One can only hope that with the "Occupy" movement in the US and the ongoing protests in the UK eventually Australians will wake up and demand more from business and politicians.
It is time to call in the leveraged millionaires and call them "bad debts" instead of "strained assets" that the masses will bail-out. Wall St does not have a God given right to profits, certainly not at the expense of middle class taxpayers.
The connections of policy to bribes ("donations") to parties needs also to be made clear and public.
You wouldn't know it from the media, but there is a huge groundswell occurring in western nations at the moment. We are still a bit too comfortable in Australia to react yet I guess.
Which brings up the main issue: Democracy requires a free media. Currently the media is blatantly biassed in a number of areas. Since the Iraq "WMD" farce many have realised that it is a tool for those that manipulate democracy...not a friend of the people, nor "professional journalism" in the sense of caring about truth and fair analysis. This also applies to economic and market reporting (manipulated for profit), government policy (also manipulated with faint praise or outright multi-pronged attack) and planning issues (land banking, pollution, etc), and legal coverage (favoured folks get protection, tabloid otherwise). Hopefully the internet will assist in redressing this...but only if the Filter is kept absolutely transparent!

The opposite is the case!

What about the "Tea Party Movement"? Hmmmm.

What we are seeing is the last gasp of the destructive left/liberal/feminist/green ability to mobilise a grass roots.

Instead leftie/feminist zealots have taken power in or schools, divorce courts, nanny state, governments etc. Like the ALP, they no longer have a grass roots - and they don't need it... they have POWER.

And they use their power just as any powerful group does... to 'silence dissent'. The self-proclaimed 'radicals' are now in power and, lo and behold, they are now use 'conservative' techniques of oppression.

And on the other hand, there is a growing but unfunded and disorganised grass roots movements:-
- Fathers and Families Movement (mis-named as 'men's rights')
- A growing popular media especially seen on talkback radio (mis-named as 'right-wing').
- An embryonic anti-green grass roots.
- A vigourous anti-big government "Tea Party Movement"
- a reaction to the discrimination inherent in the 'war against boys' in schools
- Truth campaigners in the anti-migration, anti-multicultural field.
- truth as opposed to propaganda, age of enlightenmnet values as opposed to PC lies.
- a resurgent evangelical christian movement.

The extent of the power of the lefties/feminists is that the institutions that 'should' guard against discrimination and lies, are in fact the worst offenders of oppression and propaganda. The anti-discrimination bodies are the worst offenders... supporting overt oppressive discrimination against the unfashionable oppressed, and pushing additional priviliges on their favoured groups and beliefs (women, illegal migrants, aboriginies, womens industries, geeen fascism)

These are 'conservative' movements. and they share several things in common.
... continued...

The second article today calling (Quietly) for revolution.

... continued...

These are 'conservative' movements. and they share several things in common.

1: they have no government funding (the powerfull left-wing are far more vigourous than previous generations in making sire that the new movements never get the sort of funding that allowed feminism to move from the writings of a few authors into a legally enforced dogma.

2: Pro-family, Pro-child, Pro-truth. The lefties/feminists/greenies have embraced postmodern philosophy to such an extent that they don't believe there is 'truth' and that fabricating and disseminating lies is nothing to be ashamed of.

3: They are small and so-far disorganised. They don't have media, funding, organisation and so they are forced to rely on grass roots radicalism and consciousness raising. The conservatives are forced to use 'radical' techniques.

Like the UK Fatherhood and Families group known as "Fathers4Justice" who dressed in superhero suits and climbed buildings, bridges and Buckingham Palace, to get some media. Just like the bra-burners in the 1960's - these are the vanguard of those hell-bent on making our society fairer better and safer for children.

They are our only hope for the future.
PartTimeParent@pobox.com

Kellie you make me laugh. You write 'They are no longer prepared to tolerate the greed and corruption of what they call "the 1%".'
As a middle class Aussie of which I feel that you are at least we are in the top 5% of the world's richest. Even if you are on the dole you are among the richest. Until you are willing to give up your lifestyle you can not be so self righteous in condemning many who have done well. The victim mentality in the West does more damage than anything. I use to work with Public Servants who had never worked in the real world who honestly thought they were hard done by. This 'new generation of hope'has the same sinful greedy, lustful nature as you and me. To pretend otherwise is delusion.

To add to Kellie's statistics, the Four Corners program last night indicated that in the 'home of the brave and land of the free', US words, not mine, there are 46 million people living in poverty. In the UK, 1% of the people own 20% of the wealth.

We witnessed the riots in the UK as we will again, no doubt. The result of such a disparity between the rich and the poor means continued violence and criminal activity as people feel that they have nothing to lose, nowhere to go. The number of wealthy people throughout the world forced to hire personal guards has increased ten-fold in the past year. An indication that the wealthy do have to watch their backs.

The current and one-term President, the rhetorical sham, Obama, promising so much but delivering nothing, will be replaced by an even wealthier Republican who will put paid to the idea of Warren Buffett that the rich should pay more taxes. This is the second wealthiest man in the US who pays less tax than his secretary. How's that for fairness?
Buffett genuinely wants a change but it won’t happen. Equitable taxation has never been part of US culture. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. So it has always been.

To date we have not reached that stage as education is still achievable in Australia, social security is still generous and governments do appear to be addressing any failings in the system of care for the disadvantaged, very noticeable when compared to the US and the UK. But the Federals sail along spending money, hand over foot with no one certain as to when all this largesse will finish and someone takes time to assess where our money is coming from and is there enough of it.

So we should be thankful that the world's malaise has spared us to date. Perhaps it is a great advantage in being independent and geographically isolated and relatively insignificant.

We should make sure we stay that way, both militarily and in our foreign policy...just care for our own.