I’ve been reading a lot around the social media about the concerns that the youth of today showing no interested in politics. With an election looming it’s a bit of a stumbling block as we attempt to encourage those who haven’t enrolled to vote, to do so.

OK, maybe they’re not interested in politics, but surely they must have some interest in their future. Maybe they need a gentle push, a whisper in the ear that the two are unavoidably intertwined.

In the United States Bernie Sanders attracts an enormous following with the under 25s. Bernie Sanders, from what I know of him, agitates for social and economic programs that put people ahead of profits. The average American youth doesn’t want a future that was engineered by governments who ignored ‘the 99%’ in favour of the corporate elite. The consequences of such will of course be devastating.

I can’t see it being much different in Australia.

We are witnessing a widening gap between rich and poor. We are doing nothing to mitigate the devastation of climate change. We are handing billions of tax payer’s dollars to the elite at the expense of the middle and lower classes. We are technologically barren and insist on remaining so. We have snubbed science and the opportunities of the future. We are placing a decent education out of reach of most young Australians. In a nutshell, we are robbing the youth of Australia of their future. And I say ‘we’ as we as a country have voted in a government that in only one term has dismantled the social, economic and environmental initiatives of recent governments. Imagine the destruction of just one more term. That’s all they’ll need.

So to the youth of Australia, if you want the life that many Australians have enjoyed for the last few generations, then you can have it by simply voting for it. Please enrol to vote. Now.

The Prime Minister will most likely be calling an election shortly after the Budget is handed down in a couple of weeks. Once the election is called you will have only seven days to enrol. If you miss out . . . we will all miss out.

Cathy McGowan, the Independent member for Indi says it a lot better than myself. In a plea urging young people to vote she urges:

“To the young people … now more than any other time, we need you, the country absolutely needs you … We need young people to say here is how the world can be made better for us, here is how we can create jobs, here is the infrastructure and education we need and I’m prepared to put my hand up and be involved”.

The future is in your hands!

Something went missing from our mainstream media after September 2013: the opinion of the opposition leader. Until then it was the most sought after voice in politics, then suddenly it stopped and has since has become blatantly irrelevant.

In November of 2013 I wrote:

‘Do you remember how most political stories used to begin between the 2010 and 2013 elections? They began with “The Leader of the Opposition says … ” and we were bombarded daily with whatever opinion Tony Abbott held. Even articles about the Government or a policy release began with the mandatory “The Leader of the Opposition says … “

Have you seen any article begin with that since Bill Shorten was elected Leader of the new Opposition?

When Tony Abbott held that position the media used to beat a path to his door. Now anyone would be right in thinking that Bill Shorten has gone in hiding: yes, he’s been rather silent, but why aren’t the media making an effort to talk to him? Why are they no longer interested in what the Leader of the Opposition might have to say?

Well we all know the answer to that. The Government has made a mess of just about everything they’ve laid their hands on, so the Leader of the Opposition is the last person they’d want to speak to these days. The Opposition could have a field day thanks to the stuff-ups from [then Prime Minister] Abbott and his team of incompetents; it’ll be a real turkey shoot.

But they can’t do it without the media giving them a voice.

Oh how I miss the good old days of “The Leader of the Opposition says … “

Well, two and a half years later things haven’t changed.

I and others have often been critical of Labor, believing they have a product to sell which they aren’t, and believing they have a government to condemn, which they aren’t. But in all honesty, how can they? The mainstream media was able to help Tony Abbott sell his message prior to the 2013 election and half the population was sucked into believing that the ‘carbon tax’ would destroy the human race and that stopping the boats could be the only thing that would save it.

And now, with the country facing even a greater crisis than the one manufactured in 2013 and one that Labor has a better chance of steering us through than the current government … they are muted.

There is an Opposition leader and I would like to hear what he has to say.

(But if he’s sprung texting while driving … then the media is all over him).

Malcolm Turnbull is in campaign mode, which in ‘Liberal speak’ means that the scare campaigns begin. As expected, this election would see a scare campaign against the unions. On script, yesterday the headline boomed ‘Unions threaten the nation’s economic future, says Malcolm Turnbull‘ who himself goes on to say that:

The terrorist attacks in Belgium were appalling and we have all been touched as stories of heartbreak, loss and despair emerge.

Politicians from across the world have been quick to condemn the attacks, and rightly so. I join with them.

But you often wonder if many of these politicians – though obviously themselves appalled – don’t seize such events as moments to grasp some political traction.

We saw this from Tony Abbott during the Lindt Cafe seige. I don’t doubt his genuine disgust at the event. It may be just me, but I doubted his heartfelt sorrow.

I feel the same about Donald Trump.

I don’t think he could get to a microphone quick enough so he could use the Belgium attacks as a weapon in his political arsenal. In fact, he was in so much of a hurry that he didn’t bother to ask what Belgium was. Speaking on NBC’s TODAY, Trump said:

“Belgium is no longer Belgium. Belgium is not the Belgium you and I knew from 20 years ago, which was one of the most beautiful and safest cities in the world”.

So there you go, Belgium is a city.

He was in so much of a hurry to tell Americans that he would close their borders et al that he forgot to even wonder what Belgium was!

It just doesn’t sound genuine to me.

It was as though he was ready to pounce within seconds of a terrorist attack.

My, he would have had a real problem if the attacks were in Yackandandah, Timbuktu, Humpty Doo, Bringthekegalong or Whyrootamoocow . . . same speech, but wouldn’t know where it was.

By the way, where is Whyrootamoocow?

The second most important story on news.com this morning was ‘IS teen girl stabs police officer in Germany’. You can see the link to it from the screenshot (below) of the front page of news.com. I apologise for the small image, but you should still be able to see the link: its at the very top.

The article begins with:

Breitbart reports that the 15-year-old was wearing a headscarf when she was approached by the officer at a Hanover train station in November.

It was in November! But:

Now, months later, authorities have confirmed the motive behind the attack.

The girl had reportedly spent time living on the Turkish-Syrian border and was reportedly angry that she could not rejoin her IS compatriots.

‘Reportedly spent time’. ‘Reportedly angry’. Is that another way of saying ‘unconfirmed’?

I see that they have taken the article from ‘Breitbart‘. I clicked on the link to Breitbart and the article to read that:

The event garnered no media attention at the time but it has now been proven the attack was inspired by Islamist ideology, with the young girl attacking a target in Europe because she was unable to travel to the Islamic State itself to join her co-religionists.

Oh, so it was her Islamic beliefs that have made this a story. (Not an important one, it seems, as if you click on to the front page of Breitbart you’ll be hard pressed to find a link to the article anywhere. And by the way, Breitbart took this article from the German paper ‘Bild‘. You won’t find it on their front page either).

My point is, why is this a story? And why is such an obscure story a headliner in the Murdoch media?

If you spend some time on Google – as I just did – you’ll find that in America alone there was probably 45 murders committed yesterday. Hundreds would have been murdered worldwide. There may have even been some in Australia. But unless they were committed by a Muslim then they’ll more than likely go unreported.

IS is an evil organisation. True. Most IS members are Muslims. True. IS murders people. True. But it must be very hard to promote hate about Muslims or IS when there are no murders to report. I guess the best thing to do – if it is hate you want to spread – is dig up some obscure article about a November (non-fatal) stabbing and jump for joy in the knowledge that it is suspected there is an IS link.

How many people will use this Murdoch media headliner to feed their hate or spread their hate even further? What other purpose would it possibly serve? Absolutely none.

It does nothing but promote fear and hate. This seems to be the Murdoch media’s game.

The publication of John Lord’s article on Facebook today – because it mentioned the word ‘race’ – seemed to be the trigger for ‘Abo haters’ to vent their spleen. What struck me, aside from their demonstrated outrage, was that their ‘knowledge’ of Aborigines was gained from ‘experts’ in the field such as Andrew Bolt, or anybody else whose world view is based on their own version of subjectivity.

While debating them I recalled a statement I heard recently: ‘Don’t bother me with the facts when my mind is already made up’.

And so it was in today’s exchange.

Nonetheless, it always pays to put the facts ‘out there’.

A number of years ago I wrote this article – ‘Consensus Reality’ – following similar arguments with similar fools. I feel compelled to drag it out of the archives . . .

I heard the phrase consensus reality while listening to a discussion the other day. I liked it. It stuck with me. I also liked what it defined, when explained, that it is a shared, social construction of reality that we believe to be true. It doesn’t have to be true; we just need to nod our heads in agreement that we believe it to be true. A bit like herd mentality, really.

Can you think of any examples? I can. Many, in fact. The pages of history are filled with them. The earth is flat! The earth is the centre of the universe! God created the earth in seven days! Or some more contemporary ones: The dingo didn’t do it! All politicians lie! All dole-bludgers are lazy! All gay people die of AIDS! All Muslims are terrorists!

One I used to hear a lot in my former line of work – and still do – always put me on the front foot: All Aborigines are drunks!

This is the horrible perception shared by the majority of non-Indigenous people in this country. It’s the consensus reality.

Let’s face it, we’ve all seen Aboriginal people drinking or drunk in parks, yelling at each other or intimidating passersby. These may be the only Aborigines that many city dwellers see on a regular basis and hence they fall victim to consensus reality. Every Aborigine I have seen has been drunk, so it must be true; they’re all drunkards.

I’m quite happy to tell you that it isn’t true. More the truth is that Aboriginal people drink in open areas, whereas non-Aboriginal people tend to confine their drinking (and unsocial behaviour) to enclosed areas such as hotels, restaurants, clubs or their or someone else’s home. For every one drunk Aborigine I’ve seen in a public park I’ve seen 100 drunk white people in a public bar. Further, for every Aborigine I’ve seen drunk in a public park I’ve seen hundreds of sober Aborigines in country towns or remote lands. I for one don’t share the consensus reality that all Aborigines are drunkards, yet this is the stereotype often reinforced by the media and the wider community.

There is an element that are, but this is not the purpose of this article. Nor is the important reason why some drink (which is notably due to loss of culture and identity).

Now let’s look at some facts on Aboriginal alcohol consumption:

Contrary to public perception surveys have in fact found that proportionally fewer Aboriginal people drink alcohol than whites do.

29% of Aboriginal Australians did not drink alcohol in the previous 12 months, almost double the rate of non-Indigenous Australians.

Aboriginal people are 1.4 times more likely to abstain from alcohol than non-Aboriginal people.

Further statistics I have found, which are similar to those that were produced while I was working at ATSIC show that:

By comparison with non-Aboriginal people, a large proportion of Aboriginal people do not drink alcohol at all and, in some Aboriginal communities, alcohol consumption has been banned by the residents.

Up to 35% of Aboriginal men do not drink alcohol compared with 12% of non-Aboriginal men.

40% to 80% of Aboriginal women do not drink alcohol compared with 19% to 25% of non-Aboriginal women.

In the Northern Territory, it has been estimated that 75% of Aboriginal people do not drink alcohol at all.

So why do we perpetuate the myth, the consensus reality that all Aborigines are drunkards? I am certain that events such as the 2007 Northern Territory Intervention helped perpetuate the myth. But it is about as far from the truth that the earth is flat.

Our Indigenous brothers and sisters deserved better than of the image society has created of them. Let’s not stereotype all Aborigines because of the visible ones. The invisible ones are a proud people. Perhaps that’s the consensus reality we should be promoting.

Imagine if, after the Port Arthur massacre our Prime Minister (or any person wanting to be Prime Minister) said he (or she) could shoot people and not lose voters.

Imagine the universal uproar. The media would have called for his or her head, people would have taken to the streets in anger, and his or her own political career would have ended abruptly at the next election if not before. Such a comment would have certainly ended a political career.

But of course, in reality John Howard – or any political leader or aspirant in this country – would never say such a thing.

Not so in America.

With the country still reeling and in shock from a string of recent mass murders Donald Trump told a press conference that he could stand in New York’s Fifth Avenue “and shoot people and I wouldn’t lose voters”.

It would be an understatement to say that I am disturbed by this. And in many ways.

The first, of course, is that it is a frightening thought that a political leader would dare to deliver such appalling words. The second is that he is probably right. He could indeed shoot people and not lose votes (though I’m sure he wouldn’t receive many, either). Our society is that sick and filled with so much hate that Trump would actually be seen by sick, right-wing extremists as a savior for shooting people. Yes, it is sick. Thirdly, I am disturbed that we live in a time when a political leader is not afraid to make such appalling claims. And I feel for all those thousands of people in America who have suffered a loss at the hands of a shooter. The insensitivity of Trump’s remark is simply beyond comprehension. And finally, I find it disturbing that the imagined uproar that would have followed John Howard making such a claim appears nowhere following Trump’s.

I’m not typically a hateful person. In fact, those who know me would attest that I’m quite the opposite. I’m of the mind that there are better things to do than spend a life-time being consumed and twisted with hate, and I pity those who are.

Nonetheless, there are people I do actually hate: I hate murderous scumbags.

I hate those who needlessly cut short the lives of innocent people. In particular, I hate with a passion the Islamic terrorists who blow up planes, blow up buildings, blow up themselves with the intention of sending others closer to ‘God’ with them, or open fire on mingling crowds of people whose only guilty act is that they are going about their daily lives in a free country.

We all hate them, so I’m not unique there.

But it’s not just the Islamic terrorists I hate. I also hate those deranged low-life bastards in the gun-loving USA who indiscriminately blast away the lives of their innocent countrymen. It’s impossible not to hate a person who aims an assault rifle at young kids in a school ground and excitedly mows them down with enough fire power that not only kills them, but mutilates them beyond recognition.

It only happens in America. And all too often. We gaze at the country in disbelief.

Yet I like Americans. I’ve visited their country a number of times and I have left, each time, impressed with their warmth and hospitality. And back home whenever I’ve mentioned that I like Americans I’ve yet to be challenged with such bewildering comments as: “How can you like Americans when they kill each other?” “How can you like Americans when they kill animals?” “How can you like Americans when you look at how they treat other countries?”

My expressed like of the American people doesn’t seem to faze anyone. Sure, there’s a lot about America I don’t like. I don’t like their gun laws nor see the sense in keeping them. I don’t like people shooting animals for sport, which a lot of them seem to do. I don’t like their policies on health or employment, or a raft of their foreign policies.

But it doesn’t stop me from liking Americans. They don’t all kill people. They don’t all kill animals. How can I blame (and hate) all Americans because of the actions of a small minority?

No one seems to care one way or another if I like Americans or not.

It’s pity the same logic doesn’t always apply.

Dare mention that we shouldn’t be blaming all Muslims for the Islamic terrorist attacks in Paris and you will unleash a barrage of incomprehensible hate that can best be described as pure insanity.

This was evident by the extreme level of unrestrained hate manifested in response to Victoria Rollison’s article, A Letter to Reclaim Australia as well as on other social media sites.

Anyone ‘daring’ to mention the obvious – that it was ludicrous to hold all Muslims responsible, or dislike Muslims because of – the Islamic terrorist attacks was, as evidenced, a hated person and one who ‘clearly’ supported:

• Child brides
• Wife beating
• Female genital mutilation
• Sex trafficking
• Forced segregation
• The fostering of terrorism
• Beheadings
• The subjugation of women

… and on it went.

How utterly ridiculous and outrageous. What a load of puerile, unfounded rubbish! Of course we (or I) don’t approve of those things.

The probability is, the pitiful hypocrites who make these insane allegations have far less chance of being killed by a Muslim than an American person has of being gunned down by a fellow countryman.

It appears there are indeed a large number of people consumed and twisted with hate, and as I stated earlier, I pity those who are. They have more hate than I can comprehend.