We'll have to change the term "proud to be australian to proud to be a moron" Australians are now a minority in their own country. A great democratic example , just like Fiji.

Any person who believes that we have had or likely to have good government with the same type of party people,"To join any party, you have to sign a promise that you will agree with the decisions of the majority", and that means that those people who sign that, have no integrity, and about as much intelligence. Well that is what we have in parliament. Harold Holt was the only treasurer and Prime Minister who was worth his salary, those who have been in since then, should have been paying the people for the wrorts and perks they have taken and the damage they have done to the economy of Australia. The mining exports have required a trade of goods, and the goods we are getting, are the clothes, Tools and many other goods that we had been previously manufactured in Australia, I bet you can't find those factories where your Father, Mother, Aunty or Uncle or any of their friends used to work, I doubt if any of them exist any more, these mining exports and our big companies buying in those goods have destroyed them.

Why the presumption that only the "left" are full of self-righteousness, and are incapable of seeing the bigger picture, including what is happening on the world-stage altogether.

The Australian "news"-paper is full of ignorant self-righteous opinionists who consistently write fluff pieces. Albrechtson, Glover, Christopher Pearson,Henry Ur-gas, Shanahan, Milne, and the team that write the editorials (some of which are laughable and would get an F triple minus at any half-way decent journalism school).

Check out their editorial re the Greens in todays edition (Saturday). And the various Oz blogs that have commented on it.

What is the bigger picture altogether

These two references give a unique perspective on it.

http://www.beezone.com/news.html The Signs of the Times

http://www.dabase.org/p2anthro.htm

Those on the right side of the culture wars uniformly promote more of the same, and even more so.

Those on the left generally try to ameliorate the inherent brutalisms of the current system.

Ho Hum,

Yes, balance is always necessary.

I still believe that good centrist commentary can highlight various strengths and weaknesses on most issues, albeit that such journalism is a bit harder.

Adding politics to Climate Change.

So much we need to hear politically still can come from a Nordic in the latest Guardian.

Bjorn Lomberg notable contrarian today argues even more that we are running out of time to do something good about climate Change.

Two letters in the Opposite Guardian page, are from two Australian women both espousing how to lose an election.

Both are seemingly worried about the recent entrance of the Greens into politcs, or rather why they should have to?

First from Katherine Hall who writes that while Rudd seemed to close a worried mind about Climate Change, Julia Gillard though espousing political action, once elected has completely changed her mind on Global Warming similar to Rudd. Wendy Taubman, the other women, mainly seems to simply declare that the entrance of Greens seems to give the best answer to clear things up.

However, Katherine Hall probably does give the most significane message, when she writes that she heard Tony Abbot say that a belief in Climate Change is just Pure Crap.

Hi Ho Hum,

(always wanted to write that)

You wrote: <Those on the left generally try to ameliorate the inherent brutalisms of the current system.>

Does this include Indigenous affairs ? What evidence is there that the Left (of whose very broad church I still count myself a believer), or at least sections of it, actually want to 'Close the Gap' ? Perhaps out of fear of the dreaded bogeyman, Assimilation, I suspect more and more that many on the Left would be happy to 'Maintain the Gap'.

Or, given the belief of many on the Left that the rightful place of ALL Indigenous people, all 75 % urban and 25 % rural of them, is somewhere out in the sticks, in loin-cloth, on one leg, eating lizards and berries, etc., would you agree with me that there are sections of the Left who think that it is imperative to 'Increase the Gap' ?

Joe Lane