FEEDING THE KLEPTOCRACIES OF AFRICA

Hundreds of thousands of Africans are fueling poverty and inhumane conditions primarily due to many African nations being run by politicians and businessmen who rape their populations financially at every chance.

We don't help either, that dollar a day we spend supporting some African baby is driving the unscrupulous to open Orphanages and hire in children from poor families to populate them. 100 Kids $100 a day, that's a small fortune to African child abusers.

Then we have the western world stirring the pot by providing the means by which these people can kill each other, primarily from Russia and China. The Kalishnikov has always been a terrorists favourite weapon.

The world supports the establishment of a country like South Sudan and then sits back and watches two battling Dictators encourage rape, murder and pillage of people with the wrong surname or tribal ties, genocide has become a natural phenomena. How many lives were lost in the fight to establish the country to then see how many of each others lives they can take afterwards.

Every time we spend money in Africa most of it never arrives. If you want to donate then do it directly to the affected people and not so-called charities.

NEVER SAY NEVER

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Those who decry modern technology today will maybe live to forever regret having made the statement. We for one, one day might regret even publishing The Astonisher but progress we have got and we are going to have to embrace it. Of course we will resist it every step of the way, why change things just for change sake?

Back when a Hansom Cab used to take me to school, that’s if I wasn’t walking both ways uphill, and barefoot in snow, I blabbered and blustered over allowing children to have calculators in the classroom but the sky didn’t fall in, they can’t read an analogue clock but that’s a petty matter, we wandered what they would ever do if their batteries ran flat. Now many of them are now solar powered.

We tut-tutted about computers being allowed into schools even before you could put them in your back pocket. Technology has advanced even now to the point where a standard mobile phone has more capacity than Australia’s first big computer which took up an entire room.

RDJ-FM community radio was once offered a free multi-monitor computer system that a law firm was disposing of. But you’re going to need a separate room to put it in. It’s really big it has the capacity to work ten terminals and has a massive 2 Gigabyte Tape Drive. We declined the offer, not because it was old but because we didn’t have the space for it and it had to have its own air-conditioning system to cool it.

Even earlier when working at AGL in Sydney I always admired the fellows in their white coats, fiddling about in their air-conditioned glass-paneled room changes big reels of tape from one machine to the next like projectionists in a theater. Upstairs about 50 women typed out punch-card manually received from the meter readers for the computer to send your bill. It was a huge leap forward technologically from when little metal capsules used to be sucked along tubes to the accounting department or even before that fired like a tethered rocket across the room to the cashier who would then rocket it back to your counter.

Yes we have come a long way from those heady days of advancing modernity. We now know that we are part way along that journey. From listening to transistor radios and Walkman tape machines, to carefully centering vinyl discs of varying sizes and revolutions to the mobile phone that does everything today and will possibly even wipe your arse next month.

Lets face it, Nobody wants to return to the good old days of homophobia or xenophobia, sexism or racism even though our religious and political leaders would like us to. But here, before we end we would like to issue a word of warning. Just because it exists doesn’t mean we have to have it. Life is for living not shopping.

Yes we must progress but for heavens sake only progress as far as we want to and not where we are told to. Don’t get caught up in the hype of bigger houses on smaller blocks of land, changing your mobile phone every year, signing up to lifetime contracts we will never need and gift card we will never use. We have a policy, even when going crazy at auctions. There are two states of mind when considering a purchase. Do we need it, will it make our life easier, better, more productive? Or do we want it, just so we can say we have one, use one or just want to flash it around.

EXPERIMENTATION

The government seems to have a vested interest in keeping our society on legal drugs otherwise our G.S.T or P.A.Y.E tax burden would be so high the fermenting of revolution could outstrip the same process with alcohol. It is a hypocritical stance for any government to profit from drugs whilst at the same time attempting to reduce costs attributable to their use, but then those we elect are supposedly a reflection of ourselves.

I find it very hard to accept that the local Publican is the legal distributor of one drug whilst one of his patrons may be the illegal distributor of another. Both drugs cause anger, abuse, accidents, assault, robbery, misery, anguish, sadness, poverty and death yet there remains this gulf between legal and illegal.

I worry about the double standards of our community, that one accepts the drunk falling in the gutter as someone whose just had a little too much to drink and we might laugh at his mistake, but the guy falling into the gutter with a joint in his hand is someone who should be shunned, ostracised and imprisoned for having smoked old rope and we ‘tut tut’ about our neighbours faults all the way home.

I can quite happily smoke and go to a Christmas Party and drink that’s OK but what would happen if anyone came to my office and found a needle hanging out of my arm? Am I still not the same Warwick? Now I’m not suggesting that the bosses suddenly get the idea of raiding my little corner of the world, I keep it too well guarded, but merely point out that we all, myself included, seem to find some drug use acceptable and others an abomination and need to watch ourselves as workers that we don’t get caught up in the same double standards when taking young people into our care.

What has this anarchical stance to do with the price of eggs? Who actually determines at what age we can do or not do certain things? Why do we keep engaged with such double standards?

It is quite legal for a girl to have sex at 16 but a boy has to wait until he’s 18. In this day and age, from what I know, the age at which this activity is taking place is going down even though the age of marriage seems to be accelerating in the other direction.

With adolescence comes experimentation with adulthood and while we might dread the thought that they are becoming young adults.

With information and support we should be allowing our young people to experiment and make mistakes provided that their emotional and chronological age is sufficient to absorb what is being learned by the experience.

While our society is crying out to allow children to be children the market economy is encouraging them to become adult as quickly as possible. That market economy includes the legal and illegal drug businesses.

Establishing trust with the people we work with, and children in our care whether genetically connected or not, is paramount to building relationships that can withstand the stress and strain of their daily lives. I am a supporter of experimentation. Perhaps this is why I have unbounded patience with children and adolescents yet the opposite when working with supposedly mature adults.

We should feel that we are doing our job well when young people can rely on us to be there when the shit hits the fan. It certainly places great stress upon us all at times but then we should not have signed up if we were not prepared to sacrifice some of our time.

It is sometimes my downfall when I allow young people to be free thinkers, that I imbue my clients with intelligence automatically, and certainly make some errors when I believe that what they are telling me is the truth. But in my line of work, where I am employed to give young people the right to decide for themselves what they need, a consequence of that is becoming merely a vassal or facilitator in achieving those goals.

To this day and into the foreseeable future I will continue to avoid determining a young persons ability to succeed based on some chronological measure or educational level and rely on the fact that by making mistakes we learn how not to make them again. From the time of ‘self-realisation’ children are experimenting and learning and I would like to be keep apace with that part of their experience.

EVER-LASTING KNOB STOPPERS

At the rate that medical science is advancing and keeping us healthier for longer it will not be too far-fetched to say that we may be able to live twice as long as we do now. In your opinion is this a good thing or should we just let nature take its course.

The advantages will be the possibility that we will spend, proportionately, less time in school and further education which means a lesser part of our life will be spent in indoctrination, learning ancient Greek and the complete meaninglessness of Algebra which I last used half a century ago.

The disadvantages will be that having learnt ancient Greek and not used Algebra that we didn’t have to in the first place. We talk to computers these days and they refuse to follow instructions in ancient Greek and if we have a mathematical problem even involving the most complicated maths imaginable we just do it on our computer in a more than hundredth of the time of doing it manually.

By then we will have driverless cars, with the exception of those born before 2019 who will still insist on having a steering wheel so they look like they are in still in charge. By then we will also have 60 years old hoons tearing up the tarmac by over-riding the autopilot and actually controlling the car.

By being twice as old and wrinkly and ornery there is much less of a chance of you being kidnapped, or worse being held hostage by either Terrorists or Centrelink you will be more likely to be released first.

Another distinct advantage will be that our children could possibly hang around twice as long, hanging off our wallets while gathering together the 10% deposit for their own new home and the average $250,000 won’t be that much by then anyway. Come to think of it if they do move out you’ll have grandchildren, great grandchildren, great-great grandchildren and possibly great-great-great-great grandchildren too. By this time if they all visit just once a year for your Birthday you will be able to enjoy at least 250 people in your lounge room. That might bring about function centres that just cater for relatively large relative parties.

So we will be able to spend twice the amount of time working, most of us will be able to work for at least 112 years and that will result in us having more superannuation for the possible 70 years we can live in comfortable retirement.

Depending on our level of skills our extended working life will see us earning more and thus able to buy houses with seven bedrooms and his and hers personal rooms, rather than the present five with three-car garages, indoor and outdoor spas. The house will still take up 95% of the block its on which means no mowing and gardening to worry about, so we can throw away the extended arm impliments that take away our need to bend over to smell the roses.

Our pills everyday will help us work, rest and play and we can forget that friggin’ apple our dentures won’t handle. With possibly 70 years up our sleeves, more if we retire early, to enjoy the advantages of old age, our health professionals will have more time to medicate us, we can speed around in our mobility scooters or hobble around on zimmer frames for twice as long, double our leisure time playing Bridge or Bowling or emptying our Colostomy Bags.The ultimate joy of course will come in the form of Alzheimers when we will be able to enjoy twice the amount of time forgetting who we are and pooping our pants. Forgetting where your genitals are may also have the advantage of not knowing where your hard-earned retirement funds are as well.

“Oh! Grandpa what a big house you have. All the better to leave to you my son”

“Oh! Grandma what a large amount of super you have. All the better to leave to you my pretty.”

Oh! I nearly forgot sex. Getting old means you spend less time deciding who is going to be on top tonight after your libido has retired so you can look forward to many more nights pretending to play with yourself because all you have left is the softwood. There will be the added bonus if you are still working that it will be much harder for sexual harassment charges to stick.

When the end finally does come you can go peacefully with the thought that you spent a lot more time contemplating Judgement Day and depending on your joints will probably feel better in the warmth of Hell anyway.

THE END OF THE TRUSTED ELITES

Oh dear here comes another load of Left-wing Socialist diatribe. Think what you will dear reader for if you have an open mind, that is you are Australian, then read what this rubbish might be about.

In ancient days when some of us were thirty years younger we had within our community what we lovingly referred to as the ‘Pillars’ of our society. The learned and the wise, the just and the discreet, the diligent and trustworthy. They were Doctors and Lawyers, Police and Judges, Teachers and Bankers, Priests and Professors.

As a society we looked up to them. The rule of law prevailed, the Westminster System was incorruptible, the checks and balances were all in place. Bureaucrats served the people without fear or favour, Teachers did not shove political ideology down our childrens throats and let the community blame it on Muslims, Police allowed natural justice to takes its course although a few altered that course around 'a gift ' occasionally.

Judges were harsh but uncompromisingly fair, Doctors were welcome into our homes, School-teachers revered and trusted by both parent and pupil.

Our habit of sweeping things under the carpet or looking the other way enabled society to glide smoothly along. Of course there were lots of horrific things happening at the time, but things that were out of sight were out of mind and did not concern us our parents chatted with our neighbours outside church while inside little boys and girls were being given some practical instructions in sex from Reverend Whatsis.

Alas we now live in a society where very little is hidden. Not even our once revered politicians are safe from our prying eyes any more. Some of the once admired Teachers have been known to be shoving more than knowledge down pupils throats.

What goes on in jail at bed-time has been found to also go on behind the closed doors of other Institutions as well and we cannot exempt any Church from this either. The focus on Catholics is due to their determination to deny, cover up or hide behind outdated rules.

We have come to the realization that the ‘Elites’ are as vulnerable as ourselves. That Doctors have been known not only to have visited our bedside but managed to get into bed with the patient too, men and women alike.

Politicians, once the scions of our best families, revered for their lineage, are now morally and plausibly financially corrupted. They cater to the needs and desires of corporations and special interest groups with either the exaggerated moral clout of the church or financial might of the Stock Exchange. “The people? F…k the people.”

We have come to realize that those who hold themselves up as being beyond reproach are likely to also be those that commit the most heinous of crimes against humanity.

Those we stupidly call Public Servants, because they are certainly not at our command, have an interest in only climbing the ladder of promotion and power with a little encouragement by way of a salary increase, intent not on social service but on social control. There is a saying that everyone rises to the level of their own incompetence. In the bureaucracy they have managed to go at least three promotions beyond that, not just to total incompetence but into an absolute moral vacuum where self-interest is the only interest and generally the only rule.

Judges, those who pass sentence on wrong-doers, dressed in their robes and wigs like ancient drag queens have been known to have a lot more than their own two feet sticking out from under their gowns and not even the lawmakers can keep their trousers zippered up.

Elitism is out the door. Society has suddenly woken up from its Dreamtime. The Community can no longer trust those into whose hands we place ourselves. Alas this does not bode well for our future.

It is time we carefully examined the actions of all those who have even the slightest modicum of control over our lives and seek out their real agendas.

It is us or them Comrade

ON EMPATHY FOR THE VICTIMS

Some time ago I did the first columns about trying to encapsulate a Consultative Report some 140 pages long entitled ‘Voices of Children and Young People in Foster Care’ (July 2000).

It might seem that nearly two decades makes a lot of difference but you and I know that a coat of paint doesn’t always signify change, sometimes it just covers up the sperm splashes. At first glance it does not have anything to do with youth homeless services, but as an increasing number of kids in supported services and our prisons have graduated from the ‘Alternate Care System’. What we need to do is get hold of a copy of that report and review in the light of more recent problems of abuse to ensure that youth services do not continue to inflict the same abuses from family members now that they are in the care of complete strangers.

Continuing with the report and adding, in mitigation, that 99% of the District Officers I know would have no truck with some of the abuses discussed, I don’t believe that they can all be laid at feet of D.O’s in some simplistic negation of the facts. When child welfare departments are forced to truncate their range of services and reduce staff numbers because of some spurious economic necessity then in many ways they cannot be held responsible for some of the abuse that occurs within the system. The comment ‘I was only following orders’ can still be attributed to D.O’s but the fact is those orders were for economic reasons and not for any other.

The children themselves provide much of the evidence of dissatisfaction with children and young people in the way they are treated. Some of the briefer comments from different children in care.

D.O roles - what children and young people want;

‘ It would be good to be treated like humans. They (DoCS) just do what they want you to’

‘ She came six times and then she didn’t come, probably because she didn’t like us.’

She’s negative and thinks she knows best’.

‘ Good, but you don’t really need them.’

‘If they find the right family they don’t have to do anything else. I don’t need advice. I have heaps of people giving me advice.’

‘ DO? I don’t know how to do it though because I don’t see her and I don’t have her number.’

There are three outstanding Gems in the report provided by the young people themselves, each of them a telling reminder to us all.

Gem No.1 To the question ‘Do D.O’s make any difference’ one respondent came back with

‘ No they’re just there to analyse us. As soon as you have a problem they send you off like an object to be fixed’.

Gem No.2. To the question ‘What is the worst thing about foster care?’ the reply was

‘Talking to Doe’s and answering questions’.

Gem No.3. To the question about how they felt about their District Officer. The best reply of the lot, and in all innocence:

‘But she is professional, she doesn’t listen.’

If this report were not so serious these little Gems would have had me howling with laughter. I managed however to suppress reactions until I had read to the end of the report.

I would hope that young people do not say, will be unable to say the same things about us. I would hang my head in shame if this were a report about PYSE. I would like every worker in the field who thinks beyond the pay packet and has a genuine care for young people in their care that they too develop some empathy by obtaining an old copy and ensuring a wide readership.

If something goes wrong can we use the excuse?

‘I had to consider my Duty of Care’.

POLITICAL PROSTITUTION

Despite all the bullshit about 'small business is the engine room of our economy' the big banks, supermarkets and oil companies continue to dominate the decisions of our government. Even Golden Showers Shire has its share of self-interested bureaucrats who just want to please the Chardoney-end of Bannockburn and not the normal powerless residents of its smaller villages.

The supposed advantages of mega-mergers that have taken place over the last thirty years in drug companies, airlines, banking conglomerates and mining magnates have supposed to have been to make the economy and the country more robust, save money and bring down prices. Rather than see to it that Australia looks after its own economy our companies, more than likely owned by overseas concerns want to take on the world with the crazy belief that they are God's gift to the world and our 25 million can compete toe-to-toe with the other 5 billion pairs of feet on our planet (apologies to any one-footed residents).

The reality is we end up with near monopoly power by a few companies willing to spread their money into other peoples businesses and exert pressure on our governments any which way they can.

Alphabet is one such company only intent on controlling our every move to their profitable advantage.

Take the spurious example of the CSG miners warning that Australia is likely to run out of gas in the next twenty years but failing to mention that we are selling it overseas in quantities that in one year we sell about ten years supply of our own consumption, and might we add, at prices that we could only dream about.

I don't see the point of our politicians saying the country is not cost-effective (the constant blame on wages and not on compliance costs) or efficient enough to make our own stuff at competitive prices when they could halve the cost of energy tomorrow and allow our home-grown businesses to succeed.

Big chains beat out string every time. The large companies don't need to be competitive they just buy out the competition and maintain prices they want. I know of no example where prices have gone down because a company has merged and become more efficient. We'll keep the analogies coming by saying that the big fish are constantly gnawing on the vitals of the smaller fish all the way down the food chain.

The bigger is better complex does not hold true either, Dunbar numbers disprove that theory, and companies these days certainly don't put the welfare of their customers first. More and more the corporate circus calls out to us 'come in suckers!'.

Unless governments put in place protections for the electors, the spate of naughty banks and finance companies, insurance, aged care and the death industry will continue to run amok with millions in customers funds when financial protections for the customer are removed in return for big political donations, Deregulation actually promotes efficiency and competition is a myth that our politicians fall for every time an industry wants to increase its power and profits.

Bigger business doesn't always provide bigger returns for the owners either, as Board members and CEO's share management fees in the millions every time they make a decision to spend our money. Selling off your own arse in big business is more common than rent boys along 'the Wall'. (Sydney joke)