One of the most socially significant events of our time has been the eclipse of Christian morality, and indeed traditional belief. Only decades ago, certainly in my memory, Christianity provided the social glue for society. This gradually came unstuck in the 1960s, and has accelerated ever since. We have had the most selfish generation which has ever existed, the baby boomers, squander the future of the nation and planet. They, above everybody else, have embraced every politically correct ideology and doctrine and sought to make it real. And, their power is at its peak now, as they go for broke. The world can presumably burn after them.

     This materialist generation have had little need for God; after all science and technology can solve all human problems, the founding doctrine of humanism: https://www.amazon.com/Arrogance-Humanism-Galaxy-Book/dp/0195028902. And it just goes on: http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/07/26/vice-documents-introduction-of-gender-neutral-kindergartens-in-sweden/.

     At the moment the political class is in panic about court rulings reinforcing the Constitutional requirement that prevent dual nationals from running for parliamentary office.  At present Senator Canavan seems to be in trouble because his mother, Australian-born, but Italian, signed him up for Italian citizenship in 2006, without his knowledge: The Australian, July, 26, 2017, p. 1.

     The cartoonists have made fun out of this claim, but I do not see any reason to doubt the claim as being sincere, for Italian mothers could culturally do such things for their sons. Obviously, mum did not know the consequences. What now?
    Well, I believe that section 44 of the Constitution is quite clear what needs to happen:

To THE AUSTRALIAN
     Cheryl Saunders, in advocating constitutional recognition (‘Their distilled voice of hope’, 28/7), claims that there is ‘a deep fissure in our national identity’, but perhaps this is a figment of her imagination or a piece of wishful thinking by a committed political activist. There are a lot of other Australians apart from the 1200 who produced the unimpressive and unconvincing ‘Uluru statement from the heart’ and I believe that most of them are very pleased that they live in a free nation in which civic unity and co-operation is found throughout the land.
     Aboriginal culture is highly regarded and deeply respected by most of us; and we are happy for public funds to be deployed generously to assist Aboriginal persons and groups in need. What we do not want is campaigns to split Australia and Australians.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic    

     A very good issue of the US anti-immigration journal The Social Contract, Summer, 2017, with some telling articles attacking globalism:  http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc_27_4/index.shtml

     John Vinson, “Ending Nations Will Not End War,” criticises the universalism involved in a song like John Lennon’s Imagine, and Vinson is a Christian as well, who as president of the American Immigration Control Foundation, has written much on immigration control from a Christian perspective: http://www.aicfoundation.com/about.html.

to THE AGE
     David Baxter, quoting from one of the many beautiful hymns in the treasury of Christian sacred tradition, asks a pertinent question (28/7): why does God need human help to spread his word? Well, it seems from the most profound writings in all the great sacred traditions that there is not, after all, a clear dividing line between the divine and the human; rather there is a continuum in the universe linking together all beings and all being. Thus sacred scriptures are a joint activity of God and Man. And language is vital to communication and to community.
     Unfortunately, because ‘to err is human’, these scriptures are not, as it were, perfect and are prone to varieties of misinterpretation. That is why they should always be presented, in sacred buildings and in schools, in an atmosphere of free inquiry rather than fanatical authoritarianism.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic

     Here has been another sacrifice for the team, spending this cold Melbourne Sunday reading Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, (1971), rather than drinking rum.
This book was popular among radicals of the left in the 1970s and beyond, and was influential on President Obama and Hillary Clinton. It is the bible of cultural Marxism.

     Alinsky said in his personal acknowledgements: “Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Alinsky, but this passage was not in my version of the book. It gives the flavour of what this guy is on about, and that he meant, business, big business.

     Ricardo Duchesne is author of a brilliant defence of Western civilisation, The Uniqueness of Western Civilization https://www.amazon.com/Uniqueness-Civilization-Critical-Sciences-Academic/dp/9004232761, which is a scholarly text defending the West from many of its academic enemies. In his new book, Faustian Man in a Multicultural Age: https://www.amazon.com/Faustian-Man-Multicultural-Ricardo-Duchesne/dp/1910524840/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1501397993&sr=1-1&keywords=faustian+man+in+a+multicultural+age,  he develops further the theme about the super-ultimate origin of the West’s uniqueness, which he did not explicitly address in the earlier book.

     The real core of the uniqueness of the West does not lie in the embracing of any culture or institutions, for it is people who make those things. Behind democracy and other goodies, lies the primordial drive to overcome, the will to power, as seen most dramatically in the legion of Faust.

     Economics dominates our world. Some feel that we should be all concerned about existential threats, but the human being is not like that. Take the so-called environmental crisis for example. Now we know it is all a scam, but just as a thought experiment, pretend we are just “normies.” Most kids at school are brainwashed into believing that there is some sort of climate change threat, but even so, hardly anyone changes their consumer behaviour. Now don’t panic, I am not saying that there is any truth here, but making a point. Even true believers, don’t follow through on actions if it is contrary to present interests. The Left support their grab bag of ideologies only because there is no personal price to be paid. It’s easy then when the system rewards treason against life, because of its built-in pathological death wish.

     Now consider debt and the standard of living. If anything is important, surely that is: “Cost of Living ‘crippling Families,’” The Australian, July, 28, 2017, p. 2. Here are the key points:

to THE AUSTRALIAN
     Is the Leader of the Opposition planning to avoid the rigor of a referendum in his push to make us a republic? (‘Revival for republic plebiscite’, 29-30/7) Our forefathers wisely gave us a model for constitutional change that avoids hasty acts that might later be regretted. It does this by requiring rather more than a mere 50% plus 1.
     The proposed question for the plebiscite should be asked at a referendum. If the plebiscite does occur, then the subsequent referendum should include an option for the people to say ‘no’ to a republic.
     And it is essential that government funding and publicity for any plebiscite or referendum should be completely fair: 50% each.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic

     Just six months after the arrival of the First Fleet in Botany Bay in 1788, one event in particular demonstrates just how important the concept of the rule of law was to the British founders of the colony of New South Wales. This is the remarkable story of two convicts, a ship’s captain and a missing package.

     The cholera outbreak in Yemen is the latest outcome of the United States’ initiation of the “Arab” spring during the Obama/Clinton administration.  It began with the destruction of Libya, the richest country in Africa, by the CIA with European assistance, and has rolled through the Middle East with cyclonic force, bringing regime change in Egypt next. The Egyptian regime installed with the aid of US influence has cooperated with Israel to make Gaza into a living hell.
     The Saudi support of Isis and other anti-government forces in Syria, reducing that country to years of death and chaos, and its consistent bombing in Yemen which has reduced it to a living hell, has its prime cause in United States policy also.

     Saudi Arabia is nothing but a client state of the USA. At the first discovery of oil in the Persian Gulf, British and American companies divided their spheres of influence. The British took the eastern side of the gulf being mainly Iran, and the Americans took the western side being Saudi Arabia.
     The truth about Saudi Arabia is that it is run by a single family who know that they have no hope of maintaining their privileges in the face of a hostile America. They have agreed to hold their stupendous financial assets in the United States where they are subject to seizure if the family displeases the Golden Internationale. If any US administration directed the Saudis to stop bombing the Yemen and supporting the anti-government forces in Syria it would stop forthwith and immediately. So who has the responsibility here?

to THE AUSTRALIAN
     Rosalind Dixon suggests (‘Strong and clear: let’s support a voice for indigenous people on legislation that affects them’, 20/7) that ‘the main criticism that can be levelled’ at the Referendum Council’s proposal is that ‘it leaves too much to Parliament.’  Not so: the main criticisms against that and all other models of ‘constitutional recognition’ are threefold. They are unjust; they endanger national unity and security; and they will lead to more and more demands against the interests of most other Australians.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic

to THE AGE
     As an Australian of British ethnicity, I object to the defamatory statements about the British made by Margaret Shaw (20/7). There was no collective intention to exterminate the Aboriginal people at any stage of history and the British arrival, on balance, has brought more of benefit to our present Aboriginal citizens than it took away.  Even before Captain Arthur Phillip sailed with the First Fleet, British authorities had insisted that the natives were to be fairly treated; and most British Australians have abided by that ideal.
NJ, Belgrave, Victoria

to THE AUSTRALIAN
     Why are supporters of ‘constitutional recognition’ of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders so unwilling to address the major arguments against it?
     Noel Pearson and Shireen Morris (‘A modest yet profound way to give the indigenous a say’, 22-23/7) say nothing about its injustice to other Australians through selective suffrage, or its dangers to our national unity and security, or the likelihood that this so-called ‘modest’ proposal will lead to further demands for more drastic change in the future.
     Why do they cite a supporter, Julian Leeser, as a ‘constitutional conservative’, but ignore the real conservatives - Keith Windschuttle, Andrew Bolt, John Roskam, Gary Johns and others, who firmly oppose the project? Perhaps their reliance on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is a clue: it all looks like part of a plan to balkanize Australia and make it less easy for us to remain independent of a planned world government - or tyranny.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic

     As James Reed was struggling with the hundreds of pages of his book review, he tossed to me, Cameron Murray and Paul Frijters, Game of Mates: How Favours Bleed the Nation,( 2017).

     This book is timely given that the issue of Chinese influence on our politicians through donations, is not often out of the news. Thus in today’s paper we have “ALP Branch Bows to Chinese Donations Ban,” The Australian, July 21, 2017, p. 5, which tells us that the NSW ALP, under pressure from Bill Shorten, will stop taking donations from two Chinese-born businessmen, with close links to the Beijing government.  ASIO had previously warned about these Chinese businessmen:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/investigations/asio-warns-parties-that-taking-china-cash-could-compromise-australia-20170602-gwjc8t.html. This is a good development.

Australian Conservative, Senator Cory Bernardi, in his “Weekly Dose of Common Sense” shows the real agenda behind Free Trade Agreements and how the UN has morphed into a type of World Government.

He wrote, in part ………………

“As I told the crowd of over 450 people in Brisbane last night, it doesn’t mean any one of us has all the answers. Individually, we bring our unique gifts and skills and talents into the battle of ideas. But together, those gifts complement each other and strengthen our capabilities. Through working together, our individual differences become a source of strength rather than isolation.
That’s what being a community is all about. It’s that sense of belonging and contributing to something bigger than oneself that strengthens families, clubs, cities and nations. It strengthens political parties too.
However, all communities need ties that bind. They need the thread of continuity that runs through all so that we may be drawn together.
At the most basic level that thread is familial. In a political party it is idea, vision and values. As a nation, it is culture.
Culture is our language, our traditions, our laws and our expectations of each other. It emerges over successive generations, each one building upon the previous, bringing us ever closer.
Except that’s not what’s happening now. There is a new force at work within our culture. It isn’t of us and it isn’t working for us. Many refer to it as globalisation but it can take on many monikers.
Despite the reckoning of many pundits, globalisation isn’t about free trade or international markets. Those forces can and do work to our advantage. They provide local businesses with export opportunities and local consumers with a broader range of more competitively-priced goods.
Rather, globalisation is a direct attack on our national sovereignty and self-determination.
It sees unelected bureaucrats in supra-national bodies influencing our domestic agenda through groupthink, peer pressure and intimidation.
The best example is the United Nations. Formed in 1945 for the purpose of preventing another world war through dialogue, it now sees itself as a quasi-world government.
It dictates refugee policy, spruiks the great global warming scam, redefines marriage, smoking policy and so many other virtue-signalling and identity-politics agendas that it has simply become a vehicle for the globalists to push their view.
The UN’s stacked resolutions and dodgy reports are used by political outfits like the Greens to undermine our domestic policy agenda in favour of someone else’s.
These people truly believe they are the enlightened powers that should be running a world of open borders and wealth redistribution in order to save us all. Perhaps that should be ‘enslave’ us all.
It’s time for that to change. We need to reassert our self-determination. That means we need to revisit the treaties, agreements and pacts of decades past to make sure they are working in our interest.
Let’s review them to see if they are achieving what we thought they would. We could start with the UNHCR refugee treaty. It was written in 1951 and the driving forces and key players have changed since then.
Just as every prudent person would insist that every contract has a termination or review date, so too should we insist on reviewing our government’s international agreements at regular intervals.
It will help ensure a check is kept on the agenda that is intent on diminishing, rather than strengthening Australia.”…

I wonder of the Australian Conservatives have a firm position to introduce Citizens Initiative and Referenda as a "core" (non-redactable) policy-ed

    I have been making this claim, with some controversy here over the years, that Pope Francis hates the West, is a commo Pope, and wants to see the West go down.  A discussion of just these points has appeared now in the mainstream press: Tess Livingstone, “Pro-Migrant Pope ‘Aspires to Destroy Christianity’”, The Australian, July 19, 2017, p. 12; http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/promigrant-pope-francis-aspires-to-destroy-christianity/news-story/76be2aee290dacbaa9417aa8af5abb63.

     The remarks primarily are concerned with retired Pope Benedict XVI, who recently compared the church under Pope Francis to a ship that “has taken on so much water as to be on the verge of capsizing.”  As far as criticisms go, that one is strong.
Pope Francis has called on the European nations to abandon their borders, and adopt a federal structure. He is a proponent of open borders immigration for the West, but is silent about immigration to non-white countries, because, well, he is a New World Order kinda guy.

     Migrants in Australia, we are told, have delivered an almost four-fold increase in employment growth between 2011 and 2016: The Australian, July 21, 2017, p. 7.  It though is a Ponzi scheme, with the growth being caused by migrants anyway, who tend to be put into what jobs are available. The claim is made that the only jobs lost are those of the unskilled, but this is manifestly untrue, because local skilled also miss out, such as some university graduates.

     For example, the new class elites want to see international students working in the state even before they finish their studies: The Australian July 19, 2017, p. 27.  These jobs will be lost to locals, and it is just magical thinking to suppose that the flow of money spent by international students will create new jobs. There is considerable flexibility in the economy to absorb workers, and to not require more for increased output. More efficiency is simply squeezed out of existing workers. Thus, increased student loads is met by making young PHDers work harder, not by increasing the number of jobs. The money just goes as profit:
http://www.eurocanadian.ca/2017/07/the-economic-argument-against-mass-immigration.html;
https://cis.org/Immigrants-Replace-LowSkill-Natives-Workforce; 
https://cis.org/Immigration-and-Wages;
https://cis.org/Cost-Welfare-Use-Immigrant-and-Native-Households.

     Well on the way of making heterosexual contact illegal, feminists are moving onto the next horizon in Amsterdam: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2017/02/labour-seeks-to-make-sexual-harassment-on-the-streets-as-crime/.
     The Dutch Labour party has a bill to make sexual harassment on the streets a crime, with up to three months jail. For women, this initially sounds like a good idea.  And, ideally should help against migrant sexual assaults. But, on reflection, we should understand that it will do nothing of the sort, since sexual offences by non-Whites against women are not treated with the same degree of concern as sexual offences by Whites:
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/10/06/europes-rape-epidemic-western-women-will-be-sacrificed-at-the-alter-of-mass-migration/
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2016/01/07/muslim-male-refugees-are-raping-women-in-europe-n2100918
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/19/dutch-battle-surge-of-desperate-violent-muslim-ref/
     The proposed measures are likely to be just more politically correct window dressing.