead grew organically out of a self righteous feeling in the gut that pushed out all logic and reason as mealy-mouthed nonsense. That's how it's best understood, I think.

We could use the term neo-fascist (because it's never going to take the same format twice), but what we're looking at is a movement that grew out of out-group resentment and economic malaise that hopes to solve these problems through national renewal and war. Read that article on Steve Bannon and tell me that isn't exactly what the man is trying to do.

 

[Elaugaufein]

I actually don't think Trump himself is a fascist. His movement, base of support and all his operatives are, however.

Fascism itself was also never a coherent ideology to begin with and all its forms were rife with contradiction. As I said, that's because unlike other systems of government, it didn't begin with a bunch of first principles that were hashed out, debated and thought over. It instead grew organically out of a self righteous feeling in the gut that pushed out all logic and reason as mealy-mouthed nonsense. That's how it's best understood, I think.

We could use the term neo-fascist (because it's never going to take the same format twice), but what we're looking at is a movement that grew out of out-group resentment and economic malaise that hopes to solve these problems through national renewal and war. Read that article on Steve Bannon and tell me that isn't exactly what the man is trying to do.

I think D Lo is saying that the segment that actually elected Trump that is the Broken Wall aren't those people and that's true but it's also fairly normal for facism. The key trait of the "followers" is responding well to Authoritarian leaders and that maps poorly to the conventional dominant political natives which are mainly economic on the right and mainly social on the left. In some ways I think the growing authoritarianism of the Left since realising they were culturally dominant is exactly what D Lo means by "head up arse in 1st World problems".

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

They don't have to just respond well to authoritarian leaders, they respond well to their authoritarian leaders. If they already consider the opposition on the left as illegitimate, the only place to turn is the right.

But yeah, head up arse first world problems are what hold the Greens back in a big way. Cultural issues such as gender neutrality in children's toys and issues nobody cares about like animal rights only serve to alienate the mainstream from the Greens. Climate change is going to destroy us all and urban left politicians waste time and political capital on these unwinnable topics.

To be fair, the latté sipping urban left do need some representation, but if the Greens ever want to expand beyond their inner city cloisters, they need to shed this image.

 

[Elaugaufein]

They don't have to just respond well to authoritarian leaders, they respond well to their authoritarian leaders. If they already consider the opposition on the left as illegitimate, the only place to turn is the right.

But yeah, head up arse first world problems are what hold the Greens back in a big way. Cultural issues such as gender neutrality in children's toys and issues nobody cares about like animal rights only serve to alienate the mainstream from the Greens. Climate change is going to destroy us all and urban left politicians waste time and political capital on these unwinnable topics.

To be fair, the latté sipping urban left do need some representation, but if the Greens ever want to expand beyond their inner city cloisters, they need to shed this image.

I don't think those are bad things at all. And animal rights don't hurt politically given the right framing (people don't like cruelty to things viewed as pets and generally disapprove of unneeded cruelty to other animals (live export bans are actually generally popular they just act as a political weakness because it realllly riles the opposition who unfortunately have disproportionate political influence for various reasons partially due to overlap with National voters , partially due to being the kind of blue collar club Labor really wants to get back).

But for the toys thing given our media environment , it makes far more sense to approach it socially and convince big stores who tend to derive most of their business from the kind of people who approve of that to voluntarily desegregate toys (which has had some success already). Admittedly this is largely a beat up anyway , the whole Greens are coming to sissify your boys / turn your girls into butch lesbians thing is about 85% a News Corp beat up based on Larissa Waters support of not gender segregating toys.

Not much you can do on the rights for non cute animals given Australian demographic and geographic reality though.

 

[D.Lo]

I think fascism is honestly a meaningless term. It and 'Nazi' just mean 'I don't like that' in popular political parlance now. Orwell agreed, he though the term was already meaningless in the 40s lol.

But the way it is applied is usually to say 'Trump is a white supremacist Nazi' and I think it's overreaching to the point that people will turn off immediately. Just call him a buffoon. It can be elaborated that while he relatively smartly fed on an anger at entrenched political power, he was still lucky as hell to get in because he was up against pathetic opposition. He has surrounded himself with goons who will probably make some nasty things happen, but there's lots of overeach there too, I see so many of them called 'literal Nazis'. You can say that when they table racial-based genocide policies, not before.

But I don't think 90% Trump voters are any of that. Sure he has most of the pieces of shit (that's the 10%), and rusted on Republicans including well off bible belt Christians and poor rednecks, but many (most?) are just angry at the ruling class. Some SANDERS fans voted for him just so a party machine who treated them like shit wasn't rewarded for it. Petulant? Maybe, but hardly Nazis/facists.

In some ways I think the growing authoritarianism of the Left since realising they were culturally dominant is exactly what D Lo means by "head up arse in 1st World problems".

They don't have to just respond well to authoritarian leaders, they respond well to their authoritarian leaders. If they already consider the opposition on the left as illegitimate, the only place to turn is the right.

But yeah, head up arse first world problems are what hold the Greens back in a big way. Cultural issues such as gender neutrality in children's toys and issues nobody cares about like animal rights only serve to alienate the mainstream from the Greens. Climate change is going to destroy us all and urban left politicians waste time and political capital on these unwinnable topics.

To be fair, the latté sipping urban left do need some representation, but if the Greens ever want to expand beyond their inner city cloisters, they need to shed this image.

Yeah it's the economic conservatism combined with what has become authoritarian left cultural policies that has alienated the working class (and rural voters) from both major parties in both countries IMO. Neo-liberalism is a nasty mess that specifically harms the working class who want relative cultural conservatism and a fair system for economic security. If they vote for the right they get fucked economically (tax breaks for millionaires and companies, mass immigration to suppress their wages), but they get some window dressing against what they feel is out of control multiculturalism and far left cultural stuff (not much really - dog whistles about refugees while actual immigration remains sky high). If they vote for Democrats/Labor they get very slightly less fucked economically, but in return get non-stop lectures about how it's the most important thing right now that hijabs are good for women's freedom, women in sport deserve $10M each instead of $1M each, and three year old children can be transsexual.

So they vote for the right because they're basically given little choice economically, the only choice is on cultural issues and the left bites off far too much, so 'keep it as it always was' (or 'roll it back a bit') seems much more sane.

Trump was even better for these people, because on top of that he also outright promised to end certain globalist neo-liberal policies like offshoring jobs. It won't work of course, but is as far as I can tell the first major break from the neoliberal globalist economic consensus in 30 years.

 

[Candescence]

Trump was even better for these people, because on top of that he also outright promised to end certain globalist neo-liberal policies like offshoring jobs. It won't work of course, but is as far as I can tell the first major break from the neoliberal globalist economic consensus in 30 years.

Which is probably why his own party might actually be a major roadblock for him if he actually ends up being hands-on with policies, the GOP is still very much the party of right-wing neoliberals, and they were mostly mortified about Trump's ascendancy, but they were forced to pay lip-service to being loyal to him to avoid being turfed in primaries and during the election. They hate 'big government' and "big spending", and Trump is pretty much the epitome of both in many ways.

Of course, that's also a double-edged sword for them, if the people who supported Trump see the GOP getting in his way (or if Trump doesn't fix the economy or blatantly goes back on his biggest promises), they'll just throw their hands up and vote Democrat in 2018/2020 instead, the latter year being especially important if the Dems actually produce a viable new candidate without the baggage of Clinton or Sanders, and there's a few people who could easily fill that role.

 

[D.Lo]

Which is probably why his own party might actually be a major roadblock for him if he actually ends up being hands-on with policies, the GOP is still very much the party of right-wing neoliberals, and they were mostly mortified about Trump's ascendancy, but they were forced to pay lip-service to being loyal to him to avoid being turfed in primaries and during the election. They hate 'big government' and "big spending", and Trump is pretty much the epitome of both in many ways.

Exactly. Will he play king, or be Turnbull? He might have the ego to actually keep pushing. Sanders and crew have even specifically outlined those policies of his they will support because they will help working poor (much to the chagrin of some democrats and no doubt many republicans too).

 

[Aarglefarg]

"Indonesia has suspended military cooperation with Australia, reportedly in response to 'insulting' Australian training material" http://ab.co/2hQCSUV - via @abcnews

 

[bobnowhere]

"Indonesia has suspended military cooperation with Australia, reportedly in response to 'insulting' Australian training material" http://ab.co/2hQCSUV - via @abcnews

They are pretty precious at times, Indonesia. It's not like they do a great job of living up to their founding principals, Pancasila, at times. Ask the West Papuans, East Timorese, any minority or other religion than the main one.

 

[Elaugaufein]

They are pretty precious at times, Indonesia. It's not like they do a great job of living up to their founding principals, Pancasila, at times. Ask the West Papuans, East Timorese, any minority or other religion than the main one.

How many countries in the history of the world have actually paid more than lip service to their high-minded founding principles ?

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

How many countries in the history of the world have actually paid more than lip service to their high-minded founding principles ?

Forcing the current elites to live up to their high minded founding principles is how freedoms (eventually) happen. It's how the Italian allies got full Roman citizenship following the Social War, paving the way to an eventual near-universal franchise (for all that it meant under the Caesars), how Persian Muslims gained equal footing with their Arab masters, how slavery was abolished in the West and how Black people in the US managed to get one of their own elected to the highest office in the land.

The founders put high minded things into founding documents and constitutions in order to get buy-in, never intending to make good on the promise. Wars get fought to make them happen. Don't scoff at their power.

 

[legend166]

Forcing the current elites to live up to their high minded founding principles is how freedoms (eventually) happen. It's how the Italian allies got full Roman citizenship following the Social War, paving the way to an eventual near-universal franchise (for all that it meant under the Caesars), how Persian Muslims gained equal footing with their Arab masters, how slavery was abolished in the West and how Black people in the US managed to get one of their own elected to the highest office in the land.

The founders put high minded things into founding documents and constitutions in order to get buy-in, never intending to make good on the promise. Wars get fought to make them happen. Don't scoff at their power.

Also see the Helsinki Accords, which for some reason the Soviet Union signed in 1975 even though they violated pretty much every point on a regular basis.

 

[D.Lo]

Isn't their founding ideal that the one true god is Allah? Like their #1 high principal is religious intolerance...

 

[Jintor]

Social Wars are my jam

 

[Aarglefarg]

They are pretty precious at times, Indonesia. It's not like they do a great job of living up to their founding principals, Pancasila, at times. Ask the West Papuans, East Timorese, any minority or other religion than the main one.

Pancasila (pronounced [pantʃaˈsila]) is the official philosophical foundation of the Indonesian state.[1] Pancasila consists of two Old Javanese words (originally from Sanskrit): "pañca" meaning five, and "sīla" meaning principles. It comprises five principles held to be inseparable and interrelated:
1. Belief in the one and only God (in Indonesian, Ketuhanan Yang Maha Esa).
2. Just and civilised humanity (in Indonesian, Kemanusiaan Yang Adil dan Beradab).
3. The unity of Indonesia (in Indonesian, Persatuan Indonesia).
4. Democracy guided by the inner wisdom in the unanimity arising out of deliberations amongst representatives (in Indonesian, Kerakyatan Yang Dipimpin oleh Hikmat Kebijaksanaan, Dalam Permusyawaratan Perwakilan).
5. Social justice for all of the people of Indonesia (in Indonesian, Keadilan Sosial bagi seluruh Rakyat Indonesia).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancasila_(politics)

I think the second and fifth inseparable principles can be ignored at will. The first and third ones are the ones that matter more.

 

[bomma_man]

Social Wars are my jam

Sounds like a Facebook game from 2009

 

[bobnowhere]

Malcolm Roberts at it again:

Calling for the end of Kiwi settlements in Australia.

Read through the article and I suspect you will learn more (than you probably want to know) of the cognitive dissonance running rampant in his mind at all times.

That centrelink issue that Christen Porter said was like 0.1%, it's about 20% actually!

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

Isn't their founding ideal that the one true god is Allah? Like their #1 high principal is religious intolerance...

Athenian democracy excluded women, poor people and anyone who couldn't trace their ancestry to Athens. Both the French and American revolutions took place in states that allowed people to own other human beings. Freedom is relative.

For the times, the policy of leaving conquered peoples mostly in peace and taxing them for their religious status was a marked improvement over the status quo, which included the occasional pogrom, forced conversion or persecution.

The idea however that all Muslims were equal, regardless of their heritage, however, was revolutionary within the Arab world.

 

[Dryk]

But for the toys thing given our media environment , it makes far more sense to approach it socially and convince big stores who tend to derive most of their business from the kind of people who approve of that to voluntarily desegregate toys (which has had some success already). Admittedly this is largely a beat up anyway , the whole Greens are coming to sissify your boys / turn your girls into butch lesbians thing is about 85% a News Corp beat up based on Larissa Waters support of not gender segregating toys.

I dunno why conservatives are so against it. Gender segregation of advertising is a concept from the 80s, it's way younger than the 1950s they love so much.

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

I dunno why conservatives are so against it. Gender segregation of advertising is a concept from the 80s, it's way younger than the 1950s they love so much.

Gender is a fundamental part of human identity, so fundamental that language itself has features built around accounting for it. In Spanish, I can't just tell you that I hung out alone with my neighbour - I need to specify their gender, which of course opens up implications of why I would hang out them, depending on whether this neighbour was a man or woman. As a married man, hanging out with a female neighbour would result in a significant number of people giving me the side eye, with obvious questions about my fidelity, even if our every interaction was totally innocent.

Gender roles and gender relations regulate so much of what we do, they're more or less universal constants. Anything that challenges or goes against them is going to set off alarm bells in the human mind. It's only through thinking about these things calmly and logically that we can unlearn or overcome these gut reactions, once in place.

People in general don't think about things calmly or logically. Our brains have to be trained to work that way. Reason does not come naturally.

 

[D.Lo]

I dunno why conservatives are so against it. Gender segregation of advertising is a concept from the 80s, it's way younger than the 1950s they love so much.

Where did you hear this nonsense. Segregation of toys has been around for hundreds of years. Victorian girls played with baby dolls and boys with soldiers.

Here are some 50s ads for boys toys and girls toys.

 

[Zushin]

Just saw a thread on reddit that the Centrelink twitter account has starting referring people to Lifeline over the false debt debacle. What a shit show this has been. I don't think this will just go away for the government. They need to show some accountability and suspend the system until it is fixed.

 

[Elaugaufein]

Just saw a thread on reddit that the Centrelink twitter account has starting referring people to Lifeline over the false debt debacle. What a shit show this has been. I don't think this will just go away for the government. They need to show some accountability and suspend the system until it is fixed.

Depends on who its hitting. The LNP core are just fine with suffering as long as it's the "right" people. Once it bites them they tend to get annoyed.

 

[bobnowhere]

One Kiwi Labour Party Shadow Minister's response the Malcolm Roberts:

"He's a climate-change conspiracies' theorist; he's a racist and probably the saddest thing about his entry into Australia politics, spending so much time in Canberra, is he has denied a village somewhere in Australia of its idiot.

"What he is saying is absolutely nuts.

"We shouldn't be surprised at One Nation's low-IQ politics, which is basically to create an enemy - in this case it is New Zealanders - persecute that enemy and use the politics of hate and division for self-promotion. That is all they are really doing."