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Settlers: The Real Evil

Israeli settlers are taking advantage of the war in Gaza by further encroachments upon Palestinian land in the West Bank. Settlers: The real evil robbing hope and exploiting the hostility engendered by the times. “Last week, Israel’s domestic intelligence chief Ronen Bar wrote to ministers warning that Jewish extremists in the West Bank were carrying out acts of “terror” against Palestinians and causing “indescribable damage” to the country. Since the start of the war in Gaza, there has been an acceleration in settlement growth in the occupied West Bank. Extremists in Israel’s government boast that these changes will prevent an independent Palestinian state from ever being created.” - (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c624qr3mqrzo)

Historical Crimes Against Humanity By Settlers

Throughout history it has been colonising settlers who have, most often, committed terrorism and acts of genocide against Indigenous populations. Cowboys and Indians, a popular Hollywood genre for many years was really all about the fighting between settlers and the Indigenous tribes who were having their land stolen by force in North America. In Australia, British colonial settlers murdered and committed unspeakable acts of savagery against Aboriginal tribal members either defending their land or, indeed, attempting to live alongside new settlers. The poisoning of whole clans of women, men and children via gifts of flour full of arsenic or the poisoning of water holes was common to these settlers in 19C Australia. Settlers: The real evil.

Anglo-Settler Rights Trumping Natives Not many folk these days want to remember these things and can get quite upset when reminded by historians. It seems, as if taking someone else’s home by force is excused because it was a fight of this nature. That settlers have this semi-divine right to steal land because it is about establishing a new home for these white skinned folk. White is right, you know, whatever the cost to the non-white side. The superiority of white people trumps that of those lesser peoples or savages who came before. Aborigines and native American Indians were in the way of the expansion of European civilisation. Same story down Central and South American ways. Hemi Semi Demi Quest For Homeland Israel and its West Bank settlers have little time for the rights of Palestinians, it seems. These darker skinned folk are in their way and must be removed by whatever means necessary, apparently. Settlers: The real evil is exposed in their determination to unhouse others and re-home themselves. Religious belief is used to justify their assumption of the Holy land. A story to be told, a narrative to indemnify acts of evil and brutal crimes. Don’t get between a settler and their designated new home like you would not get between a hungry dog and its food. The taking of land for a new home is an ancient quest by hook or by crook, by the sword or the barrel of a gun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc5s-baywv4 European Settler Exploitation & Slavery Settlers in Australia, South America, the United States and elsewhere have frequently disobeyed their colonial masters to take what they want and dispatch the Indigenous population brutally. Indeed, their future nation states have been riven with settler mentalities, which often promote racism and deep inequalities. South Africa and the Boer settlers and their apartheid state is a pertinent example. The taking of land by force and the enslavement of the defeated Indigenous population produces foul outcomes. Dehumanizing exploitations and crimes against humanity are often prevalent. The complete genocide of the Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean comes to mind. Slavery and working these people to death on sugar plantations went on for centuries. The sweetness of sugar should be tinged with the taste of death, in my opinion. Many modern folk do not wish to be reminded of these facts. The wealth of many old settler families has been enriched on the back of exploitation and human misery. Is it any wonder that the descendants of these wealthy families expecting respect do not want us to look back into how this wealth was accrued. The Evil In Our Pasts Our histories are not dead facts locked away in dusty old books and museums, as some would have us believe. What lies beneath attitudes and institutions are the ramifications of the historical record. Those in power and the elite have been created by who we are and where we have come from. Dig a bit deeper into political parties and you will strike the settler ethos buried at the core. Old money and institutions have their foundations in the settler history in colonial lands. The new world of transplanted whites in the Americas and Australia rule on the basis of what settlers carved out in blood. It may be unpleasant to confront such truths today but it is fact. Settlers: The real evil. “Colonial powers send out their soldiers and their settlers to conquer and found their new lands. This has occurred in Australia, the Americas, and many places around the world. Named the New World for these European colonists who come as invaders and refugees from their old countries. Settlers seek to become masters of their new home. They, who were likely, excess to requirements from whence they came now want to take centre stage. Settlers are rarely, if ever, friends to those who are Indigenous to the newly conquered territories. Settlers take what was not their own.” - (https://www.housetherapy.com.au/settlers-take-what-was-not-their-own/) Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©HouseTherapy

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Timid Or Terrible: Australia’s Choice

Leadership on the national stage is no easy thing. In a largely two party political system it is not a dualist situation like that between good and evil. More is the pity, in the opinion of some. No, rather there are similarities and mutual understandings in Australia between the Labor and Liberal Parties. Timid or terrible: Australia’s choice is the description given to the current selection of leadership candidates on display. The former is, oh so careful, not to create a political rod for his own back by any moves too willing to be offensive to anyone. The latter refers to the opposition candidate’s proclivity for alarmist rhetoric about everything under the sun. He is quick to condemn those falling outside of the propertied white male category.

A Ballot Box Selection Between Timid & Terrible

Decidedly different campaign strategies can be ascertained from these behaviours. This is, perhaps, where style over substance comes in, with neither candidate wishing to change the economic settings too much. These settings favour older wealthier Australians at the expense of younger Aussies via the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing. Income tax is the main drain on private lives in this country, whereas taxes on wealth or capital are far lighter. A third of all corporations in Australia don’t pay any corporate tax at all. The two main political parties receive campaign donations from wealthy donors and business sectors like the fossil fuel and mining companies. Currying favour with the political class is well established downunder. This form of corruption has long historical roots in Australia dating back to colonial times.

These Timid & Terrible Monikers Hide Their Similarities Politics impacts most important things in Australia and can hold up progress for decades on this basis. Things like energy policies can become political footballs to be kicked back and forth impotently. Ideologies can stymie the progression of important policies for the nation, whilst the power dynamic battles it out in Canberra. Currently, the nation has a housing crisis with a lack of long term accommodation driving up rents and property prices. Residential housing has become the major investment asset in the lives of millions of Aussies. No longer is shelter a basic human right downunder – users pay through the nose here. Former PM John Howard and his capital gains tax discount increase, combined with negative gearing for investors, has driven property prices through the roof- now they are 13 times the annual income for most folk. Houses are about making serious money and not just a roof over your head. Both leaders support the status quo when it comes to economic policies and housing. They tinker around the edges, whilst promising to build more housing stock.

Getting The Balance Correct Timid or terrible: Australia’s choice. The important differences, however, are Labor’s traditional support for increasing wage growth for the lowest paid workers in Australia. Meanwhile, the Coalition invariably favour the wealthier end of town and that old neoliberal scam called the ‘trickledown effect’. Give tax breaks to the wealthy and employers and a few shekels may fall down into the hands of those at the bottom of the food chain. This has been shown not to be the case and 10 years of LNP federal governments oversaw the largest increase to the wealth divide in history. Every time a billionaire is made it deprives millions of ordinary Aussies of a fair share of wealth. Privatisation in Australia has seen a huge transfer of public assets into the hands of the 1%. They promise cheaper prices but these never eventuate either. “Nearly half of all wealth is held by the top 10% of households, worth an average $5.2 million each. They hold 15 times the wealth of the lowest 60% ($343,000 per household). Over half of the wealth (53%) of older households was owned by one-sixth of older people. They had an average wealth of $5.6 million, comprise 4% of all households but hold 18% of all wealth.   The average over-65 household is 25% wealthier (with $1.58 million) than the average middle-aged household (with $1.26 million) and almost four times as wealthy as the average under-35 household (with $410,000).” - (https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2024/04/wealth-gap-widening-new-report-acoss) Do No Evil The old Google credo was ‘Do No Evil’ and, perhaps, that fits with the timid approach, whereas the terrible bloke is quick to blame and scapegoat powerless groups like refugees, international students and immigrants. The political game is to identify an enemy of the dominant cohort. To create an ‘other’ that folk can pile shit upon. Right wing populist politicians invariably identify villains that they further demonise for electoral success. Negative attack ads appeal to a base human desire to see folk pulled down. It cannot be denied that a section of the population enjoy watching the boot put in to their perceived enemies.

Culture Wars The culture wars, the anti-woke campaign is predicated on a section of the dominant cohort, white men, who feel that the status quo has been threatened by diversity and equity public policies and its political correctness. These, mainly men, do not want to see and hear virtue signaling by governments and the corporate sector. They are sick of the high profile visibility of LGBTQI concerns and of female focused issues in the public sphere. The Right have seized upon this emotive groundswell and run with it for all they are worth. Trump’s Impact On The Federal Election Timid or terrible: Australia’s choice. Donald Trump has thrown a curve ball (to use an American sport’s analogy) into the Australian federal election. This was even more pronounced in Canada, where the ‘dead in the water’ Liberals just won their election on the back of Trump’s attacks on Canada. The imposition of tariffs and disparaging comments upon and about a loyal ally has flipped the political situation in both countries. The LNP Coalition in Australia has long been inspired by conservative US politics. Sharing the ‘strongman’ tag with Donald Trump was previously seen as a positive in the current clime until Trump was returned to power. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvy00MLQnjE Since then, after 100 days of extremist emergency executive powers, the global economy has slumped like it did prior to the Great Depression in the 1930s. Illegal sackings and dismantling of civil servants and government services by DOGE has rocked America. ICE has illegally grabbed Americans off the streets and transported them to a gulag prison in El Salvador. Judges have been arrested. Students have been arrested and deported en masse without due process. Indeed, due process, in the judicial sense, has been missing in action, across the board in Trump’s America. Australians, generally, do not like extremists. Treading the middle road has been our special sauce over many decades. This has not been a good thing for Peter Dutton and the LNP. PM Anthony Albanese may well be characterised as too timid in the minds of some Australians on both sides of politics, but in a period of uncertainty, born of extreme right wing actions and the starting of a global trade war by Trump, keeping your powder dry may be a prudent strategy. Timid or terrible: Australia’s choice. What will you decide? “Most people know that far right politics are nasty, when you get down to it. Populist moaning and blaming others when given power turns into fascism and authoritarianism. We are seeing it in America, where the Trump regime is flouting the law and stripping people of their basic human rights. The Right is on the nose, at the moment, as folk realise the damage being done to the economy and international goodwill. Losing trust in your public institutions, when corrupt billionaires go after your Social Security,  Education and Food Safety, to name just a few, spells the end of government for all the people.” - (https://wordsforweb.com.au/the-right-is-on-the-nose/) Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©WordsForWeb

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Dear America, The Russians Have Won

If you dispassionately look at things, it is pretty clear, that the US has been taken over in a Russian coup. I mean, Vladimir Putin is directing Donald Trump in negotiations re-Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and any sort of cease fire/peace deal. Economic sanctions have been applied to every nation in the world except Russia. Investigations into and monitoring of Russian influence have been disbanded under Trump. Dear America,  The Russians have won and their asset is running your country in 2025. Elon Musk is in this mix with Starlink too. “NEW YORK/BERLIN, March 19 (Reuters) - Several U.S. national security agencies have halted work on a coordinated effort to counter Russian sabotage, disinformation and cyberattacks, easing pressure on Moscow as the Trump Administration pushes Russia to end its war in Ukraine.” - (https://www.reuters.com/world/us-suspends-some-efforts-counter-russian-sabotage-trump-moves-closer-putin-2025-03-19/) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tusfCycCc4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjLad8xNFfE

Russia Has Defeated America Via The Back Door

The evidence is stacking up to show that Trump 2.0 is under the direction of Putin’s Russia. Donald Trump and JD Vance blaming Zelenskyy for the war with Russia in the White House. Victim blaming and shaming on an international scale. ‘It was your fault that Russia illegally invaded another sovereign country. You should have bent over and let Putin have his way with Ukraine.’ Trump has been repeating Russian talking points justifying the invasion. Around the world the rest of us are watching this in horrified disbelief. The US international reputation will never recover from this. Russian Black Hats Have Outsmarted the US The digital world has snuck up on everybody and stolen their lives. People staring at screens for 10 hours a day or more. Folk too frightened to leave the house without their smart phone. The constant messaging from Big Tech modifying human behaviour and influencing attitudes and beliefs. Surveillance capitalism mining our private data for profit and nefarious ways to manipulate democratic institutions. Facebook and Twitter and all the other social media platforms running targeted political ads designed to sway voter intentions toward a desired outcome. Many of these ads are factually untrue and are misinformation. Disinformation campaigns coming from Russian bots non-stop. “The digital world taking over the real world. Digital money, AI bots telling you what’s what, staring at screens 10 hours a day, digital feeds informing you about the news, smart phone = dumb human. If you don’t think that the digital world is taking over you are sadly misinformed or too stupid to realise what is going on. “ - (https://www.midasword.com.au/digital-world-taking-over-the-real-world/) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5lBUcqR8fU Russia Weaponised The Internet Dear America, The Russians have won, whilst you were busy stuffing your face. The polarization dividing the US is no accident of nature. It is, rather, by design and that blue print is Russian. Many folk, who are not the sharpest tools in the shed, cannot believe that this has happened and is happening. Too many of us do not really understand how the Internet works. This makes us easy to scam and manipulate. The majority of people I talk to have no real idea about how search engines, browsers, and the digital realm actually operates. They use it without knowing what is under the bonnet. If you think about this, you will realise that this make us all vulnerable. Russia Now Running The Stars & Stripes Show This is not new news! But the penny still has not dropped, as to the ramifications of this dark distortion of the digital world by disinformation specialists. The cost effectiveness of this digital campaign by the Russians has been brilliant. While the US spent trillions on complex defence hardware capabilities the Russians achieved their coup on the cheap. Putin has an asset in the presidency of the United States. It is just like out of one of those international intrigue novels folk buy at the airport bookstore. The only downside here is that it is actually true. The Trump MAGA cult members are so indoctrinated that they go along with every betrayal of America. They refuse to read the tea leaves and stay glued to Fox News. America has no standards regarding truth and factuality in the media. It has all gone by the wayside in the rush to stare at screens 10 hours a day. The Manchurian Candidate is a Moscow one instead but the outcome is the same. Dear America, The Russians have won! Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump ©MidasWord Read the full article

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Has Dean Cox Inherited A Damaged Team?

Or has he made a mess of his first few months of the season, as head coach of the Swans in 2025? Tom McCartin? A failed experiment still costing the team stability and continuity. The Sydney Swans AFL  side is sliding down to the lower reaches of a long ladder. 14th place. Has Dean Cox inherited a damaged team? Did John Longmire exit a traumatised football team? Injuries to important senior players have made things worse to be sure. However if a solid system was in place, then, the thinking goes that new soldiers come in and play the roles required. This is not happening in terms of four quarter performances producing winning results.

Dean Cox Must Have Been Counting His Chickens

We can go on about the costly absence of Errol Gulden but the fact is that he aint available for at least half of the season. On Sunday, for almost half a game against the Suns, the Swans were serving up what appeared to be a match winning performance. James Rowbottom was tough and effective out of the middle and Chad Warner was great on the outside breaking into open space to deliver forward thrusts. Isaac Heeney was brilliant up forward in the first quarter especially. Sydney had winners all over the park, it seemed. Unfortunately, the same side did not emerge after halftime. https://www.sydneyswans.com.au/news/1769233/injury-update-round-8 Head Coach Dean Cox Left Scratching His Head The script had been flipped and the Suns left their black shorted opponents for dead. The Swans were killed out of the middle by Witts and  the Sun’s midfielders in the second half. MIA for all those mentioned previously were the Swans. Compounding this were the unforced errors made by Riley Bice, Jake Lloyd, Matt Roberts and Justin McInerney, which were hard to explain and very damaging to the Swans in the second half. Will Haywood gave away multiple free kicks, which directly cost goals. These Swan’s players were poor when it mattered. Tom McCartin continues to be less than useful in defence. WTF is going on in the backline for Sydney? Games Too Long For The Sydney Team Are the Swans clear about how long AFL games go for? There are 4 quarters and not just 2. The umpiring crucified this game in terms of the number of free kicks paid in front of goals. This favoured the Swans in the first quarter but turned to provide the Suns with multiple goals late in the second term and into the latter half of the match. 12 unanswered goals by the Suns put Sydney’s chances to the sword. Has Dean Cox inherited a damaged team? They are like a doughnut with a big hole in the middle, where fight and guts seem to be missing. Paul Roos must be disgusted in what has become of the Blood’s spirit. Chad Warner & Sydney Chad Warner has re-signed with the Sydney Swans, which is great news. Hopefully, this will ignite a return to form by the exciting midfielder and the team. God knows the Swans need to start putting some match winning AFL football together in 2025. David King, the Fox Footy commentator, reckons the Swans should put Isaac Heeney forward to address the lack of results in this crucial part of the ground for Sydney. Heeney has been tagged effectively by opposing sides this year, as a midfielder, and this has reduced his impact on games. This was done against the Suns and was a success for half a game. The remaining midfielders could not get the job done for 4 quarters, they had just 2 quarters in them. Is Brody Grundy up to it? The evidence is looking shaky for the big  wrestling ruckman. Unlikely Forwards Kicking Goals Aaron Francis made a successful cameo appearance at Full Forward for a quarter last week, kicking a few of goals and looking dangerous. Francis played forward in the first half, against the Suns, and moved back in the second half. He was pretty good all game. Nick Blakey was productive in a number of plays, but the umpires found him guilty of transgressions in the marking contest, which cost goals. Blakey went forward late in the game and kicked 3 goals in quick succession. Swans’ Buckle & Fumble Under Pressure When the pressure is applied upon the Swans they buckle and fumble. They lack belief in their system and fail in its application. There is an inability to play 4 quarters at the level required. Coach Dean Cox is looking down upon a shallowness and lack of grit among the playing group. Costly errors made via ball use destroyed any hope of getting back into this game when it mattered. Jake Lloyd may be a safe pair of hands but he is an ineffective ball user. McInerney was terrible and a repeat offender with ball in hand. Florent plays a couple of decent quarters and goes missing. Bice had a shocker. McCartin is probably confused and embittered a bit about where he is playing on the field. Haywood was frustrated and very poor all day. The Swans are Champagne football or bust, at the moment. This will not measure up and is not getting the job done in 2025.   “The truth about AFL football these days is that nobody plays on each other. If you look around the ground during a game, you will see 36 players standing off from one another. Sure, the full forward and full back may be nearer to each other than most, but nobody is wearing the other, like in the old days. The modern footy game is a high possession, low contest affair that sees the ball move quickly up and down the ground. This higher scoring style of play is by design. Rule changes by those in charge of the AFL have reduced the defensive nature of the game.” - (https://www.midasword.com.au/modern-footy/) Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©MidasWord Read the full article

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The Unwelcome Welcome To Country In Australia

Down in the neo-Nazi capital of Australia, Melbourne, a few of the boys in black booed the ANZAC Day Welcome To Country. This was a coordinated effort to arouse a backlash against the short ceremony performed by an Indigenous elder. It did not work, as other participants at the ANZAC service angrily told them to shut up. A similar far right action occurred in Perth. The unwelcome Welcome To Country in Australia has become the target of Trumpian anti woke campaigning. This latest activism by neo-Nazis and far right campaigners has been widely condemned, especially as it took place at an ANZAC day ceremony.

Indigenous Welcome To Country An Opportunity To Learn Stuff

Personally, I enjoy the Welcome To Country ceremonies, as I find I learn something about our past each time I listen to what the elder has to say. Perhaps, if these folk opened their ears they too might enrich their lives as Australians. History did not begin with Captain Cook. However, it may well be a situation where ideology has blocked their hearing on this score. Too busy point scoring in the anti-woke debate to open their hearts to another’s perspective. Too inflamed by racism to see beyond the colour of their skin.

Conflation Of Indigenous Acknowledgement & Welcome To Country There has been a conflation of two distinct things. That of acknowledgements of country and the more substantial Welcome To Country. Indeed, Peter Dutton, more recently, made this mistake in his leader’s debate performance. One would think that the bloke wishing to become Aussie Prime Minister would be all over this, but alas, no, Dutton falls well short again on this matter. Perhaps, to an ex-cop from Queensland they all look the same to him. This is despite nearly 10 years as a federal minister in a number of different portfolios. Lack of respect reeks off this bloke in spades. He aint fit for the top job! Acknowledging the past is an important part of defining who we are as Australians. If those on the Right want to truncate things it makes us less and you wonder why they want to keep folk in the dark. Aligning yourself with neo-Nazis is a worrying trend. “Peter Dutton has confirmed he does not believe welcome to country ceremonies are necessary at Anzac Day dawn services and on commercial flights, continuing to stoke a culture war in the final week of the election campaign. It comes days after a neo-Nazi booed and heckled a welcome to country ceremony at a dawn service in Melbourne.” - (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/28/dutton-claims-majority-of-veterans-dont-want-welcome-to-country-at-anzac-day-ceremonies-ntwnfb)

The Booing In Australia Has Racist Connotations Booing is an unfortunate Australian practice, which occurs frequently at AFL games. Melbourne is the home of AFL. It has form in the racist space too. Adam Goodes, a champion AFL player was booed out of the game by racist spectators at matches. Adam Goodes was an Indigenous man. The AFL did next to nothing about this at the time. Booing is a demonstration of mob rule and the neo-Nazis at ANZAC Day wanted to incite a crowd reaction, they hoped the booing would grow and be shared by supporters in the crowd. They did not get their desired result and were escorted off the premises. Booing is bad form in my book. The unwelcome Welcome To Country in Australia has now received boos. Booing is in the racist kit bag to be pulled out at public gatherings. Next time you hear booing or are doing the booing yourself have a think about this. “Adam Goodes famously called out this behaviour and was eventually booed out of the game. Australians, who had been told for years that they were model exponents of multiculturism, were surprised to learn that racism was very much alive and well among their ranks. Right wing media personalities bemoaned this divisive behaviour by blacks, who should really know their place. ‘ - (https://www.housetherapy.com.au/racism-time-to-take-real-action/) Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©HouseTherapy

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A Bloke Named Daniel Hoyne

There is a bloke named Daniel Hoyne and he is from Champion Data, which is a mob responsible for a lot of interesting AFL stats. In the current AFL media echo chamber, it is this chap who provides all the talking heads you hear and see with the basis of their insightful analysis. Those blowhard footy experts on Fox, Nine and Seven, with the pedigree of being ex-players, that many of us slavishly listen to. Hoyne and his fellow champions of AFL data are providing the real gold for footy analysis. The David Kings' and others may talk loudly and stridently on topic but the actual data is identified by Mister Hoyne.

Hoyne The Champion Of AFL Data

If these footy faces in the media give you a headache, then, going directly to the source might save you the need for relief in terms of your hearing. Daniel Hoyne is on SEN on Tuesday night and sharing the data driven gospel for fans of a more scientific answer to many of footy’s most pertinent questions. What do they say, ‘opinions are like arseholes, as in everyone’s got one.’  Many of us love to talk AFL footy with friends and family. This is, I think in part, our homage to the game we love. Personally, however, I get sick of the shared regurgitation among the AFL footy media. Few have anything original to say and even fewer anything worth banking upon in terms of wisdom. The game moves so fast these days in its evolvement that past players are soon mere spectators like ourselves. Their cache exists in the smell of liniment and real personal experience but game plans and tactics have left them in their wake. All I can say, is thank goodness for Hoyne. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e31Zr5qV0U8 Rule Changes Are The Name Of The Game & Hoyne The somewhat sad fact is that AFL is morphing into soccer at a rapid rate. Daniel Hoyne tells us that the modern game is all about moving the footy. The top teams move it with aplomb and do it fast. The best players and most valuable to their teams are those that can move the ball exceedingly well. Hitting targets is the name of the modern game. I would add that 4 field umpires are turning the contest into round ball football. Concussion protocols mean that you cannot bump because of the risk of making contact with the head and getting rubbed out for minimum 3 weeks. You cannot tackle like you mean it for similar reasons, as dangerous tackle definitions are getting broader by the week. The contact nature of this contact sport is waning. AFL has long been about running, with the best players being great runners. AFL player body types have evolved into lean, tall, running machines. Squat little blokes are a rarity. Wide fellas, built like brick shithouses, are very thin on the ground too. https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-hoyne-006747256/?originalSubdomain=au

Zoning & Too Many Umpires Zoning defences have changed the game too, if you have not noticed. Opposing players do not play on each other, as they used to, they stand a few metres off each other. I think this works well and has evolved because the majority of young players recruited are midfielders and midfielders don’t play on any one. I remember Paul Roos talking about how young players coming into the Swans team were often put in defence, so that they could learn defensive skills. The Swans had a ‘man on man’ defence for much longer than most AFL teams in the modern era. These days, even this option is not really open to modern coaches. The people who have changed the game by modifying the rules to create a higher scoring game with less mauls want to see this new version of AFL. They think that the fans prefer the free flowing game rather than the defensive style of lots of rucks and mauls. The 6-6-6 rule. The ‘stand on the mark’ rule. The tackler not being rewarded ethos, which always favours the ball carrier. These rule changes and interpretations are shifting the game toward soccer, in my view. 4 field umpires mean that the number of free kicks in minor infringements in the ruck contest, marking contests, high tackles and such like are greatly increased. The influence of referees in soccer matches are huge and AFL is fast heading in the same direction. A bunch of free kicks in front of goals can change the momentum of a contest, as it did for the Suns over the Swans recently. Umpires have far more impact on matches than in previous eras.

Players Don’t Play On Opponents Anymore Some folk wonder how players like Patrick Cripps can get so many umpire votes in the Brownlow and so many possessions each week. The reduction in contest produces more uncontested possessions. The emphasis on moving the ball and hitting targets magnifies this even further. ‘Man on man’ contests are rarer and are savoured by fans the few times they happen in a match. The changes forced upon AFL by concussion are very real and there is no responsible avoiding of this. The concerns of civilisation are greater than cavemen beating the shit of each other with clubs. I suppose it is surprising that contact sports have survived in their violence for so long. Soccer can be an exciting game to watch. AFL will maintain a four limbed advantage over the round ball game for some time yet, I would imagine. Although the prevalence of a lot of swinging arms of late is not good for the game. Watching the footy now, involves being exposed to short lectures by ex-players throughout games, as to why teams are losing plays. Calling matches, back in the day, was a shared process of unfolding accounts of the on-field action. Games were more exciting because there weren’t a raft of commentators pretending that they know the answers to everything happening on the ground. In truth, much of what these expert announcers put forward as gospel is pure speculation. https://wordsforweb.com.au/young-men-let-a-lot-of-people-down/ There is a bloke named Daniel Hoyne and he and his mob are providing real data for our analysis. More than mere opinion and bluster. Crunching the numbers can reveal a cache of insightful stuff about the game and where it is heading. https://x.com/hoyney35?lang=en Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©WordsForWeb

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The Right Is On The Nose

Most people know that far right politics are nasty, when you get down to it. Populist moaning and blaming others when given power turns into fascism and authoritarianism. We are seeing it in America, where the Trump regime is flouting the law and stripping people of their basic human rights. The Right is on the nose, at the moment, as folk realise the damage being done to the economy and international goodwill. Losing trust in your public institutions, when corrupt billionaires go after your Social Security,  Education and Food Safety, to name just a few, spells the end of government for all the people.

Right Wing Politics Proving To Be Unsound & Dangerous In Government

Australia and Canada are both having federal elections. The Trump factor has, it seems, swung voters away from populist right wing political parties. Canada because it has borne the brunt of Donald Trump’s economic attacks via tariffs and geopolitical threats upon their sovereignty. Australians just don’t like extremists  and feel betrayed after decades of carrying water for its perceived big brother in various conflicts. The shared feeling is, ‘how dare Donald Trump shit all over our loyalty like some mob boss demanding fealty beyond what has already been constantly shown in spades.

Those On The Right No Longer Stout Defenders Of Free Speech Australians have stopped travelling to the US, if it is not securely work related, as the stories of people being held at borders have sent worrying messages to those not aligned with the Trump regime policies. Indeed, overseas visitors per se have dramatically dropped off to the USA. “Are Australians avoiding the US? Yes, according to the US International Trade Administration. Their latest data shows Australian visitor numbers plummeted 7 per cent in March this year, compared to March 2024. That's the sharpest drop in Australian visitors the US has seen.” - (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-15/australians-appear-to-be-avoiding-travel-to-the-us/105124236) Donald Trump has assembled a cabinet full of extremists and cranks; therefore, nobody knows what curtailment of free speech and rights will occur next. The Right has been shown to be hypocritical in their previous upholding of free speech in America. Suddenly, when they are in power universities and academics are being penalised and disappeared if they have written or said anything critical of the policies of the US and its special ally Israel. The once great defenders of free speech have fallen silent as ICE go about grabbing people off the streets and deporting them to a foreign jail in El Salvador without due process. He specifically referred to conservatives’ obsession with “free speech” and the liberal “thought police”, while arguing in the same breath for CNN to be banned from the airwaves, among other proposed cancellations and censorship. “Generally, you’ve gotta search the archives for contradictions on one’s stated principles, dig through policy papers to uncover private actions that are undermined by someone’s public stance, but this is so blatant,” said Stewart. “I can’t wrap around it. It’s not even the hypocrisy, it’s that they so fetishize free speech, this thing that they do not in any way actually practice.” Stewart cited Trump banning the AP from the White House for refusing to rename the Gulf of Mexico to “the Gulf of America”, and the detainment of Columbia student protester Mahmoud Khalil. “These guys don’t give a fuck about free speech,” he said. “They care about their speech. It’s such blatant hypocrisy.” - (https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/mar/25/jon-stewart-republicans-free-speech-trump)

A View From The Tops To Where We Were Heading It is one thing to bemoan woke policies and wish to blame your own discontent on soft targets like migrants, refugees and LGBTQI folk but quite another to strip citizens and denizens from their human rights. The parallels with the Nazis are, perhaps, too close to the bone of the matter? Politics is about power and the getting of it dominates the efforts of those involved. Getting elected and governing are quite separate things. Galvanising populist rage is one skill but having to govern for all of the population is a distinctly different responsibility. Trump is making a king sized mess of things. The cost to America will be in the hundreds of billions and, perhaps, trillions. The damage to lives will be long lasting; and whether many public institutions will ever recover is doubtful. The Right is on the nose for good reason. We are fortunate to get this prescient view of where we were heading. Right Wing Champions Are In It For Their Own Aggrandisement These folk don’t care about the things that they are championing, as they are in it for the power and the wealth it brings. The price of eggs aint getting any cheaper in America, as promised by Trump. Indeed, his tariffs will push the prices of most thing up and inflation will be back for all of us around the globe. Hire clowns and you should expect a circus. Trump’s cabinet are bereft of economic expertise and expertise, more generally, in governing. The important message for most of us is that you cannot rely on the old hierarchies anymore. America is now an unreliable ally and world leader. It is no longer safe to have so many eggs in this basket. Our politicians will all have to reframe their assumptions about the world stage and global power. America has shot itself in the foot but the wounds may be far greater and it has a propensity for fire arm’s injuries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1pt2FI-QwU Peter Dutton Australia’s Champion On The Right Peter Dutton, in Australia, has been having trouble declaring his financial interests. You would think a politician who served in government in ministerial positions for so many years would be competent in this regard. Indeed, as an ex policeman one would assume that he would be rigorous in all things to do with the law. Not so, alas. Multi million dollar family trusts are usually set up to minimise tax and occasionally to hide stuff from prying eyes. Is this the behaviour of someone dedicated to serving the Australian people? Or is it a bloke having a bob each way? These financial arrangements are not slight, rather they are substantial. Peter Dutton and his family empire own 26 residential properties, I believe. Many Australians are unable to afford a single family home. Many cannot, currently, cope with the high rents forced upon them by an economy valuing homes way beyond the average incomes of Australian workers. Dutton was a minister for nearly 10 years of Coalition governments. He and his ilk are responsible for the current economic climate in Australia.

“Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was the beneficiary of a family trust for two years, but did not disclose this to parliament. Four Corners investigated property records for both leaders, finding Mr Dutton's family, with his father Bruce, made almost $15 million over 20 years. Documents show Mr Dutton's family also had a long business history with former childcare mogul Eddy Groves and his family.” - (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-28/peter-dutton-failed-to-disclose-interest-in-family-trust/105217880) “The LNP Coalition are never shy in making big statements about emotive topics like defence and law and order. Security is supposedly their thing. Expensive Coalition promises lite on detail. “$21 billion on defence”, as if just saying a big price tag will make Australia safer. Unfortunately, for us, it is a tiny bit more complex than that in the real world. Mere words and brash statements without proper costings are par for the course with the Coalition.” - (https://wordsforweb.com.au/expensive-coalition-promises-lite-on-detail/) Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©WordsForWeb

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Digital World Taking Over The Real World

We created a model of our lives. The model was called a computer. Lots of us thought this was really cool. Everyone got a computer if they could and lots of cool stuff was generated. The Internet, world wide web, and social media. More and more human activity was transferred to the digital realm. We became more dependent upon computers and the digital world. The computer transformed into a smart phone, which could do a bunch of cool stuff. Human behavior has been modified with generations of digital natives knowing little else. Now, AI is here and taking over much more of our lives. The digital world taking over the real world is actually happening.

Digital Coup Underway in Trump 2.0

Elon Musk and DOGE via the Trump regime in America is gutting government departments. The claims are that it is being done to reduce wastage and make things more efficient. What does that really mean? It means humans losing their jobs and being replaced by AI bots. This is happening in business around the planet. Big Tech is lining the halls of power now that Trump is in charge. Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and the tech bros are cheering for Trump. This is a digital coup as much as it is anything else. Musk’s minions are going into departments like Social Security and downloading masses of private data. Lots of us have no idea what is going on and why? What is the end game here? Photo by energepic.com on Pexels.com The Digital Doppelganger Tech came on the scene, back in the day, with promises of greater human liberty. Silicon Valley was cool, alternative, and full of casually dressed CEOs and engineers. Wall St came to Silicon Valley to monetise it – Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter and all those applications and platforms. Very soon, these entities became billion dollar companies and we all have been paying through the nose ever since. Digitalising life so that ‘user pays’ can be the credo for forever more. Amazon changed shopping and reading books. This doppelganger world sucked the meaning and money out of what used to be known as the real world. The virtual space soon took over. Professor Timothy Snyder tells us that our phones have become our oracles in a neo-paganistic world. We look into our smart devices to know the present and the future. Surveillance capitalism has coerced and modified human behaviour. Every person carries a smart phone device with them and thus could be tracked everywhere they go. Social media feeds were self-curated surveillance files rich in pickings for the police state. Computers are at their most basic digital recording machines. We are all keeping records of every transaction, email, call, and movement tracked by our own devices. The plethora of digital images provides an even greater illustrative record of lives. The Digital Now Has Greater Value Than What We Used To Call Reality The NSA began working with Big Tech many years ago. Now, Trump’s ICE are making judgement calls based on the social media record of targeted individuals. Deportations to a prison in El Salvador with no due process based on images, tattoos, and the kind of clothing these men wear. Captured on images found in their social media pages and posts The digital world has been playing this role in authoritarian regimes for years. Now, the United States is one of these fascist police states under Trump. What goes in the digital world is now more important than the real world reality. Right wing governments, like Trumps’ that lie non-stop and their media circle, likewise spreads disinformation and has no respect for factuality, are the new world order of the day. Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Pexels.com The Model Has Replaced The Reality The digital world taking over the real world. Digital money, AI bots telling you what’s what, staring at screens 10 hours a day, digital feeds informing you about the news, smart phone = dumb human. If you don’t think that the digital world is taking over you are sadly misinformed or too stupid to realise what is going on. Government leaders banging on about the productivity lift to the economy AI will provide. WTF does that mean? It means you losing your job and a machine taking over. Productivity improves because it is cheaper to run an AI bot. These government leaders are in the pocket of big business and business has been singing from the AI and automation song sheets for years. These CEOs don’t like having to employ human beings, as they are way too troublesome. Technology Does Not Make Everything Better Has technology, digital tech, really made everything better? Is your life so much better thanks to your phone? Have a think about it. Convenience is not the be all if you end up in a shitty meaningless world where all you do is look at screens. Stuff happens faster but are you actually freer? Are you wealthier than your parents or is it just that stuff costs a lot more now? Houses cost a squillion but is life really so much better? I would posit that technology has sucked the life out of lots of stuff. Music has all become muzak thanks to digital technology. Live music and festivals are dying. The commercial control over music by Big Tech has destroyed what once was a thriving revolutionary scene. Making everything easy and convenient does not automatically make it better. Photo by ahmad' s on Pexels.com Big Tech & Its Seductive Serenade Big Tech is banging on about how wonderful AI is and will be. Smart phone=dumb human. This is the equation. The less we think for ourselves the less we will be able to. The billionaire oligarchs are feeding on us like vampires. AI has stolen its intelligence from us via the creative content of millions of humans. Where you find yourself on the food chain may determine how soon you will become obsolete and whether you will be able to adapt to a world where humans are second class citizens behind technology. Capitalism does not care about you or me. It only feeds on profitability. Governments around the world are being shrunk and their public servants are being replaced by AI bots. When you try and ring to find out where your social security payment is you will get a machine at the other end of the line – good luck with that. A privatised previously government service may attempt to extract wealth out of you instead of honouring your inquiry. These digital corporations want to get their hands on wealth wherever they can find it. Amoral business is the future made present. Trump is accelerating this at top speed in the US and everyone follows America. “If your business model depends upon every human being having a device capable of carrying your app or software programme – then, you are in luck because this is where we find ourselves.  Human beings have become so enamoured of their mobile devices that they trust them more than their family and friends in many instances. These smart phones connect them via social media apps to a network of users purporting to be human. And some of them will be their friends and family members but others will be of questionable provenance. Bots and scammers populate the digital space in vast numbers pretending to be genuine humans online. The Internet is a fraudulent place where the absence of sensory data blinds us ordinary humans from utilising our common senses. It is a grifter’s paradise, a scammer’s delight, and hundreds of billions of dollars are purloined every year. Not to mention hearts being broken and trusts betrayed.” - (https://www.midasword.com.au/what-is-todays-trojan-horse/) AI & Autonomous Digital Weapons Defence is a very big ticket item, especially in the US. Big Tech want to crash this party to access the rivers of gold. Every weapon is now pretty high tech and the drone warfare fiesta is only the tip of the iceberg. Elon Musk is eying off the Pentagon to get his mitts on the hundreds of billions of dollars in defence spending. Starlink has given him a taste for government largesse. The fundamental shift from the real to the digital allows proponents to treat humans with greater indifference. Killing via drone warfare is like a video game. There is a global arms race happening centred on AI and autonomous weapons. It is already too late to stop this and the carnage this will unleash on humanity in the near future will be savage. Ukraine has been a testing ground for this new kind of warfare. “Small FPV drones, which travel at 37mph, have become ubiquitous, evolving from ‘a novelty to a weapon of choice’ Denys, a soldier with Ukraine’s Khyzhak brigade, describes a new kind of war. Standing in a barracks workshop with piles of basic Ukrainian First Person View (FPV) drones behind him, he says simply: “There are fewer gunfights because there are more drone fights.” “ - (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/04/it-is-impossible-to-outrun-them-how-drones-transformed-war-in-ukraine) Machines buzzing around that are capable of blowing human beings to bits. It is science fiction come to fruition in frightening fact. Imagine despots being in control of this deadly technology and directing its murderous capabilities upon enemies of the state. Welcome to the 21C. Photo by Daniel St.Pierre on Pexels.com Who Are You Without Your Phone? All of us who adore our smart phones and the tech it brings would do well to take a step back and reassess the digital world. The driving forces behind tech infatuation are capitalism and the human fear of falling behind in the arms race. The companies that make these oracles, which can sit in our hands, promote them for all they are worth. Children covet them from early ages. The corporations behind the applications on these devices harvest our data and on sell it to a variety of companies involved in modern commerce and the art of persuasion. Perhaps, if this was a Hollywood movie, your character, at last awake to the treasonous betrayal of humanity, would throw their smart phone to the ground and smash it with their heel. However, in actual fact the behaviour modification has been so intrinsic to your identity that the term brain washing would not do justice to the situation. Modern human beings experience withdrawal symptoms from even temporary bouts of separation from their smart phones. The projection of life into the digital model has been so profound that many no longer recognise any distinction between the two. The corruption of our youth by this technology has been without precedence in the annals of our history. “As the brilliant mind of Yuval Noah Harari has posited, the biggest danger of AI is that it can tell stories and story telling is a critical survival mechanism of humanity. Which in turn affects our realities and sense of time.” - (https://gilescrouch.medium.com/human-reality-in-the-digital-age-fd5ffec7957c) Smart phone = dumb human. The more that your device can do for you unaided by your input the stupider you will become. Use it or lose it! Technology is somewhat similar to a drug addiction. We are all in danger of becoming mere spectators and bystanders in our own lives. Like the poppy eater mesmerised in a narcotic state watching the world go by. AI telling its own stories to a humanity broken and pacified by the machinations of an oligarchy intent on amassing vast fortunes whilst billions struggle and starve. We are all well on the way to this, as we sit here today. Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©MidasWord Read the full article

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Next Pope Won’t Be A Woman

The next Pope won’t be a woman and what does that tell us? It tells us that the Roman Catholic Church is a patriarchal construct. A boy’s club established by a bunch of power hungry men some 2 millennia ago. Thus, these were not cutting edge folk in terms of how we view the world today. Therefore, carrying on with such out of date stuff is beyond foolishness. We do not see the world in the 21C in any way like those who constructed the Roman Catholic Church. Women are treated like second class citizens in the Vatican and in the Catholic Church – this is just not good enough.

I Bet The Pope To Follow Francis Will Not Be Female

Il Papa, the Holy Father, the clues are all in the names and titles. This exclusive ‘men only’ hierarchy contributes greatly to holding back human culture from progressing beyond a world ruled by ‘might is right’. The Church and all its customs are the invention of a bunch of men. It is gilding the lily to claim divine intervention. Every religion does, of course, but the actual facts point to ‘man-made’ articles of faith. The hocus pocus, miraculous claims, are the smoke and mirrors that every superstitious belief system surrounds itself with. Many people want to believe in something supernatural and they have been accommodated by those in the religion business. Boys Own Pope & Male Violence The next Pope won’t be a woman. We live in a world, where there still are insecure men like Vladimir Putin who covets his neighbour’s territory. Violent, despicable despots in positions of temporal power. Warlords and dictators running totalitarian regimes in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. These men promote brutality and might is right. Thus, although sections of global societies live progressive and peaceful existences men such as these hold a gun to their heads. Populist demagogues like Donald Trump seek to profit from the instability of a world riven in places by genocide and violence. Ukraine and Gaza have been smashed and drenched in blood for very different reasons but the end result reeks the same. Profiteers of war are, perhaps, the lowest of the low. Pope Francis was a more humane leader of the Catholic Church but did not prevent the bloodshed in these warzones.

Brute Force & The Billions Spent On Defence The next Pope won’t be a woman. Humanity is dragged down by its worst male members and their thirst for power, wealth, and violence. Every country has its share of these types of men. Some nation’s fall prey to these men controlling their institutions and security forces. On this basis every nation state is coerced into spending large amounts of money on weapons it thinks it needs to defend itself. Many men feed on this and make their economic living servicing this presumed requirement. A lot of graft and wastage goes on around the military industrial complex and its control of the defence departments of governments. In the US, trillions of dollars are spent each year and fat cats luxuriate amid the largesse. The push right now is to increase the percentage of GDP spent by nations globally on their defence budgets. The Trump regime are pushing this agenda particularly. “ICE grabbing people off the street in America and transporting them to El Salvador, where they are imprisoned, is completely illegal. The Trump regime have made up laws to facilitate this gross malfeasance. Everything about Trump’s El Salvador solution is illegal. There is no due process occurring, no presumption of innocence and no trials. Basically, if you have a tattoo and look like you are from Central or South America you are in trouble. The Trump regime has declared a Venezuelan gang to be a terrorist organisation associated with the Madura government. Neither of these claims are true. It is more BS and lies coming from a known compulsive liar and his team of yes men and women.” - (https://www.housetherapy.com.au/everything-about-trumps-el-salvador-solution-is-illegal/) The Male Fear Mongering Game This is a fear mongering game, where politicians like Peter Dutton spread their alarmist message to worry old ladies and paranoid folk more generally. Trump has caused untold economic damage already with his tariff trade war diatribes. Many people are feeling insecure and that the globe is now a much more unstable place. This assists his desire for greater spending on arms and armaments around the world. Trump has attacked verbally both friends and foes, threatening Canada, Greenland and Panama. Electing a compulsive liar to head the free world is an unhinged and deeply irresponsible thing to do. It speaks of the disdain Americans must feel for the rest of the world. The next Pope won’t be a woman… “The rule of the Church in earthly possessions and the authority of the Pope over civil territories belonging to the Church, as in the Papal States. This power is in addition to his dominion in spiritual matters and becomes necessary if freedom from civil power is to be assured. It is presently exercised in relation to Vatican City or State since the Lateran Treaty of 1929. The term may also refer to the exercise of political influence by the bishops formerly through landed estates and currently through financial and other means.” - (https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=36795) Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©HouseTherapy

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Expensive Coalition Promises Lite On Detail

The LNP Coalition are never shy in making big statements about emotive topics like defence and law and order. Security is supposedly their thing. Expensive Coalition promises lite on detail. “$21 billion on defence”, as if just saying a big price tag will make Australia safer. Unfortunately, for us, it is a tiny bit more complex than that in the real world. Mere words and brash statements without proper costings are par for the course with the Coalition. This mob are going to build a bunch of nuclear reactors, despite there being no experience locally and no interest from those in the private sector who make their living from such investments.

LNP Nuclear Plan Not Compatible With Renewables

There is boldness and there is rank stupidity, especially when Australia is already in the midst of a transition to renewables. Perhaps, the ideological blindness on the Right prevents it from seeing what is actually going on. The Coalition’s lockstep with the fossil fuel industry makes them prisoners of the past.  Indeed, too many Australians are unaware of just how much of this energy transition has already occurred. The investment and advances in big batteries are making the free energy from the sun and wind available in the evenings when demand is high. This is being ramped up as we approach 2030. Rooftop solar is incredibly popular with Australian households and home batteries are getting cheaper too. “The capacity of rooftop solar will soon exceed that of coal, gas and hydro combined in Australia's main grid, a green energy report finds. There is already almost 20GW of rooftop solar in Australia, but this is forecast to more than triple in coming decades.” - (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-21/rooftop-solar-cells-in-australia-to-outperform-demand/103489806)

The Wasted Years Under The Coalition 10 years of Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison, the lies and the failures, I call them the wasted years. Australia wasted a decade not dealing with global warming under the LNP federal governments. Robodebt illegally and falsely claimed that half a million struggling Aussies were welfare cheats. People killed themselves in despair over Robodebt. It cost tax payers $1.8 billion in a settled class action against the government. It continues to cost billions through a Royal Commission and several NACC enquiries, which are still ongoing. The AUKUS betrayal of the French cost more billions and sullied our name internationally. Still, no submarines are on the horizon and this is looking more and more unlikely. Oh yeah, Morrison and the Coalition committed us to a $368 billion deal with the Americans and the Brits, which Paul Keating has called the worst deal in Australia’s history. Billions wasted in Snowy 2.0 as giant machinery sinks into the earth. The track record is appalling and we are expected to trust them with nuclear reactor building?  Come on, even the best in the world are challenged by this, just look at what is happening in the UK with their latest nuclear reactor foray. Are Australians really that stupid? Peter Dutton Our Temu Trump Expensive Coalition promises lite on detail. I will let you in on a bit of a secret – just because someone makes it into government via the electoral process does not guarantee that they are smart. I mean, just look at Donald Trump! Busy over there crashing the economy and plunging the place potentially into civil war. Australians and others are cancelling their trips to America in droves. Innocent folk are being held at the borders, Canadians and Europeans in addition to anyone with a tattoo and swarthy skin. Peter Dutton, Temu Trump, plays the race card in his own dog whistling show downunder. I call him the bloke who cries ‘wolf’ at least a couple of times a day. Alarmist warnings about dark skinned folk, whether they be refugees, Indigenous Aussies or Chinese. Pete is ready to ring the bell and wind up the anxiety level of old ladies and jittery folk more generally. Talk about having no shame in your bid to get power.

Macro Corruption & Right Wing Authoritarian Governments Because that it was it is all about. Trump leads the way in setting the example of why a wealthy guy wants political power too. Corruption and not just any old grift but what they call macro corruption in the billions. Donald Trump has an effect on the world and especially on America’s kid brother Australia. We slavishly follow the Yanks in business; and the LNP model their party policies on the GOP. They want to privatise everything like Abbott tried to with higher education. The Libs have been trying to eradicate Medicare for more than 50 years – they call it socialised medicine. If you don’t believe me check the records, it’s all there. The neoliberal privatisation of our utilities, national carrier, Telstra, Commonwealth Bank, and toll roads have not delivered the promised savings to consumers. Rather, they have delivered wealth to a select few. This is the right wing scam. John Howard was responsible for the tax changes that have made Australian residential property unaffordable for great swathes of the population. The Libs do not represent all Australians but only those wealthier property owning folk. If you want a fairer Australia you would be mad to vote for them. We Used To Own A Lot Of Valuable Assets “In the 1990s, Australian governments — both Commonwealth and state — privatised a significant portion of the public sector, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). This trend increased, with Australia having one of the larger privatisation programs among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, followed in value by the United Kingdom. Privatisation occurred in three main sectors — financial services, electricity and gas, and communication — with governments selling assets by offering equity to the public, and through trade sales.” - (https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/planes-phones-and-a-bank-what-australians-used-to-own/8r94gagra) Expensive Coalition promises lite on detail. We are all now poorer, in the main, and we live in a rentier economy. This is where we all pay rents on every aspect of life, not just on a home, but all those big tech subscriptions you pay. Insurance premiums, electricity and gas, phone bills, data, streaming, and nobody owns stuff anymore. ‘User pays’ is the motto of these right wing pollies. The corporations don’t pay much tax or none at all, as they artfully avoid it. Trump’s tariffs are a regressive flat tax on consumers. In Australia, it is workers paying most tax via income tax whilst big business and those with capital get off scot free. 10 years of previous Coalition governments have created the world we now live in. Rents are unaffordable, homes are out of reach to buy for ordinary folk, no social housing has been built for decades, and the cost of living crisis with years of high inflation still hurts us at the check out. Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©WordsForWeb

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Dutton Always Framing Stuff In The Negative For Voters

Australia currently has the worst vehicle emission’s standards in the Western world. Why is this so? Politics, of course. This basic health and environmental issue has been made a political football by the right wing LNP. The Coalition continually appeals to the lowest of the low comfort zone of their voters. You never see this mob ask anything of their voters to raise their standards for the betterment of the community. No, it is always framed in such way as to reduce everything to what it might cost in the short term in dollars. Peter Dutton the alarmist politician crying ‘wolf’ about possible price increases and exaggerating the amount for all its worth. Dutton always framing stuff in the negative for voters. Scare campaigns are Pete's best friend! Photo by Erik Mclean on Pexels.com

Peter Dutton’s Designated List Of Handy Demons

What you get is a third of the nation only concerned with their own hip pocket and never acting out of what is best for the whole country. Me me me.  LNP Coalition voters put everything in the context of – ‘what’s in it for me?’ The Right never dig deeper into issues or bother to see things from another perspective. Blaming others and scapegoating particular groups are also prominent stratagems for their campaign strategists. “It is all the fault of?” Victim blaming is big on the Right’s menu these days, as well. Refugees, immigrants, LBGTQI folk, Indigenous Aussies, and opinionated women are all frequent targets for demonisation. Scare campaigns are an LNP Coalition speciality. Photo by Khunkorn Laowisit on Pexels.com Blaming Stuff On Scapegoats & Demons Bloody greenies and their concern with emissions are used as scapegoats for any efforts to clean up our air for the health of our children. The Dutton camp appeal to the lowest common denominator in the tradie and the working man. Quite apart from the fact that many of these folk earn a lot of money and can afford to drive decent work vehicles. I don’t know too many tradies who don’t charge plenty for their services to begin with. Unlike child care workers and aged care workers who actually earn too little in Australia. The bullshit around this issue is typical LNP Dutton dishonesty. Victimhood status is the latest thing for the well off to steal and appropriate from the needy. Getting to the front of the queue in the ‘what about me?’ stakes is another way of avoiding wealth distribution. The LNP are all about making noise for those who are already well placed in terms of getting ahead.   Painting An Alarming Picture Of The Future With Pete Peter Dutton always framing stuff in the negative for voters. Establishing vehicle emission standards in Australia is pretty bloody basic stuff and should have been done years ago. Playing politics with this stuff is the way of the Right. The boy who cries ‘wolf’ never stops trying to alarm the electorate. Now, it is establishing a child sex offender register and tackling black market tobacco. Dutton was in positions of power for 10 years and did nothing about this stuff for a decade. He was Home Affairs Minister! “With the opposition continuing to make fighting crime a pillar of its campaign, Mr Dutton is also committing to a dedicated "strike team" to tackle illicit drugs under a $355 million package that would see federal police placed in state and territory agencies, supported by specialist financial investigators and prosecutors.” - (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-21/coalition-promises-child-sex-offender-register/105196454) Funny how an election can spur a bloke to make promises about stuff previously considered not important enough when they were in government previously. Emotive issues to get the voters out and a demonised group of nasties to blame! Aint that the Peter Dutton ex-cop way! Promising to put the boot into baddies on your behalf. Don’t hold your breath, however. “Why they call Dutton ‘Temu Trump’? Because he and his party long to remake Australia in the US mould. White supremacy, bro machismo culture, demonising minorities, downward envy, and users pay for absolutely everything. Big business runs the show globally with oligarchies taking over whole sectors. Big Tech sucks the life and your money out of everything. There is a subscription for every part of living in the West. “ - (https://www.midasword.com.au/why-they-call-dutton-temu-trump/) Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©MidasWord 1941 FWD Heavy Utility Humber by Evelyn Simak is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0 Read the full article

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Is Dean Cox Turning A Rolls Royce Into A Jalopy?

The Sydney Swans purred like a well tooled engine for much of last year. Yes, the team ran out of petrol tickets in the grand final but finished well clear at the top of the ladder after the home and away season. Longtime coach John Longmire gave the top job away and handed over to his apprentice. On the available evidence the Swans are definitely not firing on all cylinders in 2025. Is Dean Cox turning a Rolls Royce into a jalopy? The red and white bus is stalling at every intersection with normally reliable hands fumbling and players stumbling like never before. Cox’s changes to the side have created insecurity on every line. Tom McCartin is not a key forward right now and the Swans desperately need certainty at both ends of the ground.

Coach Cox Making Team Swan An Ugly Duckling

Against the Brisbane Lions at the SCG, I have rarely seen so many errors made by senior players in the red and white. It became a comedy of stuff ups with few laughs for those of us barracking for the home team. McCartin, even when he gets the ball at centre half forward, doesn’t know what to do with it. He takes too long to make poor decisions. Joel Amartey is not a ruckman; and all you are doing by playing him there is getting him injured and incapable of kicking goals. It is a piss poor experience watching a once well drilled side reduced to making so many mistakes. “The Lions had little trouble brushing aside the Swans to clinch a flag in their last encounter but this time had to bravely chase down the hosts then hold on desperately for a 12.14 (86) to 12.10 (82) triumph on Saturday.” - (https://www.afl.com.au/news/1279091/match-report-brisbane-lions-storm-home-to-pip-sydney-swans-in-epic-gf-rematch) Sydney Swan’s Side Under Cox Not Firing There are too many players in the 23 unsure of what is going on and what they should be doing. Will Hayward, Ollie Florent, and Justin McInerney are mere shadows of themselves. Why is that Dean? Brody Grundy is not up to it! In the second half of the match against Brisbane, the players were all over the shop. Isaac Heeney really needs to lift big time. Tom Papley also needs to do more for longer. Sam Wicks is trying hard and was great last week but had 4 goals kicked on him against the Lions. Nick Blakey made some uncharacteristic blunders but remains one of the best in the red and white. Uncertainty is bleeding red and white at the SCG in 2025. Scouring For Positives In Losses Is Dean Cox turning a Rolls Royce into a jalopy? James Rowbottom is leading the way in terms of application and ferocious play. Riley Bice was a revelation in the red and white. James Jordan did a phenomenal lock down job on Lachie Neil. Chad and Corey Warner are both playing well. It was good to see Joel Hamling finally get a game and do a few good things in defence. Not sure if Paton the No 25 is up to it. It could, however, have a lot to do with the uncertainty factor in the coaching strategy. The Brisbane game is one the Swans would have won last year but unsure hands let this one get away. Photo by Alexander Grey on Pexels.com The Red & White Rolls Requires Careful Handling Taking over a top team in the AFL as coach has challenges of its own, I am sure. Dean Cox seems to be a well liked fella but can he drive the red  and white bus? The concerning situation at the moment is what appears to be senior players not playing well for whatever reasons. Ollie Florent looks lost and out of form – a spell in the VFL perhaps? Isaac Heeney seems to be operating at 60% of his capacity in the couple of games so far. Will Hayward likewise is out of form and not contributing enough. Justin McInerney could be doing so much more. Errol Gulden leaves big boots to fill out on the field. The missing captain, Mills, remains another debilitating omission the Swan’s team could do without. Key Mechanical Problems - Brody Grundy letting side down in the ruck & around the ground. - Only Rowbottom doing enough in the midfield. - Forward line is not firing and rucking Amartey is making things worse. - Tom McCartin not using the ball well enough the few times he gets it up forward. - Isaac Heeney not getting enough ball in the middle. - Defence looks uncertain and too many errors being made. - No system apparent & too easy to score against Swans. RSH ©GolfDom Photo by Kindel Media on Pexels.com Read the full article

[sublimeobservationarcade]

The Driver And The Putter

The game of golf, unlike most other sports, demands a multitude of skills. 14 different clubs in the bag means a lot changes in swinging these clubs, some subtle nuances and others big bloody shifts. I mean, if you multiply how many different kinds of shots you can play with each club by 14 you get a pretty large number. Luckily for me, maths was never my strongest suit. The 2 clubs at either end of the spectrum are probably the clubs I can struggle with the most during rounds and bad patches in my golf. The driver and the putter. These 2 clubs are also what we often use the most over 18 holes.

Creature Feature Double: Driver & Putter

The driver and the putter sounds like the name of a movie. Two characters searching for brilliance but often on the skids. The driver often starts the hole and the putter invariably finishes it, apart from the odd chip in or hole out. These special occurrences are both fairly rare depending upon your skill level. Hands up who has periods of struggling with both these clubs? I bet the numbers are pretty high on this score. The driver is the longest club in the bag and has a light shaft and head. The putter can be all sorts of dimensions but is the flat stick. Not a lot of loft on either of these two golfing beasts.

Driving & Putting Dilemmas

The head scratching issues that both of these clubs can inspire do so for completely different reasons. The driver can, in the wrong hands, struggle to keep the golf ball on the fairway and out of trouble. The putter is a much more genteel weapon which bamboozles golfers via our inability to get the little white ball in the hole. Both can be frustrating but for these entirely different reasons. Both can make you feel like a fool. On a good day both clubs have the ability to put a smile on your dial. Smashing a long drive down the middle is a brilliant feeling. Sinking a putt, however, the more you play the game becomes the more satisfying sensation, especially to your score. 2 Clubs That Matter In Golf The driver’s length and lightness does my head in most of the time because it strikes me as so different to the rest of the clubs in the bag. I have never felt at home with this big headed club on a long pole and my swing shows it way too often. Yet, to observe a very good driver of the golf ball is a thing of beauty to behold. It’s just doing it badly that frustrates the hell out of me at times. The putter can depress me when it is not working for me and I can’t sense the pace of the greens via the rolling of my putts. It can frustrate the shit out of you when you are hitting greens in regulation and not making putts. ‘That’s golf’, my erstwhile golfing partner can say to me. Like hell it is, I think to myself. Photo by Jopwell on Pexels.com Speed Kills There are no magic silver bullets when it comes to the mastery of the driver and the putter. You can think that you have found the answer, sometimes, during a round with the driver, as you spank some seriously good drives. Only to find a little bit later on that this is not so, as you lose your way once more via sequencing, rhythm and tempo problems emerging. One of the most common mistakes, I experience, is driving the ball well and going for that bit extra by cranking up the speed of the swing during a round. I do not know I am even doing it, most of the time, but it invariably brings me undone.   “If you’re not a golfer who naturally hits up on the ball, the first step should be to work with a pro to help build fundamentals off the tee. Your driver choice and specs also matter, so fitting also plays a crucial role in helping you achieve more ideal launch conditions. Ball speed drops off quickly on shots missed around the face, so if you can find that sweet spot just a little more often and under the right conditions, you might find yourself making one of the sweetest walks in golf: 300 yards to play your second shot. The general rule of thumb for driving optimization is for every mile per hour of clubhead speed that golfers produce (as a combination of carry and roll), they add 2.75 yards of distance. So to hit a ball 300 yards under normal conditions requires approximately 109 mph of clubhead speed. Clubhead speed directly relates to ball speed, which is influenced by the quality of strike, i.e., how center to the face it is.” - (https://golf.com/gear/how-to-hit-it-300-yards-the-science-behind-distance/) Driving Is Not A Perfect Art On The Golf Course If, like me, you watch the tournament pros on TV, you see that they don’t drive the ball perfectly every time. Indeed, you see that, even these, incredibly talented ball strikers mess it up a fair few times. It is the nature of the beast, the beast being the big dog. I advise golfers to get a series of lessons with a good golf teaching pro focused on driving the golf ball off the tee. One lesson will not cut it if you are serious about making changes to your swing. I have come to the realisation that driving the golf ball is something that fluctuates in my game and not to get too down about it. Yes, I would like to become consistently better at swinging the driver and I have had plenty of lessons in furthering this intention and will not stop in this regard to improve my driving. Life goes on, however, and I am still out there playing as often as I can. We all have our crosses to bear, I suppose, and double crosses are the worst. Putting & Prayer Putting Putting, don’t get me started! Actually my putting is pretty good at the moment. I shifted to a claw grip and this has firmed up my strike to produce a squared putter face and more consistent roll.  Roger Stephens, one of my old golf pros put me on to the claw grip when I was struggling with my putting many years ago. I stuck with it for awhile and then went back to a more orthodox putting grip. More recently, I returned to the claw after a horror run with the putter, where I felt I had no idea what I was doing. I reiterate that the main advantage with the claw, in my view, is the stability it gives you over the putt and the strike. Gripping The Putter One of the great things I find re-putting is the variety of grips and approaches to putting in the game of golf. I mean, we don’t want everyone swinging the clubs like robots do we? Yes, solid technique is important to playing good golf but with putting it is like the last bastion of real individuality in a game which does appear to be robotic to the outside viewer. There are long putters and really short putters. Claw grips, arm lock grips, lead hand low grips, traditional putting grips and lots of variety in-between these broader categories. Putting is a game within a game, as is often surmised by those who claim to know. The rolling of a small dimpled ball across a manicured green appears to be the easiest part of the game of golf. Somehow, it is devilishly not so. Why is that? I suggest that it is because it comes at the conclusion of our efforts to get to the green. That the preceding, more strenuous, elements of golfing can get in the way of our putting efforts. The game of golf requires constant gear changes from high to low and levels in-between. Some of us are more at home with the whacking of golf balls than the gentle rolling of them on treacherous greens. Brute force is rarely required in the putting realm. Rather it is about the reading of surfaces in engineering terms and the application of just enough force to propel that ball into the hole. Combine this with how we deal with disappointment in the face of our own expectations  and the simple act of putting becomes layered with psychological complexity. All of a sudden putting delves into the realms of consciousness and observing the passing of time. Head Spaces In Putting Think about those moments you have waiting to putt your ball. You have hit it pretty close and you are awaiting your turn to putt in your four ball. The stuff that can go through your mind prior to getting over the ball. Hopes and fears vie for a hold on your emotional self. Will you sink it? It looks innocuous enough. What if I miss it? You think to yourself and how bad will that make me feel? Finally, it is your turn to putt and you go through your pre-putt routine after reading the green. It is that time over the ball that can be excruciating if you let it get to you. Some golfers develop the yips and various manifestations of involuntary movements under the stress of putting. Hey, this was supposed to be the easy bit! The Driver & The Putter Demand Confidence Ultimately, with both the driver and the putter you have to have confidence in your efforts with them. Fake it till you make it, is more important than you might realise. Finding something solid within your driver swing and how you strike the putter is absolutely vital to having success with these clubs. You cannot play a round of golf and be searching for some silver bullet with these two poles of the game of golf. The driver is your Alpha club and the putter your Omega. One starts things and the other finishes it. Confidence with both of these clubs is an essential if you are going to put a great round of golf together. How you get that confidence is up to you and we all have our own journey in this regard. Whatever it takes, you must find it to thrive out there. RSH ©GolfDom Read the full article

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Swans And Power AFL Players Put At Risk By SCG Surface

The ground was shifting beneath their feet. At the SCG, in a disgraceful state of affairs the turf was loose under the football boots of the AFL players. These million-dollar elite sportsmen were being put at risk by the greed of a ground organisation wanting to profit at the expense of their existing contractual arrangements with the Sydney Swans. You cannot play high speed football when you cannot keep your feet because the ground is breaking up due to a concert held on the stadium surface a couple of weeks ago. Swans and Power AFL players put at risk by SCG surface. If you cannot trust the basics how you can be expected to play at your best? It was a shambles.

Sydney Swans Perform Poorly Yet Again At Home On The SCG

Coach Dean Cox is starting to look like a bloke running out of excuses. The Swans playing group are performing well below their best in season 2025. Port Adelaide made them look uncommitted and very ordinary. Sydney cannot handle pressure, and sides are working that out. If the Swans don’t bring the contest and pressure themselves, they play like losers. I mean, so far this year, they have thrashed North Melbourne who have hardly won a game for half a decade. Sydney scrapped home against Fremantle over there. Apart from these meagre results they have racked up 3 losses at home. What Is Wrong With Sydney At The SCG? Is it the mucking around with the pillar at full back by trying him at full forward? The outcome has been to create holes at both ends of the ground. Tom McCartin is not playing well at either end. Yes, lots of injuries to important players are not doing Dean Cox and the team any favours. You cannot bring in half a dozen youngsters and not expect inconsistent performances. What I find with the kids is that they cannot get an effective handball to a teammate when tackled. The kicking against Port was appalling with the ball going to the opposition again and again. Senior players were abysmal in this regard too. What is the matter with Chad Warner? Out of form and out of touch with the game. Is the team playing for Cox? Are they confused? Are The Swans Playing For Dean Cox? Nick Blakey tried hard all day, but his kicking was way off too many times. Isaac Heeney was tagged out of the game for at least a half. In the final quarter, the Swans lifted and had chances to snatch the game but were let down by Hayden Mclean’s failure to convert in front of goals. He was not alone in this regard, but he was the main key forward. The Power were better and harder at it for most of the game. AFL Players In Peter Pan World I sometimes wonder about AFL players in this era. It is like they are big kids held in an artificial world. They are kept in this realm protected from the real world. I don’t blame the players, it is all about the clubs keeping their investment safe, but you wonder about it when they don’t switch on during the game. Modern footy is this game where they don’t play on any one but stand off 5 metres in the hope of being part of a chain of play. Then, all of a sudden, a brutal physical encounter will occur. Players are running at breakneck speed for the best part of 90 minutes. It is hugely demanding, and sublime ball skills are expected simultaneously. We, the fans, have huge expectations and our tribal passions often get the best of us. Great expectations rarely reward fans. Fastest Game On Two Legs Played On Shifting Ground Swans and Power AFL players put at risk by SCG surface. These topline athletes have enormous physical challenges and then, they are presented with shifting ground beneath their feet. You cannot kick the ball well if you are slipping and we saw examples of this repeatedly. It was amateur hour, and someone should be held accountable for it. I will not hold my breath, however, on this score. Million-dollar sportsmen risking their careers on this second-rate surface - it was a debacle. The question has to be asked are the many soft tissue injuries at the Swans anything to do with the SCG surface? Season 2025 Starting To Get Away From Swans Will season 2025 fade out in disappointing fashion for the Swans? It is starting to get away from them. Losing Errol Gulden before the start of the season was not a good augury. The failure of Captain Mills to play hardly at all since 2023 has been unhelpful. John Longmire passed on the coaching baton after the black swan GF event. Too few have been left to bring down the thunder from the sky of late. Thor has been noticeably missing from view. Aaron Francis made a good cameo appearance up forward against the Power. Could he start contributing? Tom Papley is out injured. The blooding of young players will pay dividends down the track. Pundits have complimented the Swan’s culture for many years, and it will need to stand up if the team keeps losing. Losing at home is bad for business. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Is Dean Cox Asking Enough Of The Playing Group? There can be a tendency, when coming into a new position and taking over from a long-standing authority figure, to try and be everyone’s friend. Is Dean Cox asking enough of the Sydney Swans playing group? Out pressured and outclassed by Collingwood, Port Adelaide, Brisbane and Hawthorn, so far. Who is going to stand up? And when? Are they courting mediocrity? The SCG ground surface was appalling and did not help a team struggling to find their identity. Swans and Power AFL players put at risk by SCG surface. “The Sydney Swans purred like a well tooled engine for much of last year. Yes, the team ran out of petrol tickets in the grand final but finished well clear at the top of the ladder after the home and away season. Longtime coach John Longmire gave the top job away and handed over to his apprentice. On the available evidence the Swans are definitely not firing on all cylinders in 2025. Is Dean Cox turning a Rolls Royce into a jalopy? The red and white bus is stalling at every intersection with normally reliable hands fumbling and players stumbling like never before. Cox’s changes to the side have created insecurity on every line. Tom McCartin is not a key forward right now and the Swans desperately need certainty at both ends of the ground.” - (https://www.golfdom.com.au/is-dean-cox-turning-a-rolls-royce-into-a-jalopy/) Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©GolfDom Read the full article

[sublimeobservationarcade]

The Trump Regime Are Discarding Adherence To The Law

The process which is occurring in the United States right now and to a lesser degree elsewhere too is well worth understanding. Those on the Right and in the Trump regime are discarding adherence to the law, as a fundamental of government. Basically, they were unable to achieve their white supremacy and might is right wishes via upholding the existing US Constitution. Donald Trump’s desire for unchecked executive power is fired by this. Those on the Left, in contrast to this, have been sticklers for abiding by the laws of the land. A majority of the American voting public voted for criminality when they elected Trump, a convicted felon to the White House. “Trump’s fusillade of executive orders expanding his powers in some extreme ways in his cost-cutting fervor, coupled with unprecedented drives by the Musk-led so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) to slash many agency workforces and regulations, have created chaos across the US government and raised fears of a threat to US democracy. Trump and Musk have also attacked judges who have made rulings opposing several of their moves after they ended up in court, threatening at least one with impeachment and accusing him of improper interference.” - (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/17/trump-musk-government-cost-cutting-coup)

Trump’s America More Like Russia In Its Lawlessness

The MAGA faithful and many other Americans no longer care about the law, especially if it gets in the way of them getting what they want. Trump wants to rewrite history and how the law operates in his America. He is going after key individuals who put down his 2020 ‘Big Steal’ claims and pointed to the complete absence of credible evidence for it in countless enquiries. The Trump lies and misinformation are getting official makeovers, it seems. Some like; Anne Applebaum warn that Trump is turning America into Putin’s Russia. “Soon after the new administration arrived, things began to go missing from the White House website. They weren’t just the partisan policy platforms that typically disappear during a presidential transition. Informational pages about the Constitution and past presidents, up in various forms since President George W. Bush was in office, all vanished. Thousands of other government web pages had also been taken down or modified, including content about vaccines, hate crimes, low-income children, opioid addiction and veterans, before a court order temporarily blocked part of the sweeping erasure.” - (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/05/technology/trump-history-websites.html) Photo by DEELIN on Pexels.com Undemocratic Trump Unwilling To Bear Other Voices The key thing to comprehend is that those on the Right, having failed to control things by dint of law and order, have gone rogue to achieve their ends. Those on the Left are still holding the Constitutional line, whilst the GOP use anything that comes to hand – threats of violence, mob tactics, corruption, graft, and dictatorship. The game of politics is no longer being played according to the same rules by both sides. White men are in no way content to see their centuries of advantage slip away. These folk will take by guns or money the power they long for. Trump is attacking any opposition, as witnessed by his regime going after the law firms and universities that have facilitated prosecutions of him and opposing political views. This mob will brook no resistance. “Leading the global rush of media coverage, The New York Times headlined “Harvard’s Decision to Resist Trump Is ‘of Momentous Significance’”—and then ran nearly a dozen in-depth stories in two days, from how and why Harvard decided to fight, to the moves Trump made next when he realized the university would not bend to his will: first, suspending $2.2 billion in federal funds to the university, then backpedaling, before shifting to a threat to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status as an educational institution. “ - (https://www.thenation.com/article/society/harvard-trump-defiance-campus-mood/) President Trump Calls Astronauts During First All-Woman Spacewalk (NHQ201910180019) by NASA HQ PHOTO is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0 Populism Feeds Unconstitutional Authoritarianism The Trump regime are discarding adherence to the law. America is fast becoming an undemocratic and unconstitutional wild west, where might is right and white is always right. Any civilised country that allows its citizens to hold onto some 600 million guns is highly suspect. The fact that they have a mass shooting event every other day, where innocent people, often children, are murdered via gun violence is testament to their unsoundness. The Trump regime represent the worst of them. “Just hours after he took the oath of office on Jan. 20, Trump began issuing executive orders to dismantle programs, put pressure on federal contractors to end “illegal DEI discrimination” and direct federal agencies to draw up lists of private companies that could be investigated for their DEI policies.” - (https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/03/04/trump-dei-backlash-explained/81170427007/) What you never see are the statistics about work force demographic ratios in this war on woke and DEI. About whether, in fact, these policies are needed – and they are because white folk in positions of power hire white folk like themselves – it is the same all over the world. They just don’t like having anyone tread on their toes in this regard. The Trump regime are discarding adherence to the law and flouting the courts and judgements against them. The illegal deportation of Venezuelans from the US to El Salvador, including individuals with no ties to criminal gangs has shocked the nation and the world. “ “In fact, recently, a U.S. federal court judge said that the Trump administration did not have evidence to support the claim that he had ever been part of MS-13. In fact, Mr. Abrego Garcia is legally in the United States. In fact, an immigration judge found years ago that it would put his life in danger if he was returned to El Salvador.” “ - (https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5254608-trump-administration-ms-13-claims/) Right wingers, everywhere, look to the Trump regime for inspiration and to see what they can get away with. The lawlessness of Trump and DOGE sends the wrong kind of message if truth and adherence to the law are important to you. “You know, watching the Donald Trump circus in America is pretty amazing. What did a commentator say recently, ‘hire a bunch of clowns and you get a circus,’ It is like someone has gone around and purposely brought together the dumbest bunch of people to run the country. It is the complete reversal of centuries of collective intention to attract the best experts in their fields for this national purpose. Now, you have law breakers serving as Attorney General and DOJ officials. Trade and treasury departments devoid of economists. Health department heads who know nothing about public health.  It is the biggest shit show ever assembled in Washington DC and Trump is never off camera for longer than it takes to take a crap.” - (https://www.midasword.com.au/watching-the-donald-trump-circus/) Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©MidasWord Read the full article

[sublimeobservationarcade]

Everything About Trump’s El Salvador Solution Is Illegal

ICE grabbing people off the street in America and transporting them to El Salvador, where they are imprisoned, is completely illegal. The Trump regime have made up laws to facilitate this gross malfeasance. Everything about Trump’s El Salvador solution is illegal. There is no due process occurring, no presumption of innocence and no trials. Basically, if you have a tattoo and look like you are from Central or South America you are in trouble. The Trump regime has declared a Venezuelan gang to be a terrorist organisation associated with the Madura government. Neither of these claims are true. It is more BS and lies coming from a known compulsive liar and his team of yes men and women. “A US judge rebuked the Trump administration for doing "nothing" to facilitate the return of a man it wrongly deported to El Salvador. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele visited Donald Trump at the White House and said he would not release or return Kilmar Abrego Garcia.” - (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-16/kilmar-abrego-garcia-deportation-el-salvador-court/105181198)

If You Have A Tattoo Trump Is Coming For You!

The kind of folk who voted for Trump are happy to believe anything that comes out of the mouth of a known inveterate liar. Conveniently, many Americans just shrug their shoulders and reckon that there is nothing to see here. Especially, if it involves someone with a different kind of name and non-Anglo appearance. The 2019 police file into Mr Garcia warns about his attire as indicative of gang membership. The police officer who wrote this was later dismissed from the force for lying and corruption. Mr Garcia has no criminal record in the US or in El Salvador. “Abrego Garcia was deported to an El Salvador megaprison roughly a month ago despite an immigration judge’s 2019 ruling protecting him from being deported there over fears he could face violence in his home country. The Trump administration has acknowledged he was mistakenly deported due to an “administrative error” but contends the courts are powerless to intervene because the man is no longer in U.S. custody.” - (https://thehill.com/homenews/5254406-abrego-garcia-appeals-court-order/)

Trump Regime’s Illegal Imprisonment Of Americans In El Salvador Authoritarian governments like to label their undesirables as terrorists and criminals, despite the lack of due process. It is as much a PR war to win the approval of the general public, as it is an actual law and order solution. Everything about Trump’s El Salvador solution is illegal. The sleazy Salvadorian President Bukele is fitting company for the crooked Donald Trump. Their public meeting was creepy and continues to drag the mantle of the US presidency through the shit. America is fast losing every iota of international respect. Mob boss rule on display in the White House, with all its tacky accoutrements of wealth and power. “President Donald Trump on Monday reiterated that he’d like to send U.S. citizens who commit violent crimes to prison in El Salvador, telling that country’s president, Nayib Bukele, that he’d “have to build five more places” to hold the potential new arrivals. Trump’s administration has already deported immigrants to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison CECOT, known for its harsh conditions. The president has also said his administration is trying to find “legal” ways to ship U.S. citizens there, too.” - (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/why-trumps-idea-of-imprisoning-u-s-citizens-in-el-salvador-is-likely-illegal) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXO4_nA-3pY The echoes of Nazi rule in the 1930s, when political opponents were called enemies of the state and locked up in prison camps around the country, are stark. If the American people are willing to believe in unproven labelling of human beings as criminals and terrorists by the Trump regime, then, it is going to be a rerun of a murderous fascist dictatorship but this time taking place in America. Refugees wanting a better life does not automatically equate with criminality. However, this is what authoritarian governments around the world would have us believe. This is scapegoating to create enemies deserving of punishment in the minds of many and to deflect away from the real crimes being committed by those in power. Australia has done this re- its boat people refugees  being locked up in camps located offshore in foreign territories. Professor Timothy Snyder has warned us that ‘statelessness’ is the key finding, as to how the Nazis were able to commit genocide on Jewish eastern Europeans during WW2. Once human beings lose their citizenship human rights atrocities invariably follow. That super prison in El Salvador is horrific and it dehumanises the men it incarcerates there. Demonising men by labelling them as gangsters and terrorists is all part of the plan. Everything about Trump’s El Salvador solution is illegal. “What can we learn from observing what is happening in the United States? That Americans eat their own, financially speaking. The ruthless application of capitalism practiced in the US feeds on the vulnerable for profit. It celebrates the gorging of the few at the expense of the many. I mean, do you really think that individuals should have hundreds of billions of dollars whilst millions of Americans struggle to survive? The dishonesty prevalent in American business and the Trump administration speaks volumes about what the rich and powerful care about. Themselves and increasing their own wealth.” - (https://www.housetherapy.com.au/americans-eat-their-own/) Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©HouseTherapy

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Americans Eat Their Own

What can we learn from observing what is happening in the United States? That Americans eat their own, financially speaking. The ruthless application of capitalism practiced in the US feeds on the vulnerable for profit. It celebrates the gorging of the few at the expense of the many. I mean, do you really think that individuals should have hundreds of billions of dollars whilst millions of Americans struggle to survive? The dishonesty prevalent in American business and the Trump administration speaks volumes about what the rich and powerful care about. Themselves and increasing their own wealth.

US Corporatised Health System Cannibalising Consumers

Let me share a story with you happening in the health sector in the US. A mother was recommended a series of allergy tests for her daughter in Texas. She, like many Americans, had private health insurance cover and so she got a quote for these tests from her provider. It came back that she would have to pay $5, 000 out of pocket and that the allergy testing via the facility recommended by her insurer was a whopping $24, 000. The mother was shocked at the expense and rang around other clinics for quotes. These came in at between $1, 600 and $1, 900 on average for the total payment charged. What emerged was that private hospitals have been buying up clinics and charging rates in accord with their much higher costs. Remember that these are allergy tests and not brain surgery. This is accountants shifting things around on balance sheets to apply inputs associated with running a modern high tech hospital to the services provided by an out patient clinic. This is the kind of massively inflated financial process via sleight of hand accounting going on in the corporatised American health system. Basically, it stinks.

American Private Equity Feeds On Maximising Profitability At The Expense Of Care

One would think that the corporatisation via privatisation of medical clinics and hospitals would make the health system more cost efficient and a better deal for patients. You know, the neoliberal mantra about how inefficient governments are in comparison to the private sector. This has not been the case in America, as you can see by the example given above. The fact that 78% of all American doctors are now employed by a corporation is not something to celebrate. These ‘for profit’ corporate entities are ruthlessly defining care in the US. Private equity investment has put profits way ahead of providing patient care at reasonable rates for the maximum amount of Americans. “Patients are more likely to fall, get new infections, or experience other forms of harm during their stay in a hospital after it is acquired by a private equity firm, according to a new study led by researchers at Harvard Medical School. The research, published Dec. 26 in JAMA, is among a handful of recent nationwide analyses of how private equity takeovers affect the quality of patient care in hospitals. The increases are seen in conditions or outcomes deemed preventable and are key measures of hospital safety and quality.” - (https://hms.harvard.edu/news/what-happens-when-private-equity-takes-over-hospital) Are reports like the one above why the Trump regime are coming after Harvard University? “After private-equity firms acquire hospitals, the facilities’ assets and resources diminish significantly, leaving the facilities less equipped to care for patients, according to a new study by physician researchers at the University of California at San Francisco, Harvard Medical School and the City University of New York’s Hunter College. Published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the research highlights a pattern of asset stripping at health care facilities purchased by private-equity firms, its researchers said, and is the first study to analyze the activity nationwide.” - (https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/private-equity-takes-over-hospitals-less-able-care-patients-jama-rcna164497) Donald Trump is coming after the media, which reports such important stuff as this. This is what fascist dictators do. They seek to stifle investigative journalism, so that the only narrative is their own. In a true democracy, real freedom of speech allows for a diversity of voices in the public sphere. An independent media is probably the most important democratic institution, closely followed by an independent higher education sector. “There is no universal healthcare. The U.S. government does not provide health benefits to citizens or visitors. Any time you get medical care, someone has to pay for it. Healthcare is very expensive. According to a U.S. government website, if you break your leg, you could end up with a bill for $7,500. If you need to stay in the hospital for three days, it would probably cost about $30,000.” - (https://health.mit.edu/my-mit/internationals/healthcare-united-states)

Why Do Many Americans Back Ruthless Capitalism? Few other places in the world support a system that fails to provide any universal healthcare to their citizens. The dog eat dog nature of American capitalism seem to celebrate a zero sum game, where some winners thrive at the expense of many more losers. Neoliberal champions like Ronald Reagan perpetuated the myth of exceptional American individualism. This BS was the old ‘pulling oneself up by one’s boot straps’, which meant an unassisted climb to the top. The self-made man  fiction, which Donald Trump has spun over the years, despite being the son of a very wealthy property developer. In addition, there is a more recent cultural attachment to the ‘bad ass dude’ macho aspiration. This celebrates those men who smash down stuff extra violently to achieve whatever they want. Taking things to the extreme and risking shit characterises this modern American hero worship. Very violent movies and the prevalence of super hero characters have fed this over recent times. Therefore, even morally deficient billionaires have been adored, especially if they have done bad ass stuff along the way. “If you watch Fox News and listen to those in the right wing media echo chamber you are immediately struck by the constant lying. Why is the Trump regime so dishonest? Why do they feel it  necessary to be so factually fraudulent? Pete Hegseth was just caught out doing the dumb and wrong thing and his response was to aggressively lie about it. Indeed, the Trump MO is all about never admitting you are in the wrong and telling great big lies instead. How this is going to make America great again has me beat.” - (https://www.housetherapy.com.au/why-is-the-trump-regime-so-dishonest/)

Young Men Voted For Trump The pundits tell us that Donald Trump was electorally supported by young American men in his presidential victory in 2024. It should not come as any surprise that young guys are not always the smartest demographic going around. In fairness to them, they had witnessed an octogenarian running their country for several years, only to be replaced by a woman. Joe Biden did a sterling job, in my view, but you could never have described him as virile in the usual sense of the word. It is no revelation to say that young folk like to see representations of themselves doing things that they aspire to. Indeed, witnessing a leader having trouble forming sentences cogently would have been distressing for many of them. I think, Kamala Harris was unlucky that she didn’t have enough time to settle into the role prior to going to the polls. I would remind everyone that America has never elected a female president and that Donald Trump has won the presidency twice by defeating a woman. That says a lot about the United States and its conservative nature, despite it being the 21C. The View Of White Men In America The male dominated character of many parts of the US, especially in red states that support Trump, is predisposed to that zero sum game way of seeing the world. Christianity is a patriarchal philosophy. Christian Nationalism is a particularly virulent expression of this and promotes a white men rule the roost in America ethos. Christ is my saviour and Trump is my president – is the bumper sticker. This US culture sees things as a competitive arena where there are winners and losers. On top of this, Republican Party propaganda sells them the idea that the losers deserve their misfortune. Thus, things like socialised medicine are anathema to the red blooded American male way of understanding things. If you cannot afford to pay your own way, you deserve the poverty that comes to you. Of course, this celebration of heroic individualism avoids looking at the economic manipulations favouring the wealthy and well connected. It is like a magic trick, so don’t look over here! Keep your focus on the story we are putting forward about cowboys and men who walk tall unaided. Meanwhile, the economic game has been rigged to syphon off the revenue and profits to a select few.

SpaceX Demo-2 Preflight (NHQ202005270020) by NASA HQ PHOTO is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0 Low Taxes For The Super Wealthy Trump keeps lowering corporate taxes and taxes on the super wealthy. To pay for them they will cut government services to the middle class and working poor. DOGE is a con, a scam, a smokescreen to slash the civil service and remove oversight from the macro corruption about to flourish big time. Americans eat their own and it is going to be a smorgasbord of suffering for ordinary folk served up by the Trump regime. If he can gag the media, those liberal media platforms that don’t sing from the approved song sheet, then, lots of Americans won’t hear about the suffering. Trump is nobbling big law firms to prevent them from representing his victims and opposition. He is going after the universities to stop dissent from fomenting on campus and in print. Trump is disappearing foreign students and professors to El Salvador and the new giant prison constructed there. The White House announcement tells the public that all these folk were gang members and bad people. No trials, no presumption of innocence, just blanket statements with no proof provided. That is the Trump way. This is the behaviour of a fascist dictator. The rule of law in America has been discarded and corrupted. Once any individual becomes stateless then the worst crimes against humanity are likely to be committed. This is what the Nazis did in Poland and Ukraine to the Jews and other enemies of the German state – it was how they managed to murder millions of human beings. Trump is not a joke; he and his regime are very evil agents of destruction. Trump’s success will be predicated on just how stupid and indifferent the American people will be. Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©HouseTherapy

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