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| Lightning Ridge, NSW, Australia. |
They murmured in the background, censorious or supportive. At the Tables of Knowledge, there was little discussion but the excesses of bureaucracy. Suddenly depressed, for it all seemed to be going nowhere, the endless carping, the standing up to be counted, the shimmering little skeletal figures against white backdrops fringed along the horizon, the countless pounding of the police and the politicians, he didn't believe them anymore, nobody believed them anymore.
And in the lack of a national ethic, or continuity, in the fragmented and destroyed place that had once been in Australia, a place which once, as a child, seemed as large as the world itself, he looked down on shattering circumstance and knew no peace.
Why did no one speak up as the country moved step by step towards Stasi Germany.
Because almost no one ever spoke up, against injustice, against the thuggery of the mob, against the group think that was enslaving the population. He had once belonged, he belonged no more. He could hear them thinking, and stirred restless, plotting their routes, the Gwyder Highway, talking of their holidays. Sometimes their cosy sliding together n the long nights, as fevered, they flew and bounced and waged war.
The country was more on edge, more at war with itself, than it had ever been.
The head of ASIO Duncan Lewis, paid something like a million dollars a year, had set off a storm, declaring there was no evidence of a link between refugees and the rise of the terrorist threat.
Bureaucrats saw no threat to anything, unless it was their pay packets.
They treated the population, disturbed by the overrunning of their country with strangers, with contempt.
It might be a natural instinct to want to protect their homeland; but their homeland had been sold down the river, to foreign interests, and to the creed of high immigration rates and multiculturalism.
The traditional culture of the country was being deliberately crushed.
You saw it everywhere, and most particularly in these small towns.
The Newsagent in Lightning Ridge burnt down the day before he arrived.
Electrical fault, they swore.
Just up the road, the Butcher was already closed.
The Baker had almost gone, being only intermittently open.
The largest building in town was Centrelink. Nextdoor, another government agency, JOBLINKS Plus.
In the main street, Food For Families, a welfare service, adjoined BY "SUREWAY: Pathways to Work."
What exactly all this work consists of, no one quite seems to know.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.adnews.com.au/news/media-s-role-in-the-politics-of-fear-a-look-inside-one-nation-and-the-alt-right
Media's role in the politics of fear; a look inside One Nation and the alt-right
That moment on Q&A when a stunned Pauline Hanson asked Labor politician Sam Dastyari 'Are you Muslim?'.
The emergence of the global alternative right movement that helped the Brexit vote get over the line and saw Donald Trump become US president has also laid a marker in Australia.
In recent years, the movement has manifested into the rise of nationalist extremist groups, such as like Reclaim Australia and the United Patriots Front, while One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has enjoyed a sudden revival in federal politics.
While many people dismiss these movements and their policies as racist, xenophobic and only representing of a fringe minority, the makeup of their audiences and how savvy they are at marketing their brand will surprise.
Last week at the Sydney Writer’s Festival, one of Australia’s leading journalists, David Marr, and one of its best documentary makers and author, John Safran, offered a fascinating insight into what makes these groups tick, their appeal and how they attract people, including ordinary Australian families, to their cause.
Branding the alt-right
Safran spent many months attending nationalist rallies, hanging out with the leaders of alt-right groups and getting to know ISIS sympathisers and other extremists for his book Depends What You Mean By Extremists.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/robert-gottliebsen/are-australians-being-miseled-over-the-real-cost-of-the-f35-joint-strike-fighter/news-story/84959f679258706536efcfcb25439614?login=1
Mike Ryan
The emergence of the global alternative right movement that helped the Brexit vote get over the line and saw Donald Trump become US president has also laid a marker in Australia.
In recent years, the movement has manifested into the rise of nationalist extremist groups, such as like Reclaim Australia and the United Patriots Front, while One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has enjoyed a sudden revival in federal politics.
While many people dismiss these movements and their policies as racist, xenophobic and only representing of a fringe minority, the makeup of their audiences and how savvy they are at marketing their brand will surprise.
Last week at the Sydney Writer’s Festival, one of Australia’s leading journalists, David Marr, and one of its best documentary makers and author, John Safran, offered a fascinating insight into what makes these groups tick, their appeal and how they attract people, including ordinary Australian families, to their cause.
Branding the alt-right
Safran spent many months attending nationalist rallies, hanging out with the leaders of alt-right groups and getting to know ISIS sympathisers and other extremists for his book Depends What You Mean By Extremists.
Perhaps the most high-profile of leaders of the alt-right movement in Australia, is United Patriots Front leader Blair Cotterill, who was recently in court for beheading a dummy outside Bendigo Council offices as part of an anti-Islam video.
Safran said he had spent some time getting to know Cotterill personally and describes him as the “Today Tonight of anti-Islam”, adding “it's like something you can get away with”.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/robert-gottliebsen/are-australians-being-miseled-over-the-real-cost-of-the-f35-joint-strike-fighter/news-story/84959f679258706536efcfcb25439614?login=1
One of the world top independent defence experts has conduced an incredibly exhaustive examination of the real cost of the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) to those countries that are buying it.
The expert, Paris-based Giovanni de Briganti, of Defence-Aerospace, estimates that the average unit cost of Lockheed Martin JSF in the ninth low-rate initial production run is $US206.3 million.
The Australian parliament has been told by Defence Minister Marise Payne and Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne that the cost of our Joint Strike Fighters will be in the vicinity of $US90 million.
Such a huge variation means that either Giovanni de Briganti has completely got his calculations wrong when applied to Australia, or Pyne and Payne may have misled parliament.
I do not have the ability to decide which of the alternatives are correct but there is a good chance that the Pyne/Payne $90 million vicinity estimate leaves out essential costs.
Giovanni de Briganti believes the aircraft’s engine is one of the costs they leave out.
Let me explain what I think has happened.
Defence officials for over a decade have been hoodwinking politicians on both sides by conveniently leaving out the massive expenditures required to get the JSF aircraft into service. At least in the past that has included leaving out the cost of the engine.
Defence and Security receive a lot of taxpayer's cash but lack oversight - cloaked in the assorted security or non disclosure double-speak. These folks are as insular and isolated as are politicians who thrive in the Canberra bubble. Always at taxpayer expense. This must change now.
RECOMMENDED READING:
http://asenseofplaceblog.com/storyteller-a-foreign-correspondents-memoir-by-zoe-daniel/\
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