Australia's Democracy...is it a Democracy & other odd ideas

Democracy. Do we have one?
Well couple of odd things. Some people go absolute ape sh!t over the "Murdoch Empire" and how they're so bias towards the Liberal Party and after the Victorian Labor Party won government some are saying it's a triumph over the Murdochs as well.

Ahhh...
Labor Held Governments In Australia
1) Federal Labor Government
2) Northen Territory State Government
3) Queensland Labor State Government
4) Victorian State Government
5) South Australian State Government
6) Western Australian State Government

The only 2 Parliaments in Australia that are not Labor are the NSW Government & the Tasmanian State Government. TWO out of EIGHT Parliaments are Labor held.
So if the Murdoch press are the immensely overly powerful king makers some are saying it is...then Murdoch is either failing as pro Liberal Party or they're Pro Labor.

One thing is guaranteed to continue. Murdoch won't be perfect & it will continue to be targeted at being politically biased towards Conservativism. (Yes that's two things because I two am not perfect although the imprefections list is a lot longer)

Having noted that SkyNews etc have been critical of various conservative parties I can't say they're pro Conservative across the board. Their commentators are expressing views, their own views. Whether they align with the Murdoch Family or not probably isn't due to a decree of the company. I note they employ ex-Senator Graham Richardson (Labor) among other a few other left leaners. I don't always agree with any Sky commentator but I don't see them as disagreeable nor being Murdoch Family puppets. If they were then what ate past & present comperes of The Project, The Drum, Insiders or writers for the Guardian or the West Australian?
If you think someone in Journalism is a political party puppet/muppet...call them out regardless of the party. Don't hit one side. But hard to say Murdoch is a threat to Australian Democracy.

Is there a possible threat to Democracy or sidelining democracy in Australia?

Big question but first you have to define what Democracy. Basic idea is the country or state run by the people, for the people, that is the people decide things.

Thats a great primciple but we cannot have a legislative life where citizens roll up & vote on everything so whilst our government is a "Constitutional Monarchy" its also using a format known as "Representative Democracy"

We send representatives to go into Parliament to represent us...that being democratic.

There is no perfect system. This system we have in Australia is probably the best of the imperfect systems in theory if not practice.

However you cannot get your local MP to do eveything exactly as you want...again that wouldn't work.
In theory they will take your input & they encourage you to contact them.

Now that seems pretty democratic-ish yeah?

What if the MP is in a Party where they have absolutely no say which way they vote in Parliament?
Democratic?

What if there are only select & rare occasions where the MPs are gifted a "conscience vote" from whoever controls the party?
Still Democratic?

What if they cross the floor without a conscience vote they're then expelled from the party & socially ex-commincated?
Still Democratic? 

Yes they set out their Party Platform...well some parties do. Some like to keep it vague so they can sniff the wind and shape shift. Some play games and keep policies to a minimum so the Parliamentary Party room can control what they do not their laymembers
Still Democratic?

We do not have a Democracy.
We have a Representative Democracy & it's a little vague who they really represent. During a campaign its you. After an election it is the party not the electorate.
Its not as represnetative as you think

 

 

Western Australia's Hospital/Nursing Crisis - How & When? Part 3

Now how do we fix the Hospital Crisis?
I think its fair to say this won't happen due to personal ambitions of many differing MPs and the respective political strategies (of all parties) to win at all costs by smashing the opposing party or parties.
Solutions & good outcomes are extemely elusive when its adversial & many run eagerly to the incendiary issues with petrol & gunpowder.

Here is an example of the problem and the reluctance of the entire Parliament to avoid this, to fix this.
It seems unrelated to The Health Crisis & directly it is. But the essence of this is a clear example of the an underlying variable or perhaps widespread mindset within the Parliament that will prevent reasoned & rational debate in the Parliament & instead always revert to point scoring & slagging matches.

The Premier had the opportunity to show statesmanship. He chose not to.
The Premier had the opportunity to seek solutions with the opposition FOR the WA people. He chose not to
The Premier had the opportunity to show statesmanship & set out the rules of engagement as shared solutions. He chose not to.

Read from Hansard...

Read the question two maybe 3 times, think on it a little before you read the answer.

Peter Rundle MLA - "Does the Premier believe that it is appropriate for fundraising and campaign training to be delivered by the Labor secretariat to publicly funded electorate officers during their work hours?"

I think that (if it happened) would not pass the pub test anywhere in WA and the only way a person would approve of that misuse of State money is if they're deeply, immensely welded onto a political party and they claim is leveled at their party. 
No, government funds should not be used to train Electorate Officers on recruiting members for a party, any party. They should not be involved in electioneering matters at all. They should not ever be involved in fundraising for their MP or their MP's party...EVER, let alone be trained in it during work hours, paid for by the tax payers. Never ever, ever.

The Premier mentions things in his reply that were not of the question at all. 
That's called a deflection & distraction and to add weight the Premier pulled in other unrelated training that then provides the false bolster to the tactical reply.
The Premier then added a warning shot, hoping to diffuse Peter Rundle and avoid a supplementary question...or perhaps baiting him to a supplementary question because he had prepared a verbal baseball bat

Premier Mark McGowan - "I could outline some of the activities of the National Party in its electorate offices."

Indeed he could outline such things & wouldn't blame him were he to first properly & clearly answer the question & then outline the activities of the National Party. In any case it was a prime opportunity for the Speaker to ask the Premier to answer the question, not offer a diversion reply with a possible threat. The Speaker did not, why? On that a bit later.

For now, just know that after the Premier's reply Peter Rindle MLA asked a Supplementary Question which are designed to dig deeper or to hopefully get an actual answer instead of the tactical reply. You can't ask the same question again.
Again read the question 2 or 3 times & ponder on it before reading the answer.

Read it twice, maybe three times then look at the answer
Peter Rundle MLA - "Can the Premier confirm that his Labor Party secretariat is delivering fundraising and campaigning training to electorate officers during work hours..."

There was no "yes" or "no" with an explanation. Instead you got a politically based tactical reply instead of an actual straight answer.

Peter Rundle MLA - "...and that the Premier sees no issue with this?"

Again there was no "yes" or "no" with an explanation. Instead you got a politically based tactical reply instead of an actual straight answer.

Premier Mark McGowan - "As I said to the member, staff are trained in how to use technology and those sorts of things by all political parties, but I am aware of the National Party’s state conference in 2021. What did it do? It used the electorate office of the Leader of the Opposition for Young Nationals events—for the Young Nationals annual general meeting. There it is. Not only did the National Party do it, but it published that it was holding those sorts of things there. The Leader of the Opposition’s staff were up there campaigning in the by-election for North West Central. Not only that, the Leader of the Opposition actually thanked them."

This part of the Premier's tactical reply with political shot across the chamber has several levels.
1) Trained in technology was not the question, misuse of Electorate Officers for membership, campaigning & fundraising was the issue. 

2) When he did cover misuse of Electorate Office & Electorate Officers it was in regards to the Young Nats having their AGM in the Electorate Office & possibly other party based functions positions. This is either wrong and so to is it wrong that WA Labor is training Electorate Staff during work hours on recruiting members, raising funds and improving their skills in campaigning. They're with BOTH bad or 'yeah it's not good but you did it too so there's nothing to see'

Then then president of the Young Nats works for Mia Davies in some capacity. The fact they held the AGM in the Electorate Office was wrong, stunningly wrong. This isn't just a rookie mistake, it's something very obvious. Shouldn't have happened. Heads should roll. Same for the matters the Crime & Corruption Commission is investigating with the WALabor Party

3) I don't doubt the Mia Davies Electoral Staff were up at the North West Central by-election campaigning. I think most of them are also Young Nationals. Now I don't know if it was in Electoral Office hours or if it was they took leave or if it was outside office hours. We'd need that clarified. I note that was the by-election that the Premier & Cabinet decided not to run a candidate in despite them only losing that see by around 300 votes. Apparently the North West Central electorate is not worthy of representation in Parliament nor the Labor Government via a WA Labor MP. They don't need North West Central so they can go hang.

It would seem that someone was watching closely to see if lines were crossed by Nationals & the Liberals and notes were taken for firing shots back.

4) I don't know if the Leader of the Opposition Mia Davies MLA thanked them or not, but if she did, if she approved of it then stunned & disappointed. Not only is it misuse, it might be deliberate misuse if it isn't a rookie mistake. She is not a rookie. However she should not be used as an excuse to let the WALabor Party off. Both need to apoligise to the Electorate & to WA voters generally.

Either both are wrong or right misuing Electorate Offices/Officers or "Nah, nah, you did it too, so there..."
Its wrong. Period, full stop,

But this is the probably with the very adversarial political landscape, do whatever you like...as long as you win. If the other side does wrong, keep that powder dry until you get picked on & use that stored fault to your advantage. Not to take you both to the principal's office for an ass whooping but use it as a "Awww well they did it too"

That renders the Parliament into a landscape where winning is the prime & sole target and you have to be careful of firing shots at the other side doing dodgy in case it comes back to haunt you.

No. Do what's right, not what's popular & hold yourself and your political opponents to the same high standard that we voters not only want, we expect.

Now the Speaker. Again, the Speaker could have intervened on the Premier and his answer but didn't.
Well why would you...politically you wouldn't. If you were keen on proper, clear, succinct, rational, well reasoned actual answers to the actual question you would have intervened.

Peter Rundle MLA has strict requirements & cannot re-ask a question but the Premier doesn't have to actually answer the question, he only has to reply. 

Often you hear the Speaker (and the President in the Legislative Council) of their stand in say that the government MP "has answered the question" when they clearly have not. They have replied & there is no chance in hell of Question Time being actual answers to actual questions and those let down with tactical replies aren't likely to make much noise about it...if they end up in Government they're going to want to be evasive as well.

Its time for political reform.
Its time the Speaker & the President were not elected members of Parliament. Its time each were a board of 5 members taking turns with a contract that runs the equivilent of 2 terms of parliament but they only change hald way thru a Parliamentary term so they are not affected by a change of government & perhaps selected & appointed by the WA Governor and ratified by the Parlianment at 90% approval.

We're not going to get a decent parliament until we get a de-politicised Speaker/President.
Now its the cherished appointment prior to their retirement.

That's where we're at. A highly politicised adversarial parliament, a less than non political President/Speaker with no courage for proper answers or unbiased control of the unruly and a "oh yeah its wrong but they did it too" landscape.

See it, know it...its there & how it is.
Watch the political will to change it from MPs. Yeah that will rides on the back of a unicorn farting glitter and dragging magical packets of Tim Tams that keep refilling each time one is taken

Western Australia's Hospital/Nursing Crisis - How & When? Part 2

However too many had too much invested in the tribal based "win at all costs" and for that you don't need you & you opponents coming together, you need your opponents over there where you can get a clear shot at them. Whilst its war anyone half inclined to be on your side before hand welds themselves to you no matter how bad you do. Anyone on the fence will lean with you once you've invested enough fear into them along with enough demonisation of the opposing party. Job done.
In effect its a political example of "Yes the patient died a horrible, painful & avoidable death, however the operation was a complete success and they surgeons deserve you complete adulation"
Politics In A Crisis 101.
Never let a good crisis go to waste, weaponise it & ride the shit out of that puppy.

What could have been done? Well WA's economic fortunes changed & they would have happened whether McGowan or Barnett had won power in 2017. If Barnett had won, I think we would have seen the coalition re-elected in 2021 & we'd be looking at a Coalition Era almost akin to the Charles Court era. Wasn't to be.
Straight after the 2017 we (regardless of the party winning power) should have been looking at nurses conditions, their pay, their productivity and going long and going wide to recruit new people into training.
Also, seeing if any of the nurses who left nursing could be encouraged to come back to nursing. In the short term recruit interstate & overseas nurses with attractive but short term contracts to make up the numbers in the short term.

Instead we've seen things decline further, a savage purge at St John Ambulance and even attempts to close down St John's contracts and fully socialise the Ambulance system as a Government owned & run service. Ahhh guess what? With that, Ambulance Ramping Hours Reporting was likely to disappear.

Had the Government, the Opposition & the Nurses gone indoors 6 years ago they might have got somewhere. But the political landscape was dialled in on a pathway of aggressive battle between the 2 major parties.
Where we are was predictable. The opposition gives as much in principle support to Nurses. Attend marches & rallies with nurses. Hold public meetings with nurses. Be sure to say whatever nurses want to hear then cuddle them with rousing words of support & admiration...and hope it gets worse to the point that a wedge germinates between Nurses/Nurses Union and the WA Labor Cabinent.
That again is Political Play 101.
If Labor was in opposition, don't be fooled, they too would be doing the exact same thing.
The only difference is, WA Labor is the political wing of what's left of the Unions. 
You can be sure industrial action would have happened before 2020.
With a conservative opposition they cannot rouse the troops. They can only show empathy, say to the Nursing Union officials that they don't support industrial action but they understand that may come to that....blah, blah, blah.

Pre 2017 a cabinet with a number of members who have statesmanship in their bones would have said this needs fixing, lets put aside egos, agendas and get the Govt, the opposition & stakeholders in Health into a room. No one leaves until we have agreed solutions with a timeline with an agreed review with agreed metrics, with agreed goals, specific goals & aims. 
Who ever was the Premier that installed that whether it had been Barnett or McGowan, they'd probably go onto greater things and if they fixed enough things maybe history would be so kind to gift them their own hallowed place in WA Political History & maybe a statue in King's Park or under the Barrack's Arch.

Not a snowflakes chance in hell.

We have the adversarial approach in full flight in Politics.
We have wars amongst players within the same parties...Labor, Liberal, Nationals, no exceptions.
Ambition has replaced public service & winning is the aim. Winning for you politcal career & your high paid board seat career post politics...the fiduciary duty is only owed to the self first, the party second (when it advances the self) and the electorate?
Well many have been in politics enought to tell the electorate to go to hell in such a way they either look forward to the trip or they thank their MP for the opportunity to go somewhere warmer.

The Hospital Crisis, the ever worsening Hospital Crisis was avoidable or at least it was possible years ago to ensure it never got half as bad as it is now, possible a quarter of how bad it is not. 
But, politics and winning was the only rules of engagement. Statesmanship & putting the people first was quietly escorted outside, taken behind the shed, shot 3 times and pushed into a shallow grave. It is as its always been, Politics...GAME ON.

Western Australia's Hospital/Nursing Crisis - How & When? Part 1

Its as if back in 2015/2016 the WA Labor Strategists sat down & worked out what to politically target & how...and got right on with it. Now maybe you can say we can't blame them, they were just doing their job (and thats actually quite fair) where there was a fault was the rules of engagement & what was the chief aim, the main goal. With 20/20 hindsight that looks like when the trouble began, but even then its rather unlikely. It's more likely that both sides of politics have been sharing political aims & goals, had similarly bad ideas their fiduciary duty & who they actually serve. So this approach is not total unique to the WA Labor Party but its solidly entrenched there & around 2015-16 is where we see the genesis of the problems we see & suffer in WA today.

Back in the Barnett Government days it's was a slowly lessening chance of winning the March 2017 State Election. But as any good or any bad politician will tell you, politics is one train ride  that can turn into win or wreck at any given moment if you're not awake and pulling the right levers.

For either side there needed to be a political weapon. An issue or two or many that could be weaponised & going by the immense size of the WA Labor Party Platform (still online) they were looking to cover as many bases as possible. Those that looked like not panning out, quietly push them aside, then to the back, let them simmer or go cold & raise the heat on the others.

The Hospital Crisis was one & the then WA Labor Opposition Spokesman for Health, Roger Cook, went for broke, scorched earth on the Barnett Coalition & turned the 1200 hours of Ambulance Ramping into more than a political football, he turned it into a scroched earth ground zero.
That & a very large number of other things swept them into power. Faults that the Liberal Coalition had & refused to attended to & things WA Labor leapt onto. Hospitals were just one.

In opposition Cook called 1200 hours a "crisis"
During the 1st 12 months of a WA Labor Government, the word crisis was dropped & that honeymoon period rolled on. History is a right cow & can be weaponised too. Any flak a government cops can be blocked by hoghlighting "and what did you do when you were in Government..." and pick out a usfel failure & face stab the pesky opposition. There's little else likely. Happens regardless of which side is new & who is opposition.

Sadly though, it was to be that the Ambulance Ramping did not improve. In fact its risen regularly.
1200 hours then...
1200 hours times 2
1200 hours times 3
1200 hours times 4
Now if its correct that we're at 6000 hours or greater its...
1200 hours times 5

But even when it doubled the Coaltion's 1200 hours suddenly the new Minister Roger Cook was not weaponising it, he was beginning to go to the next phase after "What did you do in government? You did x, y,z damage damage blah blah, discredit & dismiss"
That next phase is to slowly defuse the weapon. Either by fixing the problem or politically deweaponising it, claiming it was now due to external factors out of their control etc.

Roger Cook stopped the word crisis & when, in the case of Albany Health Campus (Albany, Mt Barker & Denmark Hospitals, servicing some 60,000 people) it was not crisis levels. When those Albany only had one spare bed one one day on the day of a public meeting the minister said it was working "at capacity"
He said there were 5 spare beds. There were, but not at Albany. They were spread over the 3 hospitals spread 50kms apart and yes the Royal Flying Doctor was still transporting serious patients to Perth.
I know, my father was one of them. They couldn't get him a bed in Albany. He went from Ambulance, to Emergency, to Ambulance to pland & Perth. He didn't get to a Albany Hospital bed. He was discharged within a week & we had to drive him 400km home.
Great Work Roger. 

COVID had the political advantage of wiping over the crisis or hiding the hospital systems rotting decay. It helped Roger Cook & WA Labor politically. For a time it helped defuse the political weapon they'd built. But only for a time & the clock was ticking & the gunpowder was growing. If they didn't find the solution they would be politically damaged by the politcal weapong they had leapt onto.

When it got beyond crisis, Roger Cook was kept as Deputy Premier, anointed as McGowan's replacement, given toursim (not energy, not Police, not Prisons) and Amber Jade Sanderson was made Health Minister as if we were to accept, new minister, all that is now is no longer bad, its now the reset normal good. Ahhh...no.

As Ambulance Hours ramped, it became evident the problem was big, was growing and was getting worse. A lack of midwives meant if you were pregnant & live in Geraldton or north, you needed to get to Perth a month or so before you were due. Many hospitals, no mid wives. Same for expectant mothers from the wheatbelt. Imagine that, your faimily is 200 to 2000+ kms away. You faced the prospect of giving birth without family or without very many of them.

The hopsital crisis had 3 politcal players involved and if we were ever to get to a solution in 2015 or any of the 7 years that have passed since then, what needed to happen was a complete de-politicisation of the issue.
Fully bi or tri-partisan to the point its one team vs the problem and one team only...because during political slanging matches it was yelled "we're all in this together"

WE  ALL IN THIS TOGETHER - WE WERE NOT.

Nurses, doctors & in fact all hospital staff, patients, ambulance workers, paramedics...we were all in it together. Well yes but what we were in is a political barrel of rotting BS that political parties are sitting high above unaffected & stirring it all with a big paddle whilst pointing & shouting at each other.

What should have happened is what WOULD have happened had we been entering a World War 2 type event. Parties by all means challenge each other with ideas but the Government, the Opposition & the Hospital system should have all walked into a room & stayed there until they all walked out with a solution.
A shared co-owned solution and a genuine understanding of what to do if the shared solution failed...namely share blame, sit down and work out the next solution.
That is de-politicise it & make it a Plan, Act, Review, Repeat approach that they all own.

Its a funny thing that all political parties have thrown that approach in the bin in favour of stabby grubby politics, identity politics, make the others bad guys & win at all costs.
The proper approach I'm pointing to is summed up simple with one word.

STATESMANSHIP.

Fascism Today - Does It Affect Me & How?

Fascism can be hard to define, its bigger problem is that its so easy to mis-define & so many people do misdefine it & get away with it. And that is a result of its key features. It not only relies on deconstructionism, moral relativism, priority of subjective truth, dismissing objective truth's existence. rejection of transcendent morals & a determined hope to oppose & destroy facts over feelings in debate.

It gets portrayed as Right Wing Extremism as a natural result of capitalism or the natural destination of Conservativism...when it's the polar opposite of Conservativism, capitalism and many things of "the West".

On the internet Antifa portray themselves as Anti Fascism, Anti Fascists and yet because many of the Antifa crowd & their underlying doctrine is communist centred, they actually hold many of the very traits that are the bed rock & foundation of Fascism.

It is why many people consider Fascism to be a yet another Marxist offshoot & point to Mussolini's offsider & socialist philosopher Giovanni Gentile as being one of the father's of Fascism. People, intentionally or not, tend to wash over the fact that Conservativism, Western Civilisation were the arch enemies & the deliberate targets of all the Marxist offshoots in Pre World War 2.

Below is a short essay by Chris Rosebrough back in 2009-10 on Post Modernism & Fascism. It points out the history of both very easily, how its interweaved and how it pops its ugly head out in world politics, respective countries domestic politics, in science, faith, economics to swerve away from transcendent truth & more to some kind of magic where your chosen truth is the truth to you & therefore real. It's helped fuel a number of bizarre ideologies and has & will continue to run good running societies off the rails and a faster decline into hell on earth.

Now its splitting hairs to define whether an anti truth, anti moral, anti the West, anti capitalism person is Socialist, Communist, Marxist or Fascist but quite often on the internet the way some people shut down and arguement is to stop any reasoned debate and attack the person, call them a Nazi, Fascist, RWNJ etc. 
THAT is a classic tell of a Post Modernist. Get away from calm rational debate where bias is lessened & both sides put forward calm reasoned debate so hopefully if one side is wrong, that side can see it, concede it without embarassment or condemnation and the truth triumphs not one person over another. 

Post Modernism is often regarded as Fascism rebranded. Personally I think because Post Modernism, Deconstructionism, Fascism, Socialism, Marxism, Communism are all about deleting transcendant morality, objective truth, pushing moral relativism, personal truth, personal feelings over facts, removing individual freedoms, individual responsibility & dehumanising the citizen to merely an autonious measured unit that probably all are just different roots or limbs on a poisonous invasive weed. Indeed whilst Giovanni Gentile was a socialist phiosopher & is called the "father of fascism" its worth remembering that whilst Nazism was Fascist, not all Fascists were Nazis or followed everything the Nazis followed. For the most part Italian thinkers during the Nazi era that were fascist thinkers, many were not anti Jew & many opposed the death camps of Hitlers Germany when they learned of them. During the dangerous times of that era I suspect more were opposed but stayed silent as a matter of their own survival.

Germany did enter into a pact with Mussolini but they proudly stayed their own mob under their own national flags. I think as we saw how Hitler marched across Europe & was indeed keen on world domination, if Germany had defeated the Allies the Germany front would have been against its other competitor. Communism. Italy would have fallen to Hitler by force or by concession had that tide gone that way.

Anyway, below is the essay & its worth remembering that the words of Peter Drucker aren't the ramblings of some right wing nut job. He was there, in the pre WW2 era when Fascism was a strongly discussed new idea to replace what the masses thought was failing them and had pushed them into WW1 and the subsequent economic hell on earth that followed. The rise of Deconstructionists in the era, the rise of Fascism & all the Marxist offshoots was not falling on deaf ears. Out of desperation (& for some survival, to actually stay alive) it was heard, embraced & welcomed as a bright new hope. Whilst anti Semitism has been alive and sadly rampant since the days of Moses, the majority of post WW1 Germans were keen to kill anyone let alone Jews. Jews along with many other stripes of Germans helped to begin to rebuild an almost economically dead Germany in the depression deep Europe. The levels of unemployment, the deep angry scars of the war and not only the desperation but the nation wide feeling of dispair & hopelessness across the nation meant not only did Fascism amongst the interllectuals of the time get noticed, it took hold. And when someone like Hitler risen to a certain point, there was really only one form of fascism that the masses were going to flock to. Hitler's Nazism.
But remember, all true Nazis might have been fascists, not all fascists were Nazis.
You have to look at Nazism & Fascism as 2 different things that became one. 

And today we still have Fascism but it's not of the Nazi ilk.
Its closer to what the earlier types were. Anti Objective Truth, Anti Transcendent Morals, Anti Individual Rights, Fuller or Complete State Control, and a desire for legislated over reach & one day Authoratarian Control.
Thats Post Modernism, Marxism, Post Modernist Marxism, Communism, Marxism, Socialism, Fascism, New Age, Deconstructionism. All are anti The West. All are anti Objective Truth, All are anti Capitalism, All are anti Conservatives.
And were any of those vile offshoots to ever go to their fullest destination the working man who's traditionally been in union, pushing for a fair days pay for a fair days work would see that Union need to be anti these vile strains & that over the many decades the rise of socialism within Unions has been very much against the working man or woman. The socialist or Union leaders (gangsters) have used pretend left wing prose to rouse the workers to decline whilst they become millionaires. The worker has generally become slowly worse off. Don't believe me. How's manufacturing in the West going?
If I were a working man I'd want to be in a Union of Conservatives that keep industry (and therefore my job) going whilst pushing for safer conditions & fair pay for fair work.
If you're a union leader, you need war & battles with lots of angry members who listen to you say how under attack they are. You need to rouse fools almost to slaughter.
You do not need calm rational discussions with share positive outcomes & those people that did enter the unions never rose. Their place was never at the back of the bus where they might be happy if that got an equal say. The ruthless found a new place for them. Under the bus.

Unions & Universities have been over run and near on taken over by Post Modernism.

The essay by Chris Rosebrough is here & below it is a boradcast podcast where he goes into deeper detail.
The podcast is listed below it. Its quite long and covers other theology related matters. The deeper part on just Post Modernism & Fascism Reborn goes from time markers 14 mins 15 sec to 37mins 15 sec
The essay is from 2010 & still resonates today.
     

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Fascism Reborn

“And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost.” [1]

Sixty-seven years ago, the combined blood, treasure and matériel of the free nations of Western Civilization defeated the most horrifically evil regime to ever arise in the known history of the sons of men, Nazi Germany.

Since the defeat of Hitler and the Axis powers, scholars have been looking for an answer—an answer to a vexing and perplexing question, “How does a society comprised of reasonably well educated citizens, modern technology and an affluent culture turn into a collective pack of murderous thugs devoid of a moral compass or conscience?”

The standard schoolbook answer put forward by historians talks about the political and economic hardship and unrest in Germany in the wake of her defeat in World War I and the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Versailles as the primary reasons for the rise of the Nazi party.

On the surface this answer seems reasonable enough but when you study the writings of those who fled Nazi Germany shortly after the rise of Adolf Hitler you discover that economics and wounded national pride are not considered to be the core explanations given for the rise of the Nazis. Those who lived through those turbulent years instead point to the spiritual break down of Europe and the rise of irrational philosophy as the primary forces that breathed life into the Fascist regimes of Franco, Mussolini and Hitler.

Many people today have a woefully limited understanding of the philosophical and political ideas that gave rise to Hitler. Most give little or no thought to the subject. It’s as if Hitler fell out of the sky or was a fluke of nature. Many simply dismiss the subject and think that Hitler was “just a madman” who hated Jews and thought the Aryan race was superior to every other race on the planet and he was tragically in a position that allowed him to act on those beliefs. But, few understand or remember that Hitler was a Fascist and that in the 1930’s, prior to World War II and the establishment of the concentration camps, the word “Fascism” had a definition and a meaning. Rather than being a fluke, Hitler was instead a true product of his time and his political ideas were the direct result of the philosophical, political, religious and economic ideas of the Völkish period.[2]

Said Mussolini, “If each age has its doctrine, the innumerable symptoms indicated that the doctrine of our age is the Fascist one.”[3] When Mussolini penned this sentence he did not have in mind the currently popular and historically ignorant definitions of Fascism that most people possess today, definitions like:

Fascism = Arizona’s 2010 immigration bill.[4]
Fascism = The Conservative Political Platform of Ronald Reagan.
Fascism = Anti-Semitism

The phrase “Epic Fail” comes to mind when I read such ignorant and uninformed definitions of Fascism. Anyone who truly understands Fascism understands that it is notoriously difficult to define precisely because it CANNOT be primarily defined by means of a positive ideology.

Here is how the late Peter Drucker, who grew up within the philosophical conversation of the Völkish milieu of Austria and Germany and who later fled the Third Reich in 1934, described Fascism:

“Fascist totalitarianism has no positive theology, but confines itself to refuting, fighting and denying all traditional ideas and ideologies...Fascism not only refutes all old ideas but denies, for the first time in European history, the foundation on which all former political and social systems had been built...”[5]

A good illustration would be to liken Fascism to antimatter. Physicists tell us that matter has an evil twin called antimatter and when matter and antimatter come in contact with each other they are both destroyed. Antimatter is difficult for us to comprehend because of the fact that we have only experienced matter. Its difficult to imagine a substance that is the exact opposite of matter. Fascism is equally difficult to understand because its hallmark is NOT that it affirms anything but that it denies practically everything. Fascism is ANTI transcendent truth. Fascism is ANTI individual rights. Fascism is ANTI rational thought. Fascism is man taking his God-given gift of reason and using that reason to deconstruct and debunk reason itself and all societal and religious institutions that rely upon reason.

Said Peter Drucker, “I...realized that the new totalitarianisms, especially Nazism in Germany, were indeed a genuine revolution, aiming at the overthrow of something much more fundamental than economic organization: values, beliefs, and basic morality. It was a revolution which replaced hope by despair, [and] reason by magic...”[6]

Drucker further goes on to state that, “Nazi leaders have prided themselves publicly on their disregard for truth...”[7]

If Drucker is correct, then the very first blitzkrieg of the German Fascists was not waged against Poland, Belgium nor the Netherlands. The very first victims of the Fascist revolution were values, beliefs and basic morality. Once these citadels fell then there were no moral, philosophical or rational obstacles left to stop the Fascists from committing the most unthinkable crimes.

What is historically vital to note about Drucker's description of Fascism is that it was published in 1939 and predates the wartime atrocities committed by the Nazis. Drucker's definition was constructed from his firsthand experiences while living and breathing and conversing with Fascism in the years prior to Hitler's rise to power. Drucker's definition demonstrates that Fascism should not be defined by the brutality that it ultimately engaged in. Instead, it should be defined by the irrational, deconstructive philosophy that it embraced. The logical consequences of this anti-rational philosophy were the unspeakable evils committed by the men who, having been stripped of transcendent truth and morals had no checks upon their sinful human nature. One could argue that the day the Fascists succeeded in deconstructing values, beliefs, basic morality and reason itself was also the day when the foundations were poured for Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen.

Ernst Nolte, in his book Three Faces of Fascism said, “Georg Lukács in his book, Die Zerstörung der Vernuft... attempts to describe philosophical irrationalism as an essential component of and background to National Socialism, as the ‘reactionary answer to the great problems of the past hundred and fifty years.’ On Germany’s path ‘from Schelling to Hitler’ is to be found practically every name of any stature in German philosophy after Hegel’s death: Schopenhauer and Nietzche, Dilthey and Simmel, Scheler and Heidegger, Jaspers and Max Weber.”[8]

This reaction against rational thought and its corresponding blatant disregard for transcendent truth is precisely what is at the heart of the oft quoted Fascist maxim, “a lie becomes accepted as the truth if it is only repeated often enough”.

Said Drucker, “Fascism, however, goes much further in its negation of the past than any earlier political movement, because it makes this negation its main platform. What is even more important, it denies simultaneously ideas and tendencies which are in themselves antithetic. It is antiliberal, but also anticonservative; antireligious and antiatheist, anticapitalist and antisocialist...—the list could be continued indefinitely.”[9]

Today, Fascism has a new name. Even though the name has changed, the exact same irrational philosophies that helped give rise to the 20th Century totalitarian Fascist regimes of Italy, Spain and Germany are alive and well today. The new name that Fascism has taken for itself is Postmodernity.[10]

From Foucault to Derrida, John Franke to Leonard Sweet, Brian McLaren to Doug Pagitt, Pete Rollins to Tony Jones all of these men are disciples of and dealers in the irrational philosophies of such men as Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger.

Just like their 20th Century counterparts these philosophers and theologians are characterized not by their positive ideologies and theologies but by their strident attacks against rational thought, knowable transcendent truth, individual rights, individual salvation, transcendent morals, systematic theology, and the bedrock reasoning upon which all of the societal structures of Western Civilization are built, including Constitutional Republicanism, the free market and the Church.

Fascism was not defeated on the battlefields of Western Europe. Their armies were defeated. But, Fascism lived on. It lurked in the shadows for decades and was ultimately imported to the United States and the European democracies through universities and institutions of higher education. Fascism took a new shape in the field of literary criticism through the postmodern deconstructionism of Derrida and has now grown like a cancer that has spread from literary criticism to philosophy to politics to economics to religion. Once again the very foundations of thought are under assault. Once again the rights of the individual are being deconstructed and the idea of the primacy of the community (Gemeinschaft) is being exalted. Once again all transcendent truths and morals are being deconstructed and attacked. They are being replaced with an irrational epistemology founded upon subjective feelings (authenticity) with a hatred for so-called meta-narratives. Once again free market capitalism is under assault and being accused of causing the oppression of the poor and creating an unfair system that creates haves and have-nots. Once again there is talk of ‘creating the millennial Kingdom of God’ here on earth by destroying or ‘redeeming’ all the political and economic structures of society.

The Postmodern conversation has taken place before. It was the philosophical conversation of the 20th Century European Fascists. Its a conversation that had no answers but only deconstructing questions. The same is true today. But the big difference between 20th Century Fascism and 21st Century Postmodernity is that this time the conversation is global.

---

1 Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Dir. Peter Jackson. 2001. DVD. Taken from the narration in the prologue to the film.

2 See Poewe, Karla, and Irving Hexham. "The Völkisch Modernist Beginnings of National Socialism: Its Intrusion into the Church and Its Antisemitic Consequence." Religion Compass 3.4 (2009): 676-96. Print.

3 Mussolini, Benito. Fascism; Doctrine and Institutions. New York: H. Fertig, 1968. Print. see 31.34.n2

4 "Ellison: Arizona Immigration Law ‘fascist, Racist’ «." Minnesota Independent: News. Politics. Media. Web. 3 May 2010. 

5 Drucker, Peter F. The End of Economic Man: the Origins of Totalitarianism. New Brunswick, N.J., U.S.A.: Transaction, 1995. 11. Print.

6 Ibid. xxii

7 Ibid. 19

8 Nolte, Ernst. Three Faces of Fascism: Action Française, Italian Fascism, National Socialism. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966. 22. Print. emphasis added

9 Drucker, 13

10 Veith, Gene Edward. Modern Fascism: the Threat to the Judeo-Christian Worldview. St. Louis: Concordia, 1993. Print.

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

The Podcast link below.
The podcast is quite long and covers other matters so be aware the deeper part on just Post Modernism & Fascism Reborn goes from time markers 14 mins 15 sec to 37mins 15 sec
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/fighting-for-the-faith/id268985402?i=1000387854486

Trump - Where I'm Actually At On That

If you're a Consevative there's a good chance if you've strongly expressed a view you may have & found the debate spiralled downward to a point where the name calling began. Maybe not swear word but where a description was applied as a dismissive shut down technique. We've probably all seen it if we haven't copped it or done it to others.

I have called people Marxists & a few times unfairly called some followers of the Kremlin or North Korea. I've seen others being called fascists, Nazis, far right when they clearly are not. I've seen ANTIFA followers look very much like very pro Communists & some of them even had a real mix of Marxist & Fascist views. 

I'm not a fan of Van Badham to be honest but I have to give her real credit for being honest a while back when she bluntly said she was a Marxist. I would wish she'd put out what her values were, what she was prepared to live by & what she was prepared to fight for. I say that because some are very much keen to fight for a principle than actually live by it. There is much to be gained by being part of a fight...more so than the victory. 

Thing is, if you're a financial member of a Political Party in Australia, does it make you a Socialist, a Marxist, a Communist, a Consevative or?

Are you of the left or the right?
Do you know the actual values of the party & do they alighn with your values? 
You will not get a perfect fit with any party, there will be concessions because no party will have 100% agreeance with any of us. But you should be able to get very clear values set out. THAT stuff is the stuff that underpins what your policy makers construct, what your MPs lean to, what you members broadly embrace. 

There was the old line that the Liberal Party was a broad church & have heard Labor people use the same line. Fine, no party is 100% set with no exceptions...but there's got to be some limits. What are they?
We've seen plenty of periods in Australian politics when it was almost like motor vehicles, Falcon/Commodore look the same, the Labor & Liberals aren't all that different at times.

As a result stunts & holding up props in Parliament has risen.

I still hear people rant but what are their actual values. If the political values of a party are profoundly vague & deliberately inprecise and a dangerous point of constant problems for the party, whichever party, and therefore a problem to society.

We need clear concise politcal values. Yes, there is flexibility but if there's beige everywhere its of no help to everyone.

Which gets to Trump. Some think because I'm a conservative I'm pro Trump. Its used as a discourse shut down slur to avoid a rational debate. Trump did many good things in office. No wars launched, they ended up with a stronger border, the highest full employment levels of black Americans in decades, lower inflation and actual growth in their forever troubled economy. He made Jeruselum the home of the US Embassy, recognised it as Israel's capital, met with the leader of South Korea and simmered things down. Yes he was not a good human being but he did good things. He was also the Great Disruptor the US needed. He did well because he wasn't a politician. He saw the system was a swamp and it has been growing and causing decline for decades. The standard of elected representative is poor & still falling with many voting on legislation they haven't even looked at, haven't even read. Get your head around that. Male or female they are akin to elected celebrities, leading men, starlets...all facades who master the optic & then once elected stay active. Active but not at all concerned with outcomes or helping society.

Trump had his dash, Biden is in and he's well short of what a President or even a lower legislator should be. Kamala Harris is also a bad choice and falls very short. I hope neither of them run in the next Presidential race. And I thought the same a week after Biden was elected, Trump's day was done. I thought that well before the Storming of the Capital building. Trump kicked the door open, Biden failed to fix things but the door is still open. They'll need a new master of the overdue USA reformation to step in. That's not Trump, Biden, Harris...

"Ahh you're just a Trumper..."

Yup I'll get it again from people who won't set out their spot on the political spectrum or what their political values clearly are. Defeating the other seems the priority, positive outcomes a pesky distraction. 

So strangely whilst I oppose & denouince Antifa, Marxism/Socialism, Qnon, Pride Boys, BLM, ISIS, Nazis, Fascism, Alt-Right, Far Left, Far Right...somehow I'm a right wing extremist or RWNJ.

If you call someone a RWNJ you should set out the politcal values you think a RWNJ has, why I am one & what you yourself might be & you your descriptor term with values.

Its a bit like saying eating meat is immoral but not saying which Moral Code you're using to make the moral judgement and not knowing what Moral Code I might live by. Easier to yell murder, slavery and use shock props to disturb or interfere with people going about their lwaful everyday lives.

If You Vote For The WALabor Party...

You're either bitterly disappointed or you're frantically searching for reasons to feel you voted the right way.

We've seen some mind blowing legislation & any new replacement government will have to first begin now on a Legislative Reform List. Those passed acts that will need to be repealed, replaced or fixed.
That list is not short.

As it stands now, thanks to the WA Labor Party we have TWO passed bills, TWO Acts of Parliament that provide the police with the powers of entry & seizure without a warrant.
 
1) Firearms Prohibiton Orders can be applied to anyone whether they legally or illegaly possess or suspected of possessing frirearms, firearms parts or equipment to manufacture firearms parts. A person will have an oder live for 10 years unless authorities decided to remove it or the person subject to the order successfully appeal it. However the authorities will decide what information used in applying the FPO is sensitive & unable to be shared in an appeals process. 
So if you unfairly have an FPO, you can appeal however you may not have the full reasons for the order nor know the identity of any informants who supplied information that resulted in the order...or the information they supplied.
Included in these new powers, that the Government assured us were to target bikies, are the ability to enter a property without a warrant, pull over a motor vehicle and search it without a warrant. Without warning, day or night. And there is huge scope that this can be applied to anyone who is not bikie related & should the Police decide the reasons are sensitive no one will know why.

2) The "Emergency Management Amendment (Temporary COVID-19 Provisions) Act 2022" is now officially law. This means the Police Comissioner can bring in the equivilent of a State of Emergency at any point, not a minister who has full glare, scrutiny & accountibility of the Parliament. Before the Minister had to sign it every 3 weeks, now the Police Commissioner calls it & it lasts for 3 months at a time.
Now there's this interesting bit. The Police Commissioner, or the "State Emergency Coordinator" as the Act (same person) cannot bring in a COVID State of Emergency without advice from the Chief Health Officer. Only has to have the advice, doesn't have to follow that advice though. This is set out clearly in...
"Division 2 — Power to make COVID-19 declaration" & specifically you should read all these requirements & then look at 77H (5) which CLEARLY states in relation to the legal requirements needed for the State Emergency Co-ordinator (Police Commissioner) to call in a new 3 months Emergency Declaration...

                         (5) A failure to comply with this section 
                      does not affect the validity of the declaration

Get your head around that. There's a list of requirements which the State Emergency Co-Ordinator must statisfy...but in the end he or she doesn't actually have to at all.

Feeling happy, calm & relaxed?

In taking any action any person the State Emergency Co-Ordinator(Police Commissioner) appoints as a "COVID-19 Officer" must consult with certain people before taking actions except it doesn't say must. It says "may" so if they don't consult or take advice they're fine. Don't believe me? See for yourself.

It appears the information a COVID Officer can request is just about anything they deem relevent, including confidential health records. They can enter & break and enter any property without a warrant. They can control & use any place or "...vehicle or other thing". They can direct any person to give the COVID Officer "... reasonable assistance to exercise the officer’s powers under this section"
No warrant is required but no later than 7 days written advice that their property vehicle or thing has been taken control of under the Act along with the name of the COVID Officer who did so.

Now if the Officer suspects you have been exposed to COVID-19 they have the power to cause you to...

(a) to remain in an area specified by the officer for such 

period as is specified by the officer;  

 

(b) to remain quarantined from other persons for such 

period, and in such reasonable manner, as is specified 

by the officer; 

 

(c) to submit to infection prevention and control procedures 

within such reasonable period, and in such reasonable 

manner, as is specified by the officer.

Now consider reading the above several times. You have no choice. You can be detained at home, at a jail, at a quarantine camp anywhere for as long as the COVID-19 Officer specifies.

You have to submit to any "infection prevention and control procedures" as is specified by the officer. In other words if the officer thinks its reasonable and the officer specifies what a reasonable time is you have to submit to ANY health treatment. You may have to submit to vaccination or any other treatment that is around infection prevention or around control measures. Yes, unlikely as it is you could be locked at home or in a camp & forced to take a vaccination or any other treatment they consider with control an infection or prevent an infection. Yes, even if you don't have it or unlikely to have it. The proviso is if the Officer thinks you have been exposed to it. Exposure is not defined. Doesn't say close contact or somewhere in the same suburb as one isolated recorded infection.

Now another thing is there are so many bad Acts of Parliament passed under this Majority ALP Government that we are going to need a long list of Act reforms. I expect any prospective non Labor Government in waiting will have to put together quickly even though there's over 850 days until the next election. Just one thing, even if there is a huge WA ALP Backlash it might not matter a lot.

Prior to the 2021 State Election the WA Premier was constantly asked about whether Electoral Reform of the WA Legislative Council was a priority if he retained Government. The regular routine answer was "its not a priority" 
Not long after re-elected the WA Labor Party introduced a bill to reform the Electorion of Upper House MPs. Now this was in the middle of COVID-19, was during a State of Emergency and was very quickly passed because Labor had control of both houses. This was suddenly a priority after winning control of both houses. It was quickly passed.
It was a Act made law that couldn't be used for another 4 years.
Re-read and try to get your head around that. Not a priority but once re-elected it was quickly passed through both houses, wasn't sent to committee...DONE, and yet no real urgency because there's no chance of the Upper House blocking supply & there's no by-elections nothing. Cannot be used until the 2025 State Election. 

Why?

Well I don't know how it will work out but I think it was a deliberate attempt to control the Upper House into the future & in doing so the WA Labor Party intends to be better place to block any reforms to any legislation they've put in place since March 2019.

At the next election next State Election there will be only ONE electorate in the Legislative Council & that's WA. How it will work I don't know but with the recent TEAL experiment still in play its half likely that every man woman & dog in WA might be on a metres long ballot paper. Many of those independants might be people who aren't o independant & suddenly join the Labor party if they win a seat. Its possible there'll be many faux independants, ever so temporary independants. Or it maybe possible that the Labor Party is able to run 300 candidates for the 36 seats.
Who knows? But 5 with getcha 5 with the bookies that they ran the Electoral Reform bill through early as possible in the current term so it dies down, dust settles and they can get on with ramming through whatever they want.

Remember the Clive Palmer Bill. I'm not even remotely a fan of Clive Palmer, I was far from it when he was in the National Party, but pretty odd idea to actually remove an Australian Citizen's right to their day in court. In all my years of watching politics & looking at Bills in Parlaiament I've seen a few that probably should never have been submitted let alone passed. This one was a cake taker.

Apparently the Attorney Genneral John Quigley was on his feet in Parliament with this Bill without any notice and the Opposition Parties were summoned to outside the Chamber by the Premier. No warning.
Mr Quigely and the legal team had been working on the Bill for months & never told the opposition then dropped it amid a huge blitzkrieg fear campaign. Quigley, the same guy who couldn't get his evidence in the subsequent legal action right due to very conflicting comments he'd originally made in court & at another time on radio, he had to correct his mistakes.

Sadly the opposing parties swallowed it hook, line, sinker & jetty. "We will have to take the government at their word..."
No, if you're opposition you will have to take full independant legal advice & not decide before. 
Amid ramped fears that Palmer would lodge legal action straight away the pressure was on to pass the bill on the spot. Funny it had a back dated timeframe included so they could have gone away & later passed legislation to indemnify the state. Why didn't they?
I imagine if Palmer had lodged court action retrospectively removing an Australian Citizen's right to a fair hearing in court would be struck down.

With Electoral Reform in the Upper House its going to be very hard for government to change or for the Upper House to change to another party. 

Where WA Labor has gone (arrogantly) wrong is they've underestimated the WA Voters & over estimated their own perception of God Like rulers.

Remember after the Electoral Reform bill was passed one Labor MP messed up & said it wasn't a priority before the election because they didn't know how many seats they would win, how likely controlling both houses was. THAT is an admission of how calculating & misleading the Labor Party MPs were before and after the election

Rember also on Labor MP at a social function proudly remarked about the power & control they weilded saying it was great and only "North Korea" had better control.

If you vote Labor in at the 2025 election you are voting for extended disaster.