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Organic Farming is the Nature-Based Solution to combat climate change

Centre for Organic Research & Education: Media Release

The effects of global climate change have become more apparent and devastating in recent years, through changes in average temperatures and more frequent and intense extreme weather events such as severe droughts and floods. This creates a severe impact on global food systems which reduces food production in drier regions.

To combat this, it is not enough to produce food that minimises harm to the plant, we also need to produce food in ways that actively restore the health of the planet. This can be achieved by actively adopting Nature-based Solutions in agriculture such as organic farming, which can lead the transition to a regenerative and nature-positive food system and move away from existing methods of conventional farming practices.

Nature-based Solutions in agriculture seek to maximize the ability of nature to establish ecosystems that help enhance climate change adaptation, disaster-risk reduction, and food production. Organic farming practices have proven to deliver multiple benefits when deployed correctly, supporting natural systems of regeneration, mitigating climate change, and enhancing nature and biodiversity.

The practice of organic farming has these benefits to the environment:

1. Reduce the environment’s exposure to pesticides and chemicals that can cause long term contamination in the soil and water supply.
2. Promote a sound state of health and resilience for the farmland – Using compost as organic fertilizer promotes soil organic matter and fertility which will boost biological activity within the soil.
3. Combats soil erosion and degradation – organic farming builds healthy soil and helps combat serious soil and land issues, such as erosion
4. Encourages water health – organic farming helps keep water supplies clean by stopping polluted runoff from toxic fertilizers and pesticides.
5. Promotes biodiversity – organic farming encourages healthy biodiversity, which can influence how resilient farmland is to issues like harsh weather, disease, and pests.

Mr Eric Love, Chairman of the Centre for Organic Research & Education (CORE), says; “Astute scientists and community members around the world realise that climate actions are a race to save mankind from the consequences of intensifying devastating forces of nature already evident around the world. So too is eliminating the waste of our valuable, finite resources in landfill. The circular economy is a recent description of the waste hierarchy of ‘Reduce, Reuse Recycle.’ Decreasing food waste must include this multi-pronged approach because the amount of food we waste is unbelievable.”

“While the waste of food goes beyond just individuals and business owners, there are so many things we can all do today to start making a real difference. At the same time as reducing environmental impacts we can save a considerable amount of money by reducing overbuying and portion sizes, reusing left over food and ensuring we recycle everything we don’t consume,” says Mr Love.

“The equivalent of One in five shopping bags full end up in the bin. This is equivalent to $3,800 worth of groceries per household each year,” continues Mr Love. The Australian Government estimates food waste costs the Australian economy $20 billion each year. Over 5 million tonnes of food ends up in landfill, enough to fill 9,000 Olympic sized swimming pools.

“Rotting food in landfill produces methane, which is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas” Mr Love says. “For every tonne of food waste in landfill, a tonne of CO2-e greenhouse gas is generated. When we waste food, we also waste the natural resources that go into making it, like land, water, energy, nutrients and carbon.”

As the Gold Sponsors of National Organic Week, Marketing Director for “Spiral Foods” and “Aurelio by Riverina Grove,” Raphaelle Wilson said; “We’re thrilled to be partnering with the National Organic Week for Spiral Foods and Aurelio. We’ve always supported good quality organic products and to have a week to celebrate the organic industry in Australia is fantastic and a great reminder of how far the industry has come.”

National Organic Week (NOW) will be held from 20th September to 26th September in Australia this year. The Centre for Organic Research & Education (CORE), who championed this cause in Australia for the past 16 years is urging everyone to get involved by organising or participating in organic events held by your local community.

Events can be registered and promoted on the official NOW event calendar.

Another way you can promote and support organic products is to vote in the annual Organic Consumer Choice Awards (OCCA’s). These awards promote and reward the best organic stakeholders around the country. The OCCA’s is the only industry organic awards program decided solely by consumers. Online voting will open to the public from 20th September to 19th October on the National Organic Week website.

 

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With her state heading for disaster, Gladys bails on NSW

By Matthew Reddin  

For weeks, Gladys Berejiklian has warned that things will get worse. She just announced that she won’t be doing daily press conferences.

There’s this ongoing trend that echoed throughout the online world during the Trump presidency: Imagine if Obama said (or did) this? Imagine the outrage, the scorn, the villagers with torches and pitchforks if he did/said this. But the thing is, you couldn’t imagine it, because he’d never say or do anything as remotely objectionable, crazy or flat-out offensive as Trump would. But a different standard was applied to Trump than was Obama, for whatever reason. There are volumes of books to be written on it and what’s behind it (spoiler alert: it has something to do with pigment).

This is what occurred to me, as a Victorian, as an Australian, as a sentient human this morning upon hearing that Gladys Berejiklian, presiding over a monumental failure to act, a failure of procedure and oversight, the consequences of which have stretched up, down and across the eastern seaboard, has decided that as of Monday, her daily press briefings will be done online, by some low-level bureaucrat, until such time as she has something to say.

Which could be never, let’s be frank about it.

I mean, FUCKING IMAGINE IF DAN ANDREWS HAD DONE THE SAME THING. Truth be told, you can’t, because he actually showed up and did his job, and would have known that there are consequences for not doing his job; Gladys is of the political stripe where there simply aren’t consequences for her doing anything, ever – nor for her federal counterpart.

Gladys announced 1,542 cases (double the highest number of cases Victoria ever recorded during the 2020 outbreak) and basically said her work here was done. “Can’t someone else do it?” she asked someone, probably, in between being insanely corrupt and blithely contemptuous.

Samantha Maiden from News.com.au called it as she saw it. I’m guessing she’ll be fairly alone in that stable for criticizing the NSW leader.

 

 

The ABC’s Patricia Karvelas was also less than impressed.

 

 

Katherine Murphy from The Guardian did the Twitter equivalent of a spit take.

 

 

And while some in the press are going to laud the decision (laughable), it’s a pretty good shibboleth for who among them we all should ignore from here on in. The Andrews press conferences in 2020 were keeping the state informed; at a time when information was vital for our emotional and psychological wellbeing. Those pressers were sustaining, if difficult to endure once the floor opened to pernicious and stupid questions from the likes of The Australian’s Rachel Baxendale and Sky News’ Gabriella Power.

Berejiklian, on the other hand, seems to have accepted the fact that she’s royally fucked up, can’t think of any way around it, and wants to hide under the bedding until such a time as she can come out. At the point, she’ll emerge dole out some PR-spun horseshit about 70% double dosing and freedoms and picnics and how we all did this together.

Yet, Berejiklian has been foreshadowing the pandemic in NSW was going to get to its worst, its toughest; that the hospital system would be stretched to its elastic limit in October, based on modelling the NSW Health Department had prepared. Modelling, by the way, she’s not been very forthcoming with. So, knowing that the state is headed for a cliff, she’s essentially jumped out of the driver’s seat to get a better view of the spectacle.

“I’ll turn up when I need to,” are words that emerged from her sneering maw today.

We should have seen this coming. It was all there: first, they stopped their Covid hotspots announcements. Then, they essentially abandoned contract tracing. Reports started emerging of people dying at home. And all that deeply, deeply offensive talk of “underlying health conditions” (which, for the record aren’t what killed them; the disease did – John F. Kennedy had crippling back pain and irritable bowel syndrome, but you didn’t read the Warren Commission mention any “underlying health conditions” when talking about how he died). Then there are people not going to the hospital and dying in their homes. There’s talk of the health system collapsing, meaning if the emergency wards are too full of Covid patients, you’d best not have a heart attack, or have a car accident, or slip on the pavement, or get hit by a bolt of lightning. Because Gladys has all but runs away from the slightest hint of public accountability.

Knowing that the state is headed for a cliff, Gladys has essentially jumped out of the driver’s seat to get a better view of the spectacle.

It would be totally fine for the NSW opposition leader to hold alternative press conferences at 11.00 am instead. They could stand there, read out the laundry list of the Berejiklian government’s abject, morbidly offensive shortcomings and failures, and the media would – by and large – show up and cover it. They have to cover something. (Phil Coorey may give it a swerve, having already penned the vomit-inducing Financial Review magazine cover story, ‘The Woman Who Saved Australia’).

The Labor opposition could front up on a daily basis with representatives of the state’s front-line workers, like nurses, teachers, and everyone else who is essential, advocating for those who seem to have been abandoned by this government, such as Aboriginal & disability communities, or GPs for that matter, as well as mental health experts. They could be the ones that convey the hard data, the facts we need to hear, the insights as to what’s happening in circles of power, and what the road forward looks like.

And people would watch. It’d get coverage, and in the absence of anything else, it would paint Berejiklian and her government in a bad light, and negative publicity is kryptonite to her. It’s further proof that all of these decisions, from both Berejiklian and Morrison alike, from lockdowns to vaccines and everything else, has been about polls and vanity from day one. It’s pathetic. They’re pathetic. Elections have consequences.

 

 

This article was originally published on The Big Smoke.

 

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1000 days, 1000 delays. I won’t let them get away with it.

This week marks 1000 days since the Prime Minister Scott Morrison promised Australians an integrity commission.

In that time, the Prime Minister has done almost nothing to live up to his word. The truth is, this Government does not want an integrity commission before the next election. Especially one as robust as mine.

There are no two ways about it – the Prime Minister has broken a key election promise. Government officials themselves have even admitted it in Senate Estimates.

Thanks to you, we’ve shone a light on this Government’s unacceptable inaction on integrity. The thousands of letters, phone calls, social media posts and petition signatures from you have kept the heat on the Prime Minister. I’ve seen it up close myself in Canberra.

Without you, the Government would never have even revealed the details of their dud model for an integrity commission, which would investigate politicians and over 80 per cent of Government officials in secret away from the public eye. There’s a reason experts call it “the nation’s weakest watchdog”.

There is only one way we can have a robust integrity commission before the next election. We need to tell the Prime Minister to let Parliament do its job, and vote on my gold-standard Australian Federal Integrity Commission bill at the next sitting in October.

I know getting the Prime Minister to act on my bill sounds like a tall order. But we’ve forced his hand before. And we can do it again.

You can start putting the pressure on him today by sharing my op-ed on social media, and telling your networks to do the same.

Australians have put a whole lot of faith in this Government during this pandemic. It’s time for the Prime Minister to live up to his side of the bargain, and restore our faith in Government. No more rorts, no more lies.

The next election could be called any day now and is set to be extremely tight.

If the Government thinks it can count on crossbench support in a hung parliament, then they need to demonstrate they’re serious about legislating a strong integrity commission like mine. That goes for the Opposition too. How they act now on this issue will have consequences in the 47th Parliament.

Thanks for your support. I can’t do it without you.

Helen Haines MP

 

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Fake Empire – Clive Palmer, Craig Kelly, and the questionable memberships

By Peter Wicks  

Craig Kelly’s claim of 30,000 new members has many wondering if his counting ability is any more reliable than his Covid treatments.

The fastest growing political party on earth.

That’s what Clive Palmer and Craig Kelly would like us to think the United Australia Party has achieved. This however, appears to be smoke and mirrors.

Some of you may have seen the full page advert in the press over the weekend bragging about achieving 30,000 new members in 10 days.

 

 

I thought I’d reach out to some of them to see what was attracting them to the party of Covid denial and crackpot theories.

Fortunately I was able to reach several of them on the same number. I spoke to a lovely lady whose UAP membership recognises as Usad Dickface. So impressed with the sound policies and professional medical opinions of Craig Kelly was young Ms Dickface that she thought she’d sign up a few memberships for some of her imaginary friends as well.

It’s not just the expert advice on Covid treatments attracting members like Dickface however, Mr Kelly is known to have active members of staff such as Frank Zumbo, who is widely regarded as one of the most ‘hands-on’ staffers around. For all the wrong reasons.

Another new member of UAP that I spoke with was surprised when his membership details including his membership number appeared in his inbox. It was a surprise to him as he would rather inject bleach into his own head than join the party that likely thinks this is a legitimate Covid treatment.

 

 

Given there is no cost involved in joining, Grant assumed that someone was having a bit of a joke at his expense.

 

Craig Kelly and Frank Zumbo (Image from the ABC)

 

The United Australia Party seems more intent on creating an impression rather than building a legitimate party. It is a plan as pathetic as a Senator buying Twitter followers, but arguably even less convincing.

The UAP membership page has such a low standard of authentication checking that many would assume that it has been designed to allow people to sign up anyone or anything they like. I sure as hell do.

Here’s how it all works.

I was fortunate to have an IT expert, Michelle Stevens, helping me out. Her speciality is search algorithms, and how government and private enterprise use algorithms for personalisation.

The authentication system used by Palmer on the UAP site, a Zoho Webform site is substandard. It will allow you to put anything in and will still accept your membership.

For example, here’s one we did for the Hulk, Mr Louis Ferrigno. His federal electorate is Cork in Ireland but he lives in Queensland with a postcode that doesn’t exist.

Here’s UAP’s membership form accepting the data.

 

 

 

Here’s Australia Post confirming the postcode doesn’t exist.

 

 

Here is the confirmation of UAP accepting the application.

 

Note that the email address matches the one on the membership form

 

It is important to note that the major parties have a proper authentication system that would never allow this to happen. They want real members, not fake members.

Even if you scrape the bottom of the barrel, you’ll find One Nation have better authentication.

It is also important to note that most parties have a membership fee. Most people are less inclined to set up 100 fake memberships for Ronald McDonald etc if there’s a cost involved. Clive and Craig don’t care.

Recently there has been an increase in burst blood vessels in peoples temples as phone owners nationwide are bombarded by unwanted texts from Mr 5G himself, Craig Kelly.

People have been understandably furious that he has obtained their phone number without their permission. Well I’ll let you in on a little secret. He hasn’t.

UAP will have been using a random number generator which will take the first two numbers as 04 and then just pump out texts to randomly generated numbers. This is why texts have been received on different days, it’s the cycle of the generator rather than an uploaded list of numbers. Unfortunately however, Clive and Craig may know yours is a legitimate number if you respond with warm wishes, as I’m sure many have.

 

Screenshot from a random number generator

 

Some minor parties have been doing membership drives in a struggle to reach the new minimum membership threshold. Many have been vocal about having to find 1500 members in a country of over 25 Million.

A few things to remember, we all struggle with the road-map sized Senate ballot, those complaining are seeking to make it bigger still. Taxpayers foot the bill for this enormous ballot paper, the smaller the ballot, the lower the cost to the taxpayer. If a party can’t rally 1500 members then it’s time to form a knitting circle or something.

I have had many people contact me recently about the process of resigning from a minor party.

If you have joined a party and wish to leave you just need to cancel your membership in writing to the Party’s head office. The AEC will be doing random checks from membership lists provided by the parties, if they contact you, simply say you are no longer a member.

If a party claims a member that has left or doesn’t exist here’s what the AEC confirmed with me today;

“…from an electoral law perspective is that the AEC being advised that people on the membership have never been, or are no longer, a member could result in a party being deregistered.”

With 30,000 new members of the calibre of our big green friend Louis Ferrigno, I reckon someone in Craig Kelly’s office has a big job in front of them.

 

Don’t call me a fake member

 

This article was originally published on Wixxyleaks.

You can follow Peter on Twitter @madwixxy.

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What is revving up the bully boys?

By Ad astra  

This is a short piece. There is no need for lots of words. Images are sufficient.

Have you noticed the cluster of loud-mouthed men that has appeared recently on our Melbourne streets, fists raised, shouting messages of defiance directed at our those in authority?

Who are they? What is their agenda?

 

Image from theage.com.au (Photo by Justin McManus)

 

Ostensibly, they are protesting at the lockdowns initiated by the Victorian government to limit the spread of COVID-19. But do take a few minutes to look at the men in the images in this link from the Melbourne Age. No amount of words, no amount of colourful rhetoric, could ever describe what these images portray.

 

Image from theage.com.au (Photo by Chris Hopkins)

 

Do these men come across to you as responsible citizens concerned about the psychological effects on the populace of a pandemic-inspired lockdown designed on the advice of medical experts and epidemiologists to limit the spread of a lethal virus? Is there any hint of professionalism in the actions of these men? You know the answer.

 

Image from theage.com.au (Photo by Justin McManus)

 

The thesis of this piece is that these protesters are simply opportunists purporting to be concerned citizens while advancing their real agenda, which is to implant extreme right-wing views among the local population.

 

Image from theage.com.au (Photo by Chris Hopkins)

 

It’s so easy to be deluded about them, about who they really are. It’s so easy to sit back in our comfortable living rooms, never suspecting that in our society there are such people with such radical agendas. When such naïveté exists, they are able to hoodwink us while we drowse in front of our TV screens watching the Paralympics or Bachelor.

 

Image from theage.com.au (Photo by Chris Hopkins)

 

Beware! Be very afraid.

 

This article was originally published on The Political Sword

For Facebook users, The Political Sword has a Facebook page:
Putting politicians and commentators to the verbal sword

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Extending Cautious Global Progressivism: Time to Upgrade Support for Citizen Joe Biden’s Economic Agendas?

By Denis Bright  

After years of commitment to market ideology by both sides of US politics, President Biden is offering some progressive changes in sustainable economic policies. This impending change was covered by my article for The AIM Network just over a year ago when Kamala Harris became Biden’s candidate for Vice President with charismatic endorsement from Michelle Obama (19 August 2020).

Ironically, the Trump administration gave the green light to record levels of federal US deficits to cope with the pandemic recession and its associated public health crises. The Biden administration has cautiously moved public spending from opportunistic deficits of the Trump era towards some cautious progressive agendas for government intervention in the US economy. The Democratic Party has not really followed this path since Franklin Roosevelt’s (FDR) New Deal Programme (1932-45).

In contrast, the hopes generated by the election of John Kennedy and Barack Obama were squandered by new phases of military adventurism.

In President John Kennedy’s short administration (1961-63), opportunities for improved relations with the Soviet Union to repair tensions created by the shooting down of the U-2 spy plane over the Ural Mountains on 1 May 1960 were dashed by the installation of medium range nuclear missiles in both Italy and Turkey (Map Image: CIA). The Soviet Union retaliated by the construction of its own nuclear missile sites in Cuba after the CIA’s own attempts to overthrow the legitimate government of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs landings (17-19 April 1961).

Barack Obama made the mistake of following military advice favouring a troop surge into Afghanistan in 2013 with support from most NATO countries and Australia as an associate member of NATO.

To his credit, Joe Biden has honoured a commitment to end direct military involvement in Afghanistan despite a wave of nostalgia for continued military commitment from the Murdoch press.

Biden’s domestic economic policies can be developed without the distractions imposed by new military commitments. The financial burden of US military spending remains a real barrier to Biden’s domestic economic agendas (Data-Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 26 April 2021):

Strong increase in US military spending continues in 2020

In 2020 US military expenditure reached an estimated $778 billion, representing an increase of 4.4 per cent over 2019. As the world’s largest military spender, the USA accounted for 39 per cent of total military expenditure in 2020. This was the third consecutive year of growth in US military spending, following seven years of continuous reductions.

‘The recent increases in US military spending can be primarily attributed to heavy investment in research and development, and several long-term projects such as modernizing the US nuclear arsenal and large-scale arms procurement,’ said Alexandra Marksteiner, a researcher with SIPRI’s Arms and Military Expenditure Programme. ‘This reflects growing concerns over perceived threats from strategic competitors such as China and Russia, as well as the Trump administration’s drive to bolster what it saw as a depleted US military.’

This inheritance of continued record levels of military spending is at least being offset by new domestic US economic agendas despite fierce opposition from Republicans and moderate Democrats (Politico News Network, 30 August 2021):

President Joe Biden’s defense budget may be headed for another defeat at the hands of Democrats on Capitol Hill.

The House Armed Services Committee will weigh in on Biden’s $715 billion Pentagon budget proposal on Wednesday when it debates annual defense policy legislation. The debate has split Democrats, but party leaders may not be able to hold back an emerging bipartisan drive to boost defense spending.

Republicans have for months said Biden’s budget is too small to adequately deter China and Russia, while many progressive Democrats see a Pentagon budget in need of steep cuts as the U.S. winds down a two decades-long war in Afghanistan. Centrist Democrats say they would consider proposals to increase the defense budget.

Commitment to more defence spending erodes the traction for Biden’s Green New Deal and risks unsustainable levels of national budget deficits which have been summarized by the Congressional Budget Office (9 August 2021):

 

 

However, the outreach of Biden’s deficit spending extends across the spectrum of government responsibilities from defence and aerospace industries to infrastructure, jobs and family welfare. The focus is on rebuilding a social market as noted in the details of job creation and family support packages to assist with recovery from the COVID-crisis.

Promoting the current New Green Deal agendas can become a mainstream response that appeals to voters in rustbelt states and depressed cities where constituents were once attracted to Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) rhetoric.

Steven Greenhouse of The Guardian (2 May 2021) correctly identifies Joe Biden as the most distinguished pro-union President in recent US history:

Unions have also suffered notable setbacks in recent years, mostly recently failing to get the votes to unionize at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama. None of this has dampened Biden’s ardor for organized labor, or Republican opposition to it.

Last Monday, Biden issued an executive order establishing the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, a move that aims to help unions expand their ranks. On Tuesday, Biden named Celeste Drake, to head his new “Made in America” program, which is designed to steer more federal money to US manufacturers. Drake is long-time trade expert at AFL-CIO, the US’s largest union federation.

Also last week, the White House issued a fact sheet saying that Biden’s proposed $2.3tn infrastructure plan would create many union jobs in construction, clean energy and other fields – by, for instance, requiring companies that receive money under the legislation not to oppose unionization efforts.

Events in Afghanistan may have distracted mainstream news services from Biden’s less newsworthy domestic agendas. The largely Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal of the Biden administration has been summarized on the White House site (11 August 2021):

  • Makes the largest federal investment in public transit ever
  • Makes the largest federal investment in passenger rail since the creation of Amtrak
  • Makes the single largest dedicated bridge investment since the construction of the interstate highway system
  • Makes the largest investment in clean drinking water and waste-water infrastructure in American history, delivering clean water to millions of families
  • Ensures every American has access to reliable high-speed internet
  • Helps us tackle the climate crisis by making the largest investment in clean energy transmission and EV infrastructure in history; electrifying thousands of school and transit buses across the country; and creating a new Grid Deployment Authority to build a clean, 21stcentury electric grid

Biden has inherited an economy that had rebounded from the COVID-19 recession in the September Quarter of 2020.

The Medium Term Investment Prospects

The Biden administration of course plans to ease back on deficit spending during the 2020s by expanding a global investment hub through the Quad Group of countries (US, Australia, Japan and India). However, data from the United Nations Centre for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) shows that the investment outreach of the Quad countries is quite weak and negatively affected by the effects of the COVID pandemic in 2020.

Striving to outmanoeuvre China comes at great expense to the flow of  investment capital as measured by Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) capital outflows. The strategy is a variation of Make America Great Again (MAGA) agendas to re-industrialize the US economy.

Since the election of President Biden, outstanding if still conservative minds, are being allowed to share critical perspectives on the way forward for the global economy which is increasingly dominated by the fortunes being build-up through the new speculative financialization.

The participants at this European Central Bank (ECB) Podcast would have been ridiculed by President Trump as opponents of his MAGA agendas.

In a recent episode of #TheECBPodcast with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and host Katie Ranger, Christine Lagarde (President of the ECB) spoke about the risk of the pandemic dialling back progress on female economic empowerment.

This discussion is a long way from the generation of new solutions but at least Dr Janet Yellen has been rewarded with the cabinet position of Treasury Secretary in the Biden administration.

Each participant is also fully aware of the complexity of the new financialization where hard won capital inflows from domestic and overseas corporate profits are being lost to the deserts of financial speculation.

The forte of the US economy has long moved onto high technology manufacturing and financial services. There is a very high degree of financial speculation in the outreach of contemporary investment. Risk taking is highly protected by contemporary financial practices which drive market indicators to new record levels before the need for a major correction somewhere in the future.

While the investment outreach of the US was in retreat on indicators for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) during 2020, most financial market indicators continued in record territory into 2021.

The US economy is artificially strengthened by capital inflows into the new financialization which generates a vast share of US corporate profits through financial speculative financial outsourcing through trade, commodity production, real bricks and mortar investment or accessible commercial services.

Some US FDI inflows do find their way into real investment and into state of the art industries such as aerospace, defence, robotics or social media networks.

However, capital flows into the new financialization from within the US and beyond are more likely to generate instant returns to financial speculators.

Capital flows into the US economy dwarf real investment as measured by FDI inflows.

Trading Economics that net capital inflows into the US were actually in excess of $US 300 billion in just the month of March 2020 and almost $US150 billion in March 2021.

This contrasts with FDI inflows of $US 156 billion in 2020 and an FDI Outflow of $US83 billion for an entire year.

This makes the US a net importer of real FDI while financial markets are awash with fluctuating levels of capital flows to support the new financialization. The long-term future of US capital markets is a matter for speculation and seems to be highly motivated by rent seeking investment.

Is Long-Term Reform of the US Financial Sector a Serious Possibility for Citizen Joe Biden?

The FDI graphs show that the investment outreach of the US and Japan have been in decline during the recent COVID-crisis. The ideal that Quad investment will carry developing countries like PNG and Timor out of their underdevelopment is an exercise in fantasy.

Rather than offering net FDI exports to the world, the US financial sector thrives on attracting capital inflows to finance the budget deficit and for speculative gains by financial operatives.

The late Professor Peter Gowan (1946-2009) of London University provided a synopsis of this subterranean financial sector that had maintained the new financialization through shadow banks and rampant tax evasion through global tax havens and interchange of transactions across borders as hallmarks financial leadership by stalwarts of neoliberalism.

Contemporary data updates might be available at a price through specialized financial networks which are usually by-passed in mainstream news reporting:

Academics Megan Neely from the Copenhagen Business School and Donna Carmichael from the London School of Economics offer a new documentation of the speculative financial sector in the US economy in a peer reviewed article in American Behavioural Scientist can assist in unravelling the puzzles presented by financialization (24 March 2021), “Profiting on Crisis: How Predatory Financial Investors Have Worsened Inequality in the Coronavirus Crisis.” The article is quite easy to read despite the saturation coverage of reference acknowledgments in the original text. I have relied on a block quote to share the wisdom of the authors. Welcome to the world of speculative financialization which generates at around half of all corporate profits in US economy:

This boom in market activity captures how a small group of investors is profiting from the crisis, while the majority of people face unprecedented health and economic hardships. This gap is indicative of widening inequality over the past four decades.

Since the late 1970s, deregulation of the U.S. financial sector has allowed finance to expand in leaps and bounds—and become increasingly risky, opaque, and complex. Finance’s share of corporate profits tripled over the past 60 years, averaging 15% in the post-war era then peaking at 45% before the 2008 financial crisis. During this same period, however, finance’s share of employment only increased from about 4% in 1950 to just over 7% in 2001. Thus, a smaller share of workers reaps the rewards of growth in the financial sector than did in the manufacturing sector’s heyday. The ability of financial actors to influence politics to favor deregulation, leverage bargaining power, and stimulate market demand has transferred large amounts of income to this sector.

As finance expanded its influence to other sectors of the economy, it brought about a widespread shift in corporate governance, called the shareholder value revolution. Before 1980, corporate management focused on reinvesting earnings to develop the company’s workers and products. After 1980, the dominant model of corporate governance understood the corporation’s primary purpose as promoting the interest of its shareholders, including executives, by maximizing profits. To maximize profits, financial investors have pressured companies to downsize, de-unionize, outsource, and computerize jobs. Rather than cutting costs, this focus on shareholder profit served to redistribute earnings from workers to managers, executives, and investors. Overall, this financial restructuring of the corporation resulted in less negotiating power, fewer protections, and greater insecurity for workers.

The expanding size and power of finance has increased the concentration of capital into the hands of a select few and driven widening economic inequality. First, the shareholder value revolution has allowed finance to extract resources from the economy and weakened labor’s bargaining power relative to executives and financial investors. Second, financial professionals in the financial and nonfinancial sectors have devised new investment products that yield enormous profits. These products have further weakened the demand for and power of other workers. Last, disparities in household lending allow the middle and upper class to leverage debt with low interest rates, while the working class, especially those who are families of color, struggle to obtain credit with higher interest rates and fees. Average households and workers struggle to make ends meet, while CEOs and Wall Street reap escalating top incomes, setting the stage for how each group has fared during the coronavirus pandemic. Neoliberal policy regimes have been a primary driver in relaxing financial regulations and the subsequent rise of financial capitalism. Neoliberalism refers to a set of economic policies and practices guided by a market ideology that believes that markets have an internal stabilizing logic and less regulated, competitive markets will reach equilibrium.

Incorporating these reduced global capital flows into productive investment for humanity through real investment in environmental renewal, infrastructure, health and community development is one of the great challenges for today’s generation of financial and political leaders.

A progressive government in Australia should welcome the opportunities presented by the arrival of Citizen Joe Biden to the White House. Forthcoming elections in NATO countries like Norway and Germany do suggest a cautious mood towards progressive change is developing in some European electorates. This polling data for both Germany and Norway is updated every few days and the new trends can be looked at by readers.

 

 

Expect the federal LNP to strive for an opportunistic pre-Christmas election before the hopeful voices of change start to become mainstream across the countries of the US Global Alliance.

Eighty years ago, Prime Minister John Curtin called for strategic assistance from the Roosevelt administration during the War in the Pacific with Japan. Time travel might invite a similar address to the nation in Christmas 2021 should Anthony Albanese win an early election on the back of currently favourable polling trends with swings to Labor in all states and territories on the latest Morgan and Resolve soundings of public opinion:

Without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to President Joe Biden’s administration  to deliver new sustainable economic agendas because the old policies based on market  ideology and strategic regime change in foreign policies have taken the countries of the US Global Alliance into the wilderness. Our incoming Labor government is ready to implement a New Green Deal for Australians in the new social market traditions of President Joe Biden.

 

Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building in these difficult times. Your feedback from readers advances the cause of citizens’ journalism. Full names are not required when making comments. However, a valid email must be submitted if you decide to hit the Replies Button.

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Help wanted

Moving to a new webhost, migrating to a new server, and upgrading our security system has not gone by without incident. In other words, there have been teething problems.

Lots of them.

Some of these we are aware of and they have been fixed by the tech team at our new web host.

There are many, however, that we have been unaware of until our readers point them out to us.

It appears that different problems have been popping up: the admin team at The AIMN have encountered different issues than those experienced by people who are simply commenting, or at times, trying to leave a comment.

So, we humbly ask for your help.

If you are experiencing any issues you would be doing us a favour if you could tell us what problems you are having by emailing us at theaimn@internode.on.net, or by leaving it here in a comment, if you are able to. Any screenshots would also be of use.

Once the list of issues has been compiled we will then forward it on to the tech gurus.

We apologise for any problems the site migration may have caused you. It has been frustrating for all of us.

 

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New South Wales and Victoria: A tale of two press conferences

By Matthew Reddin  

Two press conferences, two states dealing with Delta, two very different sets of reported numbers. I decided to compare the pair.

In her July 23 press conference, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian labelled the 136 new cases of COVID-19 a ‘national emergency’. Today, August 30, NSW reported 1293 new cases. No reports were offered of links; no reports were offered of the success of contact tracers. It’s apparently no longer important data; no longer important enough to know where the disease is, where it’s going, its impact or how one case may or may not be linked to another. No talk of it being a national emergency, despite the case numbers having increased marginally shy of tenfold.

On the day when Victorian health authorities reported 73 new cases, 52 of them linked with 21 under investigation (at time of press). In Victoria: 73 is too high a number to open up. In NSW: Case numbers aren’t the most important number, so why not have that picnic?

Tuning in to NSW’s 11.00 am press conference, the focus seems to be “reduce case numbers, sure, but get vaccinated.” The other number that’s critical, repeated, is hospitalisation. But no information is provided. 840 in hospital, 137 in ICU, 48 on ventilators. There’s no ‘national emergency’ when numbers indicate a virus out of control and a system that’s not keeping up.

I’d drink every time Berejiklian says variations on ‘Living with the virus,’ but I’d be passed out on the floor by lunchtime. It’s not a good look. As was this quote, right out of the Trump playbook: “Less testing means less cases”, meaning the less we know about those darned numbers, the less it impacts us, and by us, I mean LNP voters in safe North Shore seats.

 

 

Immunologist Alan Baxter posted on Twitter, “Assuming a continuation of the exponential increase in case numbers, by the end of September, NSW will have over 10,000 cases per day, and by the end of October, 200 COVID deaths per day.”

Deputy Premier John Barilaro has been doing the media rounds touting the ‘freedoms’ NSW residents can look forward to once we reach the highly touted 70% vaccination rate (and, just as a refresher, 70% of adults over 16 is actually 56% of the population).

Priorities seem completely out of whack in NSW. Official words and actions look to be motivated by the people’s prevailing mood, rather than best medical practice. Say what you will about Daniel Andrews’ government, but nothing he’s been doing for the past 18 months has been textbook popularity contest-winning stuff. It’s politically counter-intuitive to be making daily announcements that won’t be well-received, operating under the guiding principles that what’s right will be well received, and if not, at least he did what was right.

Victoria’s 11:00 am presser was more of a sombre affair. Present was Health Minister Martin Foley; Daniel Andrews in absentia with fewer announcements to make in the lead-up to what will doubtlessly be a lockdown extension on Thursday. Foley, a laconic suburban probate lawyer type, delivers his messages in a matter-of-fact way. He’s on top of his numbers and tends to have zero patience for the dirt-dumb dipshits in the media who ask him questions that sometimes defy understanding. Taking a cue from NSW’s habit of hearing from the frontline workers to get the point across, he passes the mic to Kylie from Western Health, who speaks of her 2020 experiences with COVID. It’s not pretty. Whereas the NSW paramedic front-footed vaccinations (quite rightly), Kylie makes a sobering point about what they on the front lines are anticipating in the event of opening up. She is “terrified”.

It’s a weird state of play that while NSW, the ACT and Victoria are all under lockdown, the NSW government is downplaying their own situation; the federal government is arcing up their attacks on those states with zero COVID with the unmitigated temerity to “keep doing what’s worked and is overwhelmingly popular”.

Doing what’s popular rather than what’s right at a time of crisis doesn’t seem to bode well for the future. Feast your eyes upon this, from an anonymous doctor in a western Sydney hospital: “We believe it likely that projected patient numbers will soon be overwhelming…from Westmead to Liverpool and Blacktown, ambulances now routinely line up in hospital carparks, unable to discharge their patients. What exactly is going on?”

Sobering sentiments, right there. And a question that verges on the rhetorical.

It’s the kind of event that many premiers – Victoria’s Daniel Andrews included – foreshadowed based on their health advice and brought about extensive lockdowns to avoid. This kind of activity has been taking place all over the world, notably in the US.

Five days ago, the Associated Press reported that the state of Arkansas ran out of intensive care unit beds for COVID-19 patients on Tuesday for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began. Arkansas has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the US, with 40% of the state’s population fully vaccinated.

At the time of writing, 18.7 million doses had been administered in Australia, with 6.9 million people fully vaccinated. Noice. But still, that only represents 27.2% of the population, which according to my limited understanding of arithmetic is less than 70%. To quote Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction, “Let’s not start sucking each other’s dicks just yet.”

The ABC is also reporting – somewhat depressingly – an “…increase in COVID-19 positive residents refusing to self-isolate”. That’s hard to read, and even harder to comprehend. Asymptomatic people, fatigued from the third wave lockdown? You can kind of understand them doing this. Those who are asymptomatic but have been tested because of proximity to Tier 1 or Tier 2 exposure sites? At a pinch, you can see why it happens, even though it really shouldn’t. But diagnosed COVID-19 positive cases not self-isolating? That’s a dirty pool. Criminal negligence. Public floggings in Martin Place-type stuff.

In NSW, official words and actions look to be motivated by the people’s prevailing mood, rather than best medical practice. Say what you will about Daniel Andrews’ government, but nothing he’s been doing for the past 18 months has been textbook popularity contest-winning stuff.

It’s a weird state of play that while NSW, the ACT and Victoria are all under lockdown, the NSW government is downplaying their own situation; the federal government is arcing up their attacks on those states with zero COVID with the unmitigated temerity to “keep doing what’s worked and is overwhelmingly popular”. Someone seems to have forgotten to tell Frydenberg and Morrison that WA and Queensland are part of the Federation, and that winning seats in those states are necessary for the Morrison government to be returned to office.

Let’s find out how that turns out, shall we?

This article was originally published on The Big Smoke.

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Someone Else To Blame – The ‘unvaccinated’, the queue, and the guinea pigs

By Peter Wicks  

The new dawn looms. Where the unvaccinated are Morrison’s scapegoats and our children are used as guinea pigs.

Sometimes making people do something can be tricky. Some go for the gentle encouragement method. Others go for the ‘scare the crap out of them’ approach.

It’s sad to see NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and some in our media taking the latter approach. In what has now finally been declared a race to vaccinate, I personally feel the scare tactics have gone a step too far.

I listen to the daily updates of the hundreds of COVID-19 cases in NSW and hear the daily death toll as we all do. But like many others I wince when I hear the victims of Sydney outbreak described not as loving mothers, or cherished sons, but as ‘unvaccinated’. Like that is the most significant thing about their life.

We all want to see more people vaccinated, but I think this public branding of a victim is both perverse and disrespectful. It borders on victim blaming.

 

 

The other thing that really irritates me about this victim blaming is it ignores the fact that we have a shortage of supply of the Pfizer vaccine. Hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps millions are currently sitting on a waiting list for the vaccine. Their wait is by no means any reflection on them, rather it is a reflection on the Morrison government. If any of those on a waiting list caught the virus and ended up dying, they would be another statistic announced as ‘unvaccinated’. Not because they were an antivaxxer, lazy or complacent, but simply because Scott Morrison didn’t order enough vaccine.

However, when Berejiklian says “sadly there have been three deaths in the last 24 hours” and then adds “all three were unvaccinated,” that’s not the impression you are left with.

 

Another day of victim blaming?

 

You know what I’d like to see?

I’d like to see those in our mainstream media question this.

I’d like to see them ask, regarding those who had died, “How many of these were on the long list awaiting vaccine availability?” Why not? The data should be available from NSW Health.

I live in regional Victoria, I was originally told I had to wait over 8 weeks just to get a date to make an appointment as everything was full and their system would not allow them to book anything ahead of eight weeks. Fortunately I found an alternative that had just started getting access to Pfizer and I shortened the wait to five weeks. I know of many others still waiting for their first jab.

We hear Morrison talk about this imaginary figure of 30,000 lives somehow saved, meanwhile there is real data and real names for those that have died waiting for the vaccines he didn’t order. Real lives of real people with real families. Each one a tragedy worth far more than being labelled and brushed off as “unvaccinated”.

Each of these people died because we were not at the front of the vaccine queue as we were assured in perhaps the most shameful political lie told yet this century.

Those of us who haven’t died waiting for vaccine availability are now being told that ‘the dawn’ is coming. The day when we hit the magic 70% vaccinated and have to “learn to live with the virus.” Morrison insists we have to end lockdowns at some point, and that is the point he wants us to revert back to normal life.

 

 

That sounds great, unless of course you’re a kid, have a kid, or maybe grandkids. Children won’t be vaccinated, just like all the ones we are seeing now end up in ICU or violently ill from the Delta strain, the Gladys/Morrison strain as some call it.

 

Living with the virus

 

While in first world countries children as young as 12 are receiving Pfizer, here in Australia the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) have been asleep at the wheel waiting for Health Minister Greg Hunt to figure out which way to hold the map. While Morrison and Hunt bicker with ATAGI over the wording of Astra Zeneca advice, children are picking up the virus and taking it to school for show and tell.

2022 is looking like it could be the year the Morrison government turned everyone’s children into guinea pigs while the modelling his decisions are based on shows the Delta variant will spread like a wildfire. Never mind, just like last time there were wildfires, the long vaccinated Morrison will probably have Jenny and his kids watching the carnage on TV from a beach hotel suite in Hawaii.

 

Australia’s burning

 

At least back home we’ll be able to do the important things again like go to a Harvey Norman store, or cross our fingers and put the rent money in a pokie machine right?

Yeah sure kids can wear a mask to school, but how many adults do you see having trouble fitting a mask properly?

 

 

Even if ATAGI pull their finger out and approve Pfizer for anyone over 12 years old, and even if we have 100% of those eligible vaccinated, where does that leave kids under 12? Do they all have to become Bubble Boys and Girls and live their lives in lockdown until a vaccine is found for them?

We need better options than what is being proposed.

Some will think I’m just being negative and not offering any ideas. I may be wrong, but I thought the countries Chief Medical Officer was paid the big bucks to do just that?

Instead of finding ways to improve our prospects he unfortunately seems to be focussing on trying to find ways to justify Morrison’s positions.

Morrison now says “It’s not how you start the race, it’s how you finish the race.” Well as we lurch from one failure to the next it is looking increasingly likely under a Morrison government we won’t see the finish line.

If we want to make the distance there is one thing that we will need almost as much as we need more vaccines.

A new government.

This article was originally published on Wixxyleaks.

 

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#IStandWithTruckies was about a sandwich, now it is a vehicle for anti-vax propaganda

By Dave The Trucker 

It started with a push for workplace rights, but the subversion of the #IStandWithTruckies hashtag is indicative of where we’re at in this country.

The virtues of a transient workplace such as mine mean you can roll your eyes at fellow staff’s comments without reprisal. The downside is that the comments you hear don’t have a face, they just come through the radio, supplanted by the next, louder comment.

On Twitter, the hashtag #IStandWithTruckies is trending, inspired by the possibility of a countrywide blockade erected in response to the government (whichever one) making a vaccine mandatory. It, like many things of ill repute, is an American invention, one eagerly bumped by sound thinkers, like Clive Palmer.

On the platform, user Ben Davison writes:

Right now the mouthpieces of foreign propaganda are using #IStandWithTruckies to plan a series of blockades to undermine our #Covid19 response. The screenshot is from a video with an American explaining how to disable a truck to use it as a barricade.”

 

Image from Twitter

 

Elsewhere, under the same hashtag, many are showing support of the plan, purely because of the crucial role that truckers possess. It’s a maxim I hear in my workplace. If we stop, the country stops. We are the people that the government will listen to. If we stop for a week or month, the government will really feel it. However, the point is lost, as the message is a drive against political corruption and/or taking back the country.

 

 

In reality, the genesis of the movement was motivated by the application of COVID rules at a roadhouse in Gilandra. According to what information has been passed on, the local police apparently threatened a $5000 fine if they let truckies dine-in, which conflicts with the National Cabinet exemption allowing dedicated stops and lounges to remain open during Covid lockdowns.

Per Big Rigs:

“Senator Glenn Sterle, a former truckie himself, has now taken up the fight, writing to NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and other state cabinet members to get on board and ensure police abide by the National Cabinet directive on truckies’ facilities.

“‘I urge you to please show some leadership, put an end to the confusion and ensure that the above-mentioned exemption is upheld and roadhouses are allowed to stay open to provide the services our essential truck drivers rely on,’ said Sterle in a sternly-worded letter this week.”

From there, it spooled out of control. While it was initially about the denial of basic amenities on the road (the ability to eat, shower and change), it has now been misappropriated by far-right figures who may or may not believe that the world is run by child abusers. This is certainly a shame, as we’re now suddenly about to form a countrywide blockade for reasons we’re not entirely unified about. It’s either about overthrowing ‘Afgladystan’ or being able to get out of our cabs when we stop.

Indeed, per Big Rigs, the Gilandra matter was quickly resolved.

“Common sense has prevailed in Gilgandra and staff at the roadhouses there can now serve sit-down meals to truckies without the threat of fines from police, advises Senator Sterle’s office. After a flurry of follow-up emails between the NHVR, Transport for NSW and local police, the drivers’ lounges are back in business,” the publication wrote.

Big Rigs also published the following post on the Facebook page of the HomeStyle Diner & Takeaway restaurant:

“To All our DRIVERS, after many phone calls emails and messages we are glad to inform you that our Drivers lounge is open for Drivers only to ensure that we follow rules the tables have been set out to the square meter rule. You can sit down and eat your meal providing u (sic) only sit eat your meal and follow the COVID rules…this is an amazing outcome for our Transport drivers. No Locals and or Traveler’s (sic) can sit in this area it is for Drivers only to manage their Fatigue so the staff ask that if you have ordered food that you please wait in your vehicle to ensure that we keep this area open for our drivers. Thankyou (sic) Everyone for your support, have an amazing day.”

Yet, #IStandWithTruckies is now the top trending hashtag in the country. While the struggle of the mythical humble trucker is something that needs to be seriously addressed, and yes, many on the road are furious, and have found meaning in unifying behind a shadowy controlling figure that may or may not exist, having this other element piggyback our crusade will not enable change. In fact, it will mean the opposite will become true. As many on the road see themselves as ostracised, forgotten or outside the national conversation, standing alongside these conspiratorial elements will see us tarred with the same brush, and see our worst fears come to pass.

From there, the path is clear. Those who didn’t particularly believe in these theories may now believe, as those uniformly banned as “COVIDIdiots” may seek a new audience, those who don’t judge.

All I can offer is what I’ve heard from these one-way conversations on the road. Many are angry, scared and paranoid. If there’s a figure to unite against, one who allegedly enabled a once-in-a-century crisis we’re forced to navigate, doing something feels better than doing nothing.

Therefore, this starts to make sense.

 

 

This article was originally published on The Big Smoke.

 

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Toad of Toad Hall

By Ad astra  

This short piece is not intended to be a serious treatise; instead it’s a light-hearted appraisal of federal politics. We have had our fill of commentaries on the ins and outs of the Canberra scene written by self-confident ‘experts’ who believe they understand the machinations of the political class. It can’t be all that complicated though; self-interest seems to explain most of the day-by-day behaviour of our politicians.

Instead, this is a search for our very own ‘Toad’, in our very own ‘Toad Hall’, federal parliament. Persist with me if you’re up for a disrespectful tilt at our politicians.

Why Toad, an inelegant creature with none of the refinements of a classy frog? What is it about this ugly fellow that attracted me?

I suspect it was the enigmatic personality of Toad in A A Milne’s dramatisation of Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel Wind in the Willows (my favourite tale as a youngster), namely Toad of Toad Hall, that caught my attention at I grew up in what was then the rather sooty coal-mining precinct of Silkstone-Booval in Ipswich in SE Queensland.

He appealed to me because he was so full of ideas. Some were bright, some ridiculous, but they were always presented with such assurance, such confidence, such flair. His advocacy of his ideas was consistently enthusiastic, passionate, always patently honest. Yet the impetuosity with which he presented them resulted in blunder after blunder, which he conceded in his characteristic self-deprecating manner: “stupid Toad”, “silly Toad”, “ignorant Toad”...

The question I put to you is: Who, is our very own Toad in our very own Toad Hall, our federal parliament?

Who there has a personality that matches Toad? Can you identify a politician who consistently comes along with ‘bright’ ideas, who presents them with unbridled enthusiasm, who falls flat on his or her face over and again, but, and this is a big ‘but’, is ready to admit mistakes?

Or does your mind revert to the plethora of politicians who never do so, always seek to blame others, always find others whom they deem responsible?

Our PM is a past master at sheeting home mistakes to others. When have you heard him genuinely, I mean genuinely, accept responsibility, concede an error of judgement, appear eager to put the record straight? No, it’s always someone else’s fault. His verbal diarrhoea is legendary. As is his inability to utter a genuine full-throated ‘Sorry’. There’s always a ‘Morrison’ way of avoiding it.

Unfair appraisal? Reflect on his demeanour during press conferences, where his characteristic smirk bespeaks confidence, over-confidence some would say. Others may use a less polite descriptor.

Our PM is no ‘Toad’.

 

This article was originally published on The Political Sword

For Facebook users, The Political Sword has a Facebook page:
Putting politicians and commentators to the verbal sword

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Human-induced Climate or Natural Cycles?

Climate deniers are trying hard at present to deal with the latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Report. The Murdoch media has been doing such denying for many years by publishing many authors who deny IPCC science, because they can. And the result is numerous claims by these deniers, none of which actually agree very much with each other. The IPA publication “Climate Change: The Facts” (2017) demonstrates the muddle when its editor tells us there are many contradictions among the authors, but it is hoped that these contradictions will be reconciled.

The latest IPA publication “Climate Change: The Facts” (2020) takes a different stance and rejects the idea of human-induced climate change and puts the whole matter down to natural cycles. It is this idea which guides the work of Chris Mitchell in his essay “IPCC report shows devil is in the detail for climate alarmists” (15/8/2021, pay-walled).

Mitchell makes three points in his introduction. One is that the Report adds little to the 2014 report and that it is a political report according to Graham Lloyd (a fellow journalist who has compiled so many of those denier contributions over the years) and he claims that it does not bode well for the Glasgow meeting in November.

Secondly, he suggests reducing CO2 emissions to 1.5C – 2.0C by increasing targets is a waste of time because the developed world is already reducing emissions, but India and China are not reducing emissions before 2030 – so emissions will still rise from developing countries.

[Why there could not be reductions across the board does not seem to be considered, but the fault, it seems, is with other people.]

Thirdly, finance people are asking Australia for increased climate ambitions, but there is “voter hesitancy” in paying for climate action.

[Rather like citizen hesitancy with vaccines. But what is the cost of no or very little climate action?]

Mitchell claims there is and will be conflict between countries and also within the UK about paying for climate action while, according to the Daily Mail, “the Chinese are burning coal like there is no tomorrow.”

[What we see here is what climate activists are accused of; that is, being alarmists. It is a favourite tactic used by deniers: activists are alarmists while deniers give only “the facts.” Besides, who is providing China’s coal?]

While Barnaby Joyce chips in with the thought that he is not going to ruin his lifestyle while helping to improve the lifestyle of Indians and Chinese.

[This is part of the neoliberal claim: that selling coal to others lifts them out of poverty, but to stop selling coal would ruin our own lifestyle. The first thing to say is that both India and China are aware of the limits of a carbon economy, but Australia is still caught up in a technology climate plan which will still allow the burning of coal plus “technologies”.]

Mitchell keeps a keen eye on what happens on the ABC. Adam Bandt, in speaking with Fran Kelly, mentions what Johnson has done in the UK and what Biden has done in the USA. Mitchell claims all Johnson has done is abandon his heat pump policy and Biden has seen record gas and oil exploration and exports.

[Is that all Johnson has done? And what about Biden?]

According to worldoil.com 17/2/2021:

“US will import 62% more crude by 2022 due to domestic production declines, says EIA ( US Energy Information Administration)”. It goes on to say “The EIA Short Term Energy outlook 2/2021 estimated that 2020 marked the first year that the US exported more petroleum than it imported on an annual basis.”

[But see the headline above. Obviously one has to keep up with changing facts.]

Bandt asked about Oz’s carbon emission. Mitchell claims Oz’s emissions reductions are ahead of most countries and ahead of its Paris commitment for 2030.

[Of course, the Coalition target is not a big one, and even if the Coalition does achieve it, it will leave much to be done by 2050. The question is: Where will the Coalition be in 2030 or 2050? The www.industry.gov.au March 2020 quarterly report tells us that overall emissions fell1.4% or 7.7m tonnes – now 14.3% below 2005 levels. Still a way to go. Some emissions have occurred through the effects of the pandemic. An SMH headline, 10/8/2021, says: “Australia’s climate policies falling short of United Nation’s global goals.”]

Bandt told Kelly that Oz is lagging on renewables. Mitchell’s comment was: “The numbers show Australia is a leader on wind, rooftop solar and solar farms.”

[Remember how the Coalition has been happy to subsidise coal. But is not happy about subsidising renewables which are becoming cheaper than coal and making coal a stranded asset. Here, anyone would think that the Coalition invented renewables, so full of praise for renewables as they are.]

Bandt claims that “Morrison is putting Australian lives at risk with his 2030 targets.” Mitchell replies: “Yet 2021 is to date one of the coolest years since 2000, largely because of a strong La Nina phenomenon.”

[climate.gov’s state of climate tells us “June 2021 was the fifth warmest on record.”]

More dramatically, the carbonbrief.org article (26/7/2021):

“While the early months of 2021 have been cooler than much of the past decade, global temperatures have risen in recent months as the effects of La Niña have started to fade” gives many instances of extreme weather events, which the World Weather Attribution says are “virtually impossible in the absence of warming caused by human emissions of CO2 and other hothouse gases.”

There is a string of events listed. “This year is now on track to end up somewhere between the fifth and seventh warmest year for the earth’s surface since record began in the mid-1800s.

“The past two months have seen record-breaking heatwaves in the western US and Canada that are fuelling devastating wildfires, as well as flooding events in Europe, India and India driven by extreme rainfall.”

And there is more on the website.

And a word about heat affecting the planet. This comes from a little book about climate change entitled ”Dr Karl’s Little Book of Climate Change” written by Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, published by the ABC. He writes:

“The amount of extra heat from the Sun trapped by the current level of Greenhouse gases is about 400,000 Hiroshima atom bombs each day. That’s an incredible, but dreadful, number. However, this energy is spread over the 510 million square kilometres of the entire planet’s surface, not just concentrated into a single square kilometre.”

[And he goes on to explain details you might not have heard before.]

Now we come to the most amazing claim made by Mitchell in his entire essay.

“Here’s a fact this newspaper has been emphasising for two decades. Man-made climate variability in the short term is dwarfed by natural changes to climate.”

[We come to an interesting and revealing part of Mitchell’s essay. The IPA climate publication for 2020 has bagged the IPCC manmade science and now claims climate change is a result of natural cycles. Mitchell claims The Australian has been emphasising natural cycles for 20 years. Meanwhile, he calls upon Graham Lloyd to make a contribution.]

Graham Lloyd (30/7/2021) has “reported a stunning admission reported in Science magazine.” The Science report is that some climate models are “running hot”. But first, let us go to someone else to discuss climate models, always a matter of contention.

[A team of 9 from different places write about climate models in “Yes, a few climate models give unexpected predictions – but the technology remains a powerful tool” (The Conversation, 9/8/2021).]

“(Models) unequivocally show that warming of the planet since the Industrial Revolution is due to human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases. This confirms our understanding of the greenhouse effect, known since the 1850s. Models also show the intensity of many extreme weather effects around the world would essentially impossible without human influence.

“The latest scientific evidence, using observed warming, paleoclimate data and our physical understanding of the climate system, suggests global average temperatures very likely increase by between 2.2 degrees C or high as 5.6 degrees C.

“… scientists use climate models cautiously, giving more weight to projections from climate models that are consistent with other scientific evidence.“ (Prevention Web, 8/8/21)

So it is not a matter of models only. And scientists know when predictions are wrong and can search for reasons why. Whereas deniers cry alarmism, yet use models, too.]

Lloyd’s writing on models concludes with reference to Professor Michael Asten, geophysicist, who says:

“There is a discrepancy between models  and observational studies. And that has been obvious since the year 2000. It’s even clearer now in 2021. The only surprise to me is that it’s taken so long for the establishment to admit there is a problem,” Asten says.

“In 2021… the global temperature has decreased to the same value it was 15 years ago. The report ignores this. I argue this is a significant flaw in logic.”

“Asten,” said Lloyd, “took the rational approach to over-hyped reporting.”

“The world has already warmed 1.1 degree since 170 year ago and the world’s a nicer place…170 years ago was a little ice age. If we warm another 0.4 of a degree I don’t see that is a problem and, no I am not frightened’.”

Asten is easily debunked by The Conversation team of scientists. His ideas about models and observation is wrong, as are his quoted temperatures.

But it gets worse with further research into Asten and his ideas about natural cycles. There is a published notice of an Environmental Seminar 21 August , 2020 at the University of Queensland.

In an abstract for that Seminar, Asten explains he will discuss and compare:

“… proxy temperature cycles contained in data sets from European glaciation, China agricultural records and two global constructs. A high correlation between European and China data sets, especially for 800 – 2000 CE, demonstrates a level of synchronicity between possible regional phenomena. Spectral analysis shows a series of spectral peaks in all data sets consistent with those detected globally in cosmic ray flux, which supports the theory of natural climate cycles being partially under astronomical control.”

So there we have it. “Cosmic ray flux” and “natural climate cycles … under astronomical control”?

How does that sound? About right? Just the kind of thing to impress “informed” Murdoch readers?

And for real analysis by a real astrophysicist, Professor Michael Ashley, at The Conversation (31/8/2011): “Event horizon: the black hole in The Australian’s climate change coverage” where the author is scathing about the climate coverage at the time when Mitchell was editor of The Australian and debunks various deniers, including Asten. Well worth a read.

It appears that nothing has changed at Murdoch Land. They claim they present alternative views for people to decide what they think. In fact, it is such a muddle of disparate views there is no sense to be made of it and all it has achieved is delays in what should be done about climate change. Very dangerous and alarming.

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Australia: To where are we advancing?

https://twitter.com/i/status/1427917634390007812

 

This is far too good not to share, and a big hearty thank you to Jaqueline for giving us the opportunity to do so.

Let’s help this go viral.

PS: Play video with sound turned on.

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Why alternative truths?

By John Haly  

Much is made of the 21st century being a post-truth world. Many identified it when presidential spokesperson Kellyanne Conway defended White House Press secretary Sean Spicer’s fallacious claim about attendance numbers at Donald Trump’s inauguration. Kellyanne Conway infamously referred to Spicer’s assertions as “Alternative facts“. This became a catch cry of satirists, comedians and news broadcasters reflecting the absurdity of presidential lies and fallacious propaganda. However, political manipulations of the “truth” are older than the writings of the ancient Chinese military treatise of “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu.

Populist lies

What does mark the 21st century is not the strategic lie of clever politicians but the blatant lie of the Populist. The blatant lie has replaced clever self-serving lies that take time and nuance to unravel. It’s an appeal to a demographic wanting the smallest of justifications to rise in the insurrection at the Capital or organise a packed, mask-less protest rally during a pandemic.

Great swathes of humanity descend into the 21st-century rabbit hole, emerging catatonic and confused into a world of irrationality, conspiracy theories, and QAnon. Framed by shameless populist’s admonition, whose goal is greed, popularity and personal gain/power at any cost to society. However, the political class has always been tarred with the brush of falsehoods by the public. Those goals aim to serve ideological or personal ends, but for the population, the falsehoods of this century have more dire consequences. These blatant lies blind us from the existential threats to us all, such as COVID-19 pandemics, climate change and biodiversity collapse.

 

Post-truth world equals Pre-Fascist realm

 

We should ask ourselves both why and how “alternative facts” (or, to put it bluntly, “mendacious lies”) dominate and hamper the cultures of the modern world and warp our perspective of the truth.

Here are my ten reasons why “alternative truths” hold sway.

1. Political advantage

 

Manipulating the populous through algorithms

 

Contemporary manipulations of the public for political gain are outsourced to the private capital of organisations such as Cambridge Analytica that resulted in the election of Trump and other populists. The data mining and psychological manipulation on behalf of Trump were detailed in the whistleblower’s book, “Mindf*ck” by Christopher Wylie. The broader European perspective of “This is Not Propaganda” by Peter Pomerantsev explores the dark world of influence operations run amok. It is a world of dark ads, psy-ops, hacks, bots and alternative fact propagation. This would include Firecrest technologies, Emerdata and SCL Group companies and even i360. The latter aided the conservative political gains in the South Australian elections but were abandoned despite protests from state branches by the evident lack of digital nous exhibited by federal Liberal Party operators. Nevertheless, it is a global phenomenon with many agents producing propaganda in social and mainstream media.

2. Media power and control

The dominance by organisations like the Murdoch press, OAN, and Fox News engage us in divisive propaganda instead of news and accurate journalism. Instead of holding power to account, the Fourth Estate is more frequently complicity with power. This is not merely an opinion but the legal defence used by Fox News to defend their hosts. Legal complications over the lack of veracity in reporting have long plagued the Murdoch press, but its power over parties and electoral influence is also a matter of record.

3. Cultural complacency

 

Cogitative progressions and the death of reasoning

 

There is a culture of acceptability for political lies and even allowing the lies to slide by with populist politicians. Manipulative social media posts that appeal to emotional or perceptual biases are propagated. “People feel free to make unsupported claims, assertions, and accusations in online media,” said Vint Cerf. As Dan York also notes, “The ‘mob mentality’ can be easily fed, and there is little fact-checking or source-checking these days before people spread information and links through social media.

Not only do we disparage fact-checking and frequently could not be bothered to check political veracity, but partisan “fact-checkers” also have weaponised “fact-checking”.

4. Experiential evaluation

There is a cultural belief in the fluidity of truth in which opinion and anecdotal expressions are given identical or greater weight than fact-checking and well developed and robust methods of statistical analysis. Cognitive Research states, “People are also more persuaded by low-quality scientific claims that are accompanied by anecdotes and endorsement cues, such as a greater number of Facebook ‘likes’ as well as prior exposure to misinformation. In particular, the presence of anecdotal evidence can serve as a powerful barrier for scientific reasoning and evidence-based decision-making.”

5. Underfunding education

The defunding and elimination of free university education has resulted in an inferior quality of education for the Australian/American/British populations. As John Biggs and Richard Davis’s paper on “The Subversion of Australian Universities” concludes, “Today, our tertiary system is no longer able to fulfil its proper function in the community.” The deteriorating quality standards in Australian Universities leaves many graduates unequipped for the working world. Academic bodies have for years petitioned against the cuts to higher education to increasingly deaf ears in parliament.

It is not just tertiary education in Australia that is suffering a decline. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) reports that high school test scores have been plummeting for years.

The deteriorating education results in a plummeting of quality standards in Australian Universities. Access is based on economic capacity to afford education and the resultant financial pressure to pass mediocre students. Instead of passing students based on individual intellectual demonstrations of academic quality, a culture of grading on a curve is the acceptable standard.

6. Irresponsibility

A list of Rabbit-holes to dive down

People have not been held accountable for the results of their inane opinions, whether they range from:

These people have largely been able to get away with their foolish choices and claims that have generated destructive results for Australian society and civil liberties as a whole.

7. Poverty

The paucity of resources available for adequate discernment or investigation of the truth is underscored by the crushing weight of surviving poverty. Ill-equipped communities, schools, and teachers have to scale inter-generational poverty and abuse that impact brain development, breadth of opportunity, material resourcing, and starting education at an expected time and age. Economic disadvantage is linked to chronic tardiness, lack of motivation, and inappropriate behaviour in school children and follows them into adulthood. Eric Jensen documents this in his book “Teaching with Poverty in Mind: What Being Poor Does to Kids’ Brains and What Schools Can Do About It.” This is before we even contemplate the issues of remote and regional education in the vastness of Australia. Underfunding public schools and TAFE and tertiary education have a long history in Australia. Extracurricular activities such as music, languages, travel/excursions, and etc are only available to children of wealthy parents or private education as public education has suffered multiple ongoing budget cuts that date back decades.

8. The “means” of production

Beyond poverty, the working class and the demands of their labour, of time and energy in terms of excessive working hours and inadequate wages and working conditions limit their socio-political awareness. One’s financial needs for personal and family obligations leave little time or energy for contemplation into the truth of State propaganda and media bias. Moreover, juggling more than one job to meet the financial demands of survival depletes time and resources for contemplative thinking. The ABS reported recently, “Filled jobs increased by 73,700 in the March quarter, 56,100 of which were jobs worked by people as a secondary job.”

9. Dismantling opposition

Diminishing critical public resources results in the inadequate assessment of proposals and developing ideas. The data necessary to evaluate deteriorating social and economic business concerns vanishes. This has been exemplified by defunding and closure of legal advice, research facilities and a raft of labour market monitoring (specifically during Abbott’s reign) along with compromising formerly independent bodies such as:

  • Productivity commission with compromised business executive,
  • Climate monitors stacked with fossil fuel executives.
  • CSIRO being compromised with Gisera vested interests in Gas and Coal, and
  • fact-checking units within public broadcasting.

The result is that critically based research becomes more inaccessible. Misinformation is easier to find, and the partisan media spoon-feeds that to the masses by the bucketful.

10. Illiteracy

Literacy is a surprisingly large issue in Australia; as Benjamin Law wrote some years ago, “…an OECD study surveyed Australians aged between 15 and 74 and rated them on their literacy skills. The results were shocking: 43.7 per cent had below-proficiency-level literacy.” Some indicators since then have seen improvement but as Helena Burke in the Australian noted: “According to the OECD, one in eight Australian adults are functionally illiterate, reading at an OECD Level 1 or below.” Unfortunately, though, she continued to say, “At present, there is no national adult literacy policy within Australia.”

Infotainment or Knowledge

 

Broadsheets to YouTube how conditions have worsened

 

Criticism of relative illiteracy notes how many in the community get their knowledge base from YouTube videos rather than reading and comprehension. Short podcasts and videos provide a superficial education with little by way of citations to follow up. In pursuit of easy to digest snippets of short-form, educational content (infotainment) provides an ephemeral intellectual reward and a diminished perspicacity. As a freelance journalist, I am aware this article exceeds the Guardian’s word limit of 800 words and Independent Australia’s at 1200. Long read articles are a small specialist market for a limited audience as the response of the larger public is usually conveyed by the acronym “TL;DR”. So even for the literate, reading can be viewed as onerous. Ask yourself when did you last read a non-fiction book? While the Australian Council for the Arts determined that 92% of Australians self-identify as ‘readers,’ the time spent doing so averages 6 hours and 18 minutes a week. That put our country in 15th place in the world.

These ten factors contribute to the ongoing undermining of truth in society.  We often seek simplistic answers to complex questions. Too many of us will not spend the time reading and examining the nuance and subtleties of issues. (Especially when they can be breezed over in a five-minute video.)

 

Too Long; Didn’t read!

 

Still, you are here reading this article. Did you just scan it quickly out of idle curiosity? Did you click on even one embedded link out of that curiosity to further your knowledge of something herein written? Perhaps, I got something wrong, but would you know from reading the link’s contents? Was that “reading”, or did you skim over what was written quickly because it was a bit long and … hell … who has the time, education, or philosophical inclination for in-depth understanding?

 

This article was originally published on Australia Awaken – Ignite your Torches.

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Failure in Afghanistan should prompt urgent reassessment of Australia’s war powers

Australians for War Powers Reform: Media Release

The tragic situation unfolding in Afghanistan should lead to a complete overhaul of how Australia goes to war.

That’s according to former diplomat and acting President of Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR), Dr Alison Broinowski.

“Hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan are now facing imminent danger following the complete mismanagement of the withdrawal of troops, in a war that was never properly and transparently scrutinised in Australia. There was a serious lack of oversight and accountability on both joining the war and how it was conducted.”

“In 2001 troops were sent off amid the shock of terrorist attacks on the US, but many key elements of a decision for war, including an exit strategy, were nowhere to be seen. Now the Afghan people are paying the price, as the Australian government has failed to protect those who worked with Australian forces.”

“For several months, numerous experts and NGOs have been pleading with the Morrison government to urgently offer visas to these staff and we have seen delay after delay.”

At present the power to take us to war is concentrated in the hands of the Prime Minister, and the Parliament has no say whatsoever.

“We need legislation to ensure that our elected representatives have a vote before any Australian forces are sent overseas,” Dr Broinowski said.

“We also need rules in place that require Parliamentary oversight as any war proceeds. Transparency and accountability to Parliament are critical. Australian governments have repeatedly lied to the Australian people about the progress of the war in Afghanistan.”

“There is currently legislation sitting in the Senate to address war powers but both the major parties are refusing to debate the bill. They have done this repeatedly since 1985. This must change,” Dr Broinowski concluded.

 

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