Blogs

Proportional representation is usually expressed in a manner as being a "fair" electoral system, where if your group received 40% of the vote your group will also receive 40% of the representation. Opponents typically decry it as meaning that it can lead to a situation where a minority group, controlling the balance of power, can have undue influence. Drunkenly familiar with power, it is little surprise to discover domineering political parties reject calls for proportional representation.

Bye, by President Donald Groper. Talk about a soap opera that makes the Bold and the Beautiful look like a show about real people. The Groper is rapidly pulling up his Republican Party drawbridges. I’ve said many times before the Groper has the same problems Malcolm Turnbull has, the political party he has laid his cuckoo egg in has discovered the egg and is in the process of pushing it out of the nest.

Every time the Labor Party goes on a reformist tangent the Liberal National Party starts screaming about “class warfare” and “equality of outcome”. Over the past forty years this country has been in the midst of “class warfare”. Not the type of class warfare you’re thinking about, when the have nots have asked for a few more crumbs to be brushed off the ruling class’ table, but an insidious type of class warfare that has seen wealth being distributed from the poorest section of society to the richest.

If you believe in creation irrespective if it’s an indigenous dreaming creation story that stretches back over 2,000 generations or a biblical creation story which only stretches back 200 generations, life’s easy. Creationists are given the world on a platter. It’s a given, it’s there you don’t have to worry about how it came about and more importantly, how it’s all going to end.

Pressure from the community as a result of access to basic services becoming more and more difficult has forced both the Turnbull led government and the Shorten led Opposition to consider policies that will rein in the opportunities people with disposable income have to legally minimise their taxes to almost nothing. One measure that has been introduced and spruiked by the Federal government is the extra tax that will be paid by transnational corporations operating in Australia that have made a mockery of the taxation system.

There is a sense in which I will concede that a society with private ownership can be socialist.

Soviet Russia was not socialist because it lacked the two primary features of socialism.
The two main features or socialism are (1) social ownership wherein each member of society has a relatively equal share of social wealth and (2) industrial democracy in which workers participate in decision-making processes, either directly or though elected delegates.

Funny that Israel Lobby hasbarists still spend so much time attacking the push to recognize Palestine.

Yesterday they told me that NSW Labor's recognition of Palestine was worthless symbolism, that it meant nothing, that it was 'just a pissing contest.'

But the hasbarist's argument goes both ways: if it was a waste of time pushing it, then why did they work so hard rejecting it?

Zionism is often called the belief in the Jewish people's right to self-determination.
But Modern Zionism is not self-determination. It is Jewish statism and Jewish nationalism.
I believe in Jewish self-determination: our human right to politically organize, and to have religious Jewish courts for Jews who want to settle disputes through interpretations of Jewish law.

It's a shame that Modern Zionists have such little debate over definition, and even less debate about whether a Jewish state should exist, but before the foundation of Israel it was common.

There is no question that approximately 40% of people who regularly play the pokies are problem gamblers. Addiction is one way many people cope with disappointment, loss and loneliness. It’s not unusual to see an older cross section of the community regularly visit pokies outlets. It’s easy to denigrate and dismiss people with a gambling addiction for “a problem of their own making”. The damage caused by gamblers is akin to the consequences of throwing a rock into a pool. The ripples that are caused continue long after the rock has disappeared from sight.