Andrew

Didn't common sense use to be... well... common?
Maius Bonum, Unus Mundus

[Andrew @AndrewDeathFlag]

Preferential voting is perhaps the most democratic way of electing a politician in the world. You require an absolute majority of votes to win. It ensures that the elected politician is the most preferred by the majority of voters. Together with compulsory voting it's amazing...

[Kevin Bonham @kevinbonham]

Teals are winning because candidates are running who the majority of their electorates end up preferring to the Liberal incumbents (and mostly to Labor and the Greens as well). If the majority of your electorate prefers someone else you do not win.

[Andrew @AndrewDeathFlag]

@undergroundK1W1 @strangerous10 Its all verifiable? A quick google search of current and former PHON candidates reveals much about the party as a whole...

[Jenny Difficult-Frecklington-Jones 🇵🇸🍉🇮🇷 @JonesHowDareYou]

In case anyone has forgotten/ignored what @AlboMP and @SenatorWong should have done immediately in January 2024, the moment the ICJ recognized the plausibility of genocide occurring in Gaza—in order to meet Australia's OBLIGATIONS under international law. #auspol #GazaHolocaust

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

There are two types of racism in the west: the kind that’s considered acceptable in polite liberal society, and the kind that’s widely frowned upon.

The acceptable type of racism is the kind which considers it fine and normal to drop bombs on Muslim families overseas. The kind which sees starvation sanctions as a minor issue whose pros and cons are assessed solely on the basis of whether they will be successful or unsuccessful in achieving regime change. The kind which views imperialist extraction from the global south as the natural order of the world, with centrists and progressives squabbling only about how evenly that plunder should be distributed among westerners.

The unacceptable type of racism is the kind which affects other westerners. The kind whose consequences western liberals have to see.

If a white woman calls the police on a black man minding his own business in the park, western liberals will send her viral on social media, and she will be unwelcome in polite society until the heat dies down. If a celebrity is caught on tape uttering an ethnic slur, they’ll be unpopular for a while, and will be considered a liability by sponsors and film studios. This is the wrong kind of racism.

That’s what you’re seeing whenever the western press completely ignores a dozen Palestinians getting killed by western-made munitions on the same day the entire news media focuses on some allegation of “antisemitism” with no material consequences other than some western Jews feeling emotionally upset. The former is the right kind of racism, while the latter is the wrong kind. One is seen as acceptable and normal, while the other is a horrifying abuse.

Western racism falls into two distinct categories because our entire civilization is built upon the polite kind, whereas the impolite kind is useful to the powerful only as a wedge issue to keep western populations divided against each other. Mainstream western politics is often just a culture war between one major party which embraces both the polite and impolite kinds of racism against another major party which only embraces the polite kind of racism, thereby ensuring that no political energy goes toward ending the polite kind of racism.

The polite kind of racism is much more important to the powerful in the 21st century, because it’s an absolutely foundational component to their rule rather than merely a useful tool. Without the imperialist extraction of labor and resources from the global south at extortionate prices, you wouldn’t see sprawling megacorporations turning millionaires into billionaires and trillionaires who then use their wealth to manipulate western politics to promote their own agendas. Without nonstop military expansionism and the abuses of the western intelligence cartel, the managers of the western empire could not dominate our planet.

That’s why every few years westerners get to vote on whether or not to advance the impolite kind of racism in their society, while the polite kind of racism never appears on the ballot. You’re allowed to vote on whether or not your government will become more abusive to immigrants and other marginalized members of your society, but you’re never allowed to vote on whether or not war, militarism and imperialist extraction will continue. This expression of racism (or white supremacism, or xenophobia, or western supremacism, or whatever you want to call it) is considered too important to be left to the will of the electorate.

And you see this reflected in the consciousness of the western mind. Even relatively aware westerners who would place themselves on the far left of the political spectrum will often spend a lot more energy on domestic issues than the abuses of the western war machine.

Earlier this month the discourse on Left Twitter revolved around whether or not it was a “privileged take” to say that people shouldn’t serve in the US military, the argument being that many US military personnel come from disadvantaged backgrounds. I saw a lot of US progressives who furiously disparage ICE agents and American cops falling all over themselves to defend those who enlist in the US war machine, which is quantifiably far more murderous and oppressive than domestic American law enforcement.

The only way to see things this way would be to view those who live in the global south as less human than people who live in the United States. That’s the only way it could possibly make sense in your mind to see the abuses of your country’s domestic police forces as worse than the demonstrably more egregious abuses of the US war machine. You’d have to view a school full of Iranian children being blown up by the US Navy as less worthy of attention and opposition than an American being beaten by a police officer in the United States. You’d have to assume those Iranian lives don’t matter.

And those are some of the more awake members of western society. Most westerners are a lot less conscious and compassionate than that.

Westerners live in the most savage and murderous civilization on earth. We don’t feel like we are savage and murderous because we outsource most of our violence and slavery to overseas operations, but that’s what we are. We go about our lives consuming products made by wage slaves under an oppression machine that is defended through constant mass military slaughter, and then we wag our fingers at a viral video of some schizophrenic saying racist things in order to feel nice feelings about ourselves. That’s what western life is, right there.

We’ve got a lot of growing up to do. We are in need of drastic, revolutionary change, more extensive than probably most of us can imagine at this point in time. We’ve got a long, long way to go, and a whole, whole lot of wrongs we need to make right around the world.

[Andrew @AndrewDeathFlag]

This is clearly a systemic issue. How does a few people resigning fix a broken system... fix the source @AustralianLabor

[Barbara Pocock @BarbaraPocock]

KPMG chairman Martin Sheppard and senior auditors are set to resign but so much more needs to be done to fix the rot throughout KPMG & the regulatory failure of the Big 4.

[Jane Caro @JaneCaro]

Private school funding is not just unfair, it is also dangerously unexamined. https://t.co/IwHqK4B0Ay

[💧Lawry Bugeja Sometimes facts are hard to find. @BugejaLbugeja]

@MikeCarlton01 Yet I hear regular complaints about the size of government and public servants numbers. Remember PwC giving its corporate clients the inside running on how to 'game' the governments corp tax policy, it actively helped the government construct? Now KPMG. None of them deserve work.

[Mike Carlton @MikeCarlton01]

“We didn’t meet the standards expected of us…” Ho hum, the usual public relations bullshit. KPMG actively and unethically rorted the system to make millions. They should never get another government contract again. Ever. https://t.co/lwT3ET3DXX

[MFWitches @MFWitches]

If you’re a woman and you intend to vote for Pauline Hanson, witches, you’re a deadset fucking dipshit.

And if you’re a man and have any concern for women’s rights or even the slightest interest in the human race continuing past this century and you intend to vote for Pauline Hanson, you’re an even bigger fucking dipshit.

Because just this morning, Hanson said live on TV that if elected, she intends to abolish what she called maternity leave but which is officially known as parental leave, on the basis “businesses can’t afford it”:
https://t.co/IHg6SDQw0l

Yet anyone with any knowledge of this issue knows businesses do not, in fact, pay parental leave to new families. It’s a federal government payment, which is in some cases topped up by employers but where there’s no offical requirement for them to do so.

So essentially, this is yet another fear-mongering lie from Hanson. Yep, the same Hanson who bleats on about how she’s “for the workers” yet who’s proving anew every fucking day the only people she cares about are business owners and others in her privileged, billionaire-loving orbit.

Every time she opens her mouth, she does Gina Rinehart’s bidding. But of course she does: how else does she repay the obligation inherent in the million-dollar aircraft Rinehart gave her, or the other donations and grift she gets from her rich yet needy mates?

Show the clip below to anyone you know who thinks they’re one of Hanson’s “battlers”, witches. Tell them they’re fucking dreaming. Tell them if they help elect her or any of her disgusting cronies, any support she’s ever pretended to have for workers and vulnerable Australians will evaporate faster than aviation fuel off a billionaire’s boot.

Hanson must be stopped. Rinehart must be stopped. It can be done, simply by sharing these lies widely, and asking Australians if they really want this horrible woman anywhere near Australian leadership and power. And by asking Australian women (and men) if they really want to go back to the days when Australians had little or no financial support for bearing and raising children (which essentially means women back in the kitchen and men back in almost all positions of power).

Some woman she is: she wants us barefoot, pregnant and dependent.

She must be stopped.

It’s up to all of us.

Are you in?

________

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https://t.co/IHg6SDQw0l

[Mike Carlton @MikeCarlton01]

It’s cost $2.4 billion all up to compensate the Robodebt victims. Those still alive, that is. An outrage. Yet those incompetent thugs Morrison, Robert and Tudge escape scot-free. And their successors have the gall to lecture us on responsible government. https://t.co/B95sKE1sC3

[Andrew @AndrewDeathFlag]

@noplaceforsheep Ah yes, a medical partnership with a genocidal state that actively targets civillians, and then targets first responders after their initial attacks... and don't get me started on the organ thefts, maybe that's what they want from us...

[Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt @FranceskAlbs]

My family and I are exposed to all sorts of threats, restrictions and hateful rethoric.

Yet we would say and do everything we have said and done against the genocide, its ideologues and profiteers, again and again.

Forever proud to stand on the side of Justice.

[David Milner @DaveMilbo]

This "monoculture" shit Pauline is forcing into the discourse

MSM journos, please ask her how she would enforce cultural apartheid

Pies? The anthem on a loop? Police raids of the Shawarma carts at the Dandenong night market?

Don't normalise her insane racism, you fkn numpties

[David Shoebridge @DavidShoebridge]

ICYMI WA Police want to scan the faces of EVERYONE walking past in real time, with no consent and no choice. It's an Australian first and a warning to the whole country that our privacy laws aren't enough to protect us from a surveillance state!

[David Pocock @DavidPocock]

Spot on from @canberratimes

There is no excuse for the govt to keep piling unsustainable levels of debt on students.

Labor know Scott Morrison’s Job Ready Graduates program is broken - they said so when in opposition - but have now had more than four years to fix it. The Albanese govt need to hurry up and get it done.
https://t.co/B0wYO4gLHa

[Mike Hutchinson @michaeljames947]

@Mon4Kooyong @MichaelPascoe01 This (gambling reform) was low hanging fruit that could have won the govt kudos for its timely picking. Now it is rotting on the vine with delay and its neglect will harm the government in the fullness of time…

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

The single dumbest conspiracy theory of all time is that there's a secret plot between all the world's mainstream humanitarian institutions to falsely portray Israel as a genocidal apartheid state.

[stranger @strangerous10]

@kavienna @lyon_brendan @kpmgaustralia “without transparency there is no trust”
KPMG confirms they can’t be trusted.

[Dr. Karen Austria @kavienna]

Absolutely agree @DavidShoebridge 💚👨🏼‍⚖️⚖️
ABSOLUTELY NOT! 🖕

Turning Bandiana in Victoria into a giant US Marine weapons depot makes Australia a prime target in any US-China conflict.

It erodes our sovereignty, risks dragging us into foreign wars, and prioritises American strategy over independent Australian defence.

We need diplomacy and sovereign capabilities, not becoming a parking lot for US ammo.

#SnoutTheCon 🐽

[David Pocock @DavidPocock]

So it turns out gas companies CAN pay more tax and would be willing to do so if it means they don't have to reserve gas for Australians 🤦‍♂️

How about they pay tax AND prioritise Australian gas for Australians… a 25% gas export tax would raise $17B/year AND reduce prices for Australians.

Keep up the pressure at https://t.co/dcjuwV2f9S

https://t.co/g31um7S0FE

[David Pocock @DavidPocock]

It's absurd that large mining companies receive huge taxpayer-funded diesel subsidies while everyone else pays. Fuel excise doesn't go to roads it goes to general govt revenue.

Treasury forecasts the fuel tax credit scheme will cost the budget $47 billion over 4 years. Coal companies alone could receive another $6.2 billion if more mines are approved.

It's time to end fuel tax credits for large mining companies.
https://t.co/cEiwSiv56M