Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Disingenuous Taxation Proposal

Well I never! To think that a Government – in Australia, would or could take us all as idiots, is beyond belief. Hah!!

Now listen carefully:-

Assume, for the sake of argument that the Australian taxation revenue is $100 billion (it is much more I know, but that is not the point) as I say $100 billion. If the Federal Government’s plan is accepted, that Federal taxation would be reduced (slightly) and this shortfall in overall taxation would revert to the States and Territories to collect for their use, then a very straight forward scenario will unfold. No matter how this is sliced and diced between the Federal Government and the States and Territories the total tax revenue will still be $100 billion (or whatever the actual figure is). No more, no less. It cannot be otherwise UNLESS taxation is increased!

This is what the Federal Government is trying to do – to FORCE the States and Territories to increase taxes to meet their ever increasing need to fund health and education. The Federal Government can wash its hands, Judas fashion, and say with a straight face – we didn’t do anything to increase taxes!! Blame the States and Territories!

I just hope that our various State and Territory leaders will see through this trap and reject the proposal to change how taxes are collected.

Shall I hold my breath?

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Currents in Life

I have been finding it difficult to write anything for some time – I have no “mojo”. But then life throws things at one which are unexpected and for which one may be totally unprepared.

It is almost as if there is an under-current which no one can see but which sweeps one hither and thither as it sees fit, I suppose. Take for instance my wife, Maria, or Magucha as she was universally known; above all she was my best friend for nearly thirty seven years. That is a big chunk of anyone’s life. Now that she is no longer here, alive and vibrant (as she was) I have to try to live – not my life with her anymore – but to live my life in a totally different manner.

This is very difficult to explain. While Magucha’s death was not a complete and absolute surprise the speed and the manner was. She had been very ill before and had not been 100% well for quite some years. Now it is almost as if she is still with me. For instance when I shop for food I seem always to look first for what I know she used to like. Sometimes I catch myself turning to ask her if she would like this or that!

To me our marriage was in truth a partnership. We were in it together, different roles, but each was half of a whole. We had our differences, of course we did, but we were still very strong together and I never thought of her as anything other than an equal partner in our marriage. She was always independent and never liked to be tied to any particular course of action – she was in every respect a free soul.

I forget the exact words but there is a saying that goes something like this:-

“If you love something let it fly free; if it returns its yours; if it doesn’t, it never was”.

This is what I tried to do with our life together and by and large I think I succeeded.

I’ll end this post with something that the American rebel and “Gonzo” journalist, Hunter S Thompson, wrote that I think applied to and gives a good insight into Magucha’s whole approach to life.


“ Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, “Wow! What a Ride!”

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Injustice is the Problem.

Amended January 31, 2020

I am no soothsayer nor do I have special access to any particular research but I do, sincerely, believe that what follows is true and applies, and has applied, for all peoples for all times.

I ask the question - "isn't their just one species of human? Homo Sapiens? Isn't the fact that different languages are spoken; that people have different coloured skins; that people worship (presumably) the same God in different ways; isn't all this dependent of where they were born?" 

And another question - "did anyone have a choice about where they were born or who their parents were?"

Where there is prejudice; where there is discrimination based on the colour of a person skin; where there is great inequality in the distribution of wealth between the very rich and the very poor; where  access to good health facilities and health care is determined by the amount of money they spend; where there is a perception that how any individual worships God matters to others; where justice is denied; where the concept takes hold that “profit” has precedence over “people”; where access to high quality education is limited or non-existent; where there are limited or non-existent employment opportunities; where there is corruption or a perception that the wealthy can bend the rules and “get off lightly”, the prospect of social unrest will inevitably arise.

This is the root cause of the current problems in the USA, in Europe, in the Middle East in Brazil and other South American countries, and unfortunately – for future peace prospects – in China and Russia, though both are struggling to contain the unrest.

Australia, Canada and other so called “Western” countries are not immune!

I just hope that ideology will be set aside and that statesmanship and commonsense will prevail. Both of which I might add, are notably absent today!


I'm not going to hold my breath!

There is  a speech by Frederick Douglass (African American, a former slave, social reformer, orator and statesman) on the 24th anniversary of emancipation, Washington, DC, 1886, which has great relevance today, and I quote:- 
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” (From “Spirit Level” by Wilkinson and Pickett)

Friday, March 18, 2016

Why do we hate and destroy?

It is a human defence mechanism to hide from or avoid certain things and events. All of us use diversionary tactics that we have developed to distract us from emotional pain and anguish.

All of us human beings have the capacity to hate - it is part of the human condition and is a function of pride. We can hold ourselves together when we feel completely powerless and helpless, only by hating the people we believe to be responsible for our desperate state. In this way many of those people, dispossessed and powerless, for instance, in major cities, come to hate the police or those living in parts of the Middle East have come to hate the USA and Israel. Similarly some children have come to hate their parents. The first kind of hatred, (by the dispossessed in cities and those in the Middle East) however, may be expressed by forming gangs or groups, attacking those they hate, and feeling virtuous for so doing.

An immediate way of solving this problem, not by mastering internally, but by running away from it, is to flee into activities outside ourselves in the external world. However when we do this we prevent ourselves from developing the safeguards human being have acquired as a guard against their own destructiveness, a knowledge and acceptance of ourselves and the impetus to develop effective methods of managing our hate and destructiveness.

Without these safeguards we destroy those things which we perceive as unconnected with us and as not being human like ourselves. Thus we chop down trees, blow up mountains, pollute the seas and the atmosphere, eradicate whole species of animals, birds, fish because we do not understand that we are connected to everything on our planet, and therefore need to be careful about what and how much we destroy. They may walk and talk and live just like us, but if we do not perceive them as human like us we can bomb and maim them, exploit them, starve them and inflict hurt upon them without feeling shame or guilt. We can perceive other people as being human like us only when we can make that special leap of imagination which takes us from our own internal world into theirs.

We are all born with a capacity to hate and to destroy. We are also born with the capacity to know our internal world and to empathize with others. A child brought up to live and let live and to accept, develops all these capacities and can balance one against the other. Empathy balances the hate and keeps the destructiveness in check. We can feel immense hatred for another person and we can desire to harm him, but at the same time, instinctively, we know how it would feel to be the victim of that hatred and harm.

However the less we value and accept ourselves, the more powerless and helpless we feel, and the less we value and accept ourselves, the more likely we are to use hatred as a defence. If we do not understand that we are using hatred as a defence, and if we see such hatred as justified and virtuous, our hatred becomes boundless and such a part of us that we cannot relinquish it, no matter what peaceful compromises our enemies may offer us. Hence the continuing hatred between some Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, between some Israelis and Palestinians and between some Muslims (Shia vs Sunni) and recently between some Christians and some Muslims – it becomes a matter of them and us; always with us being better and superior in every way. (From “Beyond Fear” by Dorothy Rowe)

Never forget that poverty and riches – however these are defined - are products of our thoughts.

We have to rise above our baser feelings, avoid our fear of change and avoid using diversionary tactics to escape our internal turmoil.


I will end this post with a quote from a speech by Frederick Douglass (an African American former slave, social reformer, orator and statesman) on the 24th anniversary of emancipation, Washington, DC, 1886, which has great relevance today:- “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” (From “Spirit Level” by Wilkinson and Pickett).