open24hours posted:

They get quoted because they're much better at playing the game than anyone in the Socialist Alliance could ever hope to be.

Cartoon posted:

There have been plenty of people from the left who were/are great spokespeople for the cause it's just that fifty years of anti-communist propaganda and the bias of the mainstream media instantly marginalises them. It is amazing Bob Brown managed to get the traction he did. Strangely since the end of the cold war, and the communist boogieman, voices from the left have been getting harder, rather than easier to hear. Blaming the left for this would seem to being missing the forest for the trees by a wide margin.

Cartoon posted:

There have been plenty of people from the left who were/are great spokespeople for the cause it's just that fifty years of anti-communist propaganda and the bias of the mainstream media instantly marginalises them. It is amazing Bob Brown managed to get the traction he did. Strangely since the end of the cold war, and the communist boogieman, voices from the left have been getting harder, rather than easier to hear. Blaming the left for this would seem to being missing the forest for the trees by a wide margin.

Au Revoir Shosanna posted:

Bill Shorten is such an empty sack-shaped non-person he won't even take a stance on which lettuce he prefers.

open24hours posted:

It's not about blaming the left for being hopeless, it's that if the left are hopeless it's the left that loses out. You can complain about the world being unfair all you like but it's not going to help you or your cause.

quote:

Monarchists Rachel Bailes and Phillip Benwell shake hands after the defeat of Labor Clr George Simon’s motion to remove the Queen’s portrait from Ryde Council Chambers. TWT on-the-spot PHOTO.

THE Queen’s portrait will continue to preside over Ryde Council Chambers after a Labor Party motion to support to dump it was defeated by eight votes to two on Tuesday night.

Councillors also voted against several other Labor republican motions and backed an amendment to continue to honour the Queen, refuse to take sides in the republican issue and leave future debate to Federal Parliament.

The motion to dump the Queen was proposed by Labor Clr George Simon who was accused by Independent and Liberal councillors of single-handedly embarrassing the City of Ryde and causing outrage in the community.

thatfatkid posted:

Bob Brown is hardly a shining light of leftwing ideology.

Cartoon posted:

It is entirely about it being unfair.

What are the luminaries of the Australian left supposed to do to get their message out? The mainstream media call the ALP lewftwing:

http://www.weeklytimes.com.au/left-wing-councillor-left-red-faced-over-royal-portrait-row/


Please have an answer because I've been struggling with exactly this for decades. In America money = exposure is even further down the road than it is in Australia but we aren't far behind. How can you have an egalitarian society when to be elected you need more money than Clive Palmer? It's bullshit and it's completely unfair and skewed. The only time that the hard left got a say was back when the union movement still had real power. Now the Right wingers have completely white anted that power base what have we got left?

xPanda posted:

I can't believe how every time there's a media talking point about productivity she gets up there and directly contradicts herself sentence to sentence about penalty rates. It's bizarre.

quote:

THE state’s biggest water theme park will only be open three days a week as of next month due to casual wage increases.

Wallington’s Adventure Park will be closed from Monday to Thursday through February and March, before its annual six-month shutdown from April 11.

Managing director Leanne Salmon said she was “surprised” by Monday’s social media backlash from angry season pass holders, and said the new times were published on the website eight months ago.

She said the wage changes meant it was no longer viable to keep the park open for only “a handful” of patrons during off-peak times.

“We were faced with, over the past three years, some incredibly major increases to the award that our business falls under, in terms of wage increases and public holiday and penalty rate increases,” she said.

“That combined with very low attendance on weekdays pre and post Christmas, we had to close an extra 15 or so days between February and April.

quote:

Denmark's Government says it has secured a parliamentary majority for its controversial plan to seize migrants' cash and valuables to pay for their stay in the country.

However, assets with sentimental value like wedding rings will be exempt.

"The Government, the Social Democrats, the Danish People's Party, the Liberal Alliance and the Conservative People's Party have agreed to amend the bill concerning valuables," a Government statement said.

As well as wedding rings, it listed engagement rings, family portraits and badges of honour as items that could not be confiscated from asylum seekers.

But the statement said items like watches, mobile phones and computers might still be seized.

Copenhagen's right-wing Government, which relies on support in Parliament from an anti-immigration party, began backtracking last week on its proposals to seize assets from asylum seekers by raising the amount of cash a refugee can keep from 3,000 kroner ($625) to 10,000 kroner ($2,084).

Cartoon posted:

open24hours posted:

The reason it's unfair and skewed is because the left have been comprehensively outmaneuvered for decades and haven't been able to respond in a coherent way.

open24hours posted:

The Greens are actually an interesting feature of the decline of the left. With socialism being so thoroughly discredited for so many people environmentalism provides one of the only ways to criticise capitalism without being immediately written off as some kind of cold war throwback.

Gorilla Salad posted:

Well known lovely place to be Adventure Park has dramatically cut its hours due to the horror of casual wages and not at all because it's poo poo and better known as "Pissweak World" to the locals.

Adventure Park cuts opening hours, blames casual wage rates


Yep, nothing to do with nobody wanting to go there, gotta blame those wages.

Amoeba102 posted:

How's that saying go? Every headline that is a question can be simply answered "No".

Can one-shot Shorten win this election?

quote:

Police officer and security guard shot at Nepean hospital in Sydney Updated about 4 hours ago

Staff at a Sydney hospital where a police officer and security guard were shot overnight bravely carried on with their duties as the drama unfolded around them, a witness has said. The police officer, Senior Constable Luke Warburton, was shot with his own gun, grabbed during a scuffle with a man who had earlier allegedly been threatening a doctor with scissors at Nepean Hospital. NSW Police said officers were called to the hospital just before 10:30pm on Tuesday.

A 39-year-old man, who police had dealt with earlier that night over a separate matter, was at the hospital receiving medical treatment, Acting Commissioner Catherine Burn said. The police officer suffered a gunshot wound to the upper leg and a security guard a gunshot wound to his calf. Both men underwent treatment at Nepean Hospital.

Cartoon posted:

Strangely since the end of the cold war, and the communist boogieman, voices from the left have been getting harder, rather than easier to hear.

quote:

SECRET text messages meant for LNP supporters have caused embarrassment for Capricornia MP Michelle Landry after they were sent out to ordinary community members instead.

The Morning Bulletin was contacted by several people who were sent messages from Ms Landry's electorate officer with "ideas" for texts they wanted to be sent to the paper's SMS the Editor section...

...Examples include: "Why is Brittany continually attacking Michelle - wouldn't it be more effective if they both worked together."

Another read: "Leisa - can you confirm that your campaign hasn't received any money from Union 'Slush Funds'."...

...Other messages read:

"Lies about cyclone funding, lies about mental health funding, lies about pathology funding - just more lies from Brittany Lauga."

"Yet again, Leisa is spreading fear about Health funding - GSK doubled the price of Panadol Osteo, not the Fed Government!"

"Re Lauga's comments on the carpark - maybe Brittany should be focused on Keppel issues like GKI rather than petty attacks on the Federal Government."

"A $550 Million investment by the Federal Gov only increased the bulk billing rate by 1% - is that really a wise use of money."

"Brittany - do you support giving more money to multi-national pathology labs rather than investing Health dollars directly to the patients."

Periphery posted:

But at the same time there are heaps of people that write them off totally even if they agree with large parts of their platform because of their focus on environmentalism.

I'd actually like to see a party that's essentially the greens but instead of being branded as environmentalists heavily pushes a brand focused on health, education and public infrastructure. While those are some fairly prominent areas in all parties I think a focus on those would still allow a party to differentiate itself from the other parties while providing shitloads of avenues to criticise the status quo.

Zenithe posted:

Rule one of starting a mudslinging war using your cronies and die hard supporters?

Don't hit "reply: all"

Gorilla Salad posted:

You get to keep your family photos, your wedding band and up to $2000, the rest will be confiscated. I can't even begin to comprehend how disgusting this is and await the LNP instituting it forthwith.

freebooter posted:

In order to institute this we would actually have to be letting them into the country.

Well actually I guess we wouldn't, but confiscating valuables while throwing people in camps is probably too Nazi Germany at this stage. Watch out for it in 2017 after Malcolm's landslide election victory and sweeping mandate!

Cartoon posted:

There have been plenty of people from the left who were/are great spokespeople for the cause it's just that fifty years of anti-communist propaganda and the bias of the mainstream media instantly marginalises them. It is amazing Bob Brown managed to get the traction he did. Strangely since the end of the cold war, and the communist boogieman, voices from the left have been getting harder, rather than easier to hear. Blaming the left for this would seem to being missing the forest for the trees by a wide margin.

SynthOrange posted:

Took a day off after only two days back at work already. gently caress 42'c though.

open24hours posted:

Why would opponents of the left have any interest whatsoever in providing a fair and unskewed environment in which the left can operate? The reason it's unfair and skewed is because the left have been comprehensively outmaneuvered for decades and haven't been able to respond in a coherent way.

open24hours posted:

It doesn't look like it's going to change any time soon either. What little political capital the mainstream left have is wasted on identity politics, which, whatever your views about their philosophical importance, aren't going to win elections.

Gorilla Salad posted:

And in, "At least we're not quite as bad as" news:

Denmark to amend plan to seize asylum seekers' assets, exempting wedding rings

You get to keep your family photos, your wedding band and up to $2000, the rest will be confiscated. I can't even begin to comprehend how disgusting this is and await the LNP instituting it forthwith.

Graic Gabtar posted:

I'm not 100% but could these people be deported back to Greece? You are supposed to seek asylum in the first country you enter I'm pretty sure.

freebooter posted:

This is correct, but you may have noticed that Greece has been having economic issues of its own of late, and Europe is at least nominally involved in a semi-federalist union where states are supposed to help each other out.

Gorilla Salad posted:

You get to keep your family photos, your wedding band and up to $2000, the rest will be confiscated. I can't even begin to comprehend how disgusting this is and await the LNP instituting it forthwith.

Periphery posted:

I'd actually like to see a party that's essentially the greens but instead of being branded as environmentalists heavily pushes a brand focused on health, education and public infrastructure. While those are some fairly prominent areas in all parties I think a focus on those would still allow a party to differentiate itself from the other parties while providing shitloads of avenues to criticise the status quo.

Endman posted:

I'm currently debating whether or not to renew my Greens membership.

Richard Di Natale's courtship of the centre makes me worry that we're going to end up with a slightly-left-of-centre wishy-washy bullshit party.

He's the first Greens leader who's never been to prison for protesting, and that's a bad thing.

BBJoey posted:

Why would they bother? They don't let asylum seekers in in the first place.

This was literally the ALP until neoliberals got their hands on it.

freebooter posted:

This is correct, but you may have noticed that Greece has been having economic issues of its own of late, and Europe is at least nominally involved in a semi-federalist union where states are supposed to help each other out.

starkebn posted:

Endman posted:

I'm currently debating whether or not to renew my Greens membership.

Richard Di Natale's courtship of the centre makes me worry that we're going to end up with a slightly-left-of-centre wishy-washy bullshit party.

He's the first Greens leader who's never been to prison for protesting, and that's a bad thing.

Anidav posted:

My Greens membership expired because I'm too poor and disengaged with politics at the moment.Slob Hortins, DiNutellas, Turdballs.

Graic Gabtar posted:

I've noticed, but are you going to argue that we should squib on the 1951 refugee convention?

Human rights lawyers in Australia go to war on dotted i's and crossed t's for a few hundred asylum seekers.

However, for a million people you want to pick and choose articles in the convention if its convenient? You can't have it both ways. That could easily be conceived as hypocritical.

If there was a semi-federalist union it should be upholding the convention by supporting Greece and processing asylum seekers in situ. Otherwise people could easily argue that the spirit of the convention has been pretty well hosed by people bolting for the German welfare state over asylum.