The other epitome and benchmark of humanity, the one devoted to self-realization and peace, resides in the illuminations of Jesus Christ, Buddha and others.

Tibetan Buddhism holds that we are responsible for not just our actions but our words and our thoughts. For most of us our actions are benign, our entire lives spent without taking hostile action against others. Our words may often differ. Our disapproval of someone may not result in physical assault, but our words can be deadly. But what of our thoughts? For Buddhists all three are inseparable. They can create a an atmosphere of peace or contribute to one of negativity. Most of us are guilty of gross negativity on some or all of these accounts. I know I am.

I have been described as a left wing fascist. That is, I am fairly strident in my condemnation of the right wing as the source of human suffering. I have also been condemned for my love of generalizations. That is, it seems to me that in most cases to get caught up in specifics is to lose sight of the greater picture.

Taking into account all of the above, and to keep things simple, I like to place people, their actions, their words, and above all, their thoughts into a sliding spectrum or scale with, at one end (the left) Jesus and Buddha, or peace, and at the other (the right), Hitler’s Nazi Germany, or conflict.

The scale could also be titled: “We’re all in this life together,” or “Me and mine and to hell with everyone else.”

Once again, most of us are somewhere in the middle, for to be human is to strive to be good but often fail, for all the reasons the history of psychology has described.

But each of us is aware of people who tend to the extremes of this scale. Looking at them in this simplified manner, we can use our common sense and our intuition as a guide.

So. Toward which end of the scale would you put the following people: Alan Jones, Tony Abbott, Corey Bernardi, Sophie Mirabella, Pauline Hanson, John Howard, Rush Limbaugh, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, just about everyone on Fox News, Barrack Obama, Julia Gillard, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Julian Assange, Tim Costello, Malcolm Turnbull, Bob Brown, to name but a few.

That is, which of these people, to the best of their often limited ability, are attempting to encourage peace and self-awareness, or conflict and hatred?

It’s pretty obvious where they belong. But what about the rest of us? We know Alan Jones is an hysterical, psychologically damaged motormouth. What’s scary are the thousands who support him. Who support his right to spout hate in the name of free speech.

These people are everywhere. They have always been everywhere. They supported or turned a blind eye to Hitler. They supported John Howard’s crimes against humanity, his illegal war in Iraq, and his dog whistling racist opportunism. They are supporting Abbott who stands for nothing but winning the throne at all costs. They are the shadow in everyone’s mind. They are the scourge of humanity.

And their very existence makes me hate, makes me hate them. I can’t do it any more. In terms of action, I just wish they would go away. As to words, I’m simply incapable of responding dispassionately. Enough of the words; they make me crazy. What I most dearly want now is to purge my thoughts of them altogether.

I applaud those who continue this endless struggle.

Technorati Tags: alan jones, australian politics, john howard, Jon Stewart, julia gillard, Obama, Politics, tony abbott

It is doubtful that Labor’s dirt unit is any match for the Coalition’s, the one that has been spying for conservatives for 60 years. It’s called ASIO.

It takes a certain type to join the secret police and you wouldn’t want your daughter to marry one. They parade themselves as patriots, and once in awhile they do operate in the genuine national interest. But mostly they are the kind of low life that started out turning Jews over to the Nazis for a loaf of bread and then joined the service for the sheer joy of brutalizing with impunity.

Here is a poster from the golden years of Scum at the Top on what it means to be a recruit.

Technorati Tags: asio, coalition, john howard, labor party

Looking possibly smaller than Her Nibs, John Howard continues to exhibit his inauthentic body language. Instead of the usual stumble, he stands erect, rodently round head bent obsequiously, tarantula-sized hand grasping that of his second favourite idol, whose red lips look ready to sneer. Little Johnny’s favourite idol of all? Margaret Thatcher, of course, the woman who single-handedly destroyed the social fabric of Great Britain.

Technorati Tags: Australia, australian politics, john howard, Politics, queen elizabeth

The Baillieu government’s latest, and somewhat timid, regression into ethnocentrism was announced yesterday by the Minister for Multicultural Affairs Nick Kotsiras. In the name of multiculturalism, he claims the singing of Australia’s national anthem in schools will help in teaching children, and especially migrant children, “Australian values”. This sounds great until you realize that nine out of ten conservative politicians despise the idea of multiculturalism, opting instead for assimilation. And by assimilation they mean that all races should join the predominate white culture.

Whenever a right wing government intones “values,” be it national or family, they are almost certainly dogwhistling xenophobia and racism. Even if they’re not, the end result could lead to what the Americans suffer from: exceptionalism.

Making migrants feel at home here is more complicated than having them join in for a ritual intoning of “Advance Australia Fair.” When sung on appropriate occasions it gives a frisson of emotional appreciation for the fine nation that Australia mostly is. But sung ritually by rote you can just see the kids glazing over or giggling or pinching one another until it concludes.

At present the decision to sing or not to sing is up to individual schools. And that is as it should be. The government should stay out of it altogether.

Of course, Kotsira’s announcement may just be a diversion from the government’s attempt to screw the nurses out of a decent wage.

Technorati Tags: conservatives, nationalism, nick kotsiras, patriotism, ted baillieu

Employer associations are slavering at the possibility of a Qantas victory. Make no mistake, if the Qantas board wins this, all unions can expect the same treatment.

The greatest airline in the world, and the one many were prepared to pay a little more for because of its safety record and excellent service, is about to become just another commercial entity. If it survives.

Passengers who have been reserving judgement over years of cutbacks have had it.

NB. This deserves a separate entry, but read Paul Krugman Austerity not the only way, about one nation (Iceland) that refused to back the banks but instead backed the people. It gives moment to the belief that making people pay for the sins of the one percent is not only wrong, but unnecessary.

Technorati Tags: alan joyce, jeff lawrence, john lee, one percenters, qantas, richard woodward, unions

… of state-owned thugs in the service of World Corporatocracy.

The fact that the “one percent” will never be defeated does not mean the “99 percent” shouldn’t keep fighting. It’s what the living have always done in the face of rule by the dead.

Actually there is no 99 percent. If you count the Silent Majority — the larval demographic that wilfully believes what right wing demagogues tell them — then the percentage drops to around 50 percent. Of that number, you can count on around five percent to stand up and be counted.

But what chance do they have when Australia (and much of the world) is a Murdochracy. 70 percent of newspapers sold in this country are owned by Rupert Murdoch, and every one of them toes a line defined by Andrew Bolt. In the cities there is still a choice, but in smaller towns it’s pretty much all Right Wing Rupert.

How many people do you see picking up Fairfax papers at the newsagent or in coffee shops? Practically none.

So the problem is an entrenched right wing media in support of corporate rule and its political minions. And the rulers own the police. Occasionally you will hear of a nation’s military taking the side of the people. But never the police. They are the state-owned thugs, always ready with truncheons and pepper spray to move on unarmed dissenters.

The last decade or so has seen the worldwide corporatocracy shed its behind-the-scenes skulduggery for transparent warfare on hapless citizens. Tony Abbott’s popularity, reminiscent of early-Thirties Germany, owes a great deal to the neutered Labor Party and Julia Gillard, but mostly to the power of “corporate rent-seekers” and the Murdoch Press.

Is it all too broke to fix? The Silent Majority has always opted for security over freedom (and deserve neither), while those truly concerned are too busy working twelve-hour days to take a breath. That leaves the Occupy groups all over the world, the only demographic that still has the time to take action before being caught up in the soul-killing task of permanent wage slavery and its attendant grind until death. These people are perhaps the last front line troops to take a stand before the Corporate Masters have us sipping Victory Gin with a glazed rictus on our immobile faces.

When in doubt, act like a hero. OCCUPY EVERYTHING.

Technorati Tags: corporategreed, occupyeverything, occupymelbourne, occupywallstreet

… of state-owned thugs in the service of World Corporatocracy.

Technorati Tags: corporate greed, occupy melbourne, robert doyle

Fatimah Alazami, who died in the SIEV-X disaster ten years ago

The tragedy is that, as Michael Gordon says, Australia is still dancing to Howard’s tune on asylum seekers. The dead hand of John Howard, the Pied Piper from Hell, continues to wring decency from Australians. The cast of Illiberal characters are still there and still mouthing the same hate. Here are a couple of articles from the venerable Scum at the Top, printed all that time ago.

• Her desperation for ‘positive outcomes’ is over.

• Why they call him ‘Little Johnny’.

Technorati Tags: john howard, siev-x, sievx

Courtesy Michael Leunig, The Age

Technorati Tags: julian assange, wikileaks