To The Age If Scott Morrison is to become "a prime minister of real consequence" who "rises to the challenges of his time" ("Will Morrison take his moment?", 8/6), then, as regards constitutional indigenous recognition, he will do the opposite of what Peter Hartcher advocates: he will not have a bar of it. He will know that the Rudd apology for the alleged "stolen generations" was based on a misleading report (Bringing them home) and did not and does not have the approval of huge numbers of Australians. He will know that efforts to close or lessen "the gap" can be carried out perfectly well without any unjust and dangerous tampering with our Constitution. Nor will he be foxed by sob stories about a "lack of reconciliation". It will require great courage from the PM to block this nefarious campaign. Let us hope, for the sake of our national welfare, that he has it.
Nigel Jackson, Belgrave
Dear ………,
As many of you may be aware the Medical Board of Australia (MBA) has commenced a public consultation on new guidelines for ‘complementary and unconventional medicine and emerging treatments’. There is a concern that if adopted, a two-tiered system may arise that threatens Integrative Medicine (IM) and unreasonably targets practitioners. The Medical Board of Australia have made assurances that their measures are to root out unsafe practices and are not intended to target Integrative Medicine. In any case, the IM community are coming together to challenge the adoption of these guidelines as there will be worrisome implications if passed.
Ah! Journalism with no money! How to do it with less money than the average high school student, those I used to teach? The Washington Post has an article “Is the Individual Obsolete?’ by George Wills, which looks like something we should response to, but it is behind a paywall. How can we guess what it says, having no money to access any material? Well, think like a post-apocalyptic survivor. What can be salvaged from the wreck of the internet, which by the way, a large chunk of the Google part went offline a few days ago, like space junk, for some reason that I have not yet found:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/17/google_outage/
“You can all relax now. The near-unprecedented outage that seemingly affected all of Google's services for a brief time on Friday is over. The event began at approximately 4:37pm Pacific Time and lasted between one and five minutes, according to the Google Apps Dashboard. All of the Google Apps services reported being back online by 4:48pm. The incident apparently blacked out every service Mountain View has to offer simultaneously, from Google Search to Gmail, YouTube, Google Drive, and beyond. Big deal, right? Everyone has technical difficulties every once in a while. It goes with the territory. But then, not everyone is Google. According to web analytics firm GoSquared, worldwide internet traffic dipped by a stunning 40 per centduring the brief minutes that the Chocolate Factory's services were offline.”
China war is inevitable since China claims Taiwan and the South China Sea. I say let China have it, it is not worth World War III over, but, the US will fight them, so hell, this is how it is going to end. I intend to enjoy whatever alcohol my pension will allow me to purchase and consume:
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190602/p2g/00m/0in/032000c
“China's defense minister warned Sunday that its military will "resolutely take action" to defend Beijing's claims over self-ruled Taiwan and disputed South China Sea waters. Speaking at an annual security conference in Singapore, Gen. Wei Fenghe did not direct the threat at the U.S. but loaded his address with criticism of activities by Washington, including support for Taiwan and leading so-called "freedom of navigation" operations in the strategic waterways that China virtually claims as its own. Wei said the People's Liberation Army would not "yield a single inch of the country's sacred land." China's ruling Communist Party maintains that Taiwan is part of China, and has used increasingly aggressive rhetoric toward the democratic island, which split from the mainland amid a civil war 70 years ago. It opposes Taiwan's independence and formally says it seeks a "peaceful reunification" while refusing to rule out the use of force if necessary to achieve that goal. "The PLA has no intention to cause anybody trouble but it is not afraid to face up to troubles. Should anybody risk crossing the bottom line, the PLA will resolutely take action and defeat all enemies," Wei said. Relations between Beijing and Taipei have deteriorated since Taiwan elected a pro-independence president, Tsai Ing-wen, in 2016. China has since increased diplomatic pressure, cut off its contacts with the island's government and discouraged travel there by Chinese tourists.
The man who should be give a medal for exposing corruption, for showing the dirty secrets that lie behind democracy, instead will be destroyed, and Trump, the one person who owes his election to Assange is happy to burn him for the Dark Lords of the Deep State:
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/how-many-times-must-assange-be-proven-right-before-people-start-listening-61229805a3d8
“And there it is. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been charged by the Trump administration’s Justice Department with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act, carrying a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison. Exactly as Assange and his defenders have been warning would happen for nearly a decade. The indictment, like the one which preceded it last month with Assange’s arrest, is completely fraudulent, as it charges Assange with “crimes” that are indistinguishable from conventional journalistic practices. The charges are based on the same exact evidence which was available to the Obama administration, which as journalist Glenn Greenwald noted last year declined to prosecute Assange citing fear of destroying press freedoms. Hanna Bloch-Wehba, an associate professor at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law, has called the indictment “a worst-case, nightmare, mayday scenario for First Amendment enthusiasts.” Bloch-Wehba explains that that the indictment’s “theories for liability rest heavily on Assange’s relationship with Manning and his tendency to encourage Manning to continue to bring WikiLeaks material” in a way that “is not readily distinguishable from many reporter-source relationships cultivated over a period of time.”
Many a letter I have written saying that the US border crisis can be solved by Mexico actually doing something, and that economic sanctions need to be slapped on them. Trump is threatening this now, it sounds good, but whether this will happen or not remains to be seen.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/05/30/donald-trump-declares-he-will-increase-tariffs-on-mexico-until-illegal-immigration-remedied/
“President Donald Trump made good on a promised immigration announcement Thursday night, proclaiming he will increase tariffs on Mexico. “On June 10th, the United States will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP,” President Trump wrote in a Thursday night tweet.
To The Age Chris Pearson asserts that Australia "is a secular country" (3/6). Well, yes and no. Our sovereign is a ruler whose authority is vested in the Christian sacred tradition. In certain respects, therefore, we are a Christian nation. Perhaps the main purpose of the republican movement is to bring that situation to an end. The suggestion that "the Coalition sees its victory as a mandate to allow hate speech" is extreme. More truly, the Coalition has promised protection for those Australians, individuals, groups and institutions, who are religious; and this was made necessary by the ferocious campaign against people of faith waged by a significant number of Australians and more or less supported by the ALP/Greens alliance. Perhaps we should regard ourselves as a "free country" in which mutual respect for "the other" is not eroded by fanaticism, whether religious or secular. At the moment that suggests that added protection is needed for the religious sector rather than the secular sector.
Nigel Jackson,
I saw all the signs this week comparing the incoming PM to Hitler, and that he should go to hell. I did not know that these atheists had suddenly got some faith! But, the point of my diatribe is why these champions of social justice are not out on the streets protesting the concentration camps in China, our trading partner? I mean, even the bad guys around evil orange man in the US are doing something.
https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2019/05/23/senate-moves-bill-forward-to-urge-sanctioning-china-for-muslim-concentration-camps/
“The Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a bill Tuesday that, if enacted, would call for sanctions on the Chinese government and select individuals over the mass imprisonment of potentially millions of Muslims in concentration camps in eastern Xinjiang province. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), under Xi Jinping, has building hundreds of “re-eduation centers” that it claims are “vocational training” facilities for Uighurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other minorities. Those who have survived them call them “concentration camps” – locations where they are taken by force to learn Mandarin, renouncing their Muslim faith, memorize communist propaganda songs, and engage in slave labor.”
The take home message, from the article below, is that a hysterical cult now runs Western society, as this article on little old New Zealand says:
https://www.naturalnews.com/2019-05-25-human-rights-commission-its-okay-to-be-white-message-new-zealand.html
“The New Zealand Human Rights Commission says that the message “it’s okay to be white” has “no place” in the country. The ‘controversy’ began when “it’s okay to be white” t-shirts and stickers were sold on a New Zealand auction site called Trade Me. “Wear this shirt as a white person to troll your local Communists, or wear this shirt as a brown person to troll stuck-up middle-class urbanites. Either way it’s funny!” read the description to the products. The Human Rights Commission said they don’t see the funny side and that the message “it’s okay to be white” has “no place” in New Zealand because it conveys “a message of intolerance, racism and division”. To its credit, the Trade Me website refused to pull the items, saying the slogan didn’t break its rules. “While we know there is some debate about this slogan we don’t think these items cross that line,” said head of trust and safety, George Hiotakis.
As a former Trump supporter, one of the first to get off the Trump train and write about Trump’s treason, I have paid attention to so-called progress on the magical Great Wall of America. Trump’s regime has built 1.7 miles of his fence in two years, while others working on raising money from chook raffles and the like have done almost as much and at the end of the day, will probably get more before civil war tears everything apart:
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/27/politics/private-border-wall-gofundme/index.html
“A group that raised millions of dollars in a GoFundMe campaign says it has broken ground on a project to build its own stretch of border wall on private property. We Build the Wall, a group founded by a triple amputee Air Force veteran, said in a series of social media posts Monday it had started construction on private property in New Mexico. The announcement comes months after the group began its GoFundMe campaign to raise private donations for a border wall, and days after a federal judge blocked President Donald Trump from tapping into billions in Defense Department funds for his administration's wall construction efforts.
If I had a backyard I probably would be digging a fox hole just like I did as a kid during the Cuban missile crisis. According to Trump’s boy Pence, soon war is going to be everywhere, and America is going to get down and show its usual apocalyptic dance moves and grooves:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/27/mike-pence-predicts-war-everywhere-next-few-years/?utm_term=.f1a4bfad5a2d
https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/mike-pence-west-point-grads-combat_n_5ce9bb81e4b00356fc2283e3
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/05/29/pence-predicts-combat-but-masks-its-horrors/pYe9f4ttjJZ6ILay9hK2XJ/story.html?outputType=amp
“Vice President Mike Pence warned West Point graduates on Saturday to expect combat at some point during their service in a “dangerous” world. In a commencement speech, he said grads might have to fight against forces aligned with North Korea or China, or in Afghanistan or Iraq, as well as possibly face an unidentified foe in “this hemisphere.” “It is a virtual certainty that you will fight on a battlefield for America at some point in your life. You will lead soldiers in combat. It will happen,” Pence said. “Some of you will join the fight against radical Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of you will join the fight on the Korean Peninsula and in the Indo-Pacific where North Korea continues to threaten the peace, and an increasingly militarized China challenges our presence in the region.” He warned: “Some of you may even be called upon to serve in this hemisphere ... When that day comes, I know you will move to the sound of the guns.”
Hollywood is big on abortions. Why I am surprised that they have not released a movie entitled: The Abortion Movie? Why not? After all, segments of the creature from the lost lagoon are willing to boycott entire states, incredibly:
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2019/05/30/warnermedia-parent-of-cnn-hbo-tnt-threatens-to-boycott-georgia-over-abortion-law/
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/05/30/kirsten-gillibrand-studios-should-stay-and-invest-in-elections-locally-to-protest-abortion-bans/
“WarnerMedia, the parent company of CNN, HBO, and TNT, among many other television networks, released a statement Thursday threatening to “reconsider Georgia as the home to any new productions” if the state’s new law restricting abortions is held up in court. “We operate and produce work in many states and within several countries at any given time and while that doesn’t mean we agree with every position taken by a state or a country and their leaders, we do respect due process,” WarnerMedia said in a statement. “We will watch the situation closely and if the new law holds we will reconsider Georgia as the home to any new productions. As is always the case, we will work closely with our production partners and talent to determine how and where to shoot any given project.”
This news is getting a bit dated now, but it is still good enough for we nationalists to gloat over, that Le Pen has crushed globalist mass immigrationist Macron in the EU election exit poll:
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/05/26/le-pen-triumphs-over-macron-in-eu-election-exit-poll/
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/05/27/exclusive-marine-le-pen-emmanuel-macron-should-definitely-resign-but-he-has-neither-the-honesty-to-do-it-nor-the-panache/
“Populist leader Marine Le Pen and her Rassemblement National (National Rally, or RN) have triumphed over sitting French president Emmanuel Macron in the European Parliament elections, according to exit polls. Ms Le Pen declared victory following exit polls showing the RN winning around 24 per cent of the vote, compared to Macron’s La Republique En Marche! (LREM) who, according to projections, has come in second with 22.5 percent of the vote, French newspaper Le Figaro reports. Declaring victory, the RN leader said, “The trust we have been given by the French in designating us as the first party in France but especially as that of the future alternation is an immense honour.” She went on to call for Macron to dissolve the French parliament, saying “it is up to the President of the Republic to draw the consequences” and calling for fresh elections, stating that Macron put his own presidency on the line in the vote.”
To The Australian Australians should be wary of the way in which its new government is handling the question of "constitutional" recognition of our so-called "indigenous people" ("Time is right for indigenous voice to be heard in houses of parliament", 28/5). George Williams states that "the Uluru Statement has built considerable momentum". It also has the capacity to fatally divide the political order of this currently unified and united nation. The claim that polls show that "more than sixty per cent of Australians back the idea" is questionable. Polls are on the nose at the moment. In moving towards a planned referendum on the "voice to Parliament", the PM must ensure that fair publicity and funding is provided for the "no" case.
Nigel Jackson, Belgrave
To The Australian Assertions made in the full page advertisement supporting the Uluru Statement from the Heart (29/5) can be challenged. This campaign is not "a movement of all Australian people". It is an agitation by sections of the people and is opposed by a significant number of other Australians. That is why we have not yet had a referendum and why the promoters of such an event are having such difficulty in formulating the terms and arousing sufficient public support. The statement is not "a historic mandate" but an effusion that forms part of an ongoing political campaign whose real nature (behind the scenes) may well be quite different from its public image. "Truth-telling about our history" should be left to individuals and not entrusted to an official body that would almost certainly be ideologically biased. We do not want the sovietisation of historical discussion in our land. Australia, a unified nation under the Crown, cannot make a treaty with a part of itself. What is called "reconciliation" in this context is really disruption.
Nigel Jackson, Belgrave
The Deep State globalists really want to make an example out of Assange, so that no-one will ever attempt to expose their evil doings. Note how the messenger is literally going to be shot here and not the evil Dark Lords standing behind all the exposed mischief.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-23/assange-faces-death-penalty-doj-files-espionage-act-charges
“The worst fears of Julian Assange's legal team have just been realized. Just as Wikileaks' editor in chief anticipated, the DoJ has revealed that a grand jury in Virginia has returned a new 18-count superseding indictment against Assange that includes violations of the Espionage Act stemming from his role in publishing the classified documents leaked by Chelsea Manning, as well as his original charge of conspiring to break into a government computer, per the New York Times. The DOJ said with the indictment that Assange will face a maximum of 10 years for each of the 17 Espionage Act violations, plus the five-year penalty for his earlier hacking charge. In addition to significantly raising the punishment threshold (from a maximum of 5.5 years under the previous indictment to the prospect of a death sentence for violating the Espionage Act), the new charges will raise serious first amendment issues as Assange will become the first journalist charged under the Espionage Act. Though it's not a guarantee, Espionage Act violations have, in the past, carried the prospect of a death sentence, though Assange's specific violations will likely spare him the possibility of such a fate.
Conservatives, God bless them, are rightfully saying that threats to religious freedom was one reason why the Coalition, who never won an opinion poll, did win the one that counted, making the election a kind of Trumpish affair:
https://www.conservatives.org.au/the_shy_conservatives_sang_out_loud_and_clear
https://www.spectator.com.au/2019/05/ten-reasons-labor-lost-the-unlosable-election/
6. “Israel Folau and ‘freedom of speech’. The elephant in the room throughout the entire election campaign was the saga involving Israel Folau and Rugby Australia. All of a sudden the issues of freedom of speech and freedom of religion were brought to the fore. Up until recently Labor had been riding the high moral ground of championing everything LGBTIQ. But with Folau’s trial and termination came the public realisation that ‘tolerance’ had morphed into denouncing any other opinion.
7. Religious Freedom. Following on from the previous point, many private schools took the extraordinary step of urging parents not to vote Labor as it would strip them of their right to employ staff who shared their ethos. This was because Labor’s legal affairs spokesman, Mark Dreyfus, said that:
A Shorten government would remove key legal protections for religious freedoms, fuelling concerns schools will find it more difficult to insist teachers agree to uphold their core values.
8. The Gender Commission. Dr David van Gend outlined the implications for parents in regards to Labor’s transgender policy brilliantly here in The Spectator Australia. But he was obviously not alone. Kerri-Anne Kennerley also unleashed an extraordinary attack on Labor’s plan to fund a National Gender Centre. As Kennerley said:
These kids out there who are gender confused, and there’s a percentage of people out there gender confused, they will put up this Commission and we, like Tasmania, will have a child and it won’t be male or female, it will be gender-free. That’ll be national…
And if your child is confused, the rights of your child will go tothem, you will have no rights as a parent. That child will go, ‘I want to be either a boy or girl, please give me whatever I need’ and you as a parent will have no choice.”
1. Tanya Plibersek’s aggressive policy of extending abortion. While the subject of abortion may have been viewed as too ‘controversial’ and ‘divisive’ for the Coalition to tackle, for many conservative religious voters such as myself, this was the real deal breaker. Especially when the deputy leader, Tanya Plibersek, promised that if Labor won the election then they would offer free abortions in all public hospitals.
2. Scott Morrison. Credit where credit’s due. Because Labor didn’t merely lose the election; the Coalition actually won it. In his acceptance speech Australia’s first Pentecostal Prime Minister acknowledge that, in keeping with his theology, “I’ve always believed in miracles”. In fact, Dennis Shanahan wrote in The Australian:
Morrison didn’t just beat Labor in this election. He beat the Zeitgeist, the vibe and the emotional appeals while leaving Clive Palmer and the Greens failing to live up to expectations.
Bill Shorten’s political career ended last night but Morrison’s is just beginning.
In scenes, reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s defeat at the hands of Trump, many leftist progressives had a complete emotional meltdown. For instance, Dr. John Dickson, formerly of the Centre for Public Christianity, issued the following tweet in response to the hysterical nastiness of Jane Caro:
But enough of the schadenfreude, or should that be as Stephen MacAlpine labels it, ‘Shortenfreude’.”Australia has dodged a bullet and we’ve been given the benefit of a conservative government for another whole term. Now that we’ve seen how unreliable all of the pollsters are, maybe we can even stick with the same Prime Minister for an entire term.”
Another one bites the dust, and it is about time, too, as British Prime Minister Theresa May resigns in girly tears, and exits stage door left, probably to get some well-paying EU job in the great hive. Yes, they didn’t call her “May” for nothing.
https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/uk-prime-minister-theresa-may-set-to-announce-resignation-after-brexit-failure/news-story/373caf7f7b3475c712364e554fa65cbe
I found this statesman from Robert Spencer about May, which hits the nail firmly down into the timber:
The proposed Adani mine has been wading through a green swamp of political obstacles for nine long years. Other coal optimists have struggled to develop coal in the Galilee Basin for over 40 years. Federal Labor, State Labor and the Greens have taken turns to man the anti-coal barricades. In these bad new days, before anyone can open a mine they need multiple approvals, each one providing opportunities for do-nothing activists to raise new hurdles at every hearing. The whole process of judicial judgements and reviews, enquiries, objections and hearings has been a gold mine for lawyers and barristers and a bottomless pit into which mine optimists throw money. Nine years ago, Labor Premier Anna Bligh declared Adani “a significant project for Queensland”. The Queensland Co-ordinator General gave Adani approval to proceed in 2014.
The Federal Government also gave its approval to proceed in 2014 but that approval was set aside because of complaints by the Mackay Conservation Council, the Australian Conservation Foundation and others that the yakka skink, the ornamental snake, koalas, the waxy cabbage palm and the black throated finch would be disturbed. And of course the Great Barrier Reef, the coastal seagrass and inland ground water would be threatened. The ACF and the Greens have also cowed most Australian banks into denying finance to the Carmichael Project. Native title rights have been asserted by two groups, and Greenpeace and the Climate Council have run scare campaigns on Greenhouse gas emissions should Adani go ahead. Naturally the ABC gives all Adani opponents good air time. Just 5 months ago the anti-Adani Deputy Premier of Queensland, Jacki Trad, said she did not believe the Adani project would ever get off the ground. But immediately after the recent Federal election landslide which left the ALP holding no federal seats north of Brisbane, and winning only one of the six senate vacancies, Queensland Premier Palaszczuk flew north to Mackay and demanded that her departments produce firm timeline for Adani decisions “by Friday” (today). What a difference a day makes.
Who would have thought this, that increasing inequality would undermine democracy, whatever that means now:
https://www.bbc.com/news/education-48229037
“Widening inequalities in pay, health and opportunities in the UK are undermining trust in democracy, says an Institute for Fiscal Studies report. The think tank warns of runaway incomes for high earners but rises in "deaths of despair", such as from addiction and suicide, among the poorest. It warns of risks to "centre-ground" politics from stagnating pay and divides in health and education. The report says such widening gaps are "making a mockery of democracy". The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), one of the country's leading research institutes, is launching what it says is the UK's biggest analysis of inequality. That will be chaired by Nobel Prize-winning economist Prof Sir Angus Deaton. He said "people were troubled by inequality" more than at any time since the 1940s - and the impact was so serious that it suggested "democratic capitalism is broken".
