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While we weren't looking...


Old Koreelah

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Leave me out of that "we"...

 

There is a lot going on in the world that seems to have been completely bypassed by the mainstream press. Getting anyone to take any notice over the clamouring about refugees or halal or burkhas or whatever the latest catch cry is for the misinformed is another thing altogether sadly.

 

 

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No need to get excited, it's just getup trying to boost their party vote.

...so you completely trust that our betters have only Australia's interests at heart while negotiating away our hard-won gains? You are untroubled that so many MPs and Government Ministers, on retirement go straight to lucrative and vague "consultative" jobs with the same global corporations whose proposals they so recently had the power to approve?

 

 

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No, but you could have a look at the Labor founders of Getup and see what the real agenda is before getting carried away on the strategic hype.

Perhaps. So, TP, you are happy that major global corporations seem to know what's in a major, binding treaty, but even our MPs don't? What are they hiding?

 

 

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The really sinister thing about the TPP is that it gives business primacy over elected governments. If business doesn't like the laws a country enacts, they can sue that country and get the laws thrown out. This is being pushed primarily by Big Pharma and Big Tobacco to get things like our PBS thrown out and the plain cigarette packaging laws thrown out. Obviously multinational profits are more important than peoples' lives.

 

The TPP has been under negotiation for quite some time and the secrecy surrounding it is quite scary. The businesses in the US are lobbying hard to ram it through the government.

 

 

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While we have been distracted by soap operas and the footy, our leaders have been secretly selling us out:

https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/tpp/tpp-door-hanger-chip-in/chip-in-to-fund-the-effort?t=zoYVWf5Ww

Alexander Graham Bell said it best;

 

5% of people think

 

10% of people think they think

 

The other 85% would rather die than think.

 

These things are allowed to go unchecked because we the people let the politicians get away with it. Big Business has the money and uses it to sway the politicians, but we the people have the numbers. The problem is getting enough people off their a***s to write their political rep to say "don't do this". To do that, you have to drag people away from their soapies and footy. Doing that is like teaching a pig to sing ... it's a waste of time and it annoys the pig.

 

 

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...The problem is getting enough people off their a***s to write their political rep to say "don't do this". To do that, you have to drag people away from their soapies and footy. Doing that is like teaching a pig to sing ... it's a waste of time and it annoys the pig.

The majority have been conditioned to avoid the hard think, and concentrate on trivia. Luckily many young people are more aware and use social media to organise; but the results across the Arab world were catastrophic. Let's hope our own kids will be allowed to dissent- or is that also covered by the TPP?

 

 

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50 years ago I was a tot. My 3 siblings and I lived in our house in Melbourne. It had 3 bedrooms, a living, kitchen, toilet and small laundry rooms and connecting hallway. The laundry had a large square concrete sink and a round washing machine with a hand roller ringer on top. Open fireplace and later we got a gas heater with those glowing porcelain elements. We had a fridge and a 4 element gas stove with oven. I just remember our first TV and all channels (I certainly remember going to Grandparents and them listening to the radio). Oh and we had lino floors. That's about it for the fibro cement, red roof tiled house.

 

Our car was a Holden FJ and various French cars along the way, Peugeot 403 for example. They broke down occasionally, boiled up long hills or in traffic jams on hot days along with us kids, windscreens broke on the Calder Hwy frequently from the stones thrown up (there was always a windscreen place somewhere on route not too far) and just generally slow, noisy bad brakes and bad tyres in the wet. Air conditioning was some wonderous thing some department stores had, not many.

 

Being that flyers tend to be in the 'mature' category, I'm sure many of you are quite clear about the above and how it as a part of your lives also 50 years ago.

 

Look around at your lot today in comparison, bought to your door courtesy of;

 

 

Governments and Corporations.

 

You guys believe what you want, I know for a fact that my life over the last 50 years has steadily increased in material wealth, clothing, safety, life expectancy, medical procedures available, transport, general comfort and improving with every year. Oh and lets not forget communications, the very thing we are doing right here.

 

Veritable facts, not suspicious hysteria.

 

 

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Very, it would be nice to see a fact.

Facts are a bit thin on the ground because of the secrecy surrounding the TPP. There have been some leaks, but the corporates pushing the TPP are doing their utmost to lock out any public scrutiny until it is fait accompli. That is what is really troubling. What is it that they don't want us to know and why? Secrecy is the first step down the road of tyranny.

 

Bex: If you measure your life by material goods then yes we are better off than when we were kids. But I was the beneficiary of a free public education as were most of our politicians who now want to saddle our kids and grandkids with massive mortgages for tertiary education. Also, my son was born in a public hospital free of charge, but now we have to have "insurance" i.e. Make a profit for some company so that we can get health care. Want to see how that turns out? Have a look at the American health system.

 

But why is all this "user pays" stuff necessary when we all still pay taxes? Because we've had 40 years of voodoo economics that says if we give the big corporates enough in tax breaks and corporate welfare, they might employ a few more people. They don't, but that's the ruse used to sell us all on reducing the corporate tax rates. So as the tax take dwindles, the government winds back the community services it provides or implements charges for those services.

 

There are more important things than profits.

 

 

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Hard to get a heh heh from you, no?

What you are (or should be) protesting is crony capitalism. As you say, do some research...

I agree, GG. Sorry about losing my sense of humour. I've been in hospital struggling for every breath. Changes your perspective a bit.

 

STOP PRESS: I saw something funny:

 

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image.thumb.jpg.5bbbb3a949d4bee1c8e450f79c666582.jpg

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I agree, GG. Sorry about losing my sense of humour. I've been in hospital struggling for every breath. Changes your perspective a bit.

Sorry to hear that OK, hope you feel better now. And yes I pray also that your perspective will indeed change a bit!

 

 

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