cscotthendry

My meory of that jingle (going waaaay back now) the last line is "They'll love to run their fingers through your hair" Although, I can think of little worse than running your fingers through greasy hair!

Worse yet, Campbell Newman was a martinet.

And our very own "W" ToeKneeAbutt

It seems that the recent crop of Republicans (starting during Bill Clinton's time) have borrowed some practices from a number of the world's more unsavoury "leaders". The most notable manifestation of "the party of crazy" is the rise of the Tea Party, a so-called "astroturf" organisation.

The Republicans also armed rebels in south america and did a deal with a hostile country (Iran) to not release hostages until after the election, so that Reagan would look like a hero and Carter would look like a bum. Similarly, when Obama was negotiating a deal to prevent the Iranians from building nuclear (read nukular if you're a Republican) weapons, the Republicans wrote a letter to the Iranian government telling them not to deal with Obama because the Republicans would tear up the deal the first chance they got. The Republicans have gone on and on about Hilary clintons use of email accounts as though she was selling secrets to the Russians, but their dealings with the Iranians are quite simply treasonable. I don't know how any of them, especially any from the W administration are still walking around free on the streets.

Because W was not voted in democratically. There is ample eveidence that the ballot machines from Ohio were hacked and that the when the voting data was transferred to Tennesee, voting trends that were evident in Ohio that were favouring Gore, suddenly and inexplicably reversed. Then the machine tapes were destroyed. Added to that, the counting in Florida was blocked by the Republicans through a stacked SCOTUS when it appeared that the recount was favouring Gore. The Republicans and their wealthy backers were prepared to spend whatever it took, and drag the election through as many courts as needed to get the result they wanted. W was NOT elected, he was appointed by the Republican machine.

Wasting your time FT

And don't forget Uncle Rupert's Daily Terrorgraph.

I agree whith that except I would see the number of required preferences at five or six. With only three, the system would entrench the Lib-Lab-Green triumvirate and exclude any possibility of independents getting elected. These days, the indies seem to be more representative of community values than any of the party apparatchicks.

Bex: Your statements regarding CEOs being better qualified to run the country than Steve the tiler stand in direct contradiction to your spruiking of Chinese "Democracy". And you speak of being in denial! Edit: And although you seem to quote many of the points I made, you don't rebut them or address them specifically.

Hmmm, " flood" is a bit of an exageration. I thought I had made it fairly clear, but specifically: political donations are a form of corruption of the democratic system. Democracy is defined as "Government by the people FOR the people." Which part of that statement reads as "For the profits of the corporations"? Yes it does go past my mind for a fleeting moment, and then I realise that it's naive to believe that anyone, "even rich corporate bosses" gives away money to politicians for "the best interests for their country"! Whether they are street sweepers or mega-rich oil billionaires, people spend a lot of their lives acquiring their money and trying to retain as much of it as they can. Thinking that they are willing to give it away for other than self-interest (somewhere down the line) is pretty naive. Does it ever go past your mind even for a fleeting moment (I did try to resist using similar provocative language as yours, but I failed) that for reasons similar to why we have a doctrine of separation of Church and State, and Separation of Judiciary and State, that we need to have a separation of Corporate and State? Corporations are designed for one purpose only, to make as much profit as possible. Considerations of national interest do not factor into Corporate function AT ALL. The role of Government is to look after the national interests and part of that role is to ensure that the citizens and organisations in the country do not act in ways that damage the nation. That's why government is empowered by the nation to create laws. When the legislation function of the country becomes obligated to profit driven organisations (or individuals), we have a problem. So my point simply is We need to ban ALL political donations and any funds required by politicians for campaigning should be sourced from public funds and STRICTLY limited with NO exceptions or "special cases". Political donations carry obligations and are a corruption of the democratic system.

There are three kinds of people in the world: Those who can count and those who can't.

The corporates are not quite so embedded here in Oz as in the US, but there have been attempts by the pollies (particularly the Conservatives) to "fix" that little oversight. Here in Qld, the LNP lifted the undisclosable donations limit from $1,000 to $12,500 in a single jump. Fortunately Anna P put it back to $1,000, but in my book, that's still $1,000 too much. To paraphrase Paul Keating "Never get between a politician and a bucket of money."

Also agree. What is really telling though is that we only get to vote for the candidates the party (read the financial backers of the party) put up for election via the pre-selection process. And then, those with the most campaign funds can afford the most advertising and promotion and can afford the highest-priced PR firms. A really good example of the above is the American Presidential race. On the Democrat side, Bernie Sanders is widely acknowledged as the one who would most benefit the nation, but Hillary Clinton is attracting the Big Money because she is more "corporate-friendly" (particularly Wall Street) than Sanders. On the Republican side, The Koch brothers have pledged that they will spend up to US$960 Million to elect a "friendly" Republican in the 2016 election. Yes, you read that right. They plan to spend almost a Billion dollars to install a cooperative US president. If you don't believe that they will expect quid-pro-quo from their President, then you believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden.

There was a joking push some time back to make politicians wear the logos of their sponsors to parliament. These days it is no longer a joking matter. The politicians of all stripe and flavour are so beholden to their big donors that there is no longer any hope of seeing reforms that are in the national interests get through the governmental sausage machine. Now, lobbyists write the legislation for the pollies and all our elected "representatives" do is present them to the party and vote on them. Things that are in the national interest rarely ever get looked at. The politicians are always too busy voting on whether the mega-rich should not have to disclose how little tax they pay, or whether Rupert Murdoch should be able to grab ALL the media in Oz, or whether Jaimey Packer should be allowed to build a casino on every street corner, or whether the taxpayer should buy a new railway for an Indian mega-coal mining company. If you believe that any Western "democracy" is still in any way democratic, you're a victim of propaganda.

That, and the fact that we've been invading and bombing that part of the world for decades without any improvement (and in fact the situation has got markedly worse) should be enough evidence that doing more of the same is not the answer. This is why I know that the politicians are not actually trying to solve the problems, they are only doing what people who subscribe to simplistic solutions are clamouring for, but mainly the pollies are doing the bidding of those who profit from the conflict.

Phil: All the good, bad and ugly analysis is great fodder for the newspapers and to keep the mug punters (you and I) off the REAL game. The real game is MONEY. It is all driven by profits for the armaments and oil industries. Those industries contribute just enough funds to just keep their tame politicians in power. Those industries have the financial wherewithall to bankroll their favorite pollites to an extent that their opponent parties would die on the vine, but they won't. The phrase "Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen" pretty well sums up why.

Marty: We have a 2009 Toyota Rav V6. We bought it to tow the trike on a trailer when we have it. It will pass slower drivers going up hill with a trailer behind. They are fairly plain when it comes to bells and whistles that some other show ponies have like bluetooth connections between the stereo and iPods etc, but they are rock solid good quality vehicles with bucketloads of power. The Kluger has the same engine, but the extra body weight loads the engine down a bit more. For the bit of extra luxury, you lose a bit of performance. Just my 2 cents worth.

Our government are doing all that they possibly can to implement the greediest policies from the US Republicans. The Libs want to privatise EVERYTHING and make education and healthcare affordable only for the "deserving". Yes Oz is a great country and our pollies are working very hard to correct that.

Dazza: your leaps of logic leave me breathless at times. Malcolm Turnbull is a multimillionaire so in your view he's a great guy and must be very clever. Astonishing!

It's openly stated by the unions that they support and fund the Labor party. Why is that different from businesses funding the conservatives? You talk of funds illegally raised, but as a shareholder of any business, when was the last time that business asked you if it could donate part of the profits to a political party? When workers pay their union fees, they know what they will (mostly) be used for. If you invest in a business, you have zero say about which politicians that business donates to, and the benefits derived from those donations never end up in YOUR ockets.

The answer is the "middle ground". When Hawke and Keating took Labor rightward to the middle politically, they captured a lot of swinging voter that might have voted conservative. The same thing happened with Tony Blair in the UK and Bill Clinton in the US. The problem with that is that to distinguish themselves from the "Labour" parties, the Conservatives had to move further to the Right. This pleased the corporates and the already wealthy so they encouraged, financed and promoted the Conservative. Like drug addicts, the Conservative pollies became addicted to the donations and dependant on them and their media owners to get into power. As they have continued to move further rightward, they have been castigated by extremists for not being far enough out to the Right. For business and the rich, there is no definition of "Enough" and so businesses and the wealthy constantly pushed their Conservative politicians for "more" which the pollies promised in order to secure the support. If the modern conservative parties had to push their current agenda without the massive support of the Murdoch media machine and the overwhelming volume of business donations, they would be unelectable.

Dutch: Most Conservatives I've spoken to are like that. Their loyalty to their party is like their loyalty to their footy team. It is tribal and personal. "You are with us or against us" there are no shades of grey for Conservatives. If you are one of "Them" and not one of "Us" then you are to be hated and destroyed. My own sister is like this and once wrote to me that "Mom should have aborted you".

Dazza: A country only looks bad when they mindlessly stick with a bad leader like W or Abbott, out of some form of tribal loyalty. A dud is a dud regardless of which party they come from and Abbott was without doubt our worst dud ever. It is completely beyond me what the voters in his electorate see in him.

Not even close! Gillard had to contend with a minority government, but still managed to get a lot of nation building legislation passed. All Abbott managed to do was pick fights with everyone, including his own cabinet. As dysfunctional as the RGR government was, they didn't indulge in stupid Captain's picks like the Abbott disaster.