King Hazza">>NOT Introduced compulsory Super<<

KH, I agree with your list, excepting the above.

Justin George is to be thanked for so well encapsulating observations that are capable of being made by any person in Australia not obsessed with the idea of evaluating everything in terms of the label that may be conventionally put upon it, be it by an author, or by posters commenting on an article.

These are some of the, to my mind, quotable quotes from his Article that I made reference to in opening this comments thread:

"... a two-party dominated system where both parties
rely upon and pander to business for financial support.
The further disconnected they have become from their
traditional bases, the further their reliance on business
has become."

"As media ownership becomes concentrated and as people’s
spare time becomes more pressed, the pressures on politics
and media are to strip away meaningful debate. Exploration
of ideas, policies and their merits are forsaken in favour
of sound bites, catchphrases and the more entertaining
clash of personalities."




"... addressing the corporate stranglehold on Australian politics
involves refusing to participate in the two-party system."




This is the crux of the problem.

As Australians have conventionally, to whatever extent, understood their system of elected representative government, there seems no prospect of escape from this stranglehold. Whilst the requirement of compulsory preferential voting for the casting of a valid vote only underscores this Hobson's choice, its abandonment carries the almost certain implication of the fragmentation of political representation with its likely resultant political instability. Australians need to explore the latent strengths of the Constitution for themselves at first hand, not as regurgitated by the political apparatchiks that have been generated by what could well be termed this 'guided democracy'. For a possible way out: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3840&page=0

As so well put in this quote:

"Demand meaningful content, and support small independent
operations that provide critical information about those
in power. Democracy means informed citizenry."

That means supporting and using sites like OLO in its capacity as an online journal of record, with all of the cross-linking power this medium offers. It also means posting on-topic to quality articles

"King Hazza">>NOT Introduced compulsory Super<<
KH, I agree with your list, excepting the above."

Perfectly reasonable SonofGloin, I personally hate it myself, but thought it good to throw it in and see what everyone thinks.

Forest Gump- agree also.

Arjay, I watched some of your "Fall of the Republic" doco and it took me back to my youth pre internet when all night conversations about the world and who ran it, corporatisation, globalism, world government, national sovereignty and the rights of the individual left us in no doubt that a world domination strategy was being implemented by an NGO.

I witnessed one of the core (the first to my mind) foundations to world governance implemented in 1975 called the Lima Declaration. It is a free trade agreement that in one document takes away the national sovereignty of every signatory to it. It takes from us the right to tax incoming goods and the right to decide on what crosses our boarder. It also dictates what we can produce and export. It is the reason that manufacturing drained from the west to the east in twenty short years.

What we have lost in 20 short years is astounding, we "had" a Silicon Valley of our own via our CSIRO and we were leaders and innovators punching well above our weight in the technology stakes. In the 70's every consumable and product that was manufactured in the States and Europe we produced locally, you name it we made it.

The Lima Declaration dictated that we grow, harvest, mine and export without value adding to the raw resource, "they" will do that in cheaper climes. Then we were to (and have) dismantled our manufacturing base by dropping protectionist policy and allowing the market force of cheap imports to do the rest, as it has.

How did the majority of sheeple miss all this happening under our very noses? We were "directed" via the media to save the whale, save the rainforest, save the natives, and finally save the world from carbon and ourselves. Arjay look into "the club of rome" to see the real governors of the world.

Yes Sonofgloin,this is an excellent doco.Assoc Prof K Black was a senior regulator in banking in the USA.Fall of the Republic has some highly qualified and credible commentators.

The Glass Stegall Act that separated commercial and private banks was dismantled by the Clinton Admisnistration in the 90's,was one of their firewalls.The destruction of Glass Stegall, enabled the sub-prime mortage debacle and the growth of derivatives, ie paper money based on paper money.

The neo-cons via the IMF, Bank Of International Settlements are currently creating enormous amounts of fiat money to delay the inevitable.The really big collapse is about to happen.When the derivatives start to unravel,they will begin to sell and turn to things like land,energy,resources and gold.Then all this fiat money will find it's way into the real economy.Hence comes stagflation and hyperflation.We will have rising interest rates,high unemployment , very little production and money depreciating before our eyes.This happened in the Weimar Republic and during the great depression.

So we'd better prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

Leigh

A lot of activity on this site over the weekend. I think you over-reacted to my question. I think that although this site is called On-line Opinion, those opinions should at least be backed up with some evidence.

Contrary to your view, I did give an example of someone (Malcolm Fraser) who has not moved to the right as he has gotten older, but one swallow doesn't make a spring, so I did a bit more research. This article talks about the voting patterns of older Australians and is fairly recent. http://www.pol.mq.edu.au/apsa/papers/Refereed%20papers/Martin%20Pietsch_TheGreyVote.pdf

It concludes that "we find that older Australians contribute to the stability of the Australian party system by being less likely to vote for a minor party and being more likely to vote for the same party over time. But in other ways (in regards to partisanship, socialisation and values) they largely conform to the rest of the population." I conclude that it is not a given that people will move to the right as they get older as you contend, rather they stick with their existing preferences.

I'd welcome your views.