Screen capture of a post on BlueSky:
I am so unbelievably tired of people from outside the US asking why Americans don’t do something about all the shit that’s going on.
We are trying. Many of us are protesting, contacting our representatives, donating to nonprofits/candidates, and sharing resources.
Federal #Liberals are discovering the price of their #politicisation of the Bondi terror attack & many appear to have buyers' remorse.
From banging fists on podiums, to demanding #PennyWong shed tears in public, the rabid political response from the #Coalition was brutal if not effective.
Ley had absorbed the anger, hurt, confusion & upset of the Jewish community & unleashed it on #Albo.
The Coalition has now pivoted to attack #Labor for being in a rush. #auspol
What Niki Savva says here resonates 🤔 - always so clear thinking:
“Federal and state Liberals had trouble confronting a simple proposition. If you are promoting a cause that neo-Nazis support, there is something profoundly wrong with your cause or the way you are prosecuting it. And if your continued advocacy gives succour to such extremists, you should not be in parliament. You can say whatever you like, wherever you like, but not from a privileged platform provided by a political party posing as fit to govern.” 👍
— p. 112 of Earthquake, from her column dated 30 March 2023 (a time of neo- Nazi prominence, for context).
CBC reporting that Elizabeth May has said she will be voting for the budget tonight. Which means the Liberals only need one more vote for it to pass, or for two MPs to abstain.
Seems unlikely we will have an election from this budget vote... but you never know!
John Harris is right: Labour & the Tories retain a 'hope that 20th-century politics can somehow be revived & behave as if something is terribly wrong when the old ways don’t work.... [and have] responded to transformed realities with panic & a governing style that tends to mix complacency with ineptitude'...
But, I would also note, faced with the political turbulence Harris identifies, the political class has also become more authoritarian about opposition!
@ChrisMayLA6 Historically there have been substantial barriers to entry by new political parties - for example #labour only contested two thirds of seats in the 1923 General Election and the #liberals less than a sixth in 1951. These barriers have diminished markedly in the last half century and especially in the last quarter century. So voters have been offered much more choice - although this dors not appear have increased their satisfaction with the political system!
The Republican party has shifted ideologies and kept its base. It went from free trade to tariffs, fiscal responsibility to huge tax cuts, Cold Warriors to isolationists. Democrats, meanwhile, have lost their ideological anchor: liberalism.
More from a historian whose new book “Why Everyone Hates White Liberals (Including White Liberals): A History” is out this month ⬇️
'In 2009, political scientists examining a hundred years of polling data found that, starting in the mid-1960s, decreasing numbers of Americans referred to themselves as liberal. And because partisanship is a social dynamic, when the club began to shrink, the researchers wrote, it turned into “a spiral in which ‘liberal’ not only is unpopular, but becomes ever more so.”
The researchers also found that most Americans still supported “‘liberal’ public policies” such as “redistribution, intervention in the economy, and aggressive governmental action to solve social problems.” Americans, apparently, just hated the label.
“Owning the libs” has been the glue keeping together the Republican Party ever since.'
“People obviously are over the ads and just want #election day out of the way and get on with their lives. I get all of that. But you know, we live in the greatest #country in the world. It’s worth #fighting for and #protecting and #defending and that’s what the #debate is about”
“I think #alcohol is the first essential ingredient, I’m sure of that, responsible drinking as well, but NOT WATCHING THE ABC would be a good start.
For the young ones, #listening at home, FORGET THE ABC. And if you do that, you can probably start with a good night.” — #PeterDutton
It has been less than three years since Australians voted out the #ScottMorrison (ex PM & Minister for Health, Finance, Treasury, Immigration and Holidays) government. My #colleagues and I know there is more work to do. That is what #drives us.” — #AnthonyAlbanese
Half the battle is attendance. ⚔️
Not a bad summary, nothing on environment, trade or defence… but there is #Policy to back this up. No mention of working with Independents, Greens to achieve these aims.
The #escalation comes after a #worker from the council, which the #Liberals say is friendly to #independent MP #MoniqueRyan, was filmed confiscating a Liberals sign reading "Monique, please DO NOT take this sign!".”
“Hume says it’s too early to discuss replacing #PeterDutton Shadow finance minister #JaneHume was asked on #ABCNews (#HateNews) Breakfast a little earlier about whether she sees shadow treasurer #AngusTaylor as a future #leader of the party.
Hume says it’s “too early” to have those conversations.
You do not read the #entrails until you have #gutted the #chicken. We will be working for every vote up until 6 on election day.
(my emphasis, "Out, damned spot!”)
Asked whether she wants to keep her finance portfolio, Hume says: “I hope so … but that is entirely up to the leader.” She adds:
Key marginal seats in #NSW and #Victoria will likely be decided on the Chinese Australian vote, including the north Sydney seat of #Bennelong, where a man who held a senior role in a Chinese government-linked influence association (#CCP) is leading a volunteer group for the Liberal candidate.
Both claims show the difficulty political parties face as they try to win over Chinese Australian voters with a wide array of priorities, manage Australia’s #ComplexRelationship with its largest trading partner, and attack the other side over #NationalSecurity.”
“The #Coalition’s plan to raise $3.6bn by increasing #tax on #VAPES and making them MORE WIDELY AVAILABLE would lead to “serious short- and long-term harm” and is “exactly what #BigTobacco have been asking for”, according to public health experts.”
“Liberal #candidate#ScottYung and party officials have declined to answer detailed #questions about whether his use of #Chinese celebrities and a public relations firm in the 2019 #StateElection complied with official #guidelines, as the Liberal party confirms an #audit of campaign disclosures.
A private dinner at a “luxurious venue” in #Sydney to raise #CampaignFunds for Yung, featuring the former Liberal prime minister #TonyAbbott, has also been cancelled without explanation.”
…
“Wishing the talented young Chinese Mr #RongSicheng [Scott Yung] has great success ahead and a boundless future! All the best! I’m #ZhangTielin from #Beijing, #China.”
The cursed Liberal Christian name “Scott” strikes again.
“The #Nationals#leader, #DavidLittleproud, called it a “slip of the tongue” when Price, the shadow minister for #GovernmentEfficiency and Indigenous #Australians, told a campaign rally she wanted to “make #Australia great again” on Saturday. The #senator later claimed she hadn’t “even realised” she made the comments, then accused the media of being “obsessed” with the US president.
Guardian #Australia has obtained an image of the senator at an event with her family over the Christmas period wearing a Maga hat.
…
Guardian Australia has approached #Coalition campaign headquarters for comment.”
Day 15 #OpEd reminder of who benefits from #LNP ☢️ policy
Thu 31 Oct, 2024.
“#PeterDutton says his office asked whether billionaire (Oligarch) #GinaRinehart's jet was available for event: #OppositionLeader Peter Dutton has admitted his own error after saying he had never requested access to billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart's #PrivateJet in his travels.”
Mr Dutton has previously #declared flights provided by #HancockProspecting, owned by Ms #Rinehart, but on Tuesday said "no" when asked if he had ever personally asked to be flown courtesy of the nation's #richest woman.
“While some young people the ABC spoke to have said these policies open up "a lot of opportunities" to enter the #HousingMarket and essentially make it "easier," experts argue the promises made by #Labor and the #Coalition (#Liberals/ #LNP / #Nationals) will only exacerbate already existing housing stressors.
Domain's Chief of #Research and #Economics Dr #NicolaPowellPhD said the extra demand the assistance would generate will elevate prices even further.
"So what we're likely to see is entry prices are going to boom, and we're likely to see even unit prices outperform, because this is where we're steering the demand”
April 13 “The rightwing #advocacy group #Advance has acknowledged it is paying for election materials attacking the #Greens to be used by third-party groups during the election campaign.
“Advance is working with hundreds of volunteers from dozens of community groups to defeat Greens candidates and we make no apology,” a spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said Advance did not fund groups directly but “we absolutely pay for anti-Greens campaign material to be at the disposal of volunteers”.
Our corporations and administrations are dominated by a clique of people who, because they are symbolically interested, "give 100%" and expect others to do the same.
We can speak of a social class in charge of organizing work:
"Capital chooses a management team to represent it on the spot [in the corporations. Executives are meant] to supervise and organize the labors of the working population" (Harry Braverman USA, 1974, p. 405)
For Braverman, the people who really count in this team are those whose managerial positions offer them "a share in the surplus produced in the corporation, and thus is intended to attach them to the success or failure of the corporation and give them a ‘management stake’, even if a small one." (pp.405–6, original emphasis)
‘The resumption and failure of efforts to socialize the German coal industry [in 1919] marked the end of any fundamental attempt to alter the distribution of economic power in Germany. […] It illustrated how social democrats became constrained by their own commitments to productivity and the general welfare—ultimately to the detriment of the "community". […]
‘Public control of Europe's key industry faltered in France and Germany because in a time of critical #fuel shortage big inductry made economical survival appear to ride upon its own independence.’
– Charles S. Maier in "Recasting Bourgeois Europe: Stabilization in France, Germany and Italy in the Decade After World War I", published in 1975, pages 194 & 195
‘The resumption and failure of efforts to socialize the German coal industry [in 1919] marked the end of any fundamental attempt to alter the distribution of economic power in Germany. […] It illustrated how social democrats became constrained by their own commitments to productivity and the general welfare—ultimately to the detriment of the "community". […]
‘Public control of Europe's key industry faltered in France and Germany because in a time of critical #fuel shortage big inductry made economical survival appear to ride upon its own independence.’
– Charles S. Maier in "Recasting Bourgeois Europe: Stabilization in France, Germany and Italy in the Decade After World War I", published in 1975, pp 194 & 195
"The transition from the turmoil of 1918-1919 to the bourgeois recovery of 1920-1921 was not just an episode of socialist and left-wing defeat. It was also a crisis of transformation and redirection. […]
"The need for American intervention produced a general agreement among European political leaders that self-determination, international organization, German democratization, and the preservation of capitalism and entrepreneurship should remain the baselines of for international and domestic settlement. Those elements who did not consent were intended to remain outside the new comity: on one side, the unreconstructed right, represented, for instance by the Prussian-german ruling class, or the other side, the revolutionary left.
"Let’s take that number-one narrative, which is I was taught to treat everyone the same. You know, actually no one was - or could be taught to treat everyone the same. We can’t do it. We don’t do it."
"A white progressive generally believes niceness is all that it takes. As long as I’m nice and friendly, I’m finished. And niceness not only is not courageous. But niceness is not going to get racism on the table."
Calling on the Liberals, NDP, Greens and Bloc to stop fighting each other at the ballot box. Come together and cooperate for Canada. Let's stop splitting the vote #cdnpoli #Liberals #NDP #Greens #Bloc ( bsky.app )
Cooperate for Canada on Bluesky ...