Frogmanv2 posted:

Those greens voters might be confused. The greens work on a consensus basis. They vote in a block because they want to, because they have been convinced of the argument. Not because the party says so.
Why does a party that was formed on the solidarity of the union movement, where everyone worked together for the common good, and a party where they force people to vote against their will all the time, suddenly decide that gay marriage is the thing that is so vitally important that its ok to have a conscience vote on it?

So why isnt it party policy now?

Solemn Sloth posted:

The greens don't need to bind a vote on marriage equality because they don't let fuckwits like you and joe bullock into the party in the first place.

open24hours posted:

I didn't say that. I think both systems have issues and the claim that switching from one to the other will make elections more democratic is, as yet, unknown.

a turnip posted:

can someone with a crikey subscription please post this

http://www.crikey.com.au/2016/03/17/mother-teresa-was-a-foul-ideologue-undeserving-of-sainthood/



TIA

- soag

quote:

Mother Teresa was a foul ideologue undeserving of sainthood

HELEN RAZER
Writer and broadcaster



"The poor give us much more than we give them," said Mother Teresa in 1977, and from that time until her death, two decades later, the Nobel laureate did as much as she could to keep the spiritually rich poor in a position to maintain their holy generosity. The fundamentalist who signed her name to the defence of the rich and corrupt and oversaw the painful, sometimes avoidable deaths of the poor in her stinking hospices must have been especially fond of Matthew 26:11. “The poor,” said Christ, “you will always have with you.”

To give Teresa’s husband his due, though, this was an economic declaration made millennia ago. A possibly illiterate carpenter who, if he did exist at all, did not exist in the era of globalisation, must be permitted his naive shrug. Teresa, however, was cynical and modern enough to know that poverty and its attendant pain were not inevitable.

Poverty is often the conscious work of persons like Charles Keating, a Catholic financier convicted of defrauding many working Americans, or of dictators like Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier whose bloody-boot rule turned Haiti into a desperate abattoir. Pain can be the consequence of corporations like Union Carbide whose toxic pesticide leak in Bhopal claimed a reported 20,000 Indian lives and has resulted in legal findings of individual negligence.

Throughout her material life, Mother Teresa, whose canonisation has been announced by the Vatican to occur on September 4, defended these producers of poverty and suffering. To Charles Keating, from whom she had accepted a seven-figure donation for use in her widely criticised and rarely audited Missionaries of Charity, she offered a character witness. To Duvalier, from whom she had accepted the Haitian Legion of Honour to add to her vast collection of humanitarian trinkets, she publicly said that he “loved the poor” -- and perhaps he did, given his efforts to ensure their existence. Of the Bhopal disaster to which she arrived in a blaze of publicity, she instructed victims to “forgive, forgive, forgive” -- oddly, as the late Christopher Hitchens observed in his famous 1995 essay The Missionary Position, before the general public knew that there was a crime to be forgiven.

Teresa was a great fan of the poor and their suffering was something she fetishised with all the mediaevalism we now attribute to the world’s least palatable Jihadists. “Pain, sorrow, suffering are but the kiss of Jesus,” she said. And, right up until about the time she was possessed by Satan before her death in 1997 -- a Holy See representative was dispatched to remove him in a surgically efficient half-hour exorcism -- she chiefly “helped” the poor and the suffering by making sure they continued to endure as much poverty and pain as possible.

There are many published and broadcast accounts of the soon-to-be-saintly nun’s very active role in suffering. There are reputable accounts of the unhygienic, dangerous and downright sadistic methods used by members of the order not only in Teresa’s flagship Kolkata Home for the Dying, but in Western properties. Only the Lamb of God knows all the indignities to which the gay men in her US HIV/AIDS hospices were subject before their death by decree of the beatified homophobe. Perhaps they endured the non-consensual baptism their Hindu and Muslim fellows did in India -- Teresa reportedly encouraged her nuns to dab the heads of the dying with a spot of holy water and just make like they were being nice, if unqualified, nurses. Perhaps they were refused pain medication, subject to social isolation and shamed so as to feel the hallowed kiss of Jesus as, it is widely reported, so many others did.

Since Teresa has died -- not, incidentally, by the vow of poverty she had made but after a stay at a pleasant Kolkata nursing home that does not promise holy suffering on its website but the very best modern medical care -- the matter of her atrocious hypocrisy, fundamentalism and malice has been recounted many times. Even by the “miracle” woman whose medical cure first got her beatified. But on the eve of her canonisation, we cannot make the case against this foul ideologue enough.

Especially as the matter of Teresa’s sainthood falls to the most decent and candidly political papal opponent of suffering Rome has ever hosted. While Francis does not go quite far enough in his recent suggestion that condoms may be used to slow the spread of Zika (surely, HIV has earned an identical prophylactic hall-pass by now) he goes much, much further in the practical alleviation of suffering than any pope ever has. Unlike Teresa or many of his predecessors, he is not some nutter, heaven-bent on pain so that we all may rejoice in the pornographic spectacle of Jesus kissing the poor.

Francis has laid bare the ideological misreading of Matthew to justify contemporary poverty. And he has done so not only for the devout but for many in the world who once presumed, as Jesus did, that the poor would always be with us. Whether secular or religious, the view that the suffering poor are an unavoidable fact of life is toxic. Whether secular or religious, the view that compassion for the suffering poor elevates the donor is toxic. Slowly, Francis has done some commendable work in reversing this nonsense view, whether it is held by humanitarian liberals or pious Catholics. And it is an extraordinary shame that it falls to him to canonise such an extraordinary fascist.

EvilElmo posted:

So if a Green was elected and didnt believe in marriage equality there would be no repercussions if they voted no?

quote:

Because historically they have allowed conscience votes for these issues.

EvilElmo posted:

So using the logic earlier. The Greens are against marriage equality. No binding vote = against marriage equality.

WhiskeyWhiskers posted:

I wasn't trying to say you were an idiot for not liking one over the other, I just don't see how GVTs are very democratic at all, but I can understand how the proposed senate reforms are. I was wondering if you had arguments in favour of GVTs.

MiniSune posted:

Also a pox on all your loving houses.

Recoome posted:

What has Labor got against the senate voting reforms?

open24hours posted:

The only real arguments I can see in favour of them are that people might prefer to give the party control over their vote, or that they've read the details about how their preferences would be distributed and agree with them.

Gentleman Baller posted:

Labor did a wedge thing that made the Greens look bad to some people. The Greens did a wedge thing that showed Labor's thing was a dumb ploy. I accept that both are playing politics but I think the Greens' one is way better because it calls Labor out on a dumb stretch + actual hypocrisy (in that the Labor party also aren't willing to vote for anything gay marriage 100% of the time)

Evil Elmo I think you are correct wrt some of the arguments you are calling out. Can you bias check me? Is my view internally consistent? Is there something I'm not mentioning about these events that could show I'm blind to some of the Greens' faults? Thanks.

open24hours posted:

hooman posted:

No, you're being disingenuous.

The argument was Labor is not currently in favor same sex marriage because Labor's policy does not become "We are in favour of same sex marriage" until the next parliament.

The Greens policy in this parliament is "We are in favour of same sex marriage".

Gentleman Baller posted:

Labor did a wedge thing that made the Greens look bad to some people. The Greens did a wedge thing that showed Labor's thing was a dumb ploy. I accept that both are playing politics but I think the Greens' one is way better because it calls Labor out on a dumb stretch + actual hypocrisy (in that the Labor party also aren't willing to vote for anything gay marriage 100% of the time)

Evil Elmo I think you are correct wrt some of the arguments you are calling out. Can you bias check me? Is my view internally consistent? Is there something I'm not mentioning about these events that could show I'm blind to some of the Greens' faults? Thanks.

Jonah Galtberg posted:

Look at this guy attempting to have an earnest discourse with a disingenuous hack

EvilElmo posted:

No.

The ALP policy is we believe in marriage equality. Conscience vote until binding vote later on.

Just because it isnt binding doesnt mean that it isnt ALP policy.

hooman posted:

So why did they block bringing the debate forward today?

The greens blocked it because they had other measures they wanted to get passed. What is Labor's reason?

Jumpingmanjim posted:

General Cosgrove was interviewed by Leigh Sales from the ABC.TV
General Cosgrove who was about to sponsor a Scout Troop visiting his military Headquarters.
SALES:So, General Cosgrove, what things are you going to teach these young boys when they visit your base?
COSGROVE: We’re going to teach them climbing, canoeing, archery and shooting.
SALES: Shooting! That’s a bit irresponsible, isn’t it?
COSGROVE:I don’t see why, they’ll be properly supervised on the rifle range.
SALES: Don’t you admit that this is a terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children?
COSGROVE: I don’t see how. We will be teaching them proper rifle discipline before they even touch a firearm.
SALES:But you’re equipping them to become violent killers.
COSGROVE: Well, Ma’am, you’re equipped to be a prostitute, but you’re not one, are you?

Jumpingmanjim posted:

Is labor going to be able to run out the clock on this? I know nothing of senate procedure.

quote:

Run out that clock!

And why is a large slab of the Senate attempting to waste valuable sitting time debating legislation that they know can't pass?

Because today is the final sitting day of Parliament until May 10 - the date that the Budget is handed down.

That's unless everyone agrees to come back a week early - and the Greens and Labor have each indicated that they won't, not least because of the estimated $5 million that it would cost to resume Parliament on May 3.

That means that any changes to the upper house ballot have to be passed by the senate today, and then rushed downstairs to the House of Representatives for the government to sign off. There's no time set for Parliament to rise today so this can - and probably will - go on until the wee small hours of Friday. It may have passed by the time you read this, but expect it to be dragged out to downright silly lengths.

But even if it does pass, the chances of the government calling a double dissolution are now getting very slim, for several important reasons.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-17/jobs-data-employment-abs-february-2016/7253944 posted:

Unemployment falls to 5.8pc as job seekers give up
By business reporter Michael Janda

Australia's unemployment rate fell from 6 to 5.8 per cent in February because a large number of people gave up looking for work.

The Bureau of Statistics estimated that only 300 jobs were added in February, but unemployment still fell because the participation rate dropped.

Seasonally adjusted figures point to a 0.2-percentage-point fall in the proportion of the adult population in work or actively looking for it.

The fall in participation saw the key monthly hours worked figure go backwards slightly, while the employment-to-population ratio also eased to 61.1 per cent.

In more positive news, the quarterly figures show a slight improvement in underemployment.

The ABS said the underutilisation rate (which combines those who are unemployed with those who are working less hours than they would like) has edged 0.1 of a percentage point lower to 14.2 per cent.

The underutilisation figures continue to show a deep divide between men and women, with the female underutilisation rate at 16.4 per cent compared to the male rate of 12.3 per cent.

'Positive number' but doubts remain over ABS data

Overall, the jobs figures were seen as a positive, as the creation of 15,900 full-time positions offset a 15,600-strong fall in part-time jobs.

The typical economist forecast in a survey by Bloomberg was for 13,500 jobs to have been created and unemployment to remain steady at 6 per cent.

The Commonwealth Bank's chief economist Michael Blythe said a steady trend unemployment rate at 5.8 per cent painted the most accurate picture of the jobs market.

"Net, net I would say it is a positive number in terms of the economic outlook. It's still pretty much the case the unemployment rate is trending lower at the moment," he told Reuters.

"That's a pretty powerful signal about the economy and is certainly a message for the Reserve Bank as well."

JP Morgan's Tom Kennedy said the dip in participation also appeared to be an aberration.

"The participation rate has been moving higher for some time so for it to flick lower today is a little bit odd," he told Reuters.

"We aren't putting too much emphasis on that and we do think we'll see a recovery in the participation rate going forward."

Capital Economics analyst Paul Dales agreed that the latest figures are probably statistical noise, but he also argued that the strong growth at the end of last year was a bit overstated.

"It's too soon to conclude that the recent stagnation in employment is genuine and is not just a statistical fallacy. But a weak performance in March would set off the alarm bells," he wrote in a note on the data.

The Australian dollar jumped to 76 US cents by 12:28pm (AEDT) on the back of the results.



SA unemployment blows back out, Qld jobless rate falls

After having fallen dramatically over the past few months, South Australia's unemployment rate surged dramatically in February.

It jumped from 6.8 per cent in January to 7.7 per cent last month, and is the highest jobless rate the state has recorded since August last year.

The rise was partly due to a 0.3-percentage-point increase in the state's participation rate.

On the flip side, Queensland witnessed a dramatic drop in unemployment from 6.4 to 5.6 per cent, but its participation rate plummeted from 66.3 to 65.4 per cent.

New South Wales continues to have the best unemployment figures of the states, with unemployment easing from 5.5 to 5.3 per cent on the back of a significant fall in participation.

Western Australia and Victoria are stuck around 6 per cent unemployment, with Tasmania still close to 7 per cent.

The two territories continue to outperform, with both recording jobless rates below 5 per cent.

It is important to note that the seasonally adjusted state jobs figures are extremely volatile due to the smaller sample sizes involved in the ABS survey, particularly for the smaller states.

Lid posted:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/reinwald.asp

katlington posted:

true or not....it would certainly shut up an ignorant journalist....which should be done more often...why do we pay so much attention to bloody journalists anyway....I mean they report on the bad news and make it seem like our life revolves around it....what about the good news?

Anidav posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22zzVN2HV24