Time for drastic change
Survival of the fittest has led us all up the garden path.
Mankind has become the world’s greatest predator, and its search for total control is trampling all that is good in us into the dust.
One of most important species in the world is, surprisingly,the bee. Its survival is at stake, because more money can be made if the grower ensures there are no insects around which might damage the crop. Yet, without the bee, much of the pollination process will be severely hindered, and how will the next crop grow if the seeds are not pollinated?
Observe the loving care with which elephants shepherd their young into safety, yet the importance of the value we put on the ivory in their trunks exceeds our desire to protect this kindly giant. Watching a group of elephants reveals a sense of community which we are fast losing.
Fighting for survival is a natural reaction when life is at risk, but too many lives are being put at risk, because of the drive to secure power at all costs, by those whose regard for their own desires ignores the needs of others.
Communities can only survive in a healthy state, physically and mentally, if a significant majority is prepared to work for the greater good rather the for personal dominance over their locality – or, in some cases, over the world!
All round the world, going far back in time, human beings have sought the answers to many questions, and in the process many religions have developed, with followers looking up to one or many gods as the creator. But in too many cases, these gods have been created in man’s own image, mirroring his faults as well as his virtues.
How else, given the message that Jesus Christ is reported as sending, “Thy shall love thy neighbour as thyself”, can you explain cults which claim to be Christian, but which encourage their members to seek great wealth for themselves, with little or no care of who else might be hurt in that process?
Or others where a priest is regarded as representing a god, and able, on his behalf, to forgive you your sins, with no real regard for the hurt sustained by those against whom you have sinned?
Yes – we are much more likely to have a harmonious community if we can establish a commonly accepted ethical system. And – yes – there will always be those who flout the community’s standards and need, somehow, to be dealt with humanely.
At present, greed and desire for power are driving the world’s inhabitants towards an end which may see mankind driven off the world’s surface altogether.
And if the rest of life on earth could think and reason, they might see that as entirely fitting, given how little regard we have for a sustainable environment.
Since the Industrial Revolution, increasing understanding of generating all forms of power, using fossil fuels has enabled a revolution in the developed world in terms of transport and production.
What we have not learned, is the need for moderation.
Thrift, making things last by repairing and remodelling whenever possible, is ignored in the developed world’s throwaway society. Plastic has performed a massive range of functions, but no regard has been given to how to dispose of it, once it has served its purpose. In consequence our oceans and rivers are polluted to the extent of destroying and maiming marine life.
Many of you, if you have read this far, will be saying “So what! We already know all this!”
So why the hell are you letting it continue?
WE have elected governments which have behaved unethically, yet we have then re-elected them. Both major parties connived in defrauding Timor Leste, a new, very deprived and damaged nation, of oil resources which could have provided funding for them to establish themselves faster and more effectively.
And to make matters worse, they are now prosecuting Witness K for behaving ethically in revealing the government’s bugging of the Timor Leste government’s offices, done to assist Australia to gain a totally unfair advantage. They are also prosecuting a former ACT Attorney General for being made privy to this information and assisting Witness K. How can this be justified?
We have similar unsavoury behaviour in our current headlines.
Few, based on their history, would regard the promises of the Sri Lankan government – that Tamil citizens who have sought refuge elsewhere, will remain free of persecution if they are refouled.
But those in the government, responsible, over recent years for Immigration – our current PM and the highly criticised Peter Dutton – accept those promises – at least so they say. Having then taken so long in determining the status of a Tamil couple, who arrived in Australia separately (having both seen and suffered persecution), that they were able to meet, marry, settle in a fairly remote area and have two delightful little girls, they are now persecuting them.
During this period, it was a matter of national interest that two au pairs, who arrived with the wrong visas, should be able to bypass the usual rules and remain to work for mates of the Minister!
Now the government is insisting that this family, much loved and valued in Biloela, must leave Australia. To this end, brute force and noticeable cruelty has been involved in dragging the family, initially into a southern detention centre, then in to airplanes, and, finally, depositing them on Christmas Island, where they wait in limbo.
It is worth noting, that, while they were in the southern detention centre, these was another very young child and her mother there, who remain there to this day – which gives the lie to the constant claim that there are no longer any children in detention.
Again, you cannot be ignorant of all this, and there is – justifiably – a massive outcry over the government’s cruelty and victimisation of this family given the government’s shifting standards over the use of ‘discretionary’ powers!
Australia is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
A quick glance at this Convention would indicate that the government has breached it in multiple ways.
Our Prime Minister makes a great show of his membership of a cult which claims to be Christian (see earlier) and makes sure his presence at song and dance activities at their premises demonstrates his active religious faith. I don’t think I am alone in believing that, despite the show, the claim is hollow.
His actions give the lie to his claims.
His first concern is the power of his office and he pays no heed to the effort, made by those who wrote the Constitution, to keep religion out of politics.
Nor is there any evidence that his religion helps him behave in an ethical way!
And then, of course, our future is increasingly likely to be affected by events over which we have limited control.
If Scott Morrison remains in power with his warped religious expectation, the end of the world may indeed be on us unnecessarily early!
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33 comments
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Phil Pryor -
Keitha Granville -
Denis Hay -
pierre wilkinson -
Joseph Carli -
RosemaryJ36 -
Joseph Carli -
Joseph Carli -
Denis Hay -
Joseph Carli -
Miriam English -
Miriam English -
Joseph Carli -
Joseph Carli -
LOVO -
Joseph Carli -
LOVO -
Kaye Lee -
Michael Taylor -
Joseph Carli -
Denis Hay -
Kaye Lee -
Denis Hay -
Joseph Carli -
Joseph Carli -
Joseph Carli -
LOVO -
Kaye Lee -
Jack Cade -
Joseph Carli -
Kaye Lee -
Joseph Carli -
Kaye Lee
Return to home pageSelf deceiving, self inflating, self focussed ignoramuses are a great curse and this nation has had a series of conservative leaders unfit for public life. Morrison is unaware of his own deficiencies, inadequacies, emptiness. He is not a spiritual and generous person, being and unwiped anus of hypocritical self seduction. I’ve been avoiding news for the first time ever, except for radio and print reports of some reliability, because the photos, depictions, features, especially of this turd, are vomitous. The nation, people and planet deserve decency, not this, memelookatme rubbish. Righteous, triumphal, supremacist, matey, insider old boys club, fellow caste types, all crap.
I am an old hippie, just watched the footage of Woodstock 50years on. A time of love and peace and music and sharing. At the time, the hippies were labelled junkies, dirty, immoral, wasters, blight on society, every nasty name you can think of, and yet for 3 days they lived in almost complete harmony with each other, nearly half a million of them.
How? Because money didn’t matter, things didn’t matter, they just lived for the moments.
Clearly we can’t all simply live as hippies, but we can take a great deal from their experience.
Share.
Help others.
Love.
Don’t judge.
Enjoy simply pleasures.
Somehow, someone has to start. Before it’s too late for us.
It won’t be too late for the planet, she will survive long after we have destroyed ourselves.
I agree, that it is time for a drastic change in our broken and corrupted political system, but this will not happen with our current crop of politicians. Enough people need to stand up and bring about positive changes that will benefit all Australians.
Here is one way you can stand up and be counted: https://youtu.be/pm0utUd-ros
At present, greed and desire for power are driving the world’s inhabitants towards an end which may see mankind driven off the world’s surface altogether.
but will the world’s other life forms survive our wilful greed and ignorance?
Joe Carli
@JAYSEE423
·
7m
The clue that tells me the election was rigged..an old gambling saying that is as reliable as a bookie’s “intuition”..: “You never win off scab money”…ie; Chance doesn’t reward best hopes or intentions…usually the opposite..& you never win two elections in a row on thin luck!
Joe Carli
@JAYSEE423
·
4m
Which is just what the LNP has done with the 2016/2019 elections..the first with last minute postal votes, the second with last minute swing votes……..bullshit!…ask the bookies what odds they’d give you on that happening??….it’s why the odds on the LNP were out to 5/1+….
Joe Carli
@JAYSEE423
It’d be like some outsider thundering down the the outside of the field to beat Winx by a short half head!…it just wasn’t going to happen…time to bring in the stewards on the last election.
But surely one of the greatest concerns is our failure to ensure that people hear the truth?
Hate to repeat an old but never more pertinant in these days of Cambridge Analytica style misinformation, that query asked down through the ages…; “What is truth?”..and If I can add another ancient rider to that question…when it comes to disinformation..: Cui bono?…For whose benefit?..
The complexity when dealing with human needs and wants in this age of “everythin now!”…is to make”truth” a universal appealing sound for all…..and it just ain’t gonna happen.
“When a ruling class, used to total dominance of governance, economics and military command has reached the end of its capacity and capability to perform those requirements listed above because of either complete corruption, debased ideology, or incompetent leadership…then one of two things can happen..: The class in question steps aside and relinquishes control of civil governance to the next capable social class with the enthusiasm and drive necessary for the job, or it collapses further into its own debased corruption and fights and claws its way to the inevitable bitter and bloody end via a series of political / social pogroms against its own people until it is brought down in a violent civil war. This is the example of history.”…………From..: The Long Days Dying… https://freefall852.wordpress.com/2019/03/13/the-long-days-dying/
So, just about everyone is complaining about our broken and corrupt political system, but complaining is not going to change anything. Our current crop of politicians could not care less about what we think or what sort of society we want.
If you really want to change anything, then stand up and be counted and do something about it. One potential option is to at least read the policies of RepresentUs Australia: https://representus.com.au/policy/
And if you think you want to see these policies implemented, then consider signing up: https://representus.com.au/members/sign-up/ and doing your bit to bring about a new vision for Australian politics.
Denis Hay…Your voice or that party’s voice will be too small and irrelevent to the gargantuan requirements to change direction of the capital and social juggernaut that is bearing down upon us…It is a phenomenon that has been shown historically to come to every maturing nation that requires a surgical “cut” to seperate the cancer from the bone…and is rarely done without a spilling of some blood…indeed, it can be the “blooding” of that procedure that helps mature the nation and re-draws the social rules and conditions acceptable to the majority of that nation, along with a new constitution that better aligns with the needs and wishes of the nation…history shows there is no escaping it…..all else is avoiding the necessary surgical procedure from a fear of pain.
The system is now too corrupt to allow democratic prosedure to halt the progress of the decline….not just in Aust’, but in the three major Anglo-speaking countries.
Rosemary, quite right. The inability to get real information across to the majority of people seems to be the core problem. It seems like a paradox that this is so when more people have easier access to more information than ever before.
But there are still only so many hours in the day, and genuine information now has to contend with a flood of entertainment like never before. We have not just TV, but YouTube, Netflix, Stan, and heaps of other streaming services, as well as vlogs (video blogs); we have not just radio, but countless podcasts and online audio; we have not just newspapers, but vast numbers of online news sources and blogs; not just books, but increasing numbers of ebooks and audiobooks. Many of these are free, giving us an embarrassment of riches. The most poverty-stricken among us have access to information and entertainment on a scale that would have been envied by the wealthiest people on Earth just 50 years ago.
We make more time for ourselves with many labor-saving, time-saving devices (washing machines, water on-tap, fast transport, harvesters, telephones, computers, home printers, electric lights, microwave ovens, etc). Unfortunately we then seem to fill our remaining time with more work, or with more entertainment to help recover from that work. Many westerners now often have very long work hours that include lots of unpaid overtime. And we have a government that insists that we should all work even harder… even to the grave. Western society is now the most productive society in history, not only because of all this extra work, but also because of increasing levels of automation.
It’s not surprising that someone who comes home from a long, hard day at work doesn’t feel like learning about the new depths of corruption plumbed by this government… especially if they were conned into voting for them.
How to fix this problem? I wish I could think of an easy answer. All I can come up with, is to just keep trying.
Denis, don’t let Joe’s pessimism deter you. The tallest gum trees grow from seeds the size of sand grains. Also, while Australia, UK, and USA are having big trouble with corrupt politicians, Canada, New Zealand, and many European countries seem to be managing well.
” The tallest gum trees grow from seeds the size of sand grains. ”
Miriam…This one is a better maxim…
“If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto the mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”
And if all else fails, start a political party of one or perhaps two…and with grit and determination..you can change the world!…………..IF..you don’t tread on too many toes.
Btw….that mountain that you would command to “get hence”….it won’t …you know…
The problem we are witnessing with the decay of rule of law and ethics in governance can be sheeted right home to what I wrote of so many times…: The decline of imagination and forward thinking by the middle-classes…How many times you got to be told?…How many ways you got to be shown?…and still it cannot be halted…
“It is true that the history of past centuries ought to be the instructress of the present; but not in the vulgar sense, as if one could simply by turning over the leaves discover the conjunctures of the present in the records of the past, and collect from these the symptoms for a political diagnosis and the specifics for a prescription; it is instructive only so far as the observation of older forms of culture reveals the organic conditions of civilization generally– the fundamental forces everywhere alike, and the manner of their combination everywhere different–and leads and encourages men, not to unreflecting imitation, but to independent reproduction.” (Mommsen ; History of Rome, chap 11, bk 5.).
The “organic conditions”…the unchanging habits of reaction and interaction between people…Greed, jealousy, love and hate…forever unchanging..the behaviour toward such things forever predictable…I believe it is already too late to change this nation’s destiny…just as it is probably too late to change many effects of climate change.
Joe, plant a tree, shrub or herbaceous plant in your neighbourhood and think global but act local. After all, ‘from little things big things grow’. Fight., mm! ! !
Rosemary J. , I’m guessing that you’re not a fan of fake xtian me me’s. 😉
Just a thought about pollination and bee’s, bee’s are but one of the pollinators. Many other insects (and birds etc) pollinate. Even the humble mosquito (the male) is an prolific pollinator of our food…and every other plant..
Insects have become Canaries……as have the Bees.
‘Think fly swatter before spray and keep the apple in play’ ….or some such… 😳
LOVO…I’m not even in any equation of revolution or fight..I’m much too old…I’m old but well-read…and the books I have read tell of means and methods that have been used down the ages…history told by those who are much more savvy in the arts of politics than me or you or any others who post on these pages…There are lessons they would pass on..not for their own greater glory…how could they?..they are long dead…but their knowledge is eternal because they have learned over many decades the habits of humanity…NOT the foolishness of false promises and empty illusions…You know their names..or you ought to…but going by your facile suggestion to myself, I have my doubts.
Such sardonic wit and I do so like the ad hominum. fck’n awesomeness, man.
Doubt is eternal….welcome to the world.
……and, of course, my apologies…….genuflects n’ bows..
Crikey, : cross-eyed smiley :
😆……😯
The idea that Australians are going to arm themselves and rise up in a bloody insurrection against some undefined “middle class” is fantasy. I think I will join LOVO and plant a tree. Think globally, act locally. Be kind to each other.
Plant a tree, be kind to people, and speak the truth.
“Walk with truth and you’ll walk a straight line.”
Australia, the USA and the UK are all in a mess and we all have the Murdoch media. Coincidence, yes?
If I may now circle back to tree planting … please don’t do what I did two days ago … planted a silver birch in what must have been the hardest plot of ground in the Southern Hemisphere! Took me damn hours (with numerous rests) with pick and shovel to get the hole wide enough and deep enough. Was damn proud – and relieved – to finish the job. Trouble is, it took me at least 30 minutes to get out of bed the next day! Every cell of my body was screaming with agony … and still is.
But anyway, that’s one silver birch down. Two to go.
Agree, Kaye Lee…no-body is going to arm themselves and begin conflict…they won’t have to..it is going to come to YOU…and in case you haven’t been watching…it is already happenning…go back to drinking the Soma…and LOVO..I suggest you plant a wattle..: Acacia pycnantha…that’s a nice one and it is fast growing.
Joseph Carli… I hope your vision does not come true and enough people stand up and be counted. As a movement of political Independents with a shared vision: https://representus.com.au/vision/, they only need to get the balance of power in Parliament to make changes. I for one will be doing my best to bring about positive change in our political system so that all Australians are treated with compassion, dignity and respect.
Miriam English…thank you for your encouragement. I won’t let Joe deter me. We will see what changes happen in Brittan and the USA coming elections. It could possibly be a catalyst for positive change in other Countries.
Actually, the world is a less violent place than at any time in history. I know it doesn’t feel like it but it’s true.
The greatest threat of violence in this country is domestic violence and drug and alcohol fuelled violence.
I do worry about what climate change will bring about if we continue to think we are doing the right thing to base our economy and energy on coal and resist the move away from fossil fuel transportation. That could get scary. Many also worry about overpopulation but I think if we educate girls, employ women, and lift people out of poverty, stop letting the religious dictate about contraception, abortion and euthanasia, that problem might sort itself out.
I don’t know what “go back to drinking the Soma” means but it would be really cool if you could disagree without a personal reference for once.
Kaye Lee…here is RepresentUs Australia’s climate policy: https://representus.com.au/policy/climate/ and environment policy: https://representus.com.au/policy/environment/
Someone pass me my Dream-catcher!….
I suspect a point has been reached where the social cost of realisation of witnessing ultra-violence on screen that has all the reality-like structures conjured up with CVR imagery, IS leading the first-world down a rabbit-hole to fantasy so much more dangerous than anything that original first-tripper; Alice ever went down .. :
“ In that direction,” the Cat said, waving its right paw round, “lives a Hatter: and in that direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.”
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here.”
Btw, K-L…your first and second lines contradict eachother…a small thing…but . . .
Seriously though…It’s why I have ceased writing social and political commentary…because it all has been said…and said in a time when to be forwarned was to be fore-armed…but now it is too late…the “wheel”, as they say, “is in spin”.. Now, I post extended threads up on Twitter…just to give notice to certain “irregularities” that I see happening.
Like the fraudulant electoral system we see in operation in the last two elections…”fixed”, not just with technicalities like Palmer’s “preference farming”, but actually physically manipulated through the clumsy, oversight and regulation by the AEC. now as inept as the ACCC, ASIC, the AFP and ASIO…. etc, etc…all “plumbed together” with either retired military “Duntroon poltroons” or ex-LNP afficianados.
There were several audits done on the AEC from 2009 to 2014( incl)..see my Twitter thread here.:
“… the transport of completed ballot papers by contractors, on polling night and subsequently. In some States and Divisions, contractors have an important role in transporting completed ballot papers but ANAO’s further work in this area identified a range of..
Joe Carli
@JAYSEE423
·
6 Sep
..shortcomings with the approach taken by the AEC to contracting for the transport of completed ballot papers. In particular, inadequate security provisions were a feature in most of the contracts examined; or
security arrangements at premises used to store ballot papers…
Joe Carli
@JAYSEE423
Variable practices were observed for the Divisions and polling places examined by the ANAO. Of note was that the extent and nature of security measures employed at offsite scrutiny premises differed, and the lockable rooms available at some of these premises were not large enough
11:32 am · 6 Sep 2019·Twitter Web App
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Joe Carli
@JAYSEE423
·
6 Sep
Replying to
@JAYSEE423
to hold all completed ballot papers.
The insufficient attention paid to the above matters reflects adversely on the AEC’s governance processes and suggests the need for a stronger organisational emphasis on continuous improvement.
Joe Carli
@JAYSEE423
·
6 Sep
Replying to
@JAYSEE423
https://anao.gov.au/work/performan
In that report, we can see a couple of “old friends” making an appearence…vis : “Keelty and Justice Haydn”….another couple of useful “consciousness of kind” appeasers to the ruling upper-middle classes…and I see that Keelty is now heading up an “investigation” into the Muray-Darling water problems….a solution that will no doubt match all others submitted by himself in such “inquiries”…
I can see when I look into that old audit into the AEC, less identification of areas that HAVE to be fixed, than the identification of areas most vulnerable to manipulation of fraudulant ballot papers and insecure ballot boxes…handy if one wanted to know just where the “go-to” place was to commit such an offence…and did they fix those problems?…..I dunno….do you?
If the above ANAO link doesn’t open, try this one.. https://www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/australian-electoral-commissions-storage-and-transport-completed-ballot
Joe, I have planted our floral emblem a few times now. Mainly on Wattle Day as a ceremonial gesture.
I have planted hundreds of tree, bushes etc in my community and organised planting days that have contributed thousands more.
I have, several times now, shown school kids, scouts, joeys and girl guides, how to plant natives in their local environment.
My group has just recently instigated a trial program called Backyard Bush Nurseries as part of our Greening the Hill mk 2 projects. It’s aim is to get people involved in growing local native plants for our community in their own backyards.
This is what I mean by act local.
This is what I mean by Fight , Joe.
“your first and second lines contradict each other”
No they don’t. The world is a more peaceful place. Our greatest violent threat is not a foreign power invading or bombing us, it’s not lone wolf terrorists, it’s not slavers or press gangs, it’s not organised crime, it’s not predatory animals – it’s the men we live with.
Keith Granville.
Re:,Woodstock and flower power. When you and I and many others were seeing the awakening of the West’s conscience and the expectation that Vietnam had shown us that war was not the answer, people like John Howard, George Bush, Cheney, Thatcher, Blair were festering away, just waiting for their moment. No flowers in THEIR hair.
The Pollyanna Principle..
“In America, being optimistic is key to being liked and successful.
Politicians know they get votes with such statements as, “America’s best days are yet to come!”
Self-help gurus sell more books and get more clients by blithely proclaiming, “Work hard and you can achieve your dreams!”
Clerics get more parishioners and donations with “With God’s help you can accomplish anything!”
Friends who say, “You can do it!” are more popular than those who make a probabilistic estimate, for example,
‘Your chances of paying back your student loans let alone making a sustainably middle-class income from that music or art or fashion or broadcasting degree are lower than of a rattlesnake biting you in your bed. Of course, exceptional people that can get into a nationally-top college cannot be so denigrated, but outside of those few elite schools, artsy degree and certificate programs can, without much exaggeration, be described as bizarrely expensive four-to-six-year summer camps that enable their lackluster students to claim they’re pursuing a career.’
Imagine that a friend said the previous paragraph to you—You’d probably de-friend them faster than you could say “mean-spirited.”
Yet being popular should be less important than being helpful. ” (psychologytoday.com)
Good for you , LOVO….
K-L..” it’s the men we live with.”…Speak for yourself!
“Speak for yourself”??? Are you for real? Are you so completely ignorant of the statistics?
https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-data/behaviours-risk-factors/domestic-violence/overview
You just can’t help yourself but to always make it personal. It is a very unfortunate trait of yours Joseph.
Kaye Lee..Must I remind you that it is Sunday?….How about a bit of peace and goodwill toward your fellow men?
That would be nice. Perhaps you could make a Dream-catcher?