Being Stoic: What Is It?
I could begin with a brief history lesson about Stoicism but this is not the essence of it. Being Stoic: What is it? Doing stuff you don’t want to do but know that you have to do anyway. The expression ‘soldiering on,’ invariably comes to mind, as soldiers have to do a lot of shitty things they really would rather not. Duty is a big one for Stoics. Virtue, even, more so. WTF is virtue anyway? It is a word, which has not stood the test of time. It exists as an anachronism, a term draped in cobwebs and an echo from the ancient world. This is old stuff and does it truly having any bearing on our lives today?
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Why Appealing To White Working Class Folk Is A Race To The Bottom?
Democrats in America are scratching their heads over Trump’s victory in the recent presidential election. Soul searching is going on, as to how they lost this contest. Democratic elections are popularity contests. They are part evaluations, part bribery, and mirrors held up to societies. Op eds are being written about the role of working class America in the outcome. Chasing this vote is problematic in my view. Why appealing to white working class folk is a race to the bottom? Demagogues, like Donald Trump, falsely court this vote and pretend to champion their grievances. Trump did not deliver for them the first time around and will not again. It is a cynical game and losers always lose out in the end.
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Self-Interest Is Trending In America.
The pundits say you should always back the horse called ‘self-interest’ in any race. Donald Trump franked this adage once again in the US Presidential contest over Kamala Harris. A convicted felon who mishandled a global pandemic appallingly, when he was last President, Donald Trump was re-elected to the White House. Trump had plenty to lose if he lost, in terms of numerous upcoming criminal trials and the very real prospect of going to jail. ‘The man was motivated,’ as they say on the street. Self-interest is trending in America. The Trump campaign stitched up every deal and sold every favour they possibly could. Elon Musk was literally jumping up and down for Trump.
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Albanese Government Need To Lift Their Game
Let me make one thing clear at the outset of this post, the ALP federal government may be lukewarm in my opinion but the Opposition is no alternative. The Albanese government need to lift their game, as the timidity and treading water approach are beginning to smell of self-preservation. We do not want a government, which is more interested in not offending folk than getting anything progressive done. The Voice rejection was a very disappointing failure for Australia but it is no excuse for ducking the difficult issues facing the nation. Anthony Albanese needs to go watch some footage of former PM Paul Keating and find some backbone real fast.
Why We Abuse the Elderly
In Australia, we have just completed a Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. Some people were shocked at the findings, which emerged out of this enquiry. More than 10, 500 submissions and the testimony of 600 witnesses were considered during the two years it ran. Elderly Australians have been abused, drugged into submission and treated abhorrently according to the evidence provided to the commission. The rights of those in aged care have been sorely neglected and transgressed over many decades here in Australia within the current federally run system. It is time to ask ourselves why we abuse the elderly and why we allow this abuse to go on unchecked despite countless reviews into the current system for aged care?
The Demonising Of Youth Crime
Australians like to pick on the powerless. Older Australians in particular exemplify this trait in the demonising of youth crime. Let’s get one thing straight, the political and societal campaigns against this apparent scourge are not about changing things but about punishment and revenge. The vast majority of us have never been personally affected by youth crime but take up the cudgel anyway out of spite or some such motivation. Those who vote for tougher penalties are not interested in solving what lies at the core of criminality but rather in gaining satisfaction from punishing perpetrators. Youth crime is a trope. Children, as a group, are generally powerless to combat such societal moves, as they aren’t organised and have no social voice.
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Are You Using Your Brain Power For Better?
Ask yourself – are you using your brain power for better? In all honesty, are you truly utilising the tools you have been given in this lifetime? Take a moment to evaluate your life up until now. Spend some time in introspection and ask the question of yourself. The funny and awful thing about life is that it can suddenly be taken away or key aspects of it can. Whatever your age, the onus is on all of us to make it count. It is too easy to get stuck in a rut.
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The Whale Watcher: Barfing About Blubber
Watching The Whale I was struck by several insights into the issues raised by this film. Firstly, by how un-American this movie was. Where were all the beautiful people? American celluloid and TV is, generally, characterised by a smug self-confidence with everybody sensing that they are the bee’s knees. The Whale watcher: Barfing about blubber. Holding up a mirror to a nation with a massive obesity problem is not normal fare on American screens. The clever use of intertextuality with that god awful American novel Moby Dick called attention to the theatrical roots of this production. The play/movie grappled with those age old American themes so densely inculcated within Moby Dick. God, religious belief, and questions of morality fill the pages of the great American novel. If you have ever attempted to read Moby Dick, the actual white whale is rarely sighted within its pages, rather Melville subjects readers to endless tracts on earnest searches for meaning within the Christian paradigm. It is a book that tries too hard to be morally deep and meaningful.
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Robodebt: What The Royal Commission Revealed
If institutional injustice makes you mad this episode had it in spades. Robodebt: What the Royal Commission revealed to us. A government and a bunch of ministers who saw themselves as ‘welfare cops’, with a duty to shake down the most vulnerable among us. Without fear or favour these sheriffs took on pensioners, disabled Australians, and those down on their luck. They applied income averaging to make it look like these people on the bones of their arse were rorting the system. It played well to those who are always looking for someone to blame for their own financial frustrations.
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The Royal Commission Into The Robodebt Scheme
The tendency for human beings to kick another whist he or she is down is not a well known Christian practice but perhaps it should be. The Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, currently underway, reveals a religious zeal by the ministers responsible in hammering this automated debt collection program home. This is despite the Robodebt scheme being understood by government lawyers to be illegal. Scott Morrison, a proud Christian and the minister responsible at its inception had no qualms about using income averaging to impose large debts upon the poorest and most vulnerable among the Australian community.
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Trump Should Be In Jail
The proposition that Trump should be in jail is supported by many millions of people around the world. Ex-President Donald Trump has broken so many laws over so many years it is astounding that he has avoided successful prosecution for so long. The more I watch the circus that is the US political system and its coverage by the media the clearer the state of play in America is. Wealth and power make individuals seemingly above the law in the US. The great democracy is a joke really, a bad joke at the expense of those who lack the material prerequisites for immunity from prosecution.
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The Rise Of Cybercrime: The Widening Gap Between Rich and Poor
The rise of cybercrime: The widening gap between rich and poor is in direct correlation. We have been warned that the continuing divide and expanding inequality within our societies will spawn a violent breakdown of law and order. The proliferation of scams and identity theft is the forerunner of this societal upheaval. Scammers and hackers depend upon there being plenty of dissatisfied folk ready to cross the line to better their lot. If we continue to allow the wealthy to feather their nests, at the expense of the majority, via manipulation of our democratic governments things are only going to get worse.
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George Pell Is Dead
Ding dong the witch is dead! Cardinal George Pell has fallen from this mortal coil. George Pell is dead. A convicted sex offender, who was later released from prison after having his conviction quashed by the High Court. Where there is smoke, however, there is usually fire. Pell had been the hard man of conservative Catholic values over many decades in high office within the church. He had overseen a period of revelation within this religious institution. The Catholic Church in Australia and elsewhere was revealed to be a sewer of sexual perversion and exploitation of innocent children.
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Australia Has Set The Bar Too Low
Australia has set the bar too low, when it comes to societal expectations around things like civic responsibility. Decades of neoliberalism infecting our governments on both sides of politics has seen a huge slide in respect for the role of government in managing our social contract. The late Kerry Packer was lionised for his tough talk to the senate on tax minimisation and its merits in Australian life. We now face an impending tax revenue crisis, as corporations continue to dodge their taxation responsibilities through clever accounting practices. Wealthy Australians think that it is OK to avoid paying tax wherever they can. Packer told his audience that smart people don’t pay tax where possible and that government’s waste their money anyway. This has become an established narrative in the Aussie cultural canon.
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The Real State of Democracy In America
Democracy has long been lauded in the United States of America – Home of the Free etc etc. The reality of the situation, however, has been revealed over the last 5 years during the Trump ascendancy. The American political framework is full of holes, which have been effectively exploited by the Russians and local vested interests. The idea of democracy endures as something wonderful but in practice falls way short. The real state of democracy in America is only partially subscribed to by the country’s population.
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People Have Discovered Ukraine
Many people have discovered Ukraine for the first time since the invasion by Russia at the beginning of this year 2022. In a perverted sense they could thank Mr Putin for the catalyst in making this so but this would not be entirely accurate. This is because the invasion of Ukraine really began in 2014 and this did not stop the World Cup being held in Russia in 2018. The world took little notice of the earlier incursions and annexations of Ukrainian territory, which obviously encouraged Mr Putin to go the whole hog, so to speak. This time, however, the USA freed from Trump and the European Union were galvanised to take action in the form of more far reaching sanctions and military aid to Ukraine. Still, Ukraine was for many a far flung place in the east of which little was known.
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Conflicts Of Interest In Australia
Australia has been locked into a cycle of inaction around the major issues facing the nation. Manipulation of the political system by vested interests on climate change and inequality has seen little progress achieved on these important matters affecting the nation. Conflicts of interest in Australia are entrenched within media and government. A lack of transparency around political influence within the two party preferred system remains the elephant in the room. On top of this, the loudest voice in the room via media interest is the Murdoch news organisation with its monopoly of newspapers across the land. Murdoch is a rabid right wing media mogul, as seen by the content on his Fox News and Sky News Australia TV networks. Objective coverage of the news is so far from what viewers get via the Murdoch press it would be laughable if it wasn’t such a serious concern for the country.
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A Farewell Letter to Scott Morrison
I thought that I should write one last time to you on the marking of your defeat and loss of office. A farewell letter to Scott Morrison on behalf of the nation and myself. I will not be sorry to see the last of your smug, self-satisfied face from my TV screen. Nearly 9 years of your white bread, misogynistic government has been damaging to my own life and Australia’s reputation. Your head in the sand stance on global warming has endangered lives and put back the nation a decade. You have decimated the once broad church of the Liberal Party and led its shift to the irrelevant hard right fringes of Australian political life.
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Out Of Touch Australian Media
The results of the recent federal election surprised an out of touch Australian media. The success of the Greens and the Teal tidal wave bowled over a largely conservative media in this country. The ABC has been cowed by 9 years of LNP governments and their threats to gut their organisation. Those who make up the members of the Australian media are largely conservative in their own views and professional behaviour. The Greens were pretty much ignored by the mainstream media in the lead up to this election. The Teal independents were challenged on their status by a media driven by conservative attitudes and strategies.
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Why Did God Bother Us?
There we were minding our own business and suddenly folks were hearing voices inside their heads. Why did god bother us? According to the stories you had blokes building bloody big boats and others threatening to murder their own kids, all in the name of some so-called divine source. Human beings had journeyed for billions of years from single cell entities to multicellular, then, to mammals to primates, but of course were not equipped to remember such deep time events. So we made up stories to populate our own shallow-time historical concerns with important people and a god to top it all off with.
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Who Will You Vote For on May 21?
The Australian federal election has finally been called for May 21. Who will you vote for on May 21? Aussies are now gearing up to make a big decision. For some it will be a no brainer. For others it will be an unwanted hassle to go where they would rather not bother. The media will move into overdrive with reality TV like coverage of a personality competition at the top of their agenda. Elections soon become beauty contests and tests of personal charisma. The psychology of these races pit one candidate against another in a bid to become a nation’s leader. The disinterested voters generally choose the least offensive or the one who fits their type somewhere in the mist of imprinted archetypal strongmen or women.
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The Actors On Our Political Stage
Some people were surprised to find out that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was originally a comedienne/actor. In reality, however, all modern politicians are more actor than statesman. The actors on our political stage, our wearing their hi viz garb for every photo opportunity. The ubiquity […]
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Human Beings Must Not Respect One Another
The very idea of a god is a vote of no confidence in ourselves. Human beings must not respect one another if we look to a non-human entity to divinely rule over us. History tells us that civilisation after civilisation have created the existence of […]
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Laissez Faire Capitalism & Western Democracy
After decades of neglect Australia and the US are finally spending some money in the Pacific. The announcement of the laying of an undersea cable to provide internet to island nations in the Pacific is a prime example of this. Why are they doing this […]
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The Right Side is Wrong
The terms right wing and left wing have become entrenched in today’s political narrative. Historically, the terms have come down to us from the time of the French Revolution in 1789. The aristocracy sat on the right-hand side of the presiding officer. The Third Estate […]
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Text is the Foundation of Search
Lots of people use the internet without understanding how it works. This is not unusual as most of us do not comprehend exactly how many things work. If I asked how electrical current passes from the mains to your device, the majority of folks would […]
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The Social Contract During a Global Pandemic
The Covid global pandemic has resulted in more than 5 million deaths and counting. Vaccine hesitancy has delayed our scientific solution to managing the pandemic in many countries around the world. The social contract during a global pandemic is in sharp focus right now. This […]
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Racism Underpins the West’s Attitude to China
It was heartening to see former Australian PM Paul Keating speak out sensibly about our relationship with China. Especially after the last couple of years of ridiculous chest beating by conservative politicians seeking to fan the flames of racism in a bid to win votes. […]
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Real Hollywood Gun Death Hurts the Industry
The terrible tragic death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins at the hands of a prop gun is a timely message to an unhealthy industry. There are too many guns seen on the screens showing Hollywood films. Writers and directors seem to have an obsession with creating […]
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Not Another Epidemiologist on My Screen
The global pandemic has exhausted me, and I suspect I am not alone on this score. If I see another daily press conference featuring a Premier or PM I just might scream. If I was not so dead set against guns and violence, I might just do something desperate. Perhaps I could adapt the concept to my principles and attack a bush with a water pistol or something equally insane. Please oh please not another epidemiologist on my screen, as much as they are doing fine work for the community I must look away.
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Transplanted Democracy Uprooted in Afghanistan by the Taliban
Any gardener will tell you that if you prune back a plant it will regrow with added vigour. The Taliban in Afghanistan has come back powerfully after 20 years of pruning by the US and coalition forces. Remember that pre-invasion by the US the Taliban […]
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Will Covid Sars-2 Prove to Be Our Dinosaur Extinction Moment?
As I sit here heading into another Covid lockdown, this time from the Delta variant, I ponder about our future. Will Covid Sars-2 prove to be our dinosaur extinction moment? Will the Homo sapien’s story end here at the hands of a virus. Perhaps a virus engineered in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, which was funded by American corporate interests. It all sounds like a scenario drawn from the pages of an airport bookstore thriller. However, over 4 million people have lost their lives from this pandemic and deaths are not slowing up anytime soon.
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Microbiome and Humans
‘Microbiome’ – Micro meaning very small – Bio meaning life – Me meaning you or me. Remember this term because it is going to become better recognised as an important factor in human health and our longevity. Human microbiome is defined as the collection of genes found in all microbes residing within us – basically all the bacteria, fungi, viruses, and microorganisms inhabiting our bodies. ‘Microbiota’, another term, refers to all microorganisms inhabiting a particular environment like the gut. There are many trillions of these microscopic entities residing in our human gastrointestinal tract, on our skin, and most places. Long have we ignored this micro-environment and rather focused on larger, more readily seen matters, possibly to the detriment of our health and understanding of life. Remember that microbes have been around for a lot longer than we have (billions of years) and are easily the most successful life forms on this planet. In the current climate, with a global viral pandemic ravaging the world, we are all suddenly more aware of the micro-realm. Indeed, our awareness of microbiome greatly increased around 2002, when gene sequencing technology became available to identify microbes and their influence. Following this there has been a huge explosion in the study of microbiome and humans.
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Consciousness: Free Will and Cellular Facts
We are all born into this life without our consent. Nobody asks us whether we would like to play the game of life in human form. Observing the unfocused gaze of a newborn babe one witnesses a magical tabula rasa moment. Consciousness is, it seems, at its earliest manifestation, the state of the watcher. A baby observes via its eyes and visual sensory apparatus within the brain. We, as human beings are made up of many trillions of human cells. There are 200 different types of cells within the body and none of these are individually conscious or sentient. Consciousness: Free will and cellular facts tell a story that is wildly divergent from the narratives derived from religion and lore.
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Why We Abuse the Elderly
In Australia, we have just completed a Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. Some people were shocked at the findings, which emerged out of this enquiry. More than 10, 500 submissions and the testimony of 600 witnesses were considered during the two years it ran. Elderly Australians have been abused, drugged into submission and treated abhorrently according to the evidence provided to the commission. The rights of those in aged care have been sorely neglected and transgressed over many decades here in Australia within the current federally run system. It is time to ask ourselves why we abuse the elderly and why we allow this abuse to go on unchecked despite countless reviews into the current system for aged care?
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The Art of Blogging
I want to make a confession first up, which is that I hate the word blog and all its extensions – blogging, blogger, blogged and blogs. Short for ‘web log’ apparently, blog, is an ugly word let’s face it. It sounds to me like a colloquial term fit for acts of defecation. Thus, the art of blogging is akin to a ballerina farting loudly throughout a performance of the Nutcracker Suite. OK got that off my chest. I wonder who came up with the term in the first place? I Googled it and according to a Wikipedia entry ‘weblog’ was so named by one Jom Barger in 1997 and one Peter Merholz reduced the two words to ‘blog’ in 1999 via a phrase posted on his blog. Now you know.
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RIP Anthony Bourdain
When I was asked to write something about the recent passing of celebrity chef and raconteur, Anthony Bourdain, I realised that he had been a part of my own culinary journey. His death by suicide, whilst shocking, does fit with the narrative contained within his first book. I received, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, his breakout bestselling memoir, as a birthday present from my mother. It was a surprising choice and an equally surprising success. The book lifted the lid on the squalid and steamy underworld of commercial kitchens in the United States. Personally, I had been rattling the pans in restaurant kitchens for nearly 20 years, prior to the publication of Kitchen Confidential in 2000. Commercial kitchens, I suspect, are pretty similar around the globe, especially in western cities like New York, Sydney and London. RIP Anthony Bourdain.
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Being Stoic: What Is It?
I could begin with a brief history lesson about Stoicism but this is not the essence of it. Being Stoic: What is it? Doing stuff you don’t want to do but know that you have to do anyway. The expression ‘soldiering on,’ invariably comes to mind, as soldiers have to do a lot of shitty things they really would rather not. Duty is a big one for Stoics. Virtue, even, more so. WTF is virtue anyway? It is a word, which has not stood the test of time. It exists as an anachronism, a term draped in cobwebs and an echo from the ancient world. This is old stuff and does it truly having any bearing on our lives today?
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Why Appealing To White Working Class Folk Is A Race To The Bottom?
Democrats in America are scratching their heads over Trump’s victory in the recent presidential election. Soul searching is going on, as to how they lost this contest. Democratic elections are popularity contests. They are part evaluations, part bribery, and mirrors held up to societies. Op eds are being written about the role of working class America in the outcome. Chasing this vote is problematic in my view. Why appealing to white working class folk is a race to the bottom? Demagogues, like Donald Trump, falsely court this vote and pretend to champion their grievances. Trump did not deliver for them the first time around and will not again. It is a cynical game and losers always lose out in the end.
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Self-Interest Is Trending In America.
The pundits say you should always back the horse called ‘self-interest’ in any race. Donald Trump franked this adage once again in the US Presidential contest over Kamala Harris. A convicted felon who mishandled a global pandemic appallingly, when he was last President, Donald Trump was re-elected to the White House. Trump had plenty to lose if he lost, in terms of numerous upcoming criminal trials and the very real prospect of going to jail. ‘The man was motivated,’ as they say on the street. Self-interest is trending in America. The Trump campaign stitched up every deal and sold every favour they possibly could. Elon Musk was literally jumping up and down for Trump.
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America Chooses A Crook For President
A majority of Americans have chosen Donald Trump, a known liar and convicted criminal to be their president. In a two candidate race they have chosen a ridiculous scumbag over having a capable woman to lead their nation. Make no mistake, America chooses a crook for President. What this tells the world is that the laws of the land and morality do not matter to most Americans. In the wake of all the crap that Trump spews forth daily and its divisive consequences more Americans have chosen this rather than a fresh start. This is a warning to the world about where the United States is heading and fast.
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Why So Dumb If Some So Smart?
Humanity Is regularly celebrated for its technology, which has lifted us above all other animals. Curing diseases, motorised vehicles, supermarkets, splitting the atom, computers, mobile phones, and even space rockets. These are but a few of the amazing inventions created by humans. How come then masses of us think and act so stupidly? Why so dumb if some so smart? Has it always been the case that the majority of us are low intel creatures and only a minority are much smarter? The experts tell us that it is our ability to share information which has set us apart on the intelligence scale from the other species of animals on the planet.
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Socrates Was An Old Soldier
Socrates was an old soldier, who fought for Athens well into his 40’s. Alcibiades was instrumental in his downfall, in many ways, as it was the impetuosity of this young man that ultimately poisoned the well of public opinion against Socrates. Much of what we think we know about Socrates comes from the writings of others – Plato and Xenophon in particular. Interestingly, Xenophon was an Athenian who spent much of his life living in Sparta. Alcibiades, of course, fled to Sparta in an act of treasonous betrayal before returning when Athens was defeated by the Spartans. Democracy fell and the 30 Tyrants were installed to run Athens – Socrates is associated with these tyrants, as he served in an official capacity as a public servant during this oligarchic period. It was a time of great political upheaval, obviously, and Athenian citizens of standing would be hard pressed to avoid taking sides, I imagine.
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Career Politicians Killing Democracy
Australia is one of the most secretive democracies in the Western world, according to those in the know. International experts have deemed our governments more secretive than the United States in the way we go about the business of government. In my estimation it is career politicians killing democracy, which is at the heart of this problem. Careerism invariably puts the interests of the exponent over that of the community when it comes to cutting the mustard. Politicians in Australia like to stay in their comfort zone when it comes to governing the country or the state. Avoiding the glare of the media and the voting public, whenever possible, is always high on their agenda.
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Careerism: Self-Interest’s Acceptable Public Face
Western democracies spruik their hopefully meritocratic qualities. The belief that through hard work and talent you can reach the upper echelons of your profession or work place. Careerism: Self-interest’s acceptable public face exists on this basis. Striving for success in any field is encouraged and culturally rewarded. Many bemoan the ever present dangers of nepotism and cronyism within our societies and nations. The elite private schools and old boy’s networks which operate in counter to any ideas of equal opportunity and fairness. Those of us with any pragmatic awareness of how the job market actually works know that it is largely driven by who you know and not what you know. This makes a mockery of any meritocratic ideals believed to be operating within Western democracies.
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The ‘Me’ Filter: Perceiving Life Self-Obsessively
We all do it and it is happening more often most of the time. The ‘Me’ filter: Perceiving life self-obsessively. Some religious folk point to the popular demise of the Christian ethos – a cultivated concern with the welfare of others. Now, not every Christian was genuinely any good at this lifestyle orientation but it was widely proselytised at the time. These days, more of us are openly much more devoted to self-interest in all walks of life. What’s in it for me? Is asked at the ballot box and elsewhere in our negotiations and dealings with work, life and play.
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